One Man Star Wars Trilogy
is an Off-Broadway play based on the original Star Wars
trilogy, written and performed by Canadian actor Charles Ross, and directed by TJ Dawe. It premiered in Toronto, Ontario in January, 2001, and has since toured worldwide, with over 1,000 performances in 119 cities as of March 2007. [1]
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ONE MAN STAR WARS TRILOGY TICKETS
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One man play
First performed at The Pavilion Theatre, in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada, the play runs for 75 minutes (although earlier incarnations lasted for one hour) and has only one cast member. Ross plays all the characters, recreates the effects, inserts factoids when appropriate, sings from the
John Williams score, flies the ships, and fights both sides of the battles. The inspiration came from playing
frisbee with friends; the thrower would say a line from the movies, and the catcher had to say the following line while catching.
[2]
His impersonation of
R2-D2 has been described as spot on,
[3] but Ross himself has said, "I've always thought my
Yoda voice sounded too much like a goblin sucking helium."
[4] Ross has purportedly seen the original trilogy over 400 times.
The show is licensed by
Lucasfilm.
Charles Ross has also used the concept with other film trilogies, including "One Man
Lord of the Rings", which was performed from 2004 to 2005.
Ross was asked to stop performing by the
intellectual property holder.
The legal issues have since been sorted out and he performed the "One Man Lord of the Rings" show at the 2009
Edinburgh Fringe.
Performances
Charles Ross's show has gone from a piece performed mostly at
fringe festivals to a touring show with sold-out crowds and
television appearances. He's been on
NBC's "
Late Night with Conan O'Brien"
[5] and
CBS's "
Late Late Show".
Ross has performed the show for
Vin Diesel and the rest of the cast on the set of "
The Chronicles of Riddick",
at the world science fiction convention masquerade half time show (
Noreascon) in 2004, at the Star Wars
Celebration III and IV [6], and
Comic-Con International 2004 in
San Diego, CA . He also hosted a month long sold out run at the
Edinburgh Fringe in the
E4 Cow Barn.
References
- The Sydney Morning Herlad Blogs: Entertainment - Charles Ross
- How the One Man Star Wars Trilogy Works (part 1)
- One-Man Star Wars Trilogy - New York Review
- Star Wars: Community - Comic-Con International 2004
- How the One Man Star Wars Trilogy Works (part 5)
- Star Wars: Community - One Man Star Wars Trilogy at Celebration III