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Attractions |
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Exhibitions |
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Pictures |
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George Lucas' Super
Live Adventure |
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Attraction:
Theatre Show
Location:
Toured through several cities in Japan.
When:
From late April till September 1993.
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The Show
The George
Lucas' Super Live Adventure was a
theatrical feast for the senses produced by Feld
Productions, owned by impresario Kenneth
Feld. The production toured several cities in
Japan from late April through September 1993.
Lucas's associates first approached
Feld in 1990 about creating a touring exhibit
of Lucas artifacts and memorabilia. Feld expanded
the idea to a full-blown theatrical production,
replete with Lucasfilm's characters, costumes,
props, sets and plenty of action.
The show was as bold as Lucas'
blockbuster movies. Audiences were treated to
a thrilling blend of live action, drama, dance,
stunts, music, state-of-the-art lighting,
sound systems and pyrotechnics, plus actual film
footage interspersed throughout the show.
"Theatre
of Doom" |
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The physical aspects of the production
were colossal. The stage was over one-quarter
acre wide and the height of a five-story office
building. The cast, crew and staff numbered 150,
plus two Bengal tigers, two horses and four dogs.
There were more than 400 costumes and 1.616 costume
pieces. The sound system included 76 separate
custom speakers arranged in 24 clusters suspended
throughout the arena. Over 140 musicians recorded
the original music score, including the 76-piece
London Symphony Orchestra,
a17-piece big band and an 18-piece rock and roll
band. Lighting was controlled by four computer
systems, and more than 1.000 laser beams were
fired from 23 separate locations.
The production itself leaped in
time from the mystical, medieval period (Willow)
to a futuristic world (Star
Wars), with several stops in between-the
war-torn late 1930s (Indiana
Jones), the post-war rise of the automotive
industry (Tucker: The
Man and his Dreams) and the rock and roll
teenage days of the early 1960s (American
Graffiti). |
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The Story
The show didn't merely recreate
scenes from Lucas' films. It had a narrative
life of its own through a young girl, who was
seemingly chosen at random from the audience and
propelled through a story that was inspired by
the films and the characters in those films. It
was her chore to discover the Force within herself.
It was kind of a combination of The
Wizard of Oz meets Star
Wars and all of the Joseph Campbell myths.
Exciting action! |
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The Super
Live Adventure used Lucas' film fantasy,
Willow, as the
first sequence in this quest. It was an action-oriented
piece in which the young girl, a pseudo "Dorothy
in Lucasland", is confronted by the fairy
Cherlindrea, who gives her magic wand and three
wishes. A lot of the action was focused around
that wand. That's the basic storyline, that
she is being pursued because of the wand, which
gives anybody who possesses it ultimate power.
Along the way, the young girl also
encounters automotive visionary Preston Tucker,
helps Indiana Jones defeat the evil Nazi Belloq
and, with John Milner's assistance, turns
a gang of bullies into a miniature version of
the Three Stooges
in a takeoff of American
Graffiti. In the finale, the young girl
is pursued by Lucas' ultimate evil character
Darth Vader must rely on her own heroics to save
herself and the audience from disaster.
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The Making of
To bring this show to life the production
had to cat 61 people true to Lucas' pantheon
of characters. Amazingly, the cast and crew spent
only two months in rehearsal.
The fact that the production would
tour arenas also increased the difficulty of getting
it ready. Douglas Schmidt, the production designer,
explained, "It would have been different
if we had been going into a theater, where you
have a certain compliment of equipment. But, here
we were going into arenas where there was nothing,
just a big empty space! We had to build not only
the set for the show; we had to build the stage.
So, it was like building a theater inside an arena,
and then building a show inside the theater. It
was really a Herculean task!"
'Club Obi Wan'
on stage. |
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Teamwork and talent were essential
to ensuring that the production stayed on schedule
and the final product was top quality. Feld and
Scott Faris, the show's director and supervising
producer, chose a stellar group of individuals
to accomplish these goals and make the unique
concept of the show a reality. All of the creative
team members had extensive backgrounds in theater
and/or arena entertainment. Faris' credentials
include directing such popular and sizable productions
as Les Miserables,
Cats and Ain't
Misbehavin'. Schmidt had 30 years
of experience and had designed more than 175 productions,
working with renowned organizations like The
New York Shakespeare Festival and The
New York City and San
Francisco Opera Companies.
B.H. Barry was the fight coordinator
and found his role in the production very challenging.
He had worked extensively on Broadway (Big
River, City of
Angels), in films (The
Addams Family, Glory)
and in television.
Other esteemed members of the creative
team included: Robert Gannaway, writer, who had
worked for Paramount
and Walt Disney Feature
Animation; Don Grady, musical director,
who had an extensive background that included
music for HBO/Warner
Brothers, the Discovery
Channel and Arts
& Entertainment.; Frank Krenz, costume
designer, whose film credits included Ghostbusters
and Moonstruck;
Marilyn Lowey, lighting designer, an Emmy-winner
whose clients had included Bette Midler, Harry
Connick Jr. And Neil Diamond; Jonathan Deans,
sound designer, whose company had worked on over
eighty musicals and plays; Davis Mendoza, illusion
designer, who had worked with magician David Copperfield
and megastar Michael Jackson.
Even though it toured in Japan,
where Lucas' work is loved widely, the Super
Live Adventure wasn't tailored to
the Japanese audience except that the young girl
who played the heroine was Japanese-American and
the dialogue was dubbed in Japanese by the actors
who regularly dub Lucas' movies. Faris explains,
"We wanted it to be something that would
play anywhere." Unfortunately, Feld Productions
were unable to find new financial backing to bring
the show to the United States or anywhere else. |
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Sources |
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Lucasfilm Fan Club Magazine #20 - article George
Lucas' Super Live Adventure: An Action-Packed
Spectacle Tours Japan, by Pamela E. Roller |
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