My Little Pony: Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks – The Musical: A SUMMARY

Okay. First off, I’m reeling from the effects of a post-musical depression. So maybe this will make me feel better. Yesterday, the MLPEQGRR Musical was in town for three shows. A friend and I attended one of them.

In all, the musical was energetic and as lively as one would expect of any good kid-oriented musical. The actresses brought their characters to life and their vocal impressions of the girls were pretty good. You didn’t need to be familiar with the soundtrack from Rainbow Rocks, because you’d be dancing to an adaptation of Emmy-nominated Daniel Ingram’s original music.

There were some minor sound issues and due to the immense size of the stage in the theatre, I guess they couldn’t do a up-close with the audience very well. Some of the movie was also written to fit the stage production to save on costume changes, very good costumes already, mind, and characters.

So it it ever goes anywhere else outside of Southeast Asia, I hope you catch the musical. But if you can’t, there’s always this summary of events that follows.

Open. Canterlot High

Dazzlings sense Equestrian Magic in the school grounds. Adagio calls her incompetent sidekicks Aria and Sonata morons. So there are two Sonatas, kinda.

The Rainbooms enter with ♫ Rainbow Rocks. No Sunset. Rainbow Dash steals the show and Fluttershy hates playing tambourine. The band is practising for the Battle of the Bands, a friendly showcase despite not what it would be in the movie.

They find Sunset after rehearsal. Sunset is still ostracised after the Fall Formal incident. Her schoolmates hate her and are reminded of her antics as Principal Celestia rallies the school for the upcoming musical showcase… in the new gymnasium. ♫ Better than Ever is sung.

Luna asks Sunset to introduce the Dazzling trio, the new students around the school.

Enter the Dazzings. Sonata and Aria make with the teenage banter kids use today. Adagio calls them idiots. “We aren’t idiots. We’re morons.”

“Is the school friendly?” Adagio asks
“Yes they are.” says Sunset.
“You don’t seem to have friends.” Adagio says as a pair of students avoid Sunset.

“Hey look Adagio. Battle of the Bands.” points out Aria.
“Sure we can sing.” and they decide to enter the competition and do what they do best.

Sunset notices the necklaces on their necks. The Dazzlings hiss at her. The Dazzlings ditch Sunset and Sunset has a soliloquy. 

She has seen the necklaces before and remember they’re sirens. (Therefore Sunset is wise to them before the trio hypnotises the school. Not in the movie). Sunset returns to the mane five and let’s them in on her discovery.

The Dazzlings enter the cafeteria and do ♫ Battle of the Bands. Luna and Celestia join in the song (yes!)

“Principal Celestia, these girls are using dark magic.”
Celestia scoffs.

The mane five and Sunset are at a loss, and decide to use their horse band magic to fight them. But the last time they managed that was when Twilight was around. Hey. Sunset has a book in her locker (very cool, show accurate lockers) and she pulls out a giant book and writes to princess Celestia.

The girls sing ♫ Shake Your Tail.

Stage transition to Crystal Castle. A really good one-person in a horse costume comes in, hind legs dragging and wobbling in a comical fashion. That’s what I mean by one-person pony suit.

Twilight enlists the audience to help her call her friends. And the other five ponies who lost all feeling in their hind legs shuffle in.

Twilight explains what the sirens are (presented on screen. From the movie) and rallies the audience for help again as she throws herself into the Mirror.

The girls wait outside the school horse statue and girl Twilight comes through the statue (actually cool). The group decides they will stop them by entering the battle of the bands and sing a counterspell.

The band is a mess and Twilight can’t get the lyrics right for a good counterspell. Twilight goes so far as to start rapping lyrics. And with fifteen minutes left, she asks the band to stall, extending their tenure in the competition to the semifinals. The progress of the battle of the bands (♫ Under Our Spell) is flashed on screen with all the actors on stage in freeze frame. It’s a cop-out due to lack of the secondary characters.

In place of the slumber party, Sunset comforts Twilight in school and tells her she’s capable of coming up with something.

Twilight still isn’t confident she’s ready, so the Rainbooms do a normal ditty. (♫ Awesome As I Wanna Be) Rainbow overdoes it and emits horse band magic.
To prevent the blowing of their cover, Sunset throws herself into the band in pseudo slow motion, knocking Rarity and elbowing Fluttershy in the nose.

The band can’t finish their song, lose, and blame Sunset, who had good intentions to stop the Dazzlings from seeing their trump card, for their falling out of the competition.

The band, angered, breaks up and Sunset is left alone with the Dazzlings

They tell Sunset that no one wanted her around in the first place. She’s not in the band. They didn’t ask her for help and she’s blamed for the loss. The Dazzlings know, too, that The Rainbooms are out of the competition and hypnotise the principals to overturn the results and disqualify all the other bands so the school will be riled up in hatred for the Rainbooms’ sudden entering to the finals (replacing Trixie’s angry trapdoor antics).

The Dazzlings ditch Sunset, who then sings ♫ My Past is Not Today.

Sunset convinces the band to get their sh*t together and play the finals upon revealing their place in it. Fluttershy gets her song sung, Rarity on costumes, etc

With the finals upon the school, Celestia literally riles up the audience calling those that aren’t the winners, well, losers (harsh!). 

The Dazzlings enter and do their song (♫ Welcome to the Show). Actresses are winged.

The school, hypnotised, focus their attention on the Rainbooms, also winged, who join in. They aren’t doing enough. And Fluttershy is forced to regress to playing tambourine.

It works I guess. And the Dazzlings are defeated and run away.

The musical closes with ♫ Shake Your Tail and ♫ Right There In Front of Me (an EQG: Friendship Games song). They wave goodbye to Twilight and she tosses herself into the statue. And they all dance to ♫ Shine Like Rainbows. Bow. End scene.

Only 12 characters from the series. No background characters, no Trixie, no Flash Sentry. Just generic players who look like a mishmash of OCs. Songs were extended or remixed to effect.

None of the above can be summed up in words very well. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

(Photos: mylittleponymusical.com)