Familiar Favorites

TRUE BLUE: This weekend was Seafair in Seattle. That means parades, pirates, hydroplane races, and the Blue Angels!

We live right between Boeing Field, where they land and take off, and Lake Washington, where they perform their air show. So we get to see and hear them four or so days each summer.  

Saturday afternoon, we drove up over our hill to the lake side to get a good spot to view parts of their aerobatics. 

It's always a thrill to see them!

WARS OUTDOORS: Saturday evening, we had a birthday party in the park. We met G&G, R&J, K&A and had a picnic dinner of sushi and tons of other snacks. Then the big show was Hello Earth Productions staging the first/original Star Wars move in its entirety.

The characterizations, the cast, the props the sets ... it was all SO good!

Above and below is our friend Shaina, playing Darth Vader. How many kids can say that Darth Vader is their former babysitter? CJ and Annabelle can. :)

These are the droids you're looking for!

The R2 on rollerskates was such a good idea. And a slide whistle was her voice. So clever!

This same theater troupe has staged Star Trek in the park for the past few summers. They always do such a great job with nontraditional casting.  For instance, the (female) actor playing Luke this year was Captain Kirk in previous summers. Also, the scene below is Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, but the traditional genders are swapped.

It all works, wonderfully.

Following is CJ's (super abbreviated) summary of the show.

Since 2010, Hello Earth Productions has annually held free-attendance plays in Dr. Blanche Lavizzo Park, located in southeast Seattle. For every production except the most recent one, the plays were adaptions of Star Trek: The Original Series episodes (for example: Space Seed, The Devil in the Dark, etc.)

This year's production was a full-length adaption of the 1977 blockbuster Star Wars (later titled A New Hope), which sprouted an international media franchise and became a staple of Western pop-culture.  I attended the 4 August 2018 performance of Wars Outdoors (Hello Earth's name for their production of A New Hope), which packed the seats of the auditorium full. Wars Outdoors featured the entirety of A New Hope's plot, complete with the climactic destruction of the Death Star.

Considering that Wars Outdoors is a relatively low-budget production funded by donations, as well as being held outdoors, Hello Earth had to get creative with some of the props. Prior to the start of the play, attendees were encouraged to go down to the stage, grab a piece of paper, crumple it up, and then throw the scrunched paper at the stage at a certain point in the play. A large gray balloon was used to represent the Death Star, and was popped to represent the destruction of the space station.

Loved their 'chess' pieces! Sometimes you need to let the Wookiee win!

Luke and his light saber.

Using the Force!

The Death Star plans (on what looks suspiciously like a Dollar Tree shower curtain).

I just loved their interpretation of the X Wing fighter!

Red Squadron, ready to take on the Death Star!