![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/218\/2022\/08\/IMG_3242-scaled.jpg\")
<\/a>A Yoda poster hung backstage in McAlister Auditorium more than 20 years ago has grown into a Star Wars shrine.<\/p><\/div>\n
Soon, students working on the stage crew started leaving memorabilia at the hem of Yoda\u2019s cloak \u2013 Luke, Lea and Solo figures, X-Wing fighter and Millennium Falcon models, Darth Vader heads, a Boba Fett, storm troopers, photos, post cards, puzzles, an R2D2 dreidel, toys and lots and lots of Yoda.<\/p>\n
The Force grew strong. \u201cIt took on a life of its own\u201d after she hung the poster more than 20 years ago, before “The Phantom Menace” was released in 1999, she says.<\/p>\n
Touring artists take pictures with the shrine, and alumni send items to add to the collection, even people with little or no connection to the theater have contributed. One set of Yoda lights just appeared one day.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne day I came in and all the lights were off and it freaked me out,\u201d because theaters always have a light on backstage, she says. \u201cI looked over (toward the shrine) and there was this little glow over here. Someone had come in and hung up those Yoda lights and plugged them in and turned all the other lights off. To this day, I have no idea who did it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hernandez has overflow Star Wars stuff in her office, items that just won\u2019t fit in the backstage nook \u2013 a knitted baby Yoda, talking Yodas, light sabers, two lunch boxes, and much, much more, all donated.<\/p>\n
The shrine adds a little whimsy to the theater, Hernandez says, but, like the Galactic Republic, it also serves a greater purpose.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of times when people are backstage they\u2019re nervous, and Star Wars gives them something to focus on,\u201d Hernandez says. Just. Like. The. Force.<\/p>\n
So while Disney says the galactic saga that has thrilled audiences for 42 years is supposed to end Dec. 20 with the release of \u201cStar Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,\u201d the shrine to the larger-than-life movies in Furman University\u2019s McAlister Auditorium will live on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A long time ago, in the far reaches of Furman University\u2019s McAlister Auditorium, theater manager Danielle Hernandez hung a poster of one of her theatrical heroes: Yoda, the Jedi Master. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":389,"featured_media":18250,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-theatre-arts"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/389"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}