School of Rock is coming to Broadway - Page 2

[philly03]

Posted: 12/18/14 at 3:20pm

I imagine the only two people in the running for this are Josh Gad or Constantine Maroulis... I wonder if Jack Black has any interest in actually starring in something on Broadway.

I was interested (even with Lloyd Webber's name) until I saw how old the creative team is. Isn't that why Tim Rice left Lloyd Webber? Because he felt a "young" person on the team should be involved to make it a hit?

Glenn Slater has had one good score ("Sister Act") and a few good songs here and there lyrically. Refer to plenty of the score of "Love Never Dies" and even more of the score to "Leap of Faith" to see how stocky, clunky, corny, no-flow lyrics he stumbles to put together.

[Liza's Headband]

Posted: 12/18/14 at 3:23pm

Constantine is way too "cool" for this. When you think Jack Black, you don't think Constantine. You think Josh Gad. Has to be someone that comes across as a bumbling loser. That is who Dewey Finn is.

[MegInManhattan]

Posted: 12/18/14 at 3:24pm

I was thinking Josh Gad too. Constantine is too "sexy" for role, even if he had the rock experiences. Dewey has to be pretty disheveled.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 12/18/14 at 3:39pm

Will Jeremy Jordan be free?

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 12/18/14 at 3:49pm

Going off of the movie Constantine would be far more appropriate for the part Adam Pascal played, nowhere near right for Dewey Finn. But, if you cast Constantine in that part I would imagine it would need to be beefed up (in order to justify casting a semi-name like that in a role that only appeared in two scenes) and that would be distracting as the main thrust of the story needs to remain with Dewey and the kids.

For some reason I thought I remember the original plan was for Webber to be producing, not composing? I'm curious how hard (if at all) he tried to find a composing team with a track record closer to that classic rock sound.

[Back Row]

Posted: 12/18/14 at 3:53pm

Actually, the first name that came to my mind was Mitch Jarvis.

[HenryTDobson]

Posted: 12/18/14 at 5:06pm

I said it a while back but American Idol's latest winner, Caleb Johnson, would be perfect for this part. While he's clearly not a household name, he's got some fan base.

Not to mention he rocks pretty hard.


Caution: JLo's hips

[haterobics]

Posted: 12/18/14 at 5:07pm

"Will Jeremy Jordan be free?"

I think he did the workshops, but they're going in a different direction now.

[darquegk]

Posted: 12/18/14 at 5:10pm

Dewey isn't exactly a bumbling fat boy buffoon, like Elder Cunningham. Jack Black worked in the movie not because of his fat, frat-boy physicality, but because he was convincingly both a good comedic actor and a relic from the pre-EDM rock music era.

I always thought Stephen Lynch would be good in the stage version, since he wants to do more acting, but feels most comfortable in shows in which (like "The Wedding Singer") he can hide behind his guitar and musician mannerisms a little bit.

[Musical Master]

Posted: 12/18/14 at 5:11pm

Is it just me, or does this sound like Andrew is only doing this so that he can convince Paramount Pictures to allow him to make that SUNSET BOULEVARD film?

[haterobics]

Posted: 12/18/14 at 5:12pm

"I said it a while back but American Idol's latest winner, Caleb Johnson, would be perfect for this part. While he's clearly not a household name, he's got some fan base."

But this isn't some one night only concert where you can just cast anyone... can he act?

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 12/18/14 at 5:21pm

"Buuuut he did Jesus Christ Superstar which was all rock music …"

It really really wasn't. It's was a fancy school boy's idea of rock music. The rockingest section was lifted entirely from the Batman TV theme.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 12/18/14 at 5:25pm

ALW plagiarized Neal Hefti?!!! How dare he!!!!

[Phillypinto]

Posted: 12/18/14 at 5:40pm

Im excited for this!! And excited for a new ALW score!!

[darquegk]

Posted: 12/18/14 at 5:42pm

Jesus Christ Superstar works as rock music despite the fact that it had to basically invent huge swathes of prog and hard rock. Combining elements of funk, blues and nascent hard rock with classical and theatre music isn't so much "not real rock" as it was "the controversial direction rock was about to head anyway."

[Sally Durant Plummer]

Posted: 12/18/14 at 5:49pm

If there was a musical about Andrew Lloyd Webber, what would it be called?

Merrily We Roll Along...?

