Noah Carlin (11) and Hayley Dougherty (11) will be playing the characters Shrek and Fiona in this year’s musical, Shrek: The Musical. 

“I was really excited, after all it’s a lot of hard work because this department has a reputation for being pretty good,” Carlin said. “Mostly I’m in shock, I don’t think I’ve processed it yet, it comes in little bursts of when it starts to sink in that this is for real,” Dougherty said.

This is not the first time either Carlin or Dougherty have been the lead in a show. Just last year, Carlin played the character ‘Edward Bloom’ in the school’s production of Big Fish, and this past summer Dougherty portrayed ‘Veronica Sawyer’ in Heathers at Upstage Arts. “Veronica is a completely different role from Fiona in a way that she is a lot darker character than Fiona is, she’s very tried and true while Fiona sort of struggles with who she is,” Dougherty said.

She said that they will be rehearsing almost every day for the next three months, which she loves.

Carlin said, “It is almost every day of the week, sometimes weekends, and I do have a lot of lines and songs to learn, but I’ve been doing this my whole life, so it is nothing different than other stuff I have done.”

Many people already have a perception of what Shrek will be about as it is a well-known story, but Carlin said there is so much more to the story behind this musical.

“When someone sees it, they should be open to the characters and how they relate to the real world instead of their cartoon characters,” he said.

Audiences will be able to see both Carlin and Dougherty as Shrek and Fiona when the musical is presented this spring.