Star of Indiana

Star of Indiana – Drum Corps. Founded in 1984 by millionaire businessman William Cook, the Bloomington-based Star of Indiana competed in Division 1 of the DCI circuit from 1985 to 1993. A finalist in all nine years of its existence, Star of Indiana won the championship with a Respighi show in 1991 and finished in the top three in each of its last four years. After leaving the world of competition, James Mason and the Cook Group transformed Star into an indoor show. From 1994 to 1996, Star toured the country with the Canadian Brass in three different incarnations of Brass Theater. The next professional project was Blast!, which opened at the London Apollo in Hammersmith on December 14, 1999. In the following summer, the show came to the United States and made it to Broadway on April 17, 2001. For that year, Blast! won a Tony Award for Best Special Theatrical Event and an Emmy for Best Choreography. On the heels of the original production’s Broadway success, Blast II: the