#1
Posted: 4/18/08 at 7:38am
Jennifer Cody, currently seen Off-Broadway in JUNIE B. JONES, will be in the cast of SHREK.
From Playbill:
Question:. And how about Shrek? When will you start working on that show?
Cody: We start rehearsals June 5, I think. We did the eight-week workshop.
Question: How's the score to Shrek?
Cody: It's great. Well, there's so many good things about Shrek in that, one, there's a lot of money involved, [which allows] the opportunity to do things right. We did an eight-week workshop where, for three weeks, we never got up from our chairs. We just talked about the characters and talked about how they spoke and how they sang. You never get that opportunity anymore. . . . We have a full 20-piece orchestra. I love it because every character has a different voice. There are some that sing soulfully and some that sing rock and some that sing musical theatre. I think it's a very unique score. I think everyone will have their opinions about whether that works or doesn't work, but [composer] Jeanine Tesori is a brilliant woman. And, David Lindsay-Abaire is doing the lyrics for the first time. He's never done lyrics before, and he's such a smart, witty man. They're really smart lyrics.
Question: Who are you playing in the musical?
Cody: As of the workshop, I was the Asthmatic Elf. What they did was they hired 13 of us, and we all got to sit around and develop characters based on fairytale creatures and make our own stories. They've woven these stories in so that no one is one-dimensional. Everybody has a relationship to both Shrek and the princess, so it's not like the movie, where it's just about them. It's actually about a whole world of freaks, basically.
Question: Have you seen any of the costume designs or set designs?
Cody: I've seen the sets. It's amazing. Again, because they have money, Dreamworks — I guess they just go to these talented people and say, "Show us what it's going to look like!" They do these crazy mockups of animated screen things on the computer. The set is so much like a movie in that the trees actually grow leaves throughout the show. It's truly spectacular! If it looks like it did on the computer, it's going to be like nothing anyone's ever seen.
http://www.playbill.com/news/article/116876.html
From Playbill:
Question:. And how about Shrek? When will you start working on that show?
Cody: We start rehearsals June 5, I think. We did the eight-week workshop.
Question: How's the score to Shrek?
Cody: It's great. Well, there's so many good things about Shrek in that, one, there's a lot of money involved, [which allows] the opportunity to do things right. We did an eight-week workshop where, for three weeks, we never got up from our chairs. We just talked about the characters and talked about how they spoke and how they sang. You never get that opportunity anymore. . . . We have a full 20-piece orchestra. I love it because every character has a different voice. There are some that sing soulfully and some that sing rock and some that sing musical theatre. I think it's a very unique score. I think everyone will have their opinions about whether that works or doesn't work, but [composer] Jeanine Tesori is a brilliant woman. And, David Lindsay-Abaire is doing the lyrics for the first time. He's never done lyrics before, and he's such a smart, witty man. They're really smart lyrics.
Question: Who are you playing in the musical?
Cody: As of the workshop, I was the Asthmatic Elf. What they did was they hired 13 of us, and we all got to sit around and develop characters based on fairytale creatures and make our own stories. They've woven these stories in so that no one is one-dimensional. Everybody has a relationship to both Shrek and the princess, so it's not like the movie, where it's just about them. It's actually about a whole world of freaks, basically.
Question: Have you seen any of the costume designs or set designs?
Cody: I've seen the sets. It's amazing. Again, because they have money, Dreamworks — I guess they just go to these talented people and say, "Show us what it's going to look like!" They do these crazy mockups of animated screen things on the computer. The set is so much like a movie in that the trees actually grow leaves throughout the show. It's truly spectacular! If it looks like it did on the computer, it's going to be like nothing anyone's ever seen.
http://www.playbill.com/news/article/116876.html
Tonya Pinkins: Then we had a "Lot's Wife" last June that was my personal favorite. I'm still trying to get them to let me sing it at some performance where we get to sing an excerpt that's gone.
Tony Kushner: You can sing it at my funeral.
Tony Kushner: You can sing it at my funeral.
