This weekend we got to do a really fun event – the Memphis Symphony Orchestra was doing a John Williams tribute and invited us out for it.
Friday night we went up to the rehearsal to get an idea of what they wanted us to do. For each Star wars song they wanted a related character or characters onstage. For the prequel era we only had Amidala (me) and Jango. So for both Ep 1 and Ep 3 songs, I got to be onstage. That was pretty neat! Though I felt pretty awkward at rehearsal… Duel of the Fates was the first Star Wars song, so I had to just kinda walk across stage and do what I was going to do during the real thing… but in normal clothes, so I just looked like some normal girl wandering around in front of the orchestra for no reason. LOL
So Saturday afternoon we started getting ready and of course things took longer than we expected… I don’t know why I don’t just go ahead and build in another hour because this always happens! But I got into most of Amidala, we got Kevin in Luke, loaded up the truck and headed downtown.
Some quick Amidala thoughts…
My new hairpiece worked out really well!!! It went on in like, 60 seconds. I do need to mess with the two lower “petals” and bend the wire so they are sitting a little lower but overall they looked sooooooooooooooooooooooo much better than using my real hair. I’ll get a tutorial up soon.
And this is just kind of a random weird pic of me and Kevin, I’m out of focus, but I uploaded it because it was such a great profile view of the hairpiece:
I’ve really got to remake the dress if I want to keep wearing this. It just doesn’t fit anymore, and the upper side straps are pockmarked with little pin holes from where I’ve pinned the cape on too many times. I had wanted to try to install magnets before Saturday so it’d be easy to get off and on but never got around to it. If I remake the dress I’m definitely doing that.
My tiara also worked out well! It wasn’t totally done but it looked better than my old one. It’s still missing the 3rd chain on the sides, and the small dangly pieces in the front, but I’m really happy with it.
The only thing was — well, I’ll get to that at the end.
So we got downtown and I finished putting on my cape and parasol and then we headed down to the lobby to mingle and take pics with the people coming in.
Kevin was not terribly into this. He was hot, and he doesn’t like to stand for long periods of time, so he kept going over and sitting down. Poor Kevin. He was also super nervous about going onstage.
After the first act started we all went backstage, we found the performer room which had a tv feed so we were able to sit and watch. Our favourite was Jurassic Park – the conductor came out on in one of those inflatable T-Rex costumes to conduct that one!
After intermission and a couple more songs, it was time for the Star Wars portion. They went through each movie in order, so started with the Phantom Menace, which meant I was first onstage. They had us come on about 2 minutes into each song… and being onstage during “Duel of the Fates” was soooo neat, you could feel the stage floor vibrating with it. There wasn’t much I could “do” as Amidala – so I just tried to act “queenly” I guess.
Chase only took video during these, so this is a screencap from it. He doesn’t have them online yet, he said probably today.
Then I had to run back around to the other side of the stage to do Episode 3 too. I basically repeated what I did the first time but tried to look a little more anguished LOL… since when I got up there the image on the screen was Padme on Mustafar.
I wish I’d thought of it earlier but I probably could’ve done a quick change into Funeral Padme for Ep3 song. I think I could’ve done it in the space allotted if I’d had help… wipe the red off my cheeks and lips, take the Amidala hairpiece off, throw on funeral Padme wig, slip out of one dress into the other, throw on cape, ready to go… that would’ve been cool.
Then I was done for a while while they went through the OT and TFA. The finale was the ceremonial theme/ending theme/Star Wars theme, so towards the end of that they brought us ALL onstage and we lined up across in front of the orchestra. Kevin found his courage and came up as Luke! He did very good.
Somebody else took that photo but I don’t remember who I stole it from because there’s a couple of similar ones… eek.
Then we did a group photo with the Memphis bridge in the background.
And a silly one…
Just the Ladies of the Legions…
Luke and Leia!
(“Mom” is lurking in the background)
We got a group pic with the conductor too!
And with part of the fantastic choir.
And finally the Skywalker family Christmas card…
After that we were STARVING because we didn’t eat dinner beforehand so we left, got some dinner on the way home, I quickly de-Amidala-ed and ate like I hadn’t eaten in 5 days.
So the de-Amidala-ing process was a little… terrible. The brand new tiara still had some tacky glue places on the back which had like, cemented the white makeup in dots all across my forehead. I had to scrub SUPER hard to get them off and in a couple of the spots, it took a little skin up too. YIKES. Those stupid shoes also rubbed a blister on the top of my foot within 10 minutes of wearing it in the lobby, so I went barefoot the rest of the night except when I went across the stage, and for the group photos. Otherwise I was carrying them. I’ve GOT to replace those awful shoes.
But anyway it was a lot of fun, the music was amazing and I’m so glad we had such a great turnout… 501st in Memphis has gotten so big!
Anyway, full gallery is here!