The bigger accomplishment, though, is that bookwriter David Greig, songwriters Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, choreographer Joshua Bergasse, and director Jack O'Brien managed this with what should have been a slam-dunk property. Although, to be fair, it does keep one-upping itselfthis is not a musical that's willing to settle for second-worst. It's just bad: plain, simple, and totally. (Pizza is also a famous one there are others, but this is a family review.) Its status may have to be reconsidered, however, in light of the new musicalization of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at the Lunt-Fontanne. Theatre: Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, 205 West 46th Street between Broadway and 8th AvenueĬhocolate has traditionally fallen into the category of things that are pretty good even when they're bad. Michael Haynie, Emma Pfaeffle, Michael Wartella, with Emily Padgett and John Rubinstein, Yesenia Ayala, Darius Barnes, Colin Bradbury, Jared Bradshaw, Ryan Breslin, Stephen Carrasco, Kristy Cates, Madeleine Doherty, Palome Garcia-Lee, Stephanie Gibson, Talya Groves, Cory Lingner, Robin Masella, Elliott Mattox, Monette McKay, Kyle Taylor Parker, Kristin Piro, Amy Quanbeck, Paul Slade Smith, Katie Webber, Michael Williams, Mikey Winslow, and introducing Jake Ryan Flynn, Ryan Foust, Ryan Sell as Charlie. Green, Jackie Hoffman, Trista Dollison, F. Cast: Christian Borle, Ben Crawford, Kathy Fitzgerald, Alan H. Video and projection design by Jeff Sugg. Original Stage Production Directed by Sam Mendes and Choreographed by Peter Darling. Music direction and supervision by Nicholas Skilbeck. Scenic and costume design by Mark Thompson. Songs from the Motion Picture by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley. (He plays five out of eight shows a week the alternate in the unexpectedly challenging role is Gary Trainor.Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory The New Musical Book by David Greig. Janes is entertainingly over-the-top as this manic man-child – and he’s got the goods vocally, with a great mock-rock howl. Indeed, School of Rock is the Phantom of the Opera composer’s most playful score in ages, featuring nods to classic prog-rock and classical music (including a fun borrowing of the Queen of the Night aria from Mozart’s The Magic Flute).įifteen years after the movie, rock music is even more passé as a musical form, so completely supplanted by hip-hop and pop, that (white, middle-aged, male) Dewey’s steadfast belief in its supposedly transgressive powers is funnier than it ever was. Lloyd Webber began his musical-theatre career writing Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat for a school choir, so the sweet hymn-like harmonies he writes for the young performers in songs like If Only You Would Listen (directed at helicopter parents) are a return to his roots. There’s a nine-year-old guitarist in the cast named Mystic Inscho (his character is Zach) who will make your jaw drop, while eight-year-old bassist Leanne Parks (playing Katie) never fails to amuse when she puts on her “bass face.” (They’re supplemented by an adult band featuring a trio of power guitarists in the orchestra pit.) The premise is totally cartoonish, with somehow neither principal Rosalie Mullins (the excellent Lexie Dorsett Sharp) nor anyone else in the school ever hearing the kids playing loud music all day long instead of studying. Schneebly” teaches the uniformed, overscheduled kids in his class to let their hair down and play good old rock’n’roll, and starts training them to compete in an upcoming battle of the bands. Instead of history and math, Dewey’s “Mr. And so, when a private elementary school called Horace Green calls looking for his roommate Ned Schneebly (Layne Roate) to substitute, the musician pretends to be him – thinking subbing is an easy way to earn some cash. Shortly after being kicked out of his band, aging rockaholic Dewey Finn (Merritt David Janes) also finds himself threatened with eviction from his apartment. School of Rock’s plot remains as simple as it did when screenwriter Mike White first imagined it. But book writer Julian Fellowes (the creator of Downton Abbey) and composer Andrew Lloyd Webber (no introduction needed, partnered here with American lyricist Glenn Slater) have turned out an surprisingly enjoyable musical based on it – one that charms chiefly thanks to a corps of preteen actor-musicians, some of whom are tiny quadruple threats.
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