School of Rock, the musical written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Julian Fellowes, opened Sunday night on Broadway.
"School of Rock is fun," Lloyd Webber says.
"Hopefully, I've fleshed it out with a few catchy songs and kept the spirit of the original movie.
Hopefully, it's something that you will go to and say, 'I had a really good time,' but hopefully, you will also take out of it the central message of the story, which is a very warm and very simple one, which is about the empowering force of music."
The creative team has fleshed out the characters of the children and their relationship with their parents, says Downton Abbey creator Lord Julian Fellowes.
These days, with such hit musicals as Annie and Matilda , seeing kids who can act and dance and sing is nothing particularly new, but seeing them actually play their instruments may be the show's biggest appeal, says Lloyd Webber.