Shrek Evaluation

Shrek the Musical focuses on the two characters Shrek and Fiona. When Lord Farquaad
dumps a bunch of fairy-tale creatures on his swamp, he sets out on a quest to get his swamp
alongside who would soon become his best friend: Donkey. In order to complete this quest,
he has to save Princess Fiona from the dragon-guarded tower she has been trapped in for
over 20 years and bring her back to Duloc to marry Farquaad. However, on the way to
Duloc, Shrek discovers he might have feelings for Fiona.

To begin rehearsals for the show, we had to start by going through auditions to decide the
cast. I auditioned to be a principal dancer. Overall, I think my audition went well. Although I
found the choreography really difficult at first, I didn’t give up. I was resilient and I think it
was qualities like this that they were looking for the most. For next time, I need to try and
not get in my own head. By doing so, I was only dragging down my confidence and therefore
my motivation to practice whenever we were given time before finally performing in groups.
When the cast list finally came out, I found out that I had successfully got the role of
principal dancer as well as being a guard, King Harold and Papa Bear.

Since I now knew I would be spending most of the show dancing and didn’t have many lines,
I learnt the ones I had quickly during the half term so I could then focus on dances and song
lyrics. One problem that I found was that since I was playing 5 different roles, it was hard to
give each one the same amount of focus. For example, I definitely neglected my guard role
and I would heavily rely on others when running scenes as a guard and often forgot certain
details. I definitely put a lot of focus however on my principal dancer role, specifically the
Duloc Dancers where I think I had become more comfortable with the choreography and
learned the lyrics fairly quickly. Overall, I was confident with my King Harold and Papa Bear
roles as their wasn’t much to learn other than big ensemble songs such as ‘Story of my Life,’
‘Freak Flag’ and ‘This Is Our Story’ which I think I could’ve practiced more in my own time to
be more confident on the day. In the future in order to improve overall, I need to make sure
I am treating every rehearsal as the final show and that I keep focused throughout.

Before the final show, we were able to have 2 runs – one tech and one dress – at Newcastle.
The tech rehearsal went well as we quickly got used to the set and were able to fully run-
through the entire show without any major issues. However, the dress rehearsal didn’t go as
well. Each costume had multiple parts and as we were seeing them for the first time right
before the run, we didn’t have much time to plan any quick changes. The first thing which
went wrong was the fact that I couldn’t get into my Papa Bear costume in time for the first
fairy-tale creature scene after King Harold, I believe this was due to a number of things.
Firstly, it was a long way to run from the stage to the dressing rooms so I had already
wasted a lot of time doing so. My Papa Bear costume included a body suit which was
extremely difficult to put on as well as 3 layers on top of that, and separate shoes, gloves
and a wig which were very time-consuming to get into. I quickly learned that I needed to set
my costumes in the corridor and if I had a body suit to put on, which I did not just for Papa
Bear but for the Duloc Dancers also, I should wear it underneath the costume before.
Throughout the rehearsal, I failed to make it on for Papa Bear, the Guards and the Duloc
Dancers. I didn’t even have a guard costume in the first place so I didn’t get to see that
costume properly until the matinee show.

Continuing on about the matinee show, overall, I feel good about how it went but I also
know that it could have been a lot better if we were aware of certain things, the first being
volume. For my King Harold part, I wasn’t miced, so I had to rely on the floor mics in order
to be heard. I was unfortunately given feedback after the show that I couldn’t be heard too
well and should have stood nearer to the front of the stage to be picked up by the mics
better. Moving onto the subject of quick changes, I successfully made it on stage in time for
Papa Bear by setting my costume, as well as my guard costume, in the corridor and wearing
my body suit underneath my King Harold costume. I also made it onto stage for the guard
scene but in the wrong costume which I mixed up for a knight costume, but this was still an
improvement to the dress rehearsal. Although I was in the wrong costume, I still gave a
good performance. The only quick change which was unsuccessful was the Duloc Dancers
where most of us didn’t make it on stage until halfway through the song. This was because I
hadn’t set this costume in the corridor or wore my body suit underneath – these were
changes I made for the evening show. Once I had made it on stage though I gave a
performance I was satisfied with as I didn’t make any mistakes and we got a good reception
from the audience. Next was the rat dance which luckily didn’t include a quick change
however the costumes gave us some problems. We had to wear masks which we couldn’t
really see well through and rabbits which attached to our shoes. Unless these rabbits were
clipped to our socks they would fall off and move, making them easy to slip on. Though the
costumes created some problems, we dealt with them well and got through the dance
without injury or too many mistakes. After that was Freak Flag which I am happy with how it
went, we were all confident with the lyrics and choreography so we could focus on
performance. The only issue was placement, there wasn’t enough space for me to dance
where I had been placed originally at times so I would have to move whilst trying not to be
too obvious. All that was left were big ensemble songs and scenes which we were all
confident with and I wasn’t the main focus.

Compared to the matinee show, I think that the evening show went better. Not necessarily
because less mistakes were made but because the audience were better and cheered us on
more. I also did all of my quick changes successfully. Unfortunately, I had the same problem
again with King Harold where I couldn’t be heard too well. My first Papa Bear scene went
well again and then it was the guard’s scene. This time, I wore the correct costume but
didn’t get a cape which made me look obviously different to the other guards. Despite this
though, I still performed well. As I already mentioned, I made it on in time for the Duloc
Dancers, but I made more mistakes during this show than the matinee. This was because we
all stood in the wrong spaces which created a lot of confusion on stage. We made a lot of
mistakes but still the audience seemed to really love it with it being my family’s favourite
part of the show. I think our confusion on stage suited our characters well, so it didn’t look
bad to the audience. With the rats, I think we performed better during the evening show. I
believe this was because we were more used to the costumes, and we had learned to clip
our rabbits to our socks so they wouldn’t fall off and be left behind on stage. I also made less
mistakes the second time. Freak Flag also went better the second time as we were more
used to the stage and the audience gave us more encouragement.

In conclusion, considering we had only two runs at Newcastle before the final shows I think
we did really well. The audience seemed to really enjoy both shows despite the many
mistakes that were made and all the principal characters did amazingly. I am satisfied with
my performance as it could have gone so much worse.