The New York Times - Recommended
"...Andrew Lloyd Webber has entered his second childhood, and it turns out to be a good career move. For his latest offering, "School of Rock the Musical," which opened with a deafening electric twang at the Winter Garden Theater on Sunday night, this lordly British composer has been hanging out with fifth graders. Youth, it would seem, is rejuvenating."
NY Daily News - Somewhat Recommended
"...The impressively pedigreed creative team of this wildly energetic but uneven show hews close to the source...Most of the new songs tend to be just okay at best. Kids singing about parents who ignore them for them feels generic. And at many points during Act I, the music is just too loud for its own good, suppressing what may be decent lyrics under amplified purple haze...The show wants to rock your socks off, but it just moves in fits and starts and feels labored."
Associated Press - Recommended
"...The crowd-pleasing, upbeat musical 'School of Rock' opened with a wondrously rebellious spirit and a superb cast...While leaning a little bit too much on 'Stick It to the Man,' Webber turns in some perfectly solid mainstream rock-ish anthems...A heartwarming story and a stage full of pre-pubescent kids who know their way around an amp prove irresistible...Connor leads a crisp, snappy show that neither gets bogged down in irrelevant secondary stories or in easy manipulation."
Hollywood Reporter - Recommended
"...Ultimately, what makes this show a crowd-pleaser is the generosity of spirit with which it bestows the reward of cool self-realization on every last outsider and underdog — whether it's the actual children catching an early glimpse of the adults they will become, or the eternal man-child Dewey, proudly resisting that path. One gripe though — give us another chorus or two of "School of Rock" with the curtain call. The fans crave it, and those diminutive Metallica minions onstage have earned an extra encore."
Vulture - Somewhat Recommended
"...'School of Rock' has a fair amount to offer...The kids are terrific: They sing very well and play their own instruments...Webber grabs whatever tropes seem handy, from power to glitter to punk, garbling our understanding of Dewey's inner soundscape...Anyway, Lloyd Webber isn't the problem.The problem is what the point is, and that falls on Fellowes, who has not resolved, but rather exposed, the confusions latent in the material."
Variety - Highly Recommended
"...Andrew Lloyd Webber unleashed his inner child to write the period rock for "School of Rock," an exuberant feel-good musical based on the beloved 2003 movie starring Jack Black as a wannabe rock musician who puts together a kick-ass band composed of school children. While paying his respects to that manic role model, Alex Brightman maintains his own appealing brand of scruffy charm as Dewey Finn, amiably ceding the spotlight to a cast of super-talented kids who rock out on the kind of songs you always wished had been in the movie."
USA Today - Recommended
"...Webber, happily, has approached the project with a healthy sense of humor, though he and lyricist Glenn Slater also provide a few earnest ballads to help propel the story...It's the younger cast members who engage us most...Does their sheer cuteness give these performers an edge? Probably. No matter; you'll root for all of them, and have a grand time doing so."
Newsday - Recommended
"...A high-energy, enjoyable, unrelentingly eager-to-please...The first thing to know is that the kids are genuine children who play their own instruments, and they're all terrific...The production is as slick and sure of itself as if it had been running at the Winter Garden Theatre since 'Cats' closed 15 years ago...The book by Julian Fellowes moves amiably along with less of the film's history of rock and more family back story for the kids, which works fine."
amNY - Recommended
"...A highly enjoyable and heartwarming adaptation...Although occasionally serviceable and sappy, 'School of Rock' contains his best music in a very long time, bursting with excitement more often than not...The children are wildly talented and absolutely adorable. I dare you not to smile as they stomp around and chant that they will 'stick it to the man.' 'School of Rock' may not be a game-changer, but it is a solid, well-structured musical comedy, and you can never have enough of those."
Wall Street Journal - Somewhat Recommended
"...Turning 'School of Rock' into a musical isn't the worst idea in the world, and if you need a safe, undemanding show to take your baby-boom parents to see over the holidays, it'll do perfectly fine-but if that sounds like lukewarm praise, it is...I've seen worse and so have you...Just be forewarned: This is the kind of musical that sends you home wanting to rent the movie. I don't know about you, but that's not why I go to the theater."
NorthJersey - Somewhat Recommended
"...Directed by Laurence Connor at a rapid pace, with a strong, if simple, story, apt songs, lively performances, and all-around theater know-how, the show is a tribute to professionalism...The musical gets off to a shaky start because it's hard to make oafishness appealing, and the lazy, sloppy, crude Dewey, played by Alex Brightman, is a complete lout. As the evening goes on, the short, stocky actor grows on you, and becomes tolerable, sometimes even edging into likable."
Chicago Tribune - Recommended
"...Like "Billy Elliot," "School of Rock" (based, of course, on the 2003 Richard Linklater movie starring Jack Black) relies for its appeal on one of the fascinating things about the performing arts: If you look hard enough, work with kids long enough and build a structure that carefully protects them, you can find pre-adolescents who can dance, play or sing on a seemingly adult level."
Time Out New York - Highly Recommended
"...But the secret weapon and glue holding it all together is an insanely winning, supernova turn by Alex Brightman as Dewey. Zooming beyond Black's unavoidable manic bluster to something tender and vulunerable, Brightman is a frenzied Pied Piper who turns out to need the kids' approval more than they need his. And the younger performers don't disappoint: Brandon Niederauer as rhythm-guitar prodigy Zack, Evie Dolan as bassist Katie, Bobbi MacKenzie as solo belter Tomika and adorkable Jared Parker as keyboard wizard Lawrence. All have a bright future. School's in—forever.—"
The Wrap - Not Recommended
"...Other actors and another director might have made this 'School' better. But then there's the material itself. 'School of Rock' is no movie classic. What the musical most needs is a complete overhaul for the stage; instead it gets Julian Fellowes' faithful-to-a-fault adaptation...After a few musical flops, Andrew Lloyd Webber goes back to his mild rock roots...Again, he's adequate at writing generic rock."
The Guardian - Somewhat Recommended
"...'School of Rock,' the perfectly pleasant, perfectly innocuous new musical is strictly adult contemporary...The early musical numbers are unhappily anodyne...But things perk up when the younger cast members finally get a chance to sing and play. The children are universally adorable and several of them are staggeringly accomplished musicians. It is an absolute treat to hear them...It wants to please and please it does. But rock it doesn't."
Deadline - Highly Recommended
"...Andrew Lloyd Webber has returned to the magnificent Winter Garden Theatre, for nearly 18 years (1992-2000) home to his now-and-forever musical Cats. School of Rock won't be leaving any time soon, of that I'm pretty certain. Exuberantly loud, high-spirited and upbeat, it's a feel-good show for Boomers and, god-help-us, our grandchildren. While none of the songs (with lyrics by Glenn Slater) is equal to Lord Lloyd Webber's best ("Memory," from Cats, say, or "As If We Never Said Goodbye," from Sunset Boulevard), they're more than good enough and several add depth to the admittedly shallow pool that was Richard Linklater's 2003 Paramount film starring Jack Black. For that, credit also must go to the genius of Downton Abbey, Julian Fellowes, who wrote the book for the show."
CurtainUp - Somewhat Recommended
"...It will have plenty of adults tapping into their inner rocker along with kids of all ages...Weber proves that he hasn't forgotten how to write catchy rock tunes...There are plenty of bouncy numbers for the kids...Forget about looking for any especially deep or controversial themes...The overall improbability of everything keeps 'School of Rock' strictly what it is - a not to be taken seriously hard rocking, feel good romp."
Talkin Broadway - Somewhat Recommended
"...Webber still knows how to craft and orchestrate a rock melody, his tunes at once ultra-cool and searing hot....There's no reason that this musical has to be dressed up in such brain-dead stereotypes and dramatic one-dimensionality...The commitment that Brightman and the children display only causes the other deficiencies stand out more...Seeing them unleash all they have and then some is one of the most scintillating joys of this Broadway season, and worth the price of admission."
American Theater Web - Recommended
"...Somehow the show never feels completely old had and always manages to charm...Aspects of the show don't always delight as much as the parts that focus on the kids, but they need to be part of the mix. Thankfully, Fellowes' book and Lawrence Connor's efficient production make sure that the young performers-with Dewey at their side-are never far from the spotlight...it's the rock tunes that linger well after the curtain has fallen on immensely enjoyable new show."
TheaterMania - Somewhat Recommended
"...'School of Rock' is cute and occasionally funny, but not any more than its source material, making its onstage existence something of an extravagant 'meh'... Songs resemble a cell phone ringtone...Still, they're often catchy and hard to forget...Glenn Slater's lyrics are adequate yet unremarkable...'School of Rock' has a supercharged cast to transform this leaden material into musical-comedy gold...An undeniably fun musical that is nevertheless not particularly special."
Show Showdoen - Not Recommended
"Charming and engaging and the kind of big, shiny Broadway musical you could totally bring your kids or your friends from out of town to...The whole cast, really, is energetic and hard-working...Here's the thing that bugged me: 'School of Rock' plays on a bunch of racial and cultural stereotypes that I'm really, really tired of seeing on Broadway all the damn time...Can't Broadway delight and entertain and dazzle without relying on the the same bullshit cultural tropes and lazy assumptions?"
Huffington Post - Not Recommended
"...'If you have a great finish, you don't have to worry about anything else' comes close to working for 'School of Rock'...And like just about every other of the not abundant high points in 'School of Rock,' it involves the terrific young actors working like cheerful demons...The bigger names above and below the title hit wonky notes...I can only imagine that something crucial was lost in the transition from screen to stage...All the numbers swiftly begin to sound alike."
DC Theatre Scene - Highly Recommended
"...Andrew Lloyd Webber has chosen to adapt a movie with a plot that could hardly be sillier, and supplies a new score that could hardly be more addictive. 'School of Rock' is full of both hard-charging rock n roll and supremely catchy melodies...The kids don't just sing exquisitely and dance with infectious abandon, they also reportedly play the musical instruments themselves - astonishing if true...There is plenty of hard-driving music here, including several from the movie."
WNBC - Somewhat Recommended
"...A dozen pint-sized and pitch-perfect performers bring heart to 'School of Rock...' An otherwise workaday screen-to-stage adaptation...The student characters sometimes verge on stock depictions, but the parents fully cross the line...I don't imagine most of the big numbers here will enjoy an afterlife...The story doesn't particularly resonate for me, but I won't soon forget the feel-good vibe radiating off the talented young performers after their turns in the final competition."