Arnewood Rocks: The talented students of The Arnewood School in New Milton staged four performances of School of Rock.
Talented students struck a chord when they rocked their own version of a West End musical.
The Arnewood School in New Milton was one of the lucky schools across the UK to be given free rights to perform Sir Andrew Lloyd Weber’s latest stage hit, School of Rock the Musical.
In December 2016, Lloyd Weber announced that schools across the UK could obtain the rights, free of charge, to create and perform their own production of the musical.
And last summer the school received the email they had been waiting for – it was one of the schools chosen to perform School of Rock.
More than 60 students across all years auditioned and two casts were formed to put on the show over four nights.
Headteacher, Nigel Pressnell, said: “It was an honour to be one of the schools chosen to perform School of Rock.
“This was a very ambitious production and all our staff and students involved did the school proud.
“Many in the audience commented afterwards how professional the staging was and said how blown away they were by the talent on show.”
School of Rock, which is currently on Broadway and in the West End, is based on the movie starring Jack Black.
It tells the tale of Dewey Finn, a failed, wannabe rock star who decides to earn extra cash by posing as a supply teacher at a prestigious prep school.
There he turns a class of straight-A pupils into a guitar-shredding, bass-slapping, mind-blowing rock band.
Dewey’s aim is to get them to the Battle of the Bands without their parents and the school’s headmistress finding out.
Dan Savage and Alfie Bloor, both in Year 11, shared the main role of Dewey.
Emma Hardy and Hannah Crutch took on the role of headmistress, while Sam Rudge and Josh Dew played Dewey’s best mate Ned and Ellaine Munsayac and Emily Drew played Patty, Ned’s girlfriend.
Students from across Years 8 to 10 made up the School of Rock band and the musical even had its own mosh pit made up of staff and students.
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