It's where banthas meet Broadway, and where Jedi wield jazz hands -- it's the Star Wars: Musical Edition, now playing at the Saga stage throughout the Celebration III weekend. These jaunty show-tunes have transformed the original Star Wars classics into a toe-tapping, crowd-pleasing revue, with parodies of classic and modern stage musicals.

Take, for instance, this Gilbert-and-Sullivanian take on the galaxy far, far way. Deep down, can't we all agree that the sale of droids really should have gone like this:

Owen: I have no need of a protocol droid.
Threepio: (quickly) Of course you haven't, sir, not in an environment such as this. But I am programmed to adapt to whatever functions you may require of me...

I am a high-grade model of a multipurpose service droid,
I've information on each planet, nebula, and asteroid,
I know the inner workings of most anything mechanical,
I'm friendly with all life forms both organic and botanical;
I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,
I calculate the odds, and my reports are quite emphatical;
About your moisture 'vaporators I think they make perfect sense,
Of course, I know the Bocce verbs in future and imperfect tense

I'm fluent in six mill-i-on or more communication types;
I know the shortest distance to a hundred good vacation sites;
In short, I will excel at anything for which I am employed,
I am a high-grade model of a multipurpose service droid.

Jawas: In short, he will excel at anything for which he is employed,
He is a high-grade model of a multipurpose service droid.

Threepio: I can tell you local time on Alderaan and Coruscant,
I'm capable of changing lights, from neon bulbs to fluorescent,
I'm programmed in politeness, I say "thank you," "sir," "madam," and "please,"
I'm not too good at telling tales -- unless they are in Ewokese
Though I know all the mountain scapes and which sand dune is hillier,
Though I can't put my finger on why this place is familiar--

THREEPIO pauses a moment as OWEN looks guilty.

The musical edition had a long gestation, percolating in the parody-loving brains of writers Kris "Rogue" Shindler and Jess Suess for years. It began as dueling filks -- lyrical parodies of genre properties that are a staple of convention activities.

"My friend Jeff and I are big parody fans," says Shindler. "We used to write our own just-for-fun song parodies and somewhere along the line, one of us wrote a Star Wars filk and thought it was funny. Then we started doing it back and forth."

From here grew a repertoire of Force-slanted songs traded between Shindler and Suess. When in high school, both entered musical theater where their palette of potential songs grew considerably. "I knew about eight shows when I started getting into musical theater, and a handful of other songs. As the number of songs I knew grew, the number of available parodies grew too."

During school, either Seuss or Shindler remarked that they probably had enough Star Wars parodies to cover a musical rendition of the entire trilogy. Scouring their repertoire, they found that the estimate was accurate. "'We should just write a few more songs,'" recalls Shindler as their reaction. "'Maybe we can throw it to a script!'"

Two years into their college career, in 1996, they started polishing this odd conglomeration of songs, tying it together with a connecting narrative. "We tried to put it into a more coherent framework of a musical rather than just a bunch of songs," he says. To that end, there are recurring themes and elements. For instance, Tatooine has livelier, more rhythmic feel, while the music is more strict when on the Death Star.

"By the time Jeff graduated, it was our goal to have song and script together as a completed rough draft. We managed to finish that in 1998. We put it on the shelf then, thinking that it was a fun project, but that we'd never see it again," says Shindler.

The Star Wars: Musical Edition was transformed from just words on paper when Shindler moved to Boston and began working with the MIT Musical Theater Guild, a student-run community group. "They were a well-humored bunch," says Shindler. "After a year of doing theater with them, I thought, 'you know, if anyone ever wanted to actually take a crack at this thing, it might be them,'"

Shindler started asking around, testing the waters and reactions to the Star Wars musical. "Several people liked the idea, so I brought it to the Board for their show selection period. Every six months, they choose the shows that they're going to do for the next couple of seasons, and I got some people together and we did a few numbers from it."

The reaction was very positive, and the project proceeded. But due to technical limitations, the Board recommended the ambitious trilogy be pared down to just the first act, A New Hope. It was an editorial decision not too different from the one George Lucas made when first writing the original Star Wars.

