‘Glee’ Takes a Break Till 2010 As We Cry Into Our Jazz Hands

Becky Bain | November 25, 2009 3:06 pm

Attention Gleeks: If you haven’t already picked up the first soundtrack or pre-ordered Volume 2, do it now, because there’s gonna be a lot less Glee in your life for awhile. After the December 9 episode, the beloved Fox series ain’t coming back on the air till April 2010, says Entertainment Weekly. What’s worse—it’s switching nights from Wednesday to Tuesday, where it’ll be up against the final season of Lost. See, this is why God invented TiVo, so we never have to choose between our guilty pleasures.

Don’t be too sad, though—we have a mini-interview with Glee stars Jenna Ushkowitz and Kevin McHale, who gave us a behind-the-scenes look at the music that makes the hit show!

Congrats on Glee’s first soundtrack being such a success! Must be exciting. Kevin: It was insane. We were in New York promoting the soundtrack and it was unreal, like, this is really happening? People would pull up iTunes and my face was on it? Jenna: We were number one, then we went to number two, then we were back at four, just battling the charts. We were all buying [the songs] on our iPhones!

How many more soundtracks should we expect from the first season? Kevin: At least one, maybe two more. I think the back nine episodes have even more songs than the just first 13.

Do you ever get a choice in the songs you sing on the show? Jenna: We pitch, but we have trust in the writers and what they pick. But I would love to do an Evanescence song or a Billy Joel song. Kevin: It’s all [creator Ryan Murphy]’s idea. He’s a human jukebox. He picks all the songs. I don’t know how he does it. You wouldn’t think it, but he just knows everything, its insane. I think that’s why the show works. He picks the perfect song for the perfect scene. He’s Glee.

Kevin (Artie) and Jenna (Tina) being cute on Glee

The cast has tackled everything from Kanye West to Queen to the Police. Has anyone heard from any of the artists whose songs you’ve covered on Glee? Jenna: Mark [Salling] heard from Neil Diamond when he did “Sweet Caroline.” Neil posted it on his website!

Most of the cast has a ton of theatre on their resume—Matthew Morrison has been on Broadway in Hairspray, and you, Jenna, and Lea Michele starred together in Spring Awakening. Kevin, are you gonna give Broadway a whirl during Glee’s hiatus? Kevin: I would love to do it, but I’d be scared—crying like a little baby backstage. It really terrifies me. It petrifies me. I think I would mess it up. On a TV show we can do takes of it. Doing a musical is my biggest fear. That and spiders. The cast would definitely be down for it, but we’re on a Glee ride right now.

Grammy nominations are announced next week. Has the cast realized you’re pretty much a shoe-in for a Best Soundtrack nomination? Jenna: Grammy in the same sentence as Glee is just weird. But awesome!

Hey, we’d count on it; and even if they miss out next year, they’re bound to have many more chances (and soundtracks) in the future.

Glee: The Music, Volume 2 comes out December 8.

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