Glee creator Ryan Murphy announced on Ryan Seacrest‘s show last Friday that the original characters on the hit FOX show will graduate in May 2012.

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Murphy confirmed that Season 3 will mark senior year for many of the cast mates:

“I don’t think of it in terms of eliminating or replacing. Because I think the thing about this cast is people love them and they are incredibly talented. They’ve left sort of an indelible mark,” he said.

“The thing that I wanted to do and the cast wanted to do, we didn’t want to have a show where they were in high school for eight years. We really wanted it to be true to that experience. We thought it would be really cool if we were true to the timeline.”

He added that Matthew Morrison and Jane Lynch will stay beyond Season 3, explaining that their characters Will Schuester and Sue Sylvester act as “the male and female lynchpins of the series.”

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Casting calls for the next season of the show have already gone out. Also, the new show The Glee Project, a reality-based casting call, will fill a spot in the new cast. Murphy said:

“I think the fun thing about the show is it’s a celebration of youth and talent and I think that just like with the original cast, I think finding those young unknown people and giving them an opportunity to break into the business and become stars is a really fun and exciting thing and is the spirit of the series.”

As sad as we’ll all be to see the original cast go, I’m thrilled to see a new spin on the series!