David Lindsay-Abaire wrote the lyrics and book for Shrek the Musical. According to stageways he was born in South Boston Massachusetts. Lindsay-Abaire wrote his first play in fourth grade for a Christmas pageant and wrote plays throughout high school. However, he thought of himself mostly as an actor. When David Lindsay-Abaire attended Sarah Lawrence College, he mainly focused on acting, but he did take playwriting to fill in his course schedules. In the article by stageways, it mentions how Lindsay-Abaire was first influenced by the work of writers such as John Guare, Christopher Durang, Eugene Ionesco, Anton Chekhov, and even the Three Stooges. It wasn’t until he enrolled at Juilliard in the late 1990s that he found true playwriting mentorship
