- [Narrator] This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

- [Announcer] Funding for "WEDU Arts Plus" is provided by the Community Foundation, Tampa Bay.

- [Gabe] In this edition of "WEDU Arts Plus," a local group of cos players bring the world of "Star Wars" to life.

- [Kevin] If you just want to put on a costume and talk to people, we could do that.

The Outer Rim Guilds is for everybody.

We don't discriminate against any race, creed, or color.

"Star Wars" is made up of all kinds of characters, and so are we.

- [Gabe] A performing art series.

- Individuals coming in here to perform or to read or to act or dance are very distinguished in their fields.

- [Gabe] A self-taught impressionist artist.

- It's a feel that you get.

It's a feel.

You're all about your feeling.

You gotta have the, you gotta feel it from your soul and from your heart and your mind.

- [Gabe] And the story of a historic play.

- How do we describe or catch a moment in time when we as a country, all of our neighbors all of our friends, all of our family are in danger?

- It's all coming up next on "WEDU Arts Plus".

(light jazz music) Hello, I'm Gabe Ortiz, and this is "WEDU Arts Plus".

This first segment was produced by students at St. Petersburg College in partnership with WEDU.

In a galaxy not so far away, Lucas film approved Tampa Bay area cos players known as the Outer Rim Guilds looked to spread their knowledge and love of the "Star Wars" universe to all.

(light music) - [Kevin] The Outer Rim Guilds is a place where you could create a character, put on a costume and perform that character in front of people.

If you wanna do lightsaber combat, great.

We can teach you.

If you just want to put on a costume and talk to people we could do that.

The Outer Rim guilds is for everybody.

We don't discriminate against any race, creed, or color.

Star Wars is made up of all kinds of characters and so are we.

The Outer Rim Guilds is a not-for-profit Lucas Film approved costuming group.

My name is Kevin Daniels and I am actually the local director for the Outer Rim Guilds.

We do cosplay.

We teach people how to build sets and props.

We also do lightsaber choreography.

We put on shows and informational panels where people can come and see demonstrations and ask questions.

Our main focus is giving back to the community, the "Star Wars" community and the sci-fi community.

When we go to a convention, you know, we're presenting and performing.

- My name is Christopher Allard.

I am a board member and I'm also one of the characters.

My first day with the Guild, that was probably my first class for the saber choreography.

Just like a lot of the new members now in the choreography class, they don't know about the guild yet.

The guild's still growing.

It's getting out there but it usually starts with the classwork.

From there, I spread the word since I'm the instructor now but they can continue on into the costuming and to the big production stuff.

Building a fight is a funny and slow process.

Usually you get paired up with a partner that's roughly your level and then you stare at each other for a half hour and say, "What do you want to do?"

And the other one says, "What do you want to do?"

And that's about the first 30 minutes of it.

After that, you loosen up and you start saying, "Okay, I want to do this, this, and this", and the other person says, "Okay, then I'm gonna counter with this, this, and this."

And from there you start putting a fight together.

(dramatic orchestral music) - My name is Stephanie Moffett and I believe my full title is Costume Director.

What's really important when you're a Lucas Film Guild is that you stand up to the standards of what you see on the screens for Lucas film.

So when we go to start designing a costume the first thing we have to do is we've gotta look at the source materials that we have so that when somebody sees you wherever you are they go "Star Wars", and you go, "Yeah".

(laughing) And there's so many tricks of the trade for making that work.

In the early films, you don't see a lot of fasteners especially on Jedi.

Apparently, they just use the force to hold their stuff together.

We use a lot of snaps.

Fabric you choose is incredibly important.

Use natural fibers, and then sometimes it's just the magic of how the fabric holds together.

First thing I would do is I'd pop those buttons off of there.

I would stitch the base of this up and I would close up these button holes.

And then up here what I would do is I would put either a hook and eye a snap or some magnets.

But if you did that, this is pretty much a shirt ready to go.

(dramatic orchestral music) - [Speaker] What is it like performing as a character?

Well, it is a performance and it is a character.

So if you can make a small child or a teenager or even an adult think that you're probably really a "Star Wars" character and they don't have to be afraid and they can see how much fun you are having interacting with them, well, that's a pretty good feeling.

People that have loved "Star Wars" their whole lives might not have ever thought that they could do this.

And we tell them, "Yes, you can."

- We just got a request in to do a parade in Oldsmar.

This will be our second year doing that parade.

