Summer Dramatics brings ‘Shrek’ to life
BUTLER TWP — One green ogre’s far-away swamp is getting a fairy tale reimagining next week at Butler County Community College’s Succop Theater.
Children and adults alike will recognize beloved characters like Shrek, Princess Fiona, Donkey and Lord Farquaad in a fresh take on the older, enchanting tale.
Yet rather than the classic 2001 movie, Butler’s Summer Dramatics Project is putting on “Shrek the Musical” with about 70 passionate young adults ranging in age from 10 to 25 years old.
“It might be controversial,” said Mia McGrady, who has been in three different productions of “Shrek the Musical” and is playing Princess Fiona in the Summer Dramatics production, “but I like the musical better than the movie.”
The roughly two-and-a-half hour production, which runs Friday, July 24, through Sunday, July 26, features rambunctious fun for the whole family. Keen-eyed audience members might also pick up on references to pop culture and other musicals like “A Chorus Line” and “Gypsy.”
Patryk Lyon is set to star as Shrek, McGrady as Princess Fiona, Zack Marra as Donkey and Brandon Pierce as Lord Farquaad.
“I couldn’t have asked for better,” director Larry Stock said of the chemistry between Shrek, Donkey and Fiona.
Lyon brings to life Shrek’s opening up to the friendship, companionship and love that is possible in his life despite the fact that he is an ogre.
Shrek has been “stuck in his head for so long about how the world despises him and how he’ll never be able to live among anybody else,” Lyon said. He is “trying to show that slow transition of, ‘Oh, maybe I can have people in my life that care about me.’”
McGrady is working on her comedy chops as the headstrong, iron-willed princess, who turns into an ogre at night.
“This is my first comedic role,” she said. “But there’s a lot more to Fiona than just being goofy and funny. She’s also very, very strong-willed, which is something different than you see in princesses a lot.”
With fairy tale favorites like Pinocchio, the Three Little Pigs, the Sugar Plum Fairy, the Wicked Witch and more, audiences will enjoy getting to watch their favorite characters come to life.
“The young adults that we cast have done so beautifully working together, getting their lines together,” said Marissa Wagner, the musical’s assistant director. “The harmonies of some of the music we have this year are just beautiful.”
Wagner and Stock said that the music is both beautiful and difficult to sing, but the cast is “nailing it.”
Costume designer Naomi Wagner has her work cut out for her, working with the cast to create costumes that are authentic to the range of characters portrayed on stage.
The Summer Dramatics Project’s aim is to involve the youth and the young adult in a capacity that is all their own, Wagner said.
“It’s to teach them theater, it’s to teach them about musicals.”
Summer Dramatics has been a summer staple in Butler since the 1960s, and was reinvented to what it is today by former longtime director Gordon Cavalero in the 1990s.
Cavalero died last summer, a week before the Summer Dramatics 2025 production of “Grease.”
The Summer Dramatics shows will run 7:30 p.m. Friday, July 24; 7:30 p.m. Saturday, July 25; and 2 p.m. Sunday, July 26 at Butler County Community College’s Succop Theater.
Tickets range between $15 and $18 and can be purchased at https://summerdramaticsproject.ludus.com/index.php.
