The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Juvenile ‘School of Rock’ pumps up the volume
As of this writing, the morning after the national touring production of the Broadway musical “School of Rock” opened at the Fox Theatre (where it runs through Sunday), my ears are still ringing. It kind of takes me back to my vaguely distant youth, in a way, and seeing bands like the B-52s, the Police or the Pretenders rock the Fox.
Should it surprise you to read that some stuffy, oldfogy theater critic may have gone to his fair share of concerts once upon a time, imagine the highly exalted likes of composer Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber (“The Phantom of the Opera,” etc.) and writer Julian Fellowes (“Downton Abbey,” etc.) at a head-banging heavymetal show by, say, AC/DC, Black Sabbath or Motorhead — and that might give you an idea of what an unlikely collaboration “School of Rock” is for them (it’s based on a sweet and silly Jack Black movie).
The premise of the story is innocuously implausible: A freeloading deadbeat and rowdy rock-’n’-roller named Dewey (played by Merritt David Janes) poses as a substitute teacher for a gig at a hoitytoity prep school.
The plot develops agreeably if simplistically: His precocious students, their misunderstanding parents and other oblivious faculty members learn a lesson from Dewey about music’s ability to speak to them and open them up, to give them voice and set them free.
Things culminate with a big Battle of the Bands competition, and whether or not you’ve seen the movie or this stage version before, there’s little need to guess who’s destined to win.
All of the kids are suitably cute and adorable, but a lot of them are basically interchangeable (which also goes for most of the grown-ups in director Laurence Connor’s cast). The four of them who stand out in Dewey’s backup band reportedly play their own instruments — although it’s debatable exactly how much of the playing is actually them, and how much is coming from those professional musicians in the Fox orchestra pit.
Either way, youngsters Mystic Inscho (as Zack on electric guitar), Leanne Parks (as Katie on bass), Cameron Trueblood (as Freddy on drums) and Theo Mitchell-Penner (as Lawrence on keyboards) energetically accompany Janes in performing a number of the most rambunctious — i.e., loudest — songs: “In the End of Time,” the title tune, and the recurring anthem “Stick It to the Man.”
Other musical highlights include two of the kids’ group numbers: “If Only You Would Listen” and “Time to Play,” the latter led by Sami Bray (as Summer, the bossy class know-it-all who becomes the band’s “manager”) — but, as is often the case in such overamplified shows, making out all of the lyrics can be a pesky challenge. As the shy Tomika, at least Grier Burke doesn’t have that problem with her showy a cappella “Amazing Grace” solo.
The literal showstopper in the ensemble is Lexie Dorsett Sharp, who offers a fine performance as Rosalie, the repressed school principal-turned-inevitable love interest. On opening night, shortly after her blessedly restrained ballad “Where Did the Rock Go?,” things were abruptly halted for 10 or so minutes due to an unspecified “technical issue.”
Folks around me in the audience quickly started speculating about the cause. For my part, I couldn’t help wondering if perhaps the show hadn’t blown out several of its speakers.