It's great because obviously they want a big presence in their parade and we're able to fill that gap.

They want that "Star Wars", they want characters, they want people cheering for us.

So doing parades is awesome, you know?

Yes, it's a lot of walking, but that's why you want to invest in a pair of boots that you can walk around in a lot.

When it comes to charities, we get contacted by local groups and they're looking to raise money, and so they're looking for that presence.

We could be there to do lightsaber demonstrations or run little shows, but we also had one of our members as aa electronics expert, he actually built a lightsaber and we raffled it off.

The Outer Rim Guilds helped raise $1,500 for "Kids and Canines" one year at a convention.

Once everybody learned there's a chance to win a lightsaber, I mean, it went crazy.

We love doing that.

- Switch.

My name is Michael Poupart and I'm a new member for the Outer Rim Guild.

From my point of view, the Outer Rim Guild is the best thing that's ever happened to me.

We're a wonderful community that are all obsessed with "Star Wars", and we turn our dreams into reality.

- The sense of community in the Outer Rim Guild, well, it's a little more than a community.

- I would have to describe our community more like a family.

Everyone's welcoming, encouraging, very supportive.

- [Stephanie] Kind people who really wanna hang out with other people that are as geeky about "Star Wars" as they are.

- It is a family oriented group as well, so parents, children we invite the whole family in and everybody's so nice, everybody's there for "Star Wars", everybody's there for the Guild.

- And they just want the best for everyone and everyone's happiness.

Just to let me know that I can be myself and be this "Star Wars" nerd, it's okay.

- May be force be with you.

(light music) - [Gabe] To learn more, visit outerrimguilds.org.

For over 70 years, the "Kohler Foundation's Distinguished Guest Series" has been bringing an array of artists to the Wisconsin area from Renee Fleming to Yo-Yo Ma.

(light guitar music) - [Natalie] It's difficult in today's environment when there are so many entertainment opportunities to be relevant, but I think the "Distinguished Guest Series" has flourished as evidence by our programming.

(light guitar music continues) - [Herbert] Marie Christine Kohler started "The Women's Club", and that sort of then activated in 1940 Kohler Foundation.

"The Women's Club" was focused on providing a better life for young people.

(light guitar music) The Kohler Foundation was focused on the arts and education and that was created by Marie Evangeline and Lillie Kohler.

Their brother Robert V. Kohler, who was my father and O.A.

Kroos, who was a Senior Executive at Kohler.

That's how the foundation began.

(light cafe music) - [Natalie] It was really considered an investment in the community because when you think about it in those days in rural communities in Wisconsin there was very little opportunity for arts and education, particularly in the performing arts.

(light cafe music continues) Both your father and your mother were so committed to the community.

- [Herbert] She was an activist in the best sense of the word, whether it be politically, whether it be for the arts, education, or for history.

She herself was an historian of quite some note.

- And she took over, didn't she?

The Kohler Women's Group and started bringing in authors because of her interest in literature and then didn't that morph into musicians and performers?

- It did.

You got it.

You have a better memory than mine.

- Well...

So the opportunity to bring in the Von Trapp family and Marcel Marceau and a lot of these individuals in the 40's provided a robust cultural environment for the community.

(vibrant jazz music) The "Distinguished Guest Series" these are people who are coming in and performing which just are not necessarily going to be in the state of Wisconsin, unless we brought them in.

- [Herbert] The "Distinguished Guest Series" started off with the Trapp Family singers, nowhere else are they going to hear something like this.

And all of a sudden, there they are.

(piano music) I vividly remember Joey Brown.

I was age 10, but that memory of that man remains in my mind.

Richard E. Byrd, the admiral, the explorer.

I mean, good heavens.

Where are you going to be able to see and listen to someone like that?

Mary Martin, Hildegard, the king of Yugoslavia, dance companies, on and on and on and on.

- And the foundation uses this as an opportunity to give back to our community and really the state at large.

The individuals coming in here to perform or to read or to act or dance are very distinguished in their fields, which is where I would put people like Yo-Yo Ma or Renee Fleming, or Leslie Odom Jr. Leslie Odom Jr., who, you know, frankly, we were very lucky to be able to entice to Kohler to come a year ago.

You know, he is a Tony and Grammy winner.

He's morphed into not only stage in the theater but has now written a book.

So the opportunity to have that quality and the outreach is very important.

- We're part of this "Distinguished Guest Series".

We join a long list of some of my favorite performers to entertain the good people of Wisconsin.

Well, we of course, you know, do stuff that's in the Broadway tradition.

You know, in the Broadway style.

(light drum music) We've put out two records since I left "Hamilton", I put out an album of jazz standards and I put out a Christmas album.

And so, our goal always is to make sure that an audience leaves happy, that people leave with a smile on their face.

We make something site specific for those folks.

I love performing the I "Hamilton" songs out of context, because I get to be a fan as well.

You know, I get to share what it was like to hear those songs for the first time and what it was like to be one of the performers that got to introduce that original material to the world for the very first time.

It's always fun to get to peel back the curtain a little bit and explain why you choose the material that you do, why you gravitate toward the song choices that you do.

(light drum music) I always want to be better than our last show.

I want them to have a great time and I want them to be moved.

- [Natalie] He's beautiful and he has a beautiful voice and he is a fabulous actor.

(light jazz music) - As exciting for me as it is for the rest of the audience, I love to see if their reactions are any different than my own.

- [Natalie] It becomes more important that there's that memorable moment where you touch somebody in a very real way that should be and will be the legacy of the "Distinguished Guest Series".

(light jazz music ends) (soft music) - [Gabe] Discover more at kohlerfoundation.org/distinguishedguestseries.

Eddie Morman started painting at a very young age.

Since then, he has created a multitude of impressionist works rich with color, movement, and feeling.

Head to Louisiana, to hear from the artist and learn more about his art.

(upbeat music) - I learned how to paint from the dirt down here on the ground when I was five years old, in the grass, in the weed, in the mud, in the clay.

I would take flowers and make water with it and get all the juice of it and turn the color in a little bottle.

When the clay we had with that red Alexander Clay it get hard for you could make pottery with that kind of stuff.

I paint on clay, paper, wood.

1969, I worked in the Picodillas.

They had a little old woman.

She was very Godly, she had a good spirit, blonde hair and she was the mother of Picodillas.

She bought my first painting.

I paint every day.

I be inspired with what God tell me what to paint.

(upbeat music) The duck painting, that's gonna be a fundraiser.

See I'm a artist.

When people tell me what they want, I give them what they want.

They want a building, I do a building.

(upbeat music continues) Look at Chef John Folse.

(upbeat music) I worked for 25 years on the waterfront.

I just had to get up early in the morning and early in the morning is the best time for me.

See the moon, the star, the first quarter, the second quarter, the third quarter, and the next quarter.

And the stars, they inspire me like Van Gogh.

All your masters are painted hues.

This painting is a museum painting like Rembrandt.

I painted 80 by 60, come to mind it made it out to Houston, Texas.

You gotta have a lots of paint to cover that.

I painted sunflowers.

I painted a Lake Charles bridge.

(mellow music) A painting in Hawaii and I got some more commission to paint that airport here in Lake Charles on 80 by 60.

I make my own color.

See, I use primary color.

I don't go with all those awful colors.

You make your color like you cooking.

I'm colorblind.

I see shadows and shed.

In France, I painted with a knife.

My favorite part about painting here it comes from your soul.

It's a feel that you get.

And when that feel you get within it's just like singing, nobody can stop you from express yourself.

It's a spiritual thing really.

For anybody that do something from their soul you cannot put a time on it.

It comes from you.

How long it take.

You take like your musician like Marvin Gaye, all your, The Staple Singer.

All the ones, Stevie Wonder, R&B or a record.

Well, you know what?

It's a feel that you get.

It's a feel.

It's all about your feeling.

You gotta have to, you gotta feel it from your soul and from your heart and your mind.

And better not be no few days.

You'll starve and go broke.

It's a very hard living to make.

You got, if artists don't go on the road and get exposure the best thing for them to do is just say, "Well, well, well I've been doing it as a heartbeat."

Boy, I go all over.

I went to Colorado Spring, New York, Paris, France.

Whatever it takes for me to get there, I'll be there.

I'm living to see my fame.

Praise the Lord.

(vibrant music) (soft music) - [Gabe] See more at facebook.com/eddiemormonartist.

Paula Vogel's thought-provoking, award-winning play "Indecent" is about an important moment in theater history.

Visit Boston, Massachusetts to meet the creative team behind the show and to learn more about the production and its remounting at the Huntington Theater Company.

- We have a story we want to tell you about a play.

A play that changed my life.

- [Narrator] "Indecent" is Pulitzer Prize winner, Paula Vogel's new play about an incendiary one.

Written more than a hundred years ago "God of Vengeance" is a Yiddish drama by Polish playwright Sholem Asch.

It's about a brothel owner, eager to see his daughter move up in society by marrying a rabbi's son.

- The only hitch is the daughter has fallen in love with the prostitute downstairs.

So imagine this being written in 1906, the first love presented between two women, and certainly the first kiss.

- [Narrator] In "Indecent", Vogel tracks the play from its inception to its resurrection during World War II.

She's found a kindred spirit in channeling the youthful, audacious playwright.

- Once upon a time, I was a young playwright myself.

So I do think that there's a young playwright principle where you wanna walk into the salon and light the bomb and throw it into the salon, that here's my new play, boom.

- [Narrator] Despite its lesbian subject matter, when "God of Vengeance" first debuted, it actually wasn't controversial.

- The love between women was seen as a kind of pure and beautiful love story by the men in the Yiddish Salon in the Yiddish Renaissance.

It was seen as something that was beautiful.

It went on tour from 1907 all over Europe.

- [Narrator] The scandal came when "God of Vengeance" finally opened on Broadway in 1923, and anti-immigration sentiment was taking hold in the US and seeing the play for the first time the mainstream Christian audience was unnerved.

- [Paula] And what is happening is that there is a great deal of hatred, the rise of the KKK and the Jew is seen as someone who was invading American soil.

So here, I mean all of these issues it's, when people say, you know, "What is 'Indecent' about?"

Yes, it's about a play, but, it's really not about the censorship of the play.

It's really not just all of the multiple love stories.

It's how do we describe or catch a moment in time when we as a country, all of our neighbors all of our friends, all of our family, are in danger.

- It was a real lightning rod for tremendously, you know, important issues and questions about immigration.

- [Narrator] Rebecca Taichman is "Indecent's" director.

She discovered "God of Vengeance" as a graduate student at Yale, which also houses Sholem Asch papers.

- [Rebecca] He's asking about what, in a deeply corrupt world is there the potential for true love in a world that conspires so heavily against the like basic principle of love.

- [Narrator] Shortly after the play opened on Broadway, it was actually a rabbi who filed a complaint, concerned over how his community was being portrayed.

In short order, the cast, producer and theater owner were put on trial for obscenity.

What was the tone of that trial?

- Nobody was allowed to get onto the stand.

So the deck was really, really stacked.

- The writer of world literature.

I couldn't walk into that court.

- [Narrator] Roughly 10 years ago.

Taichman brought the story to Vogel, who then spent the next seven years writing "Indecent".

- [Paula] I got to imagine, well, what was it like when my grandparents came to this country?

What was it like to walk down the Lower East Side?

What was it like to speak Yiddish?

What was it like to know all of those songs?

♪ Li, di, di, di, di, di ♪ ♪ Li, di, di, di, di, di ♪ - [Narrator] Music is both instrumental to how "Indecent" unfolds and how Vogul writes.

She creates soundtracks to guide her through each act.

♪ Of all the boys I've known and I've known some ♪ - [Paula] At my computer, and the music is so, so very beautiful.

It made me weep every night.

♪ And this old world seemed new to me ♪ I feel that music is the most pure art form.

I hope I don't get drummed out of the Dramatist Guild for saying this, but I feel that music is pure emotion.

- [Narrator] When it opened on Broadway in 2017 "Indecent" marked the legendary playwrights long overdue Broadway debut and Taichman won a Tony for her direction.

- Musically, it feels like we bought him out for too long, the side, the pause.

I don't know that I see it as a personal validation but a real deep kind of honoring of the power of this story.

- [Narrator] The production here is a rare remounting of the Broadway one with nearly the full cast intact.

As "Indecent" continues to find life, it's creators say it also continues to find resonance.

- [Rebecca] I'm heartbroken honestly, to say it feels more and more relevant than I wished, you know, I ever could have wished it would.

- I am done being in a country that laughs at the way I speak.

- [Paula] I feel that this is a play about us knowing in this moment of time, who are the immigrants in America?

Who is this happening to now?

What side are we on?

Are we paying attention?

(soft music) - [Gabe] Go to huntingtontheater.org for more info.

And that wraps it up for this edition of "WEDU Arts Plus".

For more arts and culture, visit wedu.org/artsplus.

Until next time, I'm Gabe Ortiz.

Thanks for watching.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for "WEDU Arts Plus" is provided by the Community Foundation, Tampa Bay.

(light orchestral music)