Description
Collector's Note – Why This Issue Matters
The 2009 Broadway Playbill for Shrek The Musical, featuring Ben Crawford and Sutton Foster in the leading roles, is a primary document of one of the most ambitious and technically spectacular Broadway productions of the decade — a show that represented the theatrical industry's response to the challenge of adapting a major animated film franchise for the live stage at a moment when that challenge was both commercially irresistible and artistically daunting. Shrek The Musical opened at the Broadway Theatre on December 14, 2008, following a tryout in Seattle, and ran through January 2010. The production was notable for its extraordinary makeup and prosthetics work — the transformation of human performers into the film's beloved characters required some of the most elaborate character makeup Broadway had ever attempted — and for its determination to honor the irreverent, sardonic spirit of the original DreamWorks Animation film while creating something that worked as a theatrical experience in its own right. Ben Crawford, who played the title role, had to perform under several pounds of foam and latex prosthetics eight times a week, a physical achievement that the production's critics and audiences consistently marveled at. Sutton Foster, in the role of Princess Fiona, was one of Broadway's most acclaimed musical theatre performers of her generation — a Tony Award winner for Thoroughly Modern Millie in 2002 who had established herself as one of the foremost singing actresses of her era, and whose presence in this production gave it a vocal and comedic authority that the animated film's voice cast could not quite replicate in live performance terms. Collectors building an archive of significant Broadway Playbills from this period will find the Playbills collection at OriginalMagazines.com the most comprehensive resource for productions across the full span of Broadway history.
The 2009 date of this Playbill places it in a specific and interesting context within the broader history of animated film adaptations on Broadway. The 2000s had seen a wave of major studio properties making the transition to the stage — The Lion King had pioneered the form in 1997, The Little Mermaid arrived on Broadway in 2008, and Billy Elliot and Mary Poppins were running contemporaneously with Shrek — and the commercial and artistic questions surrounding these adaptations were being debated with increasing seriousness by critics and industry observers. Shrek The Musical occupied a particular position in this conversation: it was adapting not a classical animated film but a post-modern, self-aware franchise that had built much of its appeal on its ironic relationship to the fairy tale tradition it was simultaneously celebrating and subverting. The show's creative team — book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire, music by Jeanine Tesori — were working with material that was already sophisticated about its own relationship to theatrical convention, and the resulting production was praised for its wit and visual imagination even by critics who questioned whether animated properties needed Broadway adaptations at all. A Playbill from the 2009 run captures the production in its active Broadway life, with the specific cast configuration that gave it its most celebrated form, making it a primary document of a significant moment in the continuing evolution of the Broadway adaptation as a commercial and artistic form. The 2009 magazines collection at OriginalMagazines.com provides context for the full landscape of American entertainment publishing in the year this Playbill was distributed.
Sutton Foster's presence in this Playbill gives it particular significance for collectors of Broadway memorabilia who track individual careers through the documentation they generate. By 2009, Foster had established herself as one of the defining musical theatre performers of her generation — a combination of technical vocal ability, physical comedy, and emotional authenticity that made her the go-to choice for major leading roles requiring all three simultaneously. Her Princess Fiona was widely praised as one of the highlights of the production, and the Playbill that documents her in this role is a piece of her career archive at a specific and historically significant point in its development, before the additional Tony Award for Anything Goes in 2011 and the subsequent television work that expanded her public profile beyond the theatrical world.
About the Publication
Playbill is the program magazine distributed to audiences at Broadway and other major American theatrical productions, published continuously since 1884 and representing the primary documentary record of individual productions at the level of cast, creative team, production history, and institutional context. Its format combines production-specific content — cast lists, creative credits, production notes, and biographical information — with advertising and general interest content relevant to the theatrical community. A Playbill for a specific production is simultaneously a souvenir of a live performance experience and a primary historical document of the production's personnel and context, and its value as a collectible derives from both dimensions. The 2009 Broadway Playbills for major commercial productions represent the documentation of a specific and significant chapter in Broadway's early twenty-first-century history, when the animated film adaptation had become one of the most commercially dominant forms in the industry.
Key Highlights Inside
- Ben Crawford as Shrek — documentation of Crawford's performance in one of the most physically demanding roles in Broadway history, requiring elaborate prosthetics and makeup that represented the state of the art in theatrical character transformation, in a production that tested the limits of what live performance could accomplish in the service of animated film source material.
- Sutton Foster as Princess Fiona — a piece of Foster's career archive at a significant point in her development as one of Broadway's foremost musical theatre performers, documenting her engagement with a role that required the specific combination of vocal power, physical comedy, and emotional grounding that had made her one of the most sought-after leading ladies of her generation.
- Creative team documentation — the Playbill's credit pages record the contributions of book writer David Lindsay-Abaire and composer Jeanine Tesori, two of the most significant figures in contemporary musical theatre, whose collaboration on Shrek The Musical represents a documented moment in both their careers as well as in the broader history of the Broadway adaptation form.
- Broadway Theatre production context — documentation of a major commercial Broadway production at the Broadway Theatre, one of the largest houses on the Great White Way, in the specific year when the animated adaptation wave was at its most commercially active and critically contested.
- Note on additional interior content: Specific articles, biographical notes, and production essays beyond the standard Playbill format elements are unconfirmed from available sourcing for this individual issue. The highlights above reflect what is verifiable from the named cast members, production title, venue, and year, and the Playbill's well-documented editorial format.
Condition & Rarity
A Very Good to Excellent condition grade for a 2009 Broadway Playbill represents a meaningfully well-preserved example of a publication that was distributed as a free souvenir to audience members and that was therefore subject to the handling conditions typical of live performance attendance — folding into pockets, bags, and coat pockets, and subsequent storage in whatever form the recipient found most convenient. Playbills that survive in VG/Excellent condition are those that passed directly from the performance into deliberate archival storage rather than through the casual handling that most audience-distributed programs experience. Light wear typical of the item's age is an honest disclosure for a sixteen-year-old program publication, and does not materially diminish collector value when the cover art and interior credits are intact and legible. The plastic protective covering indicates deliberate preservation and more careful storage than an unprotected Playbill would typically receive. For a production featuring Sutton Foster at a specific and historically significant point in her Broadway career, condition grades in the VG/Excellent range represent the standard at which serious collectors of Broadway memorabilia acquire and archive their holdings.
Looking for More Issues Like This?
Broadway Playbills from significant productions of the 2000s — and the 2009 Shrek The Musical Playbill with Sutton Foster and Ben Crawford is among the more sought examples from the animated adaptation era — are consistently in demand from collectors of musical theatre history and performance memorabilia. If you're building a collection of significant Broadway Playbills across the full history of the form, the Playbills collection at OriginalMagazines.com is the most comprehensive place to explore what's currently available. The 2009 magazines collection offers broader context from a year that was consequential across American entertainment culture, including Broadway's most commercially ambitious season of the decade.