Day 32: Donkey the Musical

2026-03-10

Limited permission was granted to use photos taken for these events on this site.

Hello! This is related to that unnamed production event I was talking about last week. I didn't name it outright because I didn't know if I would be able to get a good photo of the event to share. But I do, and I'm here to share a story.

I was part of a pit band / pit orchestra for a high school production of Shrek the Musical (note: that YouTube Music playlist does not have the exact set of pieces we played, but it's similar). Yeah, I didn't know there was a musical for Shrek until they told me to sign up for it. I played ukulele.

It's called Shrek the Musical, but one of the characters says "Fiona the Musical" in the actual script, so here I am, being clever and titling this photo as "Donkey the Musical". Also, because, y'know, there's a donkey right there. How do I explain this one?

Our school's student government had the bright idea to bring two donkeys in for our final runs of the musical play; I bet it was for the publicity. Hey — it worked; all our shows were booked to capacity (first time in a long while). Count it as a success.

Donkeys smell bad and they get spooked if you stand or walk behind them. Despite that, I set up my camera on a tripod and got the band to get a group photo behind the donkey. I don't know what I was expecting the final image to look like, but I should have extended the tripod legs a bit further to lift the camera over the donkey to see more of us.

I loved being in our pit band — we're all a bunch of weirdos and nerds that love music. Playing music and staying in game mode for three hours was exhilarating. And I'm including the pre-show prep and intermission in that time because I was in a rush, keeping my instruments in tune, fixing any equipment that needed to be fixed, and absorbing that showbiz show buzz that everyone gets. It was awesome.

Thank you for visiting this blog! Special thanks to the newsletter subscribers; you get this photo a week before the internet does :-).

Cheers,
David