Q - “Was it at all daunting for you to transform this wildly popular film into an equally loveable stage version?

A –“I think the thing that makes it less scary is the amazing heart of the story, which was there in the Steig book. Obviously the humor is there and we all love the irreverence, but it's also an emotionally driven story and, at the end of the day, those are the best things in a musical.
You wait for the moment in a musical when a song is going to crack open a character's heart and the audience has the opportunity to see inside of it. Shrek... has the depth to it that allows it to be different from the movie so long as that heart is there. That's what we've done, we've worked hard to make it our own. We love the source material, and it is the Shrek you know and love, but we also had to let go of it and make it our own and DreamWorks has been fantastic and supporting of that.”
Recently the picture above was put online at the shows official site quashing any doubt that the talented cast and crew are up for the challenge. It really is amazing what they can do with a Kong sized dollop of make up and the patience of a stealth assassin.

“Actor Brian d'Arcy James figures it took him about 2 hours and 15 minutes to make his first transformation into the title character of Shrek: The Musical.
He has repeated that process "a handful of times" and is down to less than 2 hours. "We'll streamline it a bit more as we move forward," he says.”

“Shrek begins a pre-Broadway run Thursday at 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle and officially opens there Sept. 10. Based on William Steig's children's book Shrek! and the first of the three DreamWorks animated films it inspired, the production then moves to New York to the Broadway Theatre to begin previews Nov. 8 in preparation for a Dec. 14 opening.”