Someone at Salon just discovered Star Wars: The Musical, an original high school musical production that I worked on. I was on the stage crew doing…well, I can’t remember. 1996 was a long time ago. I do remember pushing the massive wall of the garbage compactor onstage with a handful of other nerds, though.
At the time the musical was quite a local phenomenon and actually getting IN to the theater was a real problem if you didn’t get there hours in advance. With only three nights of shows scheduled, demand was high and seating was limited. Literally thousands of people showed up over the course of a weekend and the theater could only accommodate ~300 per show.
I still can’t believe the school administration just sat there and allowed us to pull off such a huge copyright infringement on campus.
Somewhere I still have a cassette of the full cast recording…Someday I’ll dig up the official website I built for it, though by 2011 standards it’s pretty primitive. Check the YouTube clips embedded in the Salon article for a taste of what you missed.