Practicing magic is only one element of surviving high school.
Set against the haunted backdrop of New Orleans, Coven Academy follows three teenage witches and their charming warlock classmates as they navigate friendship, grief, secrets, and the extraordinary pressures that come with discovering who they really are. From Disney Kids and Family and Tim Federle’s Chorus Boy Productions, the scripted drama premieres Thursday October 1, on Freeform and Friday, October 2, on Disney+ and Hulu, with 21 chapters that promise to unfold a story more powerful than any single spell.
Federle — best known for creating and executive producing the award-winning Disney+ Original series High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (2019-2023) — said the inspiration for Coven Academy can be traced back to some of his favorite supernatural tales.
“I grew up watching Charmed, The Craft, Hocus Pocus, and those kind of vaguely horror shows were always such a fun world to live in. If High School Musical was a tribute to Waiting for Guffman, this is a tribute to Charmed, Dawson’sCreek, and The Vampire Diaries,” Federle said. “The DNA that Coven Academy shares with some of the stuff I’ve done is it’s about found family and characters coming together, the teenagers and also the grown-ups.”
Coven Academy begins when sharp, sarcastic New Yorker Briar (Malina Weissman) arrives in New Orleans with questions about her mother’s death — questions the head of school, Miss Graves (Tiffani Thiessen), promises to answer in time. But first, she tasks Briar with forming a coven with new classmates Sasha (Jordan Leftwich) and Tegan (Ora Duplass).
“She shows up to the school super guarded, but she’s also not really worried about how people perceive her,” Weissman said of Briar. “The girls have to learn to trust each other.”
Federle added, “Disney stories are really character-driven, and Briar realizes that what makes you different in your hometown is the thing that makes you soar at Coven Academy.”
That idea of embracing individuality is a pillar of the series. While the three girls are different, they are intrinsically bound through their unique circumstances and experiences.
“All three the girls are going through a lot of emotions,” Weissman said. “They have secrets that they’re hiding from each other, so they have to learn to trust each other again and to put each other first — no matter what happens.”
A Magical Cast
The school itself has a history that reaches beyond the new students.
“Tiffani’s character, Miss Graves, went to Coven Academy and had her own coven, which carries a lot of the stories,” Federle said. “I just love those generational, nostalgic, pass-down-the-tradition kind of stories.”
For Miss Graves, the school is far more than a workplace.
“Her love for that school is massive, hence the reason why she’s still there,” Thiessen said. “Being that she doesn’t have children, that’s where she shows her love, that’s where she shows her connection. I think she puts everything she has into that school, into those kids. There’s something maternal about that, even though she might not be an actual mother.”
Of course, no magical school would be complete without its warlocks. Malachi Barton plays Jake, a student known around school for his confidence and considerable magical ability. But beneath that cool exterior is a young man grappling with a complicated past.
“Jake is known at the school as the preppy kid — already pretty decent at magic,” said Barton, last seen in Camp Rock 3. “He’s slightly cocky. He claps back at the teacher a little bit.”
Jake’s relationship with magic is tied to something more personal: his desire for approval.
“When you hear that your dad is proud of you, it feels so affirming,” Barton said. “But because Jake doesn’t have [a father], he feels that sense of validation through his magic.”
Then there’s Mr. Cole, an effortlessly cool teacher played by Devon Sawa. He may be tasked with keeping talented young warlocks in line, but Sawa discovered the character by leaning into an unexpected moment on his first day.
“I think that Mr. Cole is definitely the father figure in the school with these warlocks,” Sawa said. “It’s funny, because when I got there, the first day, I didn’t really know which way Mr. Cole would go. I had a class full of background actors and cast, and I guess it was the hip thing to do the ‘6-7’ at the time. I remember every face in that room looking at me blankly, and I was like, ‘That’s Mr. Cole! I found him.’”
That chemistry — between teachers and students, friends and rivals, witches and warlocks — is essential to the show’s magic.
“Sometimes it’s hard to find this chemistry,” Sawa said. “You can put together what you think is a perfect cast, but this cast — everybody from top to bottom — had such amazing chemistry. There’s no weak link in the chain.”
A Spellbinding Adventure
And while Coven Academy exists in a fantastical world, its emotional stakes remain grounded in familiar, relatable experiences, both for its young and for its adult characters.
“It’s a fantasy world,” Barton said, “but it’s so relatable.”
For Weissman, there may be something more intangible at work, too.
“I believe in magical energy,” she said. “I think the energy of this show is just intoxicating.”
The series’ 21 bite-sized chapters are designed to let that energy build. Rather than rushing from one supernatural revelation to the next, Coven Academy takes a longer view of its characters and their stories.
“They are shorter chapters, but if you binge it, it’s like five-plus hours,” Federle said. “At no point when we were breaking these stories were we like, ‘How do we do this in 15 minutes?’ It was really, ‘How do we tell a season’s worth of stories that hopefully then launch you into the next season, and the next, and the next, in a slow-burn kind of way?’ It’s sort of an old-fashioned genre show in a new-fashioned storytelling technique, with some really fresh talent.”
Ultimately, that long-form storytelling is what Federle loves most about Coven Academy.
“What’s so fun about series versus movies is that it’s more like real life. Just when you think you’re at the end of the story, you’re not,” he said. “Most stories end well, but if your story is going really badly right now, you’re not at the end. I love telling stories that go on and on.”
