The script that caught his eye, a Disney Channel Original Movie with the working title Untitled High School Musical Project, became a phenomenon despite Ortega's desire to keep a low-profile.
High School Musical was the rare made-for-TV movie that transcended its humble origins and captivated a generation of teens and tweens when it premiered on January 20, 2006.
It didn't just launch the careers Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens (known then as Vanessa Anne Hudgens), Ashley Tisdale and more.
It also became a financial juggernaut for the Disney Channel, driving unprecedented demand for DVDs, dolls, T-shirts, posters, sleeping bags, lunch boxes — you name it, Troy and Gabriella's faces were on it.
By the time the sequel debuted on Disney Channel in 2007, setting a new cable television record with a huge 17.2 million viewers, the property was minting money.
The third and final movie with the original cast, High School Musical 3: Senior Year, scored a theatrical released and generated more than US$250 million (approx. $322 million) at the global box office.
In its first five years, the High School Musical franchise amassed US$4 billion (approx. $5 billion) in retail sales worldwide?
Last year, Disney Plus debuted the spinoff series High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, which focuses on a new generation of East High Wildcats putting together a production of what else.
High School Musical.
Though Disney, years ago, began casting a fourth High School Musical film with a new set of cast members, it never took off.
He's a fan of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series but making another movie set at East High "isn't in my thinking.".
For the uninitiated, High School Musical centres on Troy Bolton (Efron) and Gabriella Montez (Hudgens), two high schoolers who meet during winter vacation and discover a mutual love of music after serendipitously singing karaoke together.
By coincidence, Gabriella moves to Troy's hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico in the new year and transfers to his school, East High.
If that plot sounds vaguely familiar, it's because High School Musical plays like a lovingly kitschy mashup of Romeo and Juliet and Grease.
It's not that Middle School Musical didn't have the same ring.
They recognised Vanessa Hudgens from a sci-fi movie Thunderbirds and were familiar with Ashley Tisdale from her breakout role on Disney Channel's show The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.
Efron and Hudgens were paired up for the final callback.
Hudgens had puppy eyes for her soon-to-be leading man and was nervous to act opposite a shaggy-haired Efron.
(A funny aside: Disney executives didn't come clean at first, instructing Efron to pretend that it was his voice when doing press for the first movie. "We were all given talking points," Efron told Newsweek in 2007. "When High School Musical became successful, that's when we found ourselves having to backtrack.").
Meanwhile, the 20-year-old Lucas Grabeel, who previously starred in the Disney Channel movie Halloweentown High and was working at Blockbuster, initially read for Troy.
"I never shared that part of myself in high school.
I told Lucas it won't be something Ryan acts on in high school.
While the cast was being finalised, Barsocchini, Ortega and executives at Disney were refining the screenplay.
High School Musical may not have worked without its squeaky-clean storyline, bordering on saccharine-sweet to avoid polarising any family audiences.
In other words, High School Musical earns its G-rating.
As for the lack of a lip lock, Ortega says "not everything needs to be sealed with a kiss." However, Efron and Hudgens, who ultimately started dating in real life, were yearning for some onscreen action.
Like American Idol, another musical phenomenon that existed at around the same time, High School Musical could play to tweens, teens and their parents.
Barsocchini knew that infectious tunes — and the promise of a heartthrob like Efron — would make High School Musical an easy sell for girls.
Since High School Musical had an expedited production schedule, separate songwriters were commissioned to pen the remaining breakout tunes, like 'Breaking Free' and 'What I've Been Looking For.'.
For all of its runaway success and enduring popularity, executives at Disney weren't initially confident in High School Musical and felt they were taking a big risk by giving it a US$4.2 million (approx. $5.4 million) budget.
It was the most money the Disney Channel ever spent on a television movie."
High School Musical was No
There was a sense on set that the cast and crew were creating something special, but wasn't until the film aired on Disney Channel that the young stars understood how drastically their lives would alter
Many of the other actors tried to distance themselves from the franchise after High School Musical 3 in an effort to grow up in Hollywood (which may explain why Efron, Hudgens and Tisdale declined to be interviewed for this story)
That strategy seems to have paid off for Efron, who transcended his Disney Channel roots and went on to headline box office hits including Hairspray, 17 Again and Bad Neighbours
Efron's career may have moved beyond East High, but even those roles failed to achieve the kind of feverish fan support as his returns to playing Troy Bolton
In 2007, about a year after High School Musical premiered, Variety asked about the forthcoming sequel: "Will the tens of millions of teens from Tuscon to Tuscaloosa (not to mention Brazil and Australia) go for a whole new set of numbers and storylines when they're so attached to the old ones?" The short answer: Duh
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