An Epic in 70 Minutes: 'One Man Lord of the Rings'

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SINCE 2001, Charles Ross has been living the nerd dream — traveling the world and being paid to act out the "Star Wars" trilogy onstage. Mind you, he's not some chubby kid on YouTube, but a trained theater actor who does all the voices and compresses the action into 70 minutes. And he's Canadian, so it's all nice and good-humored. Now, he brings his "One Man Lord of the Rings Trilogy" (official tagline: "One Man To Play Them All") to the D.C. area for the first time when he performs at the Birchmere on Saturday night.

» EXPRESS: This show is your first since licensing issues were resolved?
» ROSS: Yeah, it's all come to a positive change in the last few weeks. It's the first time I'll have done the "LOTR" gig since 2005. And, believe me, after four years of exclusively "Star Wars," it'll be nice to get some new voices in my head.

» EXPRESS: What should people who've seen the movies but not you expect?
» ROSS: Imagine the epic scale of "LOTR" reduced to the human scale — one person with no costumes, sets or props who's conjuring the characters and re-creating the battles. And the love story crap as well.

» EXPRESS: You've seen the "Star Wars" films several hundred times. Have you seen the "LOTR" movies as much?
» ROSS: I read the books a lot as a kid, and watched the films an unhealthy number of times, but healthy for the needs of this show. My telling of the story is so abbreviated that it can't help but be some of the most memorable parts of what are hugely memorable films.

» EXPRESS: Have you thought about doing the "Star Trek" film trilogy? It'd be a great excuse to yell "Khan!" halfway through.
» ROSS: Well, the first film mostly involved the crew looking out the viewscreen. But my friend Michael Schaldemose, who's the lighting designer, does a great Shatner show called "Call Me Kirk."

» EXPRESS: Was your training in Shake-spearean acting a good preparation for delivering that flowery Tolkien dialogue?
» ROSS: That's really what Shakespeare is about: It's poetry, but exceptionally awkward to read sometimes. And what the actor does right is make it accessible for a modern audience.

» Birchmere, 3701 Mt. Vernon Ave., Alexandria; Sat., 7:30 pm; $35; 703-549-7500, birchmere.com.

Written by Express contibutor Paul Stelter
Photo courtesy Birchmere