By Holly McGuinness
Keilor Downs College (KDC) students have been busy rehearsing their shrektacular first school musical in two years.
‘Shrek the musical’ will run from Wednesday, August 3 through to Saturday, August 6 at 7:30pm at the Keilor Downs College school gym and is supported by their music and media teacher Ryan McRobb.
“It’s been a roller coaster post COVID, with just heartbreak the last two years… So we thought we would just keep it kind of light and fun with Shrek,” said Ryan.
Star Weekly caught up with a few of the characters, Ruby plays Fiona, Kiriama plays Shrek, Ongegu plays Pinocchio, Kayla plays the knight and Christina plays the Pied Piper and doubles as the show’s dance captain.
Ruby, who usually plays basketball rather than dancing, said it’s a great experience to bring students together, “it’s a family that you can’t really escape and your bond gets stronger with everyone else in the school.” echoed by Kayla, who said “we’ve all formed a special bond within the musical, so you can just rely on each other and support each other through.”
The students said they were excited to choose Shrek as an out of the box option that’s been an interesting journey.
”Two years have gone by and you come back to these fresh faces, so I think building that community again is fun but challenging at the same time,” said Ongegu.
For main characters Fiona and Shrek played by Ruby and Kiriama they’re nervous but have taken so much from the experience “Juggling the belting out and all of the emotion is so new to me, to belt out or sing in front of a large group, it’s been about learning more about myself and doing that in front of a large group of people” said Ruby.
“The lead characters, they might be center stage or whatever, but it’s all the people in the back too, the supporting characters, the ensemble, everything they do, helps contribute to the overall vibe of the show and the atmosphere,” said Kiriama.
Practicing over four hours a week and almost every lunch time in the lead up to the show, students are eager to show the community what they’ve got and get as many butts in seats for this years shrek-tastic musical next month.
Tickets: www.trybooking.com/events/landing?eid=916032&
