Star Wars Weekends - "In a galaxy Far Far away..."

Here we are, nearing the end of another Disney's Star Wars Weekends and it's been three years since I've had any involvement with the event. Do I miss it ? . . .Not really. . . Okay, maybe a little.

For several years i was heavily involved with the Star Wars event. The first year we did it, I saw an audition notice go up in the greenroom and literally pestered the heck out of the manager until he officially assigned me to work on it with the Costumer and Costumer assistant.

Long hours. Late night and early morning rehearsals. Rooms filled with glue fumes filled my days for five years around April through June. The first week of the 2009 event and mother nature dumped buckets of rain. From my past experience, I know the cast and costumers were NOT having a fun day. Jawas, The Emperor and Tusken Raiders's costumes are all made out of a type of burlap-y, loose weave cotton, a.k.a. they soak up rain like a sponge. Jawas are little. A strong wind could blow some of them over. One year, when it rained, the poor Jawas could barely walk beacause their costume has become so heavy with rain water. And once they become soaked, they take DAYS to dry. I believe a Jawa robe was put in the dryer one year and it shrunk because we suddenly had a baby Jawa robe. It took trying to hand wash a Tusken Raider costume one time to realize they were meant to be drycleaned.


One of my first duties on the very first Star Wars event was a road trip. I saw paperwork on the manager's desk from a circus / traveling show producer in my home city. They weren't just from my home town, they were literally next door to my dad's office. I told my manager that I knew exactly where they were and "I'd love to go pick up the Star Wars on Ice costumes from them." That's right, I said Star Wars on Ice. . . Yeah, I never heard of it either.

Since they were still packing up the last of the costumes when I arrived, I had lunch with my brother and did d speedy "Hi, How are ya?" to everyone back home before heading back north to Orlando. Most of the pieces were used for years. . . until Disney invited THE Star Wars fan club, 501 Legion, to join our parade one week end. My manager and the costumer were checking out the 501 Legion's costumes and realized our Storm Troopers had to have an over haul.

The next year, we had all spiffy new Storm Troopers. Funny how we all of a sudden 'finally had the budget' to get new costumes. One last thing, before i leave the Star Wars on Ice costumes. The people that wore those were itty bitty people and we had to get inventive about how to make plastic bigger. Also, some one had glued a stip of wood inside one of the leg pieces, as if wearing plastic wasn't uncomfortable enough, they now had a chunk of wood banging them in the shin. . . We threw that piece away. If fact we threw alot of those pieces away, since PVC plastic costumes tend to crack easily.

Life hasn't been easy for the Storm Troopers. When you wear spandex and plastic armour in public, the PUBLIC tends to get a little frisky with the roaming hands. . . you get the picture. When it rained, some characters couldn't go out, like Queen Amadalla, a drop of rain would damage the velvet. The Storm
Troopers, however, had no such luck. Rain, shine, they never missed thier sets. . .EXCEPT for the frequent wardrobe malfunctions. The only thing that could keep the costume together was a glue that literally melted the plastic together. A squeeze of glue, squirt of activator and quicklyputthepiecestogether. The first year we had clone troopers and sand troopers, I should have bought stock in the glue company.

An Oh the 5 am Storm Trooper on the Turnstiles rehearsals. We had to be at work at 4:oo-4:30 in the morning, get the characters out the door with thier stuff, then follow them to the front of the park with the Pargo with many tubes of glue and activator. For those who have never seen Star Wars Weekends, 'The Powers That Be' decided to enhance the event by putting three Storm Troopers up on top of the gates entering the park. This is kind of an "A" cast event since they wanted to make sure who ever was up there wasn't going to fall off.

The troopers would heckle the guests coming into the park and try to look menacing. One year, when the state was trying to burn down with hundreds of forest fires, the poor Storm Troopers could barely see the edge of the roof, much less any of the guest down below. Everyone was wearing painter's masks to block some of the smoke. When we all starting to cough when by mid morning, the coordinator called it quits for safety reasons.

There are many more stories to come.