Uteni!

[dancerjodi]

Last night was exactly what we needed. After grabbing dinner at Picante's for the first time in forever, Brian and I walked down to MIT to see their original trilogy Star Wars Musical http://web.mit.edu/mtg/www/ .

If the artwork on their poster was any sign of what the show would bring, we were going to have a good time. We saw their production a few years ago of ANH and it was a riot! I guess they performed this current show (or parts of it at least) at CIII this spring, but Brian and I weren't there. They also performed a bit of it at the Museum of Science Gala, but Brian and I were both at the MOS at that point and not over at the shi-shi (is that even how you spell that?) dinner at Bunker Hill.

Oh - my - God! Was this show ever funny! There were a lot of silly minor references to things that you'd need to be a big SW nerd to get. There was also a lot of obvious humor to it, and a good selection of songs (though I think they were too heavy on the Les Miserables - it was appropriate and all, but I was just getting sick of hearing it, and I really like that show). The cast, sets, costumes, jokes and time exploded from the last one we saw (we were there from 8-12, with 2 small intermissions).

Highlights:
-Luke and Uncle Owen sing about Tatooine to the tune of West Side Story's "America". During the instrumental part in the dance sequnce a ton of Jawas (around 20) danced around the main characters. The music goes da-da-da, da-da-da and on the third emphasized DA-DA-DA they cheered in high pitched voices U-TE-NI. I was crying I was laughing so hard.
-They had AT-AT drivers(omfg)!! I *heart* AT-ATs (I have a collection of mini ones at work). Two drivers and a captain (in proper costumes, mostly screen accurate!) sat on top of a balcony with their legs hanging over the edge and moved each lower leg up and down (below the knee) to simulate walking. Then 2 LARGE LEGS dropped out of the underside of said balcony to touch the floor (probably 15' long) and proceeded to move the feet up and down! What do you want? Its MIT afterall!
-Boba Fett breakdancing - enough said!
-Stormtroopers tapdancing, enough said! Well also, they did this before in their first show but expanded their role quite a bit. They added a burlesque style kickline with plenty of booty shaking, and some random milling around where they worked on dance steps with each other off on the sidelines, completely ignoring rebels sneaking around and whatnot.
-Some parodied songs from Nightmare Beyond Christmas (!) - 'This is Tatooine' and the Oogie Boogie Song (changed to be about Jabba).
-They had a massive almost proportional Jabba puppet that they were able to move! Awesome!

I would love to get a copy of this on video somehow. Does anyone have MIT Musical Theater Guild connections (Brian, from your co-worker)? I know they can't sell it - Lucasfilms would get a bit POed about that. I'd love to just show friends in my home. It had singing, dancing, sarcastic humor and Star Wars! All it needed was to have bunnies in it in some capacity or another and it would be perfectly crafted for me :)

Yeah, so it was fun. Alas, I think performances are sold out, but you may be able to get on a waiting list for tickets (or, keep your eyes open for potential future productions - though it took a few years to get to this one from the first one).

Comments

[roaming.livejournal.com]

oh, so when I said we'd see you tonight I was misreading last night for tonight.

Nevermind. (E. Littela)

[roaming.livejournal.com]

There's an email addy on the flyer that tells you where to go to sign up for waiting list. They say many reserved tickets are not picked up, so 10 minutes before showtime they give 'em out to the waiting list.