[Jonwo]

Posted: 12/18/14 at 6:05pm

I wouldn't be surprised if they cast Dewey a bit younger much like they did with Deloris in Sister Act the Musical, in order to avoid comparison with Jack Black's Dewey.

I wish they'd gone for someone like Brian Yorkey or Tim Minchin for lyricist rather than Glenn Slater, Laurence Connor is fine but untested for new material.

[missthemountains]

Posted: 12/18/14 at 6:08pm

This project seems like a waste of time, money and resources. I just don't see how this is necessary.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 12/18/14 at 6:21pm

Nothing says rock n roll quite like Andrew Lloyd Webber and Julian Fellowes.

[Phillypinto]

Posted: 12/18/14 at 9:14pm

"This project seems like a waste of time, money and resources. I just don't see how this is necessary."

When are any musicals really necessary?

[Sally Durant Plummer]

Posted: 12/18/14 at 9:46pm

On adapting existing material into musicals:

"...a "Why?" musical: a perfectly respectable show, based on a perfectly respectable source, that has no reason for being... "Why?" musicals usually come from successful novels, movies and plays. Their authors are blinded by the attractiveness of the source material, how easily it could sing, how effectively it might be staged, which actor might be perfect for the leading role. They never question the NEED to musicalize the piece. They never ask themselves what music will do for the story that hasn't already been accomplished by the original author. When Oscar [Hammerstein] adapted a moderately successful play called GREEN GROWS THE LILACS into a musical called AWAY WE GO! (later called OKLAHOMA!), he transformed a play about homosexuality and the loneliness of the early western settlers into a paean to American pioneering and expansion. He remolded LILIOM, a Hungarian play about Budapest lowlifes, into CAROUSEL, a parable about undying love in a cozy nineteenth-century New England fishing village. "Why?" musicals can be good only if they're truly transformed of if they're the result of genuine passion for the original material, as in the case of MY FAIR LADY, one of the few examples of a good show that resembles its source almost identically (the 1938 British movie version of Shaw's PYGMALION)...Although there may have been (especially recently) calculated and successful efforts to take popular titles and turn them into cash cows for no other reason than to make money, the venture is usually a fool's game. The biggest hits, even the execrable ones, have generally been written by people who loved the story they were telling and how they were telling it."

- Stephen Sondheim, Finishing The Hat, "Do I Hear A Waltz?"

[JBroadway]

Posted: 12/19/14 at 12:26am

"Why? This is a property that, inherently, SHOULD be a jukebox musical."

I see your point with regards to this particular show, but I'm generally not a fan of jukebox musicals. I find that most of the time, the songs don't blend in with the book enough, and it becomes uninteresting to me very quickly. The choice to turn Bullets Over Broadway into a jukebox musical was my only problem with the show, and it made me have an overall negative feeling of the show. With School of Rock, if they turn it into a jukebox musical, it will just turn into a show where they take any opportunity they can to play a song that the audience knows, and the show will stop dead in its tracks during almost every single number.

[Kad]

Posted: 12/19/14 at 8:37am

Well, what could occur now is that the score will be original music that is completely drowned out by having a handful of recognizable rock songs in it. Who cares what Andrew Lloyd Webber writes when there's a song by The Who?

[newintown]

Posted: 12/19/14 at 8:54am

I may be wrong, but I think this material only succeeded (like Elf and other films) because of the unique personality, talent and charisma of the leading actor.

Without Jack Black, it's just another narrative full of the same old sentimental clichés and hokum. And ALW has not proven himself capable ever of adding dimensions of meaning to his source material; if anything, he and his collaborators subtract (best example - the Velveeta-like Sunset Boulevard).

[JBroadway]

Posted: 12/19/14 at 9:41am

"Well, what could occur now is that the score will be original music that is completely drowned out by having a handful of recognizable rock songs in it. Who cares what Andrew Lloyd Webber writes when there's a song by The Who?"

Maybe the general public will feel that way, but I'm just speaking for myself. If they do an original score with some well-known rock songs, I personally will more likely enjoy the original songs over the song by The Who. Having said that, I totally admit that if ALW and Glenn Slater write a crappy score, then the well-known rock songs will be more enjoyable. My point is that, for me, an original score has potential to be enjoyable, whereas a jukebox score will almost certainly bore me to tears.

Updated On: 12/19/14 at 09:41 AM