[Broadway Friday] School of Rock
Show: School of Rock
Type: Broadway Musical
Welcome to another, and final, week of Broadway Friday!
Until I find another show that interests me to get myself on over to watch out in NYC, this will be the last of Broadway Friday posts! And let’s try and end this with a big BANG!
This week, the spotlight has fallen onto School of Rock production!
As I have stated last week with Aladdin production, I’m not so big on remakes. But just like Aladdin, School of Rock has been another wonderful production and one show that I personally am pleased to say that I loved greatly!
Usually, just like Aladdin, it’s the case that there are things tweaked around in the Broadway productions from the original, such as Aladdin movie into Aladdin Broadway production. And I had gone with a bit - ….. Okay. Fine. GREAT AMOUNT of pessimism. I thought this show would be just one of those remake shows that was a complete wanna be productions.
Instead, by the end of the production, I was STUNNED! And not in a bad way either!
If you haven’t watched the movie, the basic general background of the story is that a man named Dewey Finn is a fully grown man who happens to be a guitarist for a band that he and a few of his friends had formed. And what he believes is that he and his band will one day become famous rock stars. The downside to it all? He gets kicked out of the band by the lead singer because he just isn’t very well liked by his own band members.
His roommate, Ned Schneebly, and the roommate’s fiancée, Patty Di Marco, aren’t too happy that Dewey isn’t paying his portion of the rent. More so than anything else, Ned doesn’t have the spine to ask Dewey for the rent money, and Patty is far more than fed up with Dewey. Not just because he’s trying to get by living there rent free, but because he’s a freeloader. Especially considering both she and Ned work whereas Dewey, well, doesn’t have even a real job.
One day, when Ned is at the apartment all by himself, a call comes in from a very highly respected private school, Horace Green, and the principal, Rosalie Mullins, asks for Ned. When she states that she was calling for Ned to offer him a substitute teaching job for the duration that one of the teachers are out for unknown amount of time, Dewey pretends that he’s Ned and takes up the offer. All so that he can have some money coming into him for as long as he can pull off the gig as a substitute.
Of course, Dewey goes in and plays the role of his own friend and lying to everyone about who he really is, and doesn’t bother doing anything with the kids because he sees no point in doing anything with them at all. He even goes as far as telling the kids to back off and gives them an infamous “The Man” monologue about how “the man” is everywhere to crush any and every dream that they will have. And he even tries to put the kids down himself because he doesn’t want to be associated with them in anyway. Let alone be bothered.
That is until he learns that the kids that he’s subbing for have an amazing talent. That talent is called music. The second he gets the chance, he gets each of the kids to try the instruments that’s closest to the ones he saw each of them play, and for the ones he doesn’t know what to assign, he assigns various random roles. Such as body guards, manager, and fashion designer. He even gets few of the girls to be his backup singers, and ultimately uses the kids as his way to get into the Battle of the Bands competition.
Of course, the Broadway may have switched things up a bit, but the differences aren’t that big in terms of how they changed it up. It’s barely noticeable, and still very enjoyable to watch! And defiantly a kid friendly show if you plan on taking your kids to the show with you! If there’s any differences at all, I’d personally say actually turning some of the scenes into numbers so that nearly all the scenes actually has a music to go along with the story and give it just as good of a flow as the movie has with its story line.
The kids in the show are all very talented and defiantly a performance that you do not want to miss! More so than anything else, all the instruments that are played when the kids are singing and playing their own instruments, the orchestra aren’t the ones to play it for the kids. I mean, of course, the orchestra is there to give the music an amplification, but the electric guitar and drums and even piano are all done by the kids themselves!
The lottery starts 2 hours before the show, and drawn 1 and ½ hours before the curtain. When I did the lottery and won a ticket to watch it, each ticket lottery ticket went for $25.
So what are you waiting for? Go catch yourself one of School of Rock performances, and get yourself back into session! Some MUSIC and JAMMIN’ session! ROCK ON!
