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September 08, 2008

"Shrek the Musical"

The 5th Avenue Theatre is currently running previews of Shrek the Musical, which is hopefully bound for Broadway.

I saw it last week, and ran into Larry Osterman, who wrote a very positive review of the show. The show is definitely worth seeing--if only to see Lord Farquaad. It had its moments and certainly looked great, but you could say the same about the Tarzan musical that Disney put together, and that didn't do too well (although it did run a year on Broadway and is now planning a tour). Some of the scenes need work and the show has the same "problem" that the movie had--it's aimed at children (of course, for the movie, this wasn't much of a problem). People may pay $6 to go to a movie that invests a fair chunk of time mining the comic potential of misbehaving fairy-tale characters and flatulence, but will people pay $$$ to see it on Broadway? Even The Wedding Singer, which has basically the same plot as Shrek (if you squint a bit) and which had one of the funniest scenes I've ever seen anywhere, was somewhat of a flop on the Great White Way. Of course, the show is in previews for a reason, and they are busily working to improve it, so it could become rightfully awesome by the time it heads East.

One of the two girls playing the part of Young Fiona is Keaton Whittaker, who has done a lot of shows at Studio East. In fact, she was in the cast when I did I Never Saw Another Butterfly. Since I was in a show with Keaton and Keaton is in a show with Sutton Foster, that means my Sutton Foster "number" is only 2.

Posted by AdamBa at September 8, 2008 09:15 PM

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