Star Wars comes to Gilpin County: School Princess Leia is called to the stand during the court scene in Gilpin County High School’s production of Tales of a Jedi Kid. The play is the story of a young boy caught in a fantasy world of “Star Wars” characters. Ultimately, it is a testimony to the power of imagination.[/caption]

For the first time in 26 years Gilpin County High School put on Tales of a Jedi Kid. Written by Eric Doucet and adapted by Hannah Raynes, it was the third time the play has ever been performed.

The play had originally been written as a 50-minute competition play in the 90s. With the addition of several scenes, Gilpin County High School turned it into an hour and twenty-minute, action-packed play. The director and adapter of the play, Hannah Raynes, says she is “proud of all [the students’] hard work and dedication.”

The play is based on the first three “Star Wars” movies, having been written well before the prequels came out. It also took inspiration from the movie “A Few Good Men” for one particularly dramatic courtroom scene. Despite most of the actors not being huge Star Wars fans, or even being well versed in classic 90s movies, everyone took the script and ran with it.

After last year’s success of The Diary of Anne Frank, a lot of students wanted to participate in the play. Most years only a handful of dedicated actors have wanted to participate.

Even having a larger cast than usual, they were still short of actors. Luckily, Jasper Raynes, Kenny Williams Jr., and Adeline Day Buckland all stepped up to the challenge, acting for a few short scenes despite their responsibilities in the tech department.

Along with not having enough cast members, they also didn’t have a large production team. With only nine tech members in total, and half of them either being in the sound booth or running lights, many of the actors got the opportunity to step up and take on several responsibilities of the tech crew.

Behind the curtains Sonya Prewitt and Curt Prewitt were massive additions to the team. Sonya Prewitt was the costume designer, as she has been for many previous productions. She and her husband also created the R2D2 droid that was seen in several scenes.

The only piece of the set one-upping the droid was the epic Jabba the Hutt that Curtis Halsted, a teacher at the school, created for the play. He built it up, from a frame of PVC plastic pipes to the epic behemoth that made its way on stage. Scott Murphy and Chris Swanson assisted the production team with building the set.

Ryan Raynes, the Technical Director, described this year’s production as “a fun and challenging experience for everyone involved.” The show was especially challenging and dynamic, due to its use of unique sound cues, various lighting tricks, visual effects, and dynamic and static pieces of the set.

The play features several light saber fights between Lucas, played by Justin Johnson, a second year actor, and Darth Vader, played by Samuel Hanssen, a first year actor. They put in hours of work to get the choreography of those fights perfect, with the help of Jacob Noon, a professional fight choreographer. Through their dedication they put on several epic action-packed fights.

Sam Hanssen was excited to play Darth Vader. “It’s a fun role, and I really enjoy getting to portray one of my all time favorite characters,” he told The Mountain-Ear.

For Teddi Vaughan-Tomlinson, Anna Thomason, Bree Rice-Dietz, Jesse McCurry, Lynda E. Icenogle, Zach Gebhard, and Rayna Durnen it is their last year in the Gilpin County High School theater program as they are all graduating this May. Thomason said, “I’ll miss being able to perform with the people I grew up with. Even if I end up doing any community theatre in the future I’ll miss this cast dearly.”

Everyone worked hard on this “creative and imaginative” play, as Leo Simpson-Molochnick described it. Between hours of practice everyone also was focusing on their school work, with many of the students being in heavy workload AP classes and time-demanding sports. Everyone proved their determination and dedication to this year’s theatre production.

The whole school will be involved in this project. A costume contest for elementary students is going to be held and the winner will get a prize. All money received from tickets will go to next year’s production.