Your Local Musical Maniac!

SHREK: The Musical

We all know and love all the movies from the Shrek movie franchise, but not many know that our favorite green orge and all of his fairy tale friends graced the stage of the great white way in 2008. Shrek the musical has music by Jeanine Tesori and book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire first opened in Seattle in 2008 and it opened just before the end of that same year on December 14th. The show itself was loved by critics and for its time it was the most expensive show to open on Broadway. The production at the Historic Broadway Theatre closed on January 3, 2010, after 441 performances and 37 previews to embark on a National Tour that has taken it all over the country for much of the last 2 years. Internationally Shrek has also been seen on stages in Israel, London, Poland, and Spain with plans to open in Italy, France, Brazil, Australia, and The Philippines in 2012. Rochester welcomed Shrek and his friends to our Auditorium Theatre this past Tuesday night and what an event it was!!!

The show opens with Shrek in an open storybook, much different open from previous versions of the show we have seen. He begins as narrator to the opening scene in the show. We are shown a 7 year old Shrek as we hear his back story of how he became to live in his swamp and even get to briefly meet his parents. The opening song “Big, Bright, Beautiful World” is quite funny in that Shrek’s parents tell him that the outside world is filled with happiness and wonderful things….but, as they say, “Not for You”. In this opening scene we also are introduced to Princess Fiona who pushes her way in stage and interrupts Shrek’s story telling welcoming the audience to “FIONA THE MUSICAL”. We also meet her parents who send her away to live in her tower, because as we all know… Princesses are ONLY rescued from tall towers by their prince.

The show stays very close to the story line of the movie so of course we meet Shrek’s hyperactive best friend Donkey, along with many other of the fairytale characters like The Three Pigs, The Wicked Witch, Gingy (who doesn’t love that little cookie), and even a brief cameo by Puss In Boots, plus many many more characters. All these characters completely make the show even more fun as they are not just an ensemble - they are all their own character all with important parts in the flow of the story! 

I don’t wanna give too much away about the show because its a show you HAVE to see for your own eyes!! The sets are fun and colorful, and the costumes are brilliant… well, they would have to be since they DID win the Tony Award for Best Costumes in the 2009! Oh, and who can forget the cast… the wonderful cast - not enough can be said about this group of actors!! Lukas Poost as Shrek, Liz Shivener as Fiona, André Jordan as Donkey, and Marritt David Janes as Lord Farquaad keep the show at such a high energy level from very first note of the Overture till the very fun dance number during curtain call. There were several moments that the entire house burst into a roaring laughter and as I looked around everyone had a smile on their face for the entire show! I have genuinely become a fan of the cast and I look forward to following them on their carrers.

The show is very kid friendly but also has humor that will be enjoyed by all. I highly recommend for all to see this wonderful show!!!

Shrek the Musical is in Rochester until February 5th!!!

GET YOUR TICKETS NOW!!! Visit rbtl.org for ticket details 

OH, one more thing…It takes the eye of a real broadway fan to notice this, but Shrek poked fun of some other broadway hits in a couple of their songs - Wicked, The Lion King, Gypsy, and Dreamgirls were some of the ones I picked up on while watching the show, it made me laugh to notice how they incorporated these shows in - If you find any others I missed email me at claude.rbtl@gmail.com