The musical production is a staple of Clear Falls, with its performance being the largest production put on by the Fine Arts Department every year. It is a complex production that requires an immense amount of cast members, directors, and technicians to successfully deliver. For the spring musical this January, the department decided to put on a production of “Shrek, the Musical,” a Broadway musical that was based off the DreamWorks animated film “Shrek.”

Kala Wetherill, a senior that was cast for the role of adult Fiona for her final musical as a Knight, says, “It makes me sad. I really enjoy being on stage, and I really enjoy being a part of such a large cast. I have been in every single school production, like musicals, since freshman year. I have been in all three that we’ve had. And I really enjoy it. It is really something I look forward to every year, and, now that I do not have another one to look forward to, it’s kind of sad.”

Austin Doan, another senior, played the role of Donkey, the charming and ecstatic companion to Shrek, but Austin did not just act; he became well versed in the history and personality of his character. “When I was first creating this character, it was difficult because I was not trying to impersonate Eddie Murphy–who originally voiced Donkey–but I also was not trying to break that original humor that he had,” Austin says, “so, I had to strike a balance with that, and I feel pretty good about where I brought him. I have made him sort of goofy, you know, dumb and childish, but I’ve still given him a hint of old accent with more emphasis of his sort of playfulness rather than anything regarding whoever may have previously voiced him. So, I really enjoyed where I brought him and it just adds so much to his songs, when you add in that playfulness, and it’s nice.”

Actors are not all it takes to put on a successful show, with dazzling lights and beautiful backgrounds. You need technicians. Drew Guzman was stage manager for Shrek and plotted the routes for run-crew while also overseeing the creation of some props. “I applied for stage manager because last year, for High School Musical, I was Blake’s, who was a stage manager at that time,” he explains, “I was his shadow…he was teaching me how to be a stage manager, and I wanted to be one because it seemed fun.”

The final student piece of the puzzle is student directors. The student directors for Shrek oversee many things, helping the teacher directors out in any way. They interact with the entire company. Jackson Wentzel, one of the student directors, came to know his fellow company members well and describes it as his favorite part of the show. “My favorite part was being able to get close with a lot of the cast because at the start,” he says, “I did not really know a lot of the cast because a lot of them were in choir…I got to get really close with all of them.”
Putting on a school production is no easy task. It takes a lot of teamwork and effort to make the show function from actors to tech to directors; each was a unique puzzle piece to form a complete show. So next time you see a member of the Shrek musical company, or any production, make sure to thank them for their hard work in representing this school.