Courtney Kayser, operatic singer and senior in vocal performance and music, is playing the role of Fiona in “Shrek the Musical” at Ames Community Theater this summer.

Kayser loves to sing but not always in the typical play ensemble.

“There’s just something about music with the text that really strikes a chord in me. No pun intended, but it’s always inspired me to do more and keep searching for new things that I’ve never heard before,” Kayser said.

“Some plays are awesome and amazing, but it hasn’t really made me want to research and look into more things that might interest me.”

Kayser’s normal summer routine is to go home and help her hometown community theater where her mother is the director, but this year she is staying in Ames to continue her voice lessons, work at Fighting Burrito and gain more acting experience with ACTORS.

In addition to her work with her voice and burritos, her friends, the choreographers and music director for “Shrek the Musical,” told her that ACTORS was holding auditions for the musical.

“I’ve never seen the musical before. I’ve always loved the DreamWorks movie, but I became interested because it was a musical opportunity I wouldn’t have gotten if I would’ve gone back home,” Kayser said.

Besides school, work and acting, Kayser is involved with an opera studio through Iowa State’s music department.

The studio class does a one-act opera during the fall, which is usually a comedy. In the spring, the class stages arias, which are self-contained pieces for just one voice. An aria can be something that a student has been working on, or it can be something that they have to learn for the spring production. If time permits, they can do both.

“It teaches you how to sing in opera. But usually the people who join, because it’s also a class, have had some practice before, but they open it to anybody else who could be interested in it, who has the potential to be in it,” Kayser said.

Mary Creswell, associate professor of music, is the director of the opera studio. Jodi Goble is the opera vocal coach and accompanist for the music department and the studio.

“The director is also my voice professor. She’s kind of coaxed me earlier on to consider it because I thought I can’t handle this kind of stuff,” Kayser said. “Then when my voice started to mature more she said, ‘You know you really could get into this and succeed.’ It fell into place later on.”

Kayser is quite the busy bee and is becoming even busier with rehearsals for her role as Fiona starting this summer.

Getting into character may be a challenge since Fiona turns into an ogre, and Kayser said her personality can be bipolar.

“There’s a couple things that I can’t relate to her at all. She’s got that sort of naivete, princess, true love’s first kiss and very giggly,” Kayser said.

“She at one point talks about pink ponies and just being all perky and smiley and especially the song where she says, ‘I’m a morning person,’ which I am not.”

In other ways, Kayser can easily relate to Fiona, since she originally wanted the part of Dragon because of the attitude aspect.

“[Fiona] has a witty, sarcastic and sort of un-princess like demeanor where she’ll fart and burp and do things that women aren’t supposed to do,” Kayser said. “It’s different in the fact that I don’t feel like I’m so sugarcoated that I don’t feel like I’ll throw up all over myself. She’s human, she’s naive and she’s more realistic than most of the stuff you would see in a Disney film.”

Stan Rabe, one of the directors for the musical, chose Kayser for the part of Fiona because of her personality.

“We picked [Kayser] because she was perfect for the part and she had attitude. Fiona has chutzpah, and so does Courtney. I think she will be fun to work with, and this show is all about having fun,” Rabe said.

In order to create a musical with such a mystical environment, there were many roles that needed to be filled in order to create a magical musical.

“You have to have people who are great dancers, who have odd capabilities like staying on your knees the entire show like Lord Farquaad has to,” Kayser said. “[We needed] people who can stay in a really high voice for a long time, or people who are very animated, people who can burp or fart on command. You have to have a bunch of different skills and on top of that you have to have people who can do the behind-the-scenes stuff.”

“Shrek the Musical” requires a lot of dedicated workers but they know the work they put into it will pay off in June.

“This is the first show that everyone got excited about when we talked about doing the show. It is a huge show with lots of challenges, but everyone, from props and set building through directors and producers, are excited about the challenge,” Rabe said.

As Kayser graduates, her plans include taking a year off from school to prepare for auditions for graduate schools for music opera programs. If Kayser is not accepted to any graduate school, she plans on getting a day job and acting at night.

“Shrek the Musical” plays at 7:30 p.m. on June 12, 13, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26 and 27 and at 2:00 p.m. on June 14, 21 and 28 at the Ames Community Theater in Ames.