Rae Votta

'I have gay relatives growing up where you’re supposed to kind of keep it on the DL in front of family, and Oscar doesn’t do that.'

With the pilot episode in the can, the cast and crew spent the first half of 2009 filming the first 13 episodes of Glee in a media bubble. Then it was time for the world to see what they’d been working on. 

What was it like returning to high school by walking the halls of Long Beach’s Cabrillo High and Burbank’s John Burroughs High School?

With the cast in place, Glee did something that became a rarity for them during their six-year run: They conducted extensive rehearsals. For many in the cast, it was their first time working on a TV show, and their first time learning choreography. The young actors gathered together in Los Angeles with the music and dance teams to start prepping for the shoot.

With the series finale this week, we look back at the pilot that started it all. In her extensive oral history, Rae Votta interviews the cast and creatives who made Glee a watershed moment in TV history.