PPAC takes you back to ‘School’ with musical based on film
Principal helps crank up volume on stage show
PROVIDENCE – Actor Lexie Dorsett Sharp is nearly 6 feet tall, and that gives her an advantage playing Rosalie Mullins, the uptight, bythe-rules principal at Horace Green School in “School of Rock, The Musical.”
“I literally look down on people,” she says, with a laugh that suggests she’s not like Rosalie in real life. But she loves playing the role in the nationally touring production, which comes to the Providence Performing Arts Center Feb. 26 to March 3.
The musical tells the same story as the 2003 hit movie. Dewey Finn (Merritt David Janes), a wannabe rock star, gets kicked out of his band and out of his apartment for not paying rent. To earn some cash, he poses as a teacher at the elite Horace Green, “a job for which he is highly underqualified,” Sharp adds, laughing again, and soon discovers several of his pupils play instruments – as does the cast of young people who portray them in this stage show.
Dewey decides to organize the students into a rock group to play at a battle of the bands, win the prize money and pay the rent. But there’s more to this story. “Along the way, he forms a connection with the kids, loosens up the principal, and changes the school,” Sharp says. “What I love about the musical is that you see this incredible relationship develop between Dewey and the students. It’s much more fleshed out than the movie.” So is the connection between Dewey and the uptight Rosalie, a secret fan of rock ’n roll.
Julian Fellowes, who wrote the scripts for television’s “Downton Abbey,” was nominated for a 2016 Tony Award for his “School of Rock” book, one of four nominations for the show while it was on Broadway.
The musical includes original songs from the film, worked into the score by Andrew Lloyd Webber, “with all the vocal tricks and fireworks, particularly for Rosalie,” Sharp continues. “There is the operatic ‘Queen of the Night,’ and the power ballad, ‘Where Did the Rock Go.’ It’s an honor, in this first national tour, to be the one introducing this new ballad across the country.”
Because the show is based on a popular film, “It has a built-in audience base,” Sharp observes, “but people have ideas about the characters.” Joan Cusack memorably played Rosalie in the movie, but Sharp says, “I’ve had the freedom to make the role my own interpretation.
“We’ve been encouraged to make real, believable people. But all the comedy is there, and that’s where I feel most connected to the material.” She’s played comedic roles in four previous national and international tours, including Morticia in “The Addams Family.”
None of the other shows, however, have had what “School of Rock, The Musical” has: Kids age 9 through 12 who play the music – live – as Dewey’s student rock band. A traveling orchestra plays the score, but when the students rock out, they’re on their own.
“There is a direct link with kids in the audience, who say, ‘That kid’s my age. I could do that.’” Sharp says. Webber himself has commented on how well the young people play.
Sharp got an early start in music herself, growing up in Birmingham, Ala., and beginning voice lessons at age 6. She earned a bachelor’s degree in musical theater from the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music and throughout that time also studied with Amy Murphy, who has studios in Birmingham and New York City.
Now a year and a half into the “School of Rock” tour, Sharp calls Murphy, “my favorite vocal teacher, starting in high school and continuing to this day. She helped me with my audition for this show.”