A Musical About…STAR WARS?!?!
Emily McNamara, Scott Foster and Taylor Crousore recording the cast album of A Musical About Star Wars.
I’ve got to preface this post by saying Perle and I are not Star Wars fans.
So when “A Musical About Star Wars” came to Broadway in Bryant Park, we kind of dismissed it as something we weren’t interested in. Then the three leads came out and sang and we were hooked.
It was probably the funniest eight minutes of anything I saw this summer in the park. So the minute we had friends in from out of town who ARE Star Wars fans, we went to see the show.
I almost died laughing. It was silly and clever and irreverent and over-the-top. And the 15 minute Star Wars primer our friends gave us prior to the show gave us just enough background to get some of the references. But that was kind of the best part. We didn’t need to get all the references. It was still hilarious. And sweet. And charming.
Just a quick recap: Scott and Taylor are Star Wars fans who want to perform the greatest Star Wars musical ever at Comic Con. They’re hindered by a restraining order from Warwick Davis and by their costar, Emily, who is an actor activist trying to sabotage the show. She thinks it’s not inclusive enough, but the boys convince her to stick around while they prove that Star Wars is the greatest thing in the universe (as a Star Trek fan, their jokes hurt a little).
For 90 minutes, the three-person cast goes through dozens of costume changes, breaks the fourth wall, parodies Hamilton and shares their backstories, all on their quest to share their love of Star Wars.
We saw it again about a month after the first time and we were worried that the hilarity might not be there the second time. It was. We met the cast afterwards where we got to talking. I mentioned I would love to write about the show for the newspaper where I was working at the time. They agreed and we set up an interview. Here are excerpts from that interview.
You can view the article here: http://https://www.lohud.com/story/entertainment/2019/10/17/stars-wars-musical-off-broadway-emily-mcnamara-larchmont/3896704002/
These guys (and girl) were tons of fun to hang out with and talk to while they finished recording their cast album (out Nov. 8th) I spoke with lead Emily McNamara; lead and co-writer Taylor Crousore (who left the show on Oct. 2); lead and co-writer Scott Richard Foster; director, producer and co-writer Tom D’Angora; and composer and lyricist Billy Recce.
You can catch the show Friday through Monday at the St. Luke’s Theater on W. 46th St.
What is your favorite part of the show?
TAYLOR: “I have two favorites. My favorite part to perform is the Hamilton number … because it’s just very fun. I particularly love the backstory moments. When we did the reading, people were like, ‘there's very funny ideas but there's no plot and we don't know anything about the characters.’ And the show that we were creating was just so breaking the fourth wall and so matter-of-fact stupid. Stupid smart. The show is clever within its stupidity. So I looked at Tom one day and I go, why don't we look at the audience and say, this is my backstory. And that came from such an organic place that I literally just sat there and wrote it down off the top of my head and emailed it to him. I really love every night when Scott and I turn to the audience and do those. That to me is fun to hear those little jokes but also remembering where those came from.
EMILY: I look forward to the Hamilton number. I always have fun doing that one. It's just so satisfying. It's just so fun. I always feel like that's a moment where, if we haven't won the audience over yet, we usually get them. I also like "Be the Change" which is sort of the We are the World number in the show because it's just so over the top and silly.
SCOTT: On any night, theater happens and little tiny things might go wrong. Sometimes that's my favorite thing. Because we all know the show well enough to know whether something should be said to justify it or if we just ignore it. And it just gets fun and silly and it makes us bond as a cast. But in a general sense, I'd say the Obi-Wan Mr. Dad scene is my favorite.
What’s it like having this show that you created play off-Broadway?
SCOTT: It's amazing. It’s my first actual thing that I've been a part of writing that's been done in a professional setting. So to have something off-Broadway is awesome and then to be in it is even more fun. So it’s definitely bucket list checked, that one.
TAYLOR: It's profound in the way that it's really cool to look back and see what you can create and seeing the steps and the process of this. It's been the coolest to see the impact of this on other people. Knowing that we have fun and it's silly but knowing we have fans like you who come back orr to hear people laugh at a joke that you wrote. I honestly didn't realize it because I'm very hard on myself. It took stepping outside of myself to look at it and look at the work we do every night to feel really impacted and empowered by that and grateful. And it's fun. Any time I ever catch myself getting in some sort of a rut, all I have to remind myself when I'm on stage is that we get to do this every night with our friends. We get to joke around every night. I wrote this with two of my dearest friends and it's just so fun and it's fantastic. Also it's neat to have your face on a poster in New York City.
TOM: It’s a lot of fun. It was so much fun to write. That was the best part of it. We had a ball. It’s also wild to hear audiences laugh at the stupid poop jokes you make with your friends. I have proven that I am as hard on my own material as I am on other writer’s materials because I cut things every second just the way I do with other shows.
BILLY: It means the world to have been able to make my off-broadway debut at the same time as my last semester of college, and then to open the show just a week before graduation was awesome. This industry is one that is pretty ageist and judges artists not on their potential but on what they’ve been doing for a decade or two, so it was really an honor to be selected to write these songs based on what I knew I could do.
You’re the only woman here surrounded by Star Wars obsessed men. What’s that like for you?
EMILY: They're great guys, so I feel really lucky. It feels like being with two brothers that I never had. We tease each other and we joke around so much, but the truth is, they really are super cool, super laid back, no egos and I'm honored they wanted me to be the girl in the show, because they wrote it together with Tom, our producer, so it was really their vision and they could have picked anyone to do what I'm doing so it's cool that I get to do it and that they trust me with their material.
Were you a Star Wars fan prior to the show? Are you a Star Wars fan now?
EMILY: Now I would say I'm a medium fan. An average fan. But I was not at all before I started. I literally had never seen any of the movies. But once we started the rehearsal process, I tried to catch up and I went in order and eventually watched all the movies that we reference in the show, including the holiday special, which honestly was a huge highlight for me because it's one of the strangest things I've ever seen. One of my favorite genres is the "it's so bad it's good" genre. This might be so bad it's just bad, but it might be good. I think if I had seen them as a kid and grown up with them, I'd probably be as hardcore a fan as they are, but I'm a little late to the game.
What would you tell people about the show if they are not Star Wars fans?
EMILY: Above all else, it's a short, light charming musical comedy so even if you don't get the references, it's still a fun musical. It’s good songs, good performances, no pretension, just a cute 90 minute romp in the off-Broadway theater. And Star Wars itself is obviously just a placeholder for whatever the thing it that you're obsessed with so if you come to the show as a Star Wars fan and you get all the references, great, but if you don't then you can kind of substitute whatever your thing is for that and you can relate to what's going on. Plus, there's enough with my character talking about her interests in politics and women's rights and feminism and theater and art, you can have a little side relation with her if nothing else, hopefully.
How do you feel about creating this cast album?
BILLY: I grew up collecting CDS of every Broadway and off-Broadway show I could find, dreaming of one day being able to put my own album up on the shelf with them. It’s so exciting that I’ve gotten to achieve this goal, especially with amazing people and on a show that I really love and am proud of! I’m honestly just really pumped to be able to get this show immortalized and create something that will last past the length of the show’s run and be a part of theatre history.