March 7th, 2019 was the first opening of Colton High School’s ASB and International Thespian Society presenting Dreamworks Animation Motion Pictures and the book by William Steig, Shrek The Musical TYA at the Colton’s Whitmer auditorium. The book and lyrics were by David Lindsay-Abaire, Music by Jeanine Tesori and originally produced on Broadway by Dreamworks Theatricals and Neal Street Productions.

The musical starred Anthony Lopez as Shrek, Taylor Rae Limon as Fiona, Novonje Legrone as Donkey, and Maxwell Aviles as Lord Farquaad. All of these students were part of the major aspect that made the musical very much entertainingly funny for the audience.

Now the difference from the original Dreamworks Animation Motion Picture movie Shrek and from Colton High’s version of the play was the way they changed a couple of lines around by paraphrasing them and including other items into the play that made it somewhat different. Overall, though, they very much succeeded on pulling off the most iconic and memorable parts from the original movie. In my opinion, I was very surprised and entertained by how they pulled it off as a high school play.

The lead actors of the play also surprised me by how they presented themselves as being such good actors. They really got into their characters with their voice in tone and the attitude they had on such a big stage and with a pretty great turn out from the audience. Their singing was very much on point and had the majority of the audience cheering and standing.  

Now the only question I have for the lead role actors is how they memorize so many lines for a 1 and a half hour play. It amazes me how they could memorize all those lines in such a short time of period and for them to do it for three days in a row. Overall, from my point of view, the play that night, I kind of had low expectations for how the play would turn out, but I am very proud of how they presented the whole play with the choreography, singing, and the amount of time they put in into all of the little things that made the play very successful.