Dork Side of the Force had a chance to speak with one of the creators and performers from A Musical About Star Wars. Check out how the musical came to be.
A Musical about Star Wars is exactly what you think it is. Star Wars fans who happened to be friends and love musical theather put together a show featuring everything you probably every thought about the franchise.
It’s smart, funny and poignant, based on the reviews. It’s also current, touching on many of the criticisms surrounding the sequel trilogy.
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The soundtrack from the musical is also available for purchase here.
Dork Side of the Force had a chance to talk to the creators about A Musical about Star Wars. Here’s an interview with Taylor Crousore and Scott Richard Foster.
Dork Side of the Force: Why write A Musical About Star Wars?
Taylor Crousore: Well to be completely honest and quote myself in the show, “Because it’s AWESOME!”
I’ve always felt the best side of your work comes out in when you are passionate about the subject. I learned that in school when I got to pick the topic of my 4th grade research project and chose Outer Space but decided to do my whole presentation dressed as Jedi Luke with a green lightsaber and noticeable wires on the top of my hand drawn in marker.
It’s something that I have held near and dear to my heart since childhood, so in that regard it’s the passion that makes the work of creating something not feel like work.
Creating this show was so much fun because I got to write a show with friends about something we all love so much. And I think our love of it comes across in a fun and heartfelt way that any fan can appreciate.
DSOF: Where did the idea for the story come from? How long were you kicking around the idea for this musical?
TC: Scott and Tom were the ones to kick the idea around. We all worked on the sketch show NEWSical the Musical. I had left for another show and at the time Scott wrote a Star Wars rap for the show after one of the last movies came out. Tom noticed how much the audience was responding to that sketch and came up to Scott with the idea of doing an entire Star Wars show. When they thought of who else should do it, they called me 🙂
DSOF: Where did your love of Star Wars begin?
TC: My love of Star Wars began at my dad’s house at the age of 3 when he let me play with all of his old Kenner action figures. I fell in love with the toys of all these characters creating my own stories. Then by 5 I finally got to watch these stories and my life was changed ever since. For better or for worse, I’m not sure.
DSOF: How are those feelings reflected in the musical?
TC: Over time I’ve grown to appreciate Star Wars on a global level than just my own personal thing I identify with. That’s how fandom starts right?
You see something and it calls out to you and you feel like that thing is speaking to just you. It gets you and understand you. You want to take that thing and marry it and have babies with it. But then you start to realize other people have the same feelings. Then you get kinda pissed. You say “Hey! I’m the only one it makes feel like this! I’m special! I wanna marry it and have babies with it!”
But then you realize that it’s actually already been married and made babies with lots of people.
How can so many different people from all walks of earth feel this same way? Then you see the importance of it. The culture it’s created (the babies) the people it’s connected (I know a few people who had Star Wars weddings) and you feel included. You don’t have to be alone in this. To quote Scott, “It’s the first time I felt like I was a part of something.”
And then it was cool that everyone was marrying it and making babies with it, and thus, the song A Lucas Orgy was born!!
On a serious note and not a long weird response, I grew up sharing Star Wars with my family. It was a shared experience with my dad and grandpa and brother to go and see the new movies in theater, to watch them at home. So it’s been really incredible to see those families come out and see our show. To share our love of it. To say, “Hey we have a place for you and you’re gonna love it.” And people do!
DSOF: What has been the most interesting reaction from someone who has seen the musical?
TC: Fans have a wonderful time. They get all the inside jokes and references and they feel the passion of it all. And non-fans love it too! They love the high energy and comedy of the show, but they learn something. They see how responsive the fans are, they dig it and afterwards we have had so many people say to us that they’ve never seen a Star Wars movie and really want to now because of our show.
Boom, you’re welcome George Lucas.
DSOF: What is your favorite song from A Musical About Star Wars?
TC: My favorite song is the Expanded Universe song. To the style of Billy Joel’s we didn’t start the fire, we rattle off everything under tatooine’s two suns. From merchandise to spin offs to alllll the characters and places found within the EU. Most general fans won’t know a lot about what we are saying in this song, but it’s for the diehards. The best reaction one night after we finished it I just heard one voice gasp, “wooooow!” It’s also a very high energy number and so I think it’s a lot of fun to perform as well.
Scott Richard Foster
DSOF: Why write a musical about Star Wars, one of the most renowned franchises in the world?
Scott Richard Foster: They wrote a musical about a boring book like Les Miserables and Star Wars is way more exciting than that.
I’ve always wanted to do stuff about Star Wars. I’ve done sketches, improv in the past where I am different characters from the movies. It makes me laugh to think about what the characters, like Obi Wan, the Emperor, etc, say to each other in the parts of the movies we don’t see. I also like to poke fun at imperfections in things I love. I mean we all know the Death Star plot hole (which I know Rogue One fixed), so it’s little stuff like that, still reverence for the movies. And the musical idea sort of spawned out of all the idea sessions.
DSOF: Where did the idea for the story come from?
SRF: We knew we couldn’t just do Star Wars on stage, and being big fans we decided we would do a show about how much we like Star Wars, but give us an excuse to to impressions we’ve been doing since children and still be able to poke fun at some stuff in Star Wars. Basically an excuse to act like jackasses for an hour and a half.
DSOF: How long were you kicking around the idea for this musical?
SRF: It all happened kind of fast. Tom approached me about doing this show, we brought in Taylor a day or two later, we all started meeting to brainstorm ideas and 9 months later we were open.
DOF: Where did your love of Star Wars begin?
SRF: For me it was Return of the Jedi. It was the first movie I got to see in the movie theater. I mean what’s not to love. Luke’s badass entrance into Jabba’s palace, the Rancor, the Ewoks (yes, I loved the Ewoks), and the best cinematic moment in the franchise for me, when Vader says, “If you will not be turned, perhaps she will.” Amazing!!! Since then I say Empire is the best, but ROTJ is still my favorite.
DSOF: How has your feelings toward Star Wars change over time?
SRF: Other than not being a huge fan of the first two prequels or The Last Jedi, not much has changed for me. The Mandalorian is the ballz though!!!
DSOF: How are those feelings reflected in the musical?
SRF: We actually do a rap about the prequels number in the style of Hamilton, recapping them in a sort of silly way. We also have a number about Leia reflecting the new direction of diversity and portraying women in more prominent roles.
DSOF: What has been the most interesting reaction from someone who has seen the musical?
SRF: Overall, it’s amazing to have the people from different countries get the jokes from the movies. To see how far the effect of Star Wars has reached is awesome! But my favorite was a guy who said, “We went to see What the Constitution Means to Me” and this was just as good. I was like, “Ummm. ok.”
DSOF: What is your favorite song from A Musical About Star Wars?
SRF: The Hamilton spoof. It’s a rap called Annakin. It chronicles episodes 1,2, and 3. Good stuff.
A Musical about Star Wars is currently showing Off-Broadway. Get tickets here.