Hey Kids, Let's Externalize Our Angst!!!

Take a really different concept with loads of potential, then immediately submerge it beneath everything in the Great Big Book of Sub-Dawson's Creek Teen Torment (Gay & Straight Editions)and every Showbiz Kid cliché from Judy & Mickey up to the tearstained carpet at the X-Factor tryouts. Some of the girls are obviously musical theatre lights in the making, and one musical sequence is stunning, but the non-musical performances are dreadfully stagey and self-conscious. The writing is knockoff teen TV, and the direction makes one wonder if the cast and director were on the same set. The end result is a peculiar mix of the sophistication of musical theatre and teen comedy that is less sophisticated than 'Saved By The Bell'. A shame that Sondheim, a near-recluse, chose to make a cameo...