Shrek Tickets

Shrek the Musical is the highly anticipated musical based on the story and characters from William Steig's book Shrek, as well as the hit DreamWorks Animation film Shrek.

The movie was directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, and starred the voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, and John Lithgow. It won an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, a category introduced in 2001.

The 2004 sequel, Shrek 2, remains the third highest grossing movie of all time and highest grossing animated film of all time. The latest chapter of the Shrek story, Shrek the Third, is the 2nd highest grossing film of 2007. Shrek the Halls, the recent ABC television special, was one of the most watched TV programs of 2007.

The musical is directed by Jason Moore, who also staged the Tony Award-winning Best Musical, Avenue Q. It is the production of DreamWorks Theatricals and Neal Street Productions, Ltd.

Its music is composed by Jeanine Tesori (Olivier Award-winner for Caroline, or Change and three-time Tony Award nominee) and lyrics are by Pulitzer Prize winner, David Lindsay-Abaire (Rabbit Hole).

Destined for Broadway, the extravagant production has been getting a workout at Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre, officially opening September 10 after three weeks of previews. Shrek will be opening on the Broadway in November.

The cast is quite memorable. Main characters of this musical include Shrek, a swamp-dwelling ogre who takes unapologetic delight in all things icky and rank, his wisecracking sidekick, Donkey; the lovely Princess Fiona; little Lord Farquaad and a host of everybody's favorite fairytale creatures from popular children stories and rhymes like Pinocchio, the Three Little Pigs, Humpty Dumpty, Peter Pan, etc.

Reduced from mythic status to a gaggle of ragtag protesters bemoaning their treatment by Farquaad, these whiny icons further the comedy's intractable irreverence.

The show starts with a reference to Shrek as a child ogre. As the musical version of this faux fairy tale gets underway, we see Shrek and his parents getting ready to celebrate this cute little ogre's 7th birthday.

As a pint-sized Shrek frisks about, pretending to be a knight, Momma & Poppa Ogre sit him down and -- through song explain that he needs to toughen up and so now its time to leave the home and embark on his journey. All this gives the audience a reason to actually care about this title character.

By giving Shrek this sort of backstory the plot point gives the ogre and the long-locked-away princess yet another reason to bond. Shrek and Fiona were both bused & abandoned by their parents.

They squabble about who actually had the worst childhood which eventually leads to their second act challenge song, "I Think I Got You Beat." After that Shrek is all alone trying to face the "Big Bright Beautiful World" which isn't welcoming at all.

He settles into his familiar swamp and grows to maturity in the person of the rich-voiced Broadway vet Brian d'Arcy James, while in the nearby kingdom of Duloc, a host of familiar fairy tale characters led by Pinocchio (the delightful John Tartaglia) are banished to the said swamp by the small but eminently scene-stealing Lord Farquaad (played by the dazzling Christopher Sieber).

Shrek travels to Farquaad's castle in Duloc, accompanied by a fast-talking donkey, to plead for his solitude back. The evil Farquaad promises Shrek his swamp if he rescues the Princess Fiona (he needs to marry a princess in order to become a king) from her dragon-guarded imprisonment.

Some of the dialogues are straight from the movie and do a great job of keeping the humor from the movie, while maximizing its potential as a stage production with clever sets and performances. Christopher Sieber parades around the stage on his knees all the time.

He delights in dangling small movements for hearty laughs, elaborating his royal ambition in the barn-burning "Things Are Looking Up in Duloc." But his hatred of magical souls is given a juicy backstory in "The Ballad of Farquaad."

The set and costume designs are masterworks of stagecraft, breathtaking in their scope and assertiveness, adapting the film's computer-generated look to the imprecision of real-life actors.

With its loads of smirky fun, this spectacular 2 1/2-hour production is sure to charm both the young and old.