Shrek Comes to Life on Stage at Roosevelt
Shrek: the Musical takes the stage at Roosevelt High School with 7:30 PM performances from Thursday, November 12 through Saturday, November 14.
As if producing a musical from scratch in about eight weeks wasn’t daunting enough under the best of circumstances.
Last spring the backstage rigging in the auditorium at Roosevelt High School was slated for replacement. The project was scheduled to be completed in plenty of time for Drama Director Lori Glawe and the cast and crew of Shrek: The Musical to be back in their theater space for rehearsals leading up to their traditional staging weekend, the first one in November. Long, frustrating, anxious story short, that didn’t happen.
Glawe, who’s been working theatrical magic at Roosevelt for 19 years and earned induction into the Iowa Thespian Hall of Fame along the way, took her indomitable troupe to the cafeteria and the school’s secondary gymnasium to rehearse by day and bit her nails by night as deadlines came and went and still the project wasn’t completed. Eventually the show had to be rescheduled to the second week in November. The guts of the set were built offsite to be put in place when stage access was finally granted. That finally happened just last week and Glawe, true to the spirit of the axiom that “the show must go on,” says her kids haven’t missed a beat.
“The first day we got in here they ran Act I without a hiccup,” Glawe said last Thursday as the cast and crew began a full dress rehearsal in a still cluttered auditorium. “I can’t say enough about these young people and their determination.”
Parents who remember reading the storybook Shrek to their children at bedtime in the early 1990s may have a hard time believing what’s happened to the offbeat story of a likable, flatulent ogre since then.
First it became a Hollywood animated feature starring big name voices. Then it was refashioned into a musical for the stage and took Broadway by storm. And next weekend it comes to life at long last on the new and improved Cloris Leachman Stage at Roosevelt.
Glawe always selects shows that carry a central point she wants to make to her students and the superficially silly Shrek is rooted in the notion that people are rarely what they appear to be at a glance. There is far more to most of us than that. But besides a moral that bears repeating in a culture where style often trumps substance, Glawe also chose to take on Shrek because of its whimsy.
“The kids were happy with the selection and are excited about staging it,” she said. “Plus it’s a show that will appeal to the younger folks in the Roosevelt community. We expect a lot of them will want to come and see live characters they’re familiar with.”
Places everybody – finally!
“All’s well,” Shakespeare wrote, “that ends well.”
Shrek: The Musical performances are November 12, 13 & 14 @ 7:30. Tickets are available at the door and are $8 for adults; $5 for students.
CAST
- Shrek: Cal Reed
- Fiona: Isabel Allaway
- Donkey: Demarius Fisher
- Farquaad: Andrew Jones
- Dragon: Tiffany Koger
- Mama Ogre: Annie Majure
- Papa Ogre: Griffin Hutchison
- King Harold: Taran Christensen
- Queen Lillian: Elli Bandstra
- Young Shrek: Brendan McMahon
- Harry: Harry Tuttle
- Lila: Lila Tuttle
- Teen Fiona: Anna Neal
- Young Fiona: Emily Boehm
- Swing: Sam Billingsley
- Pinocchio: Rachel Wade
- Fairy Godmother: Kendall Bruce
- Gingerbread Person: Emma Carlson
- Wicked Witch: Lauren Malcomson
- Sugar Plum Fairy: Zoey Wagner
- Humpty Dumpty: Heaven Booker
- Peter Pan: Connor Crabill
- Wolf: Kiernan Wagner
- Pig #1: Sarah Flippen
- Pig #2: Ben Harper
- Pig #3: Aidan Moran
- White Rabbit: Greer Simmons
- Papa Bear: Giarc Harvey
- Mama Bear: Laura Brightman
- Baby Bear: Jane Dias
- Ugly Duckling: Miranda Gruber
- Mad Hatter: Greer Coffman
- Elf: Laura Diaz
- Ensemble: Cinthia Lopez, Hasija Terzic, Kiah Kitchen, Haley Empy, Olivea Keith
- Guard Captian: Cole Rixner
- Theolonias: J’Ceon Jefferson
- Pied Piper: Jose Rivera
- Duloc Dancers and Ensemble: Grace Ammann, Anne Beeman, Kiera Bender, Alle Brown-Law, Cierra Dunn, DaJoan Evans, Jordan Harris, Gabby Leonard, Hannah Lyons, Moira McMahon, Addie Radcliffe, Cierra Robinson, Elizabeth Struyk, Laila Williams, Tye Jones, Colette Atwood, Lonni Brewer, Claretta Morris, Clara Radcliffe, Sienna Stewart, Stacia Taylor, Christian Kolder, Hao Le, Shafie Omar, Xavier Stevenson