"When we started doing the show with the Musical Theater Guild, we had written lyrics for existing music. We really didn't have enough with enough skill to rearrange the orchestral music, to mix musical themes with John Williams themes the way we were hearing it in our heads," says Shindler. That changed when Steve Peters, a member of the Guild, heard about the show and began making inquiries. "He came in and said, 'Can I try arranging some of the music for the show selection process?' He knew exactly what we were thinking, from the beginning. He is essentially a co-creator with us now, because he has put so much effort in helping us craft the music and helping us streamline the lyrics."

The Star Wars: Musical Edition debuted to a sell-out audience in February 2003. "We sold out six out of the eight shows," says Shindler. "We tried to cram in as many people as we could, and even added performances. But we still unfortunately had to turn people away."

As with all live theater, the show is constantly evolving, adding the latest jibes and topical humor into its humorous inventory. The lyrics on occasion wander away from the Star Wars universe to weave in savvy references to other genres, movies and events. "We were assembling final cues before the Celebration III show and I got chastised by my stage manager because we added three more jokes last night, which affected a couple of cues. It's just a lot of fun."

Since the stage is cleared after each Celebration III performance, the production design has to be sparse. "It's a bizarre mix of minimalist and maximalist," says Shindler. While the stage space is more interpretative than representative, the costumes and props aim for authenticity. "Because it's a Star Wars story, we're not too concerned with people knowing what the setting is. We can get away with that sort of thing for sets," he explains. "To make up for that, we're trying to emphasize things with props and costumes as accurately as possible." Adding to the elaborate costumes, Master Replicas has donated a number of high-end prop replicas to the show.

The Celebration III cast of 23 consists almost entirely of MIT alumni. Featured are Todd Radford as Luke Skywalker, Edmvnd Golaski as Darth Vader, Jamez Kirtley as Han Solo, Caitlin Shindler as Princess Leia, David Jedlinsky as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Eleanor "Nori" Pritchard as C-3PO and Derek Herrera as Chewbacca.

At the time of its Boston run, restrictions dictated that the directorial staff differ from the performing staff. For the Celebration III show, that's not the case -- each of the three primary creators of the show will have cameo appearances.

Shindler is singing a very short bit as the Death Star gantry officer that gets clobbered by Chewie. "It was a really funny short joke, musically, that I wanted to do from the beginning. It's a Les Mis parody of '24601,' with him calling for TK-421."

Peters' on-stage time is limited, since he is responsible for the off-stage role of R2-D2 -- feeding the droid its astromech lyrics live via synthesizer. Still, he does sing on stage as the ghost of Bail Organa, singing "Don't Cry For Me Princess Leia."

Jeff Seuss, however, is playing the most influential of the cameo roles: George Lucas. The musical kicks off with the spirited "Trilogy Tonight," a saga-spun incarnation of "Comedy Tonight" from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and Seuss intros the show as the beflanneled director -- a late addition to the show that was not in previous incarnations.

"In the original version we had Luke, because that made sense. It was a parody of the Forum song, and in that, it's the main character doing the intro. But then I thought it'd be perfect to have George come out in jeans and the flannel. Jeff, in the past couple of years, has grown out a beard and put on him some thick horn-rimmed glasses, and he looks like post-USC George."

And Celebration-goers should recognize Seuss in that role's in-universe counterpart. Donning a pilot's jumpsuit, he's also playing Jorg Sacul during the Yavin 4 medal ceremony, the Star Wars character based on Lucas that was made into an exclusive action figure for Celebration II.

To hear a sample of "Trilogy Tonight," click on the play button.

Motti: Walkers!

Han: Fast Talkers!

Leia: Complexity!

Ben: Dyslexity!

Rebels: Reprise!

Imperials: Spies!

Luke and Vader: Sons!

Leia and Han: Buns!

Everyone: Gamblers!
Ramblers!
Amblers!
Scramblers!

No Roman gods
None Greek or Norse
Just a Jedi learning the Force
Dark side and Light side
Which he must decide
We promise it turns out all right
Hobbits tomorrow
Trilogy, trilogy, trilogy,
trilogy, trilogy, trilogy,
trilogy, trilogy
Trilogy tonight!