“Dead Poets Society” will always be the best “Inspirational Teacher Story”. Its honest, dramatic, tragic, and the only happiness in the ending is the internal spiritual growth of the characters. Many have tried, and failed, to match Dead Poets Society.

So how does one compete with it? By doing what “School of Rock” does and not even trying.

That’s honestly probably the genus of the Jack Black lead comedy turned stage musical now playing at the Strauss Youth Academy for the Arts now through October 2nd.

Not trying to be like the greats may sound a bit insulting at first, but giving up on shooting for the stars allows School of Rock to find a nice apartment in a decent city and do its own thing and be totally happy with itself.

The thing in question is, of course, Rock and Roll. Expect not quite Rock and Roll itself.

There’s plenty of classic rock name drops and jokes, the music is good and at times even by the actors themselves which is impressive.

There’s lots of love for Rock and Roll throughout.

However, “School of Rock” isn’t so concerned with Rock itself, so much as the spirit of Rock and Roll. That sense of rebellion and sticking it to “the man” for freedom and stuff.

And “School of Rock” celebrates that spirit quite well.

It sticks it to “the man” and only grows up on its terms because its been liberated by music and is free.

But of course, this being live theater, half the fun is having live actors actually acting on a stage in front of you. And “School of Rock” has no shortage of actors.

As such it can be rather hard to stand out in such a large cast, but lead actor Jace Cascio certainly does.

He puts on a great performance and has enough energy to carry the play almost by himself.

Which isn’t to say the rest of the cast is bad on the contrary, it’s a nice cast with good actors who do their jobs very well.

All in all, “School of Rock” was worth checking