This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

Hey, Wildcats.

This is Bart Johnson, and you're listening to Get Your Head in the Game.

Hey, everyone, and welcome back to get your head in the game.

Today, I've got a real treat for you.

My guest is the creative force behind the cultural phenomenon,

the person who had a vision, turned it into a script,

and used his own daughter's name for the lead character.

He didn't just write the story.

He helped launch a franchise that defined a generation.

Please give a warm welcome to the writer and creator of high school musical, Peter Barsakini. This is the guy. You walked in and you said, oh, don't stand up. I was like, are you kidding? I got to stay. I got a hug to man that changed my life. But Bart, we're like related. We're like related going, you know, going all the way back to the beginning, the filming of high school musical,

and all of a sudden what it became.

And to the shock of all has continued to be, you know.

I mean, I saw a thing on social media of you the other day

where you were at where they were doing the stage version at a school.

Since 2006 has been like a million performances of high school musical at schools you know at one point there was a

production of high school musical stage show going on in Israel and in Lebanon at the same time know, and it's just so it's like one of these

things that's crossed. I had no idea. Nobody had any idea that would cross borders like it has,

you know, but so it's a cool, and I still get letters. I get, you know, from people around the

world and, you know, it's pretty crazy. Well, this, this is a special one for me because, like, you're it. You were, you were at the beginning. This is none of this, what, I mean, it's easy to say that about a lot of people, but this is actual literal. You have created all, you created this.

Okay, but do you want to know how it started?

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