Shrek book/music changes

[dwwst12]

Posted: 3/10/20 at 9:06pm

I saw the First National Tour of Shrek in 2011, and have since watched the OBC production on Netflix and listened to the album about 8,000 times with my kids.

I knew back then that they had inserted "Forever" in place of "Donkey Pot Pie," but I don't remember if there were other changes, since the original is now so ingrained in my head.

Fast forward to Sunday, when my family and I saw it at our local high school.  There were a *bunch* of changes to both the book and songs -- including a near-total overhaul of the lyrics of "Build a Wall," which made zero sense to me.  There was a lot of stuff about building a mote.

Were these changes in the tour, and I just don't remember them??  Have they been made to the script since, or was this a "Junior" version (I wouldn't think so, at a high school).

Thanks for any help from other Shrek fans!

[SouthernCakes]

Posted: 3/10/20 at 9:54pm

I did the show 2 summers ago, professional / regional production and don’t remember many changes besides “Forever.” And recently went in for Shrek in “Shrek,” and it was the “Build A Wall” that I’ve listen to on them album a few times?

[TheGingerBreadMan]

Posted: 3/10/20 at 10:14pm

Since you mentioned that "Build A Wall" was included in the show, I know that it wouldn't have been the junior or TYA version - that song is cut from both editions.

[Ledaero]

Posted: 3/10/20 at 11:07pm

Worked on the show this past summer and as of 9 months ago the licensed version is the tour. My best guess would be that the production you saw took liberties and made changes on their own, with or without the permission of MTI. 

[darquegk]

Posted: 3/11/20 at 10:43am

The licensing roll-out for Shrek was a messy one; for a while several different versions of the score and libretto were circulating at once through MTI. I think eventually things were finalized into the tour version being the default.

 

I remember doing the show in 2012 or 2013, and the libretto having a completely different opening number than the score; when I did the show again in 2017 or 2018 it was a different version and some lines and bits we remembered from last time were gone but this time everything matched.

[dwwst12]

Posted: 3/11/20 at 11:41am

OK, interesting -- so here is the actual script that I saw performed, which turned up in a Google search for Shrek Musical Script.

Someone just scanned it in, so it's not searchable, but it contains all the changes that I saw.

It's marked "PRE-RELEASE DRAFT COPY," for whatever that's worth.

Very, very weird.

[The Rural Juror]

Posted: 3/12/20 at 8:14am

I'm currently directing the show with high school students. I have a copy of the script that was licensed to a theatre in the fall of 2014, and the only difference in the scripts we got in 2020 is the editing of the Big Bad Wolf's line in "Story of My Life" to eliminate an insensitive term. 

In terms of differences to the OBC recording, there are tons. Lots of differences in the opening, which includes Fiona's parents and her as a little girl. Most other changes seem to be for the sake of making it easier for amateur theaters from a technical standpoint. The elimination of the Magic Mirror is an example that immediately springs to mind.