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Aug. 25th, 2019 08:52 amThere's a small theater company in Seattle - Hello Earth Productions - that performs works of classic sci-fi entertainment in a park. They started out doing Star Trek, which was delightful, and now are doing the original Star Wars trilogy. I sadly missed A New Hope last year but yesterday, I went to see them do Empire Strikes Back.
I love everything about this. I love the idea of re-performing and re-interpreting these movies, I love the appearance-blind casting that the company uses, I love the creativity in their costumes and special effects, which have to be performed in a park and produced for very little money. Discovering how certain effects or characters are going to be realized in the space is at least half the joy of attending. The other half is the audience: the outdoor theater is always completely packed and the crowd is extremely enthusiastic. And also encouraged to react loudly and to join in when appropriate. We all read the opening crawl together. We threw balls of paper for the asteroid field. Everyone made lightsaber and blaster noises and everyone audibly gasped when Vader was revealed to be Luke's father. Attending this is always one of the best audience experiences ever.
I can't wait till next year for Return of the Jedi.
( I took (very bad) pictures! )
I am sad that I couldn't get good pictures of the TIE fighters, who were people in Imperial blacks holding pairs of umbrellas, or the Star Destroyer, which was a huge silhouette pulled up on a string over the stage while other people in Imperial blacks threw paper airplanes at the crowd to simulate the fleet.
If anyone is in Seattle and isn't busy tonight, they have one last performance this evening before their season finishes for the summer. You should totally go.
I love everything about this. I love the idea of re-performing and re-interpreting these movies, I love the appearance-blind casting that the company uses, I love the creativity in their costumes and special effects, which have to be performed in a park and produced for very little money. Discovering how certain effects or characters are going to be realized in the space is at least half the joy of attending. The other half is the audience: the outdoor theater is always completely packed and the crowd is extremely enthusiastic. And also encouraged to react loudly and to join in when appropriate. We all read the opening crawl together. We threw balls of paper for the asteroid field. Everyone made lightsaber and blaster noises and everyone audibly gasped when Vader was revealed to be Luke's father. Attending this is always one of the best audience experiences ever.
I can't wait till next year for Return of the Jedi.
( I took (very bad) pictures! )
I am sad that I couldn't get good pictures of the TIE fighters, who were people in Imperial blacks holding pairs of umbrellas, or the Star Destroyer, which was a huge silhouette pulled up on a string over the stage while other people in Imperial blacks threw paper airplanes at the crowd to simulate the fleet.
If anyone is in Seattle and isn't busy tonight, they have one last performance this evening before their season finishes for the summer. You should totally go.
