The One Man Star Wars Trilogy is an Off-Broadway play based on the original Star Wars trilogy, written and performed by Canadian actor Charles Ross, and directed by TJ Dawe. It premiered in Toronto, Ontario in January 2001, and has since toured worldwide, with over 1,000 performances in 119 cities as of March 2007. The show is licensed by Lucasfilm Ltd., and has been performed at Celebration III, Celebration IV, Celebration Europe and Celebration V.
The play runs for 75 minutes (although earlier incarnations lasted for one hour) and has only one cast member. Charles Ross plays all the characters, recreates the effects, inserts factoids when appropriate, sings from the John Williams score, flies the ships, and fights both sides of the battles. The inspiration came from playing Frisbee with friends; the thrower would say a line from the movies, and the catcher had to say the following line while catching. His impersonation of R2-D2 has been described as "spot on," but Ross himself has said, "I've always thought my Yoda voice sounded too much like a goblin sucking helium." Ross has purportedly seen the original movie over 400 times.
Ross has also used the concept with other film trilogies, including The One Man The Lord of the Rings, which was performed from 2004 to 2005. He was asked to stop performing by the intellectual property holder.
Ross's show has gone from a piece performed mostly at fringe festivals to a touring show with sold-out crowds and television appearances. Aside from the various Star Wars Celebrations, Ross has been on NBC's Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Craig Ferguson, The Today Show and CBS's Late Late Show. Ross has performed the show for Vin Diesel and the rest of the cast on the set of The Chronicles of Riddick, at the world science fiction convention masquerade half time show (Noreascon) in 2004, and Comic-Con International 2004 in San Diego, CA. He also hosted a month long sold out run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in the E4 Cow Barn.