Broadway Rewind: SHREK Celebrates a Fairytale Opening in 2008

As Broadway braces for a month of darkness, BroadwayWorld wants to make sure that you still get your theatre fix each and every day until April 13. In our daily series Broadway Rewind, we're uncovering footage from the depths of our archives so that you can relive magical moments of Broadway past!

We begin the series by looking back at Shrek The Musical, which opened at the Broadway Theatre on November 8, 2008. Featuring music by Jeanine Tesori and book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire, the musical featured a slew of Broadway favorites, including Sutton Foster, Brian d'Arcy James, John Tartaglia, Christopher Sieber, Daniel Breaker and more!

The musical played for just over a year (441 performances) on Broadway before launching a US tour in 2010 and a slightly re-vamped West End version in 2011.

"I remember that the opening night of Shrek the Musical was a big splashy affair at The Plaza Hotel," recalls BroadwayWorld's Richard Ridge. "It was an extra special night for the company, but most importantly for Sutton Foster, because Cameron Diaz, who voiced Princess Fiona in the film, was such a supporter of the show and so gracious to Sutton. Not only did she come to the opening night, but she had also seen the show the night before. It's priceless to hear Sutton say that Fiona is the closest role to herself- that she can be goofy, and dorky and fart and have fun. Hilarious! And Christopher Sieber, who played Lord Farquaad, went from being 6'2'' to 4'2''. The creative team told him to go farther and farther with the role and he did! Of course Brian d'Arcy James, who played Shrek himself, recalled that they had worked really hard to make the show as perfect as they could and that the audience is icing on the cake and that everything leading up to opening night had been equally energetic and fantastic and it was such a magical night."

watch as we transport you back to 2008 for opening night, and when you're done, watch the full musical from the comfort of your couch on Netflix!

Be sure to check back tomorrow as we take another trip down memory lane.