Top: Luis Espinal Peralta as Shrek and Elijah Wilson as Lord Farquaad. Bottom: Terrance Moore as a scene-stealing Pinocchio. Lucy Gellman Photos.
In the center of the stage, Shrek was at a crossroads. In front of him, the road to Duloc beckoned. Behind, there was a web of misunderstanding he didn’t know how to untangle. Two green ears, pea-colored perfect ovals shaped like spring flowers, sprouted from the crown of his head. Princess Fiona, dressed in deep green velvet, jogged out towards him with a sense of urgency.
“Shrek!” she announced, and it felt as though the whole room leaned in to catch every word. In the back, a sibling waved animatedly at the stage. “I have something to tell you!”
“You don’t have to tell me anything,” he snapped back, an edge of hurt to his voice. Somewhere in the wings, not even a trusty Donkey could make this moment better. “I heard enough last night”
A master class in learning to be one’s true self—and communicate with others more clearly— came to the stage at Hill Central Music Academy Friday, as fifth through eighth grade students mounted a sweet performance of Shrek, Jr. for a packed auditorium of friends, family, and adoring siblings. Directed by Becca Corbin and Jaclyn Chiarelli—who have become beloved theatrical magic-makers at the school—the show included a cast and crew of over two dozen students, many of whom have never acted in a play before.
“I think I chose to do Shrek because I thought it would speak to our students and community,” said Corbin Thursday night, after a final tech rehearsal that had students in costume for the first time. “Especially with everything going on in our country right now, this is a show that will unify and create a community on stage. The message that ‘What makes us special makes us strong’ really really sticks out!”
And from the beginning of the show to the end, it does. Based on the 2001 movie of the same name, Shrek, Jr. follows the titular Shrek (Luis Espinal Peralta), a fluorescent green ogre on a quest to reclaim his swamp from a fleet of fairy tale characters (Jordan Longford as Gingy and a standout Terrance Moore as Pinocchio, among others). Neither of them have done anything wrong: the creatures have been annexed from the fictitious kingdom of Duloc because they are different, and Shrek wants his swamp because that’s how ogres roll.
When he brings the proposal to Lord Farquaad (Elijah Wilson, who leans into the haughtiness and humor of the role), he gets a trade: bring Farquaad a princess who happens to be trapped in a tower with a fire-breathing dragon (Sophianyelik Pacheco Ramirez as Fiona), and Farquaad will grant him his swamp. Oh, and there's a comically-inclined Donkey (Jilyenie Nieves) along for the ride. No big, right?
Except Fiona is living with a quiet curse, and the two lowkey have chemistry (including fart jokes, because this is middle school after all), setting the audience up for a love story, rather than a genteel kidnapping. The alchemy, for these young actors, is peeling away the layers of misunderstanding and assumptions that got them there, one line and bar of music at a time.
At a tech rehearsal Thursday afternoon, that sense of discovery was palpable, as a dazzling, organized kind of chaos in a first-floor music room slowly gave way to a full run-through on stage. The day before, Corbin and Chiarelli had lost a rehearsal when the district announced early dismissal due to extreme heat. Now, a small army of volunteers called out students’ names, with costumes that ranged from heavy, emerald-green dresses to headbands with floppy, pink pig ears. A few jogged to the cafeteria, where they would change from mere mortals into fairytale characters.
Top: Mikaella Jimenez and Luiseirys Martinez. Bottom: The ensemble welcomes the audience to Duloc.
As students milled around the music room, sixth graders Mikaella Jimenez and Luiseirys Martinez shook off their pre-show jitters, working to get in the right headspace. As members of the ensemble, both were initially not sure about being in the play, too nervous that they might flub a line or forget the choreography in front of an audience. Mikaella, who was in Aladdin, Jr. last year, didn’t know if she’d made the right call.
“It was fun, but I was really nervous,” she said. “I just kept going.”
“Like you forced yourself to push through,” Luiseirys chimed in. In the show, she helped form the long, snake-like body of the fire-breathing dragon, fearsome enough to make this reporter’s two year-old whimper and quake from their seat on opening night. She explained that despite her nerves, she stuck with it as a way to make friends, and hone her public speaking skills.
“It’s all about the fun new things you can do and ways to spend time with other people,” she said, adding that it gives her a chance to represent her first home of Salinas, Puerto Rico in her second home of New Haven. “I would recommend it to anyone. It might be embarrassing but it’s all about having fun.”
“Okay crew, go get the stage set up!” Corbin called out from across the room, and a knot of students magically rose and scurried out of the room, toward the cafeteria. She returned to a rack of costumes, each hanger labelled with a student’s name. “Go track the props!”
The dream team in action: Chiarelli and Corbin.
Inside the gymnasium, students practiced their lines, some running over choreography with Southern Connecticut State University professor Larry Nye. Nye, who teaches theater, started volunteering at the school last year, after Drama Department Chair Mike Skinner saw what Chiarelli and Corbin were building, and offered to help out. As Skinner set up light cues, Nye two-stepped beside the stage, doing jazz hands that melted into a turn.
Seventh grader Nylah Carter, who plays Shrek’s Mama Ogre and an Ugly Duckling, buzzed around the space, gathering her thoughts before the show. As a shy person, “I just get scared” in the spotlight, she said. After seeing how Aladdin, Jr. helped her face her anxiety last year, she returned to the stage as a way to overcome her fears. A big part of that is Corbin and Chiarelli, she added: “they’re patient and they help us.”
It’s no wonder, in fact, that multiple students interviewed said they think of the duo—both of whom have young kids at home—as bonus parents, or aunts, or the cool fairy godmothers they didn’t know they needed. Seventh grader Zyannalis Rodriguez, who played Pig Number Two, credited the two with helping her feel comfortable onstage. Of her two lines, the first ("We can hearrrrr you!”) has taken on a symbolic kind of meaning, as she herself feels more heard onstage and off.
“I’ve never been on stage in front of people and I’m kind of scared,” but she’s pushing forward to challenge herself, she said. “When you get older, if you have a job or something, you have to face your fears.”
She looked back toward the stage, where the Big Bad Wolf was practicing what looked like a runway-ready entrance. “Crew, did we account for all the props?” Corbin asked from a desk nearby. A muffled, cacophonous “yesss!” came from a dozen different places in the room.
Francine Van Campen, Sophianyelik Pacheco Ramirez, and Sofia Gonzalez as young, adult, and teenage Fiona.
That courage, sometimes with a chaotic edge, carried over to the rehearsal itself, which pushed forward even when whispers rose from backstage or an actor dropped a line, and another stepped in quickly to improvise. As narrators Francine Van Campen, Amayah Erskine, and Karen Chung Nolasco took the stage, Francine moved into the spotlight with ease, excited as she began to unspool the story of Shrek’s journey out into the world.
“Once upon a time, there was a little ogre named Shrek, who lived with his parents in a bog by a tree,” she announced. Around her, paper-and-cardboard trees sprang up from the floor, turning a corner of the gymnasium into a forest. Over the next hour and change, it would become the Kingdom of Duloc, a guarded castle under lock and key, and a thick, muddy swamp.
“It was a pretty nasty place, but he was happy, because ogres like nasty,” Amayah took over.
In a make-believe bog, a young Shrek (Anderson Zuhmi Garcia) bid his parents adieu as he prepared to make his way out in the big, wide world. His mama (Nylah Carter) and dad (Yavier Pacheco) leaned in and began to croon, their voices rising in the sticky, thick heat of the gymnasium to meet the music.
You’re growing up so quickly! Nylah sang, her voice weaving in and out of the soundtrack, and it was hard not to feel a short, tight squeeze in one’s chest. It was a scene, perhaps, that would play out in many of New Haven’s own kitchens, living rooms, classrooms and backyards in a month’s time, as eighth graders and high school seniors stepped into new academic and personal chapters of their own, some leaving home and switching schools for the first time.
Even in that liminal space of after-school activities, a calm settled over the gym-turned-auditorium. Shrek made his way into the world, and in New Haven, Luis learned firsthand what it can mean for people to share space, solve arguments and communicate through their differences. Three Fionas (Francine Van Campen, Sofia Gonzalez, and Sophianyelik Pacheco Ramirez) came together onstage, fretting over their fate as they pored over books of fairytales, much like those some students might have at home.
As Elijah Wilson as Lord Farquaad made his way onto the stage, he mined the role for its comical edge, sometimes smiling so hard it seemed that he might break character and bring other actors into the laughter with him. Beneath the spotlight, he knelt down on both knees, until it seemed as though he was a full head shorter than he in fact is. Around him, that sense of giddiness was contagious: ensemble members nailed the timing in “What’s Up, Duloc,” voices swirling around each other as they found the right places to pause in “Please keep off the grass / Shine your shoes, wipe your … face.”
But it was Jilyenie, who is headed to Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School in the fall, to whom so much of the show belonged. From the jump, she made it clear that she wasn’t there to play, with a keen sense of timing that made her silences as weighted and delightful as her lines. As she befriended Shrek, a silly, talkative exterior gave way to something deeper, a kind of go-between with U.N.-level peacekeeping skills, and more wingman energy than Sebastian circa “Kiss The Girl.”
By the time she slipped into “Make A Move,” she seemed as though she had been made for the role, with a butter-smooth Mmm-mmm-hhmm between verses that she rapped with ease. It seemed right on time when two members of the ensemble, seemingly out of nowhere, jogged into midair flips behind her. In the final performance Friday, she dazzled, making sure lines landed with as much panache as they did volume.
When Corbin and Chiarelli were first deciding on a show, the two gravitated toward Shrek for not only its message, but also its large ensemble, which allowed over three dozen students to step onto the stage, sometimes for the first time. Thursday and again on opening night, any person who stumbled into the auditorium could see why. Actors helped each other out, some hopping in with an improvised line or extra set of hands. At their desks by the stage, Corbin and Chiarelli cheered them on every step of the way.
“We have such a variety of kids on stage from all different academic abilities and ethnic [and] cultural backgrounds, but none of that matters in theater and music,” Chiarelli said Thursday night. “The show tells us all to be who you are, and don’t care about what anyone else says!”