St. Francis brings ‘Shrek’ to life
A beloved contemporary fairytale will be brought to life onstage this week as St. Francis Junior High Performing Arts presents “Shrek the Musical JR.”
Close to 100 students are ready to bring energy, enthusiasm, music and laughter to the school’s gymnasium as they recreate all the favourite characters based on the Oscarwinning DreamWorks Animation film and Broadway musical.
Grade 9 student Aaliyah Jansma is excited to play a lead role in the production as the feisty Princess Fiona.
Being her third production at the school, Jansma is no stranger to the long hours needed to prepare.
“There were a lot of lines to memorize, a lot of songs to go over, but with hard work you get there,” she said.
Even though she hasn’t watched all of the “Shrek” movies, Jansma said she loved working on the musical.
Zachary Kawa, who stars as everyone’s favourite ogre, Shrek, agreed.
“It’s a lot of fun,” he said. “Just being on stage and singing with my friends.”
Kawa has also acted in other school productions, including the Lion King last year. Along with memorizing lines, the hardest part for him was putting emotion into the words “to make it sound more Shreklike” he said.
By coming to watch the production, Kawa hopes the audience will see “just how fun musical theatre” can be.
Musical theatre has become a major part of the culture at St. Francis Junior High, said Chris Hartman, the production’s vocal director.
“The kids buy into it from the beginning. They get really excited,” said Hartman. “They love working as a team and they’re very supportive of each other off the bat. Every day they give us energy through their energy.”
Many staff members are also involved, including the production’s director Dino Caputo and choreographer Kristen Mazucca.
Auditions for the production started last October. Since then, the school has made use of every space in the school to build the set design, and for the past two weeks the physical education department has given up the gymnasium in favour of the stage.
Many hours went into the creation of the costumes as well, thanks to the dedication of a parent volunteer.
“The effort that is involved in making the costumes, also building the set, making sure the kids are fed during rehearsal, it’s just an enormous amount of man hours that gets put into everything, so it really is a collaborative effort,” said Hartman. “Our entire staff buys in in order to make this possible. If that didn’t happen, we wouldn’t be able to do this.”
Hartman hopes the seats will be filled for the production and that they’ll walk away smiling, dancing, and singing the songs.
“We just hope it puts a smile on their face because we sure had a great time putting it together.”
The show runs nightly at 7 p.m. Tuesday through Friday. Three performances are scheduled for Saturday - at noon, 2:30 p.m. and 6 p.m.
Tickets are $10 each, and available by calling 403-327-3402.
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