‘Let your freak flag fly’ has always been the subtle message behind the “Shrek” movie franchise — from an ogre becoming king, to a talking donkey with an inferiority complex. However, with a musical number of this title, this message in “Shrek the Musical” is shouted from the rooftops.
Former student Phil Leveling, who plays Lord Farquaad, said the live theater version delves deeper into the characters’ lives than the film.
“The entire cast is dealing with some sort of abandonment issue, whether it’s a fairytale character being kicked off the swamp or Shrek being abandoned when he was younger,” Leveling said. “When they get to the real stuff — [the musical is] fun, entertaining and silly — but when they get to the heart of what the show is about, that’s great.”
Director Peter Cocuzza said when this show was selected for the summer, he felt it was a fitting and timely choice.
“I think why it was [chosen] was to pick something families would enjoy,” Cocuzza said. “There’s been a series of Shrek movies, so it’s known. It’s funny because this year seems like a lot of people in the country are doing ‘Shrek the Musical.’ But it’s never been done in this area, so it [seemed] like the logical choice.”
Summer Showbiz is putting on this musical and according to Cocuzza, it is slightly different than the student productions Dunham Hall hosts during the school year.
“[The summer] involves members of the community, children and whoever is interested in getting involved, and I think that’s a huge difference in terms of what we do during the summer,” Cocuzza said. “Also, the summer shows tend to be picked for family kinds of entertainment — not that we aren’t trying to challenge our students who are involved during the summer, but during the school year we challenge them with certain kinds of genres and shows, and then in the summer they tend to be a little more traditional.”
Leveling said the last performance he did at SIUE was “Bye Bye Birdie” eight years ago, and when asked to audition for the part of Lord Farquaad, he was thrilled.
“Everybody loves the movie [Shrek] and the cast in it was just stellar,” Leveling said. “When they called and asked me to sing, I was like, ‘Of course,’ and the part was great. I’m 6’4” myself and Farquaad in the movie is 3 feet [tall], so I thought, ‘That’s interesting — how are they going to play that out,’ but it worked and it’s interesting. It’s just a great opportunity to come back to SIUE.”
As for the rest of the casting, Cocuzza said it was interesting becasue they were looking for a very specific style for many of the characters.
“Ideally, we were looking for [someone to play] an ogre and that ogre has to be somewhat massive. You don’t want a 5-foot ogre and we had no gentlemen audition who was the right type or the right sound,” Cocuzza said. “Our stage manager, who is an alum of our program, her fiancé happens to be 6’3”, 260 pounds and he came in and was wonderful — now he just needs to be green. So we found him sort of by accident. The other characters we found rather quickly. But the first round of auditions weren’t clear, so we had to ask in a few other people and it turned out some of them are alums of the school.”
When picturing the characters from the film, it can become easy to visualize the literal aspects of the characters; however, Cocuzza said the costumes play more off of the idea of the characters personality, as opposed to their physical appearances from the movie.
“Don’t expect to see a four-legged donkey dressed in a donkey suit, but it’s a donkey that has a raggedy hat and raggedy sweater that’s sort of furry,” Cocuzza said. “They’re illusive in terms of trying to present the image of it. Now the Shrek character looks like the movie, the Fiona dress looks like the movie and the fairytale characters are all a mix, [but] you can tell when someone is a fairytale character.”
Alumma Leah Milton said portraying Fiona has been a dream role for her since she first saw the live theater performance.
“I teach sixth grade music. So a few years ago when they first released Shrek [the musical] on DVD, my husband and I bought it and said, ‘Let’s watch it and see if this is something my sixth graders are going to like.’ As we’re watching it and I’m loving every minute of it and my husband goes, ‘You need to play Fiona,’” Milton said. “I just put her on my dream role list … and when I found out they were doing Shrek I was like, ‘I have to try this; I have to give this a go.’”
As for the villainous side of things, Leveling said the bad-guy roles are fun, but very unlike him in his everyday life.
“When you get to play someone who is completely opposite of you, you get to play anyone you want because it’s so different,” Leveling said. “He’s driven by revenge. He’s extremely ambitious; he’s got a few daddy issues to work out and he takes it out on other people, but there’s a lot [more] to him. He’s got Short Man Syndrome. I don’t really have that, but I know what it’s like to be underestimated or put aside.”
Milton said she enjoys every minute of playing Fiona.
“She’s not your typical princess, which I think is why I love her even more,” Milton said. “She tries to be dainty and delicate and like a little wilting flower, but she’s a feisty redhead. She tries to play it off, but eventually the walls come down and you see she’s this quirky, little spunky thing that just goes her own way and does her own thing and isn’t afraid of Shrek.”
Cocuzza said with the set, there are large pieces that get moved on and off, along with a lot of scene changes.
“A lot of it is up to your imagination and that’s what theater tends to do anyway,” Cocuzza said. “When you’re in the forest, there are these tree things that go by and when you are at the castle there are these castle units — they’re very colorful.”
Since the scene changes happen so quickly, Cocuzza said the biggest challenge in this process is deciding how everything will flow together.
“At the end of one song you’re at the forest and at the beginning of the next song you’re in the castle and it’s like, ‘Wow, how does all that happen?’” Cocuzza said. “So the scene designer had to create pieces that were able to be revealed or move into the scene [quickly]. A lot of it is making sure the story gets told and it gets told in a way that no one in the audience gets bored.”
Leveling said the most challenging part of this production is the choreography aspect.
“With any musical, when you say, ‘Put acting, singing and dancing all together and make it be perfect,’ [but] just doing a musical in general is difficult,” Leveling said. “With this one, the choreography, especially with the condition I’m in on stage, it’s pretty intensive. There’s a lot of abdominal work that goes into it. Everything’s so energetic, but the challenge is showing the audience you’re having a blast, knowing that it’s really hard, but you’re making it look easy.”
Cocuzza said the musical aspects have a special childlike feel, since the production is a recreation of an animated movie.
“If you have seen any of the Shrek movies, there’s usually some kind of little song at the end — that’s the feeling of the music in this,” Cocuzza said. “In ‘I’m a Believer’ and some of the other songs that are in there … they create a certain feeling in you. A lot of the music in this play is like that — it’s light — it’s not really heavy.”
Cocuzza said anytime a production has storybook or fairytale characters, it is a fun and creative process.
“People will compare it to the movie and that’s alright because it follows the story of the first Shrek movie,” Cocuzza said. “It’s just cute— the songs are cute, the dancing is cute, it’s colorful and it’s a good [show] for a family who wanted to come out for something other than the normal weekend sports events, it would serve that purpose.”
“Shrek the Musical” will be held at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, July 11, Friday July 17 and Saturday July 18; 2 p.m. Sunday July 12 and 19. Tickets are $15 for adults, $12 for seniors, children, non-SIUE students, SIUE faculty, staff, retirees and alumni. All SIUE students are free with valid I.D. Tickets can be purchased at the Dunham Hall box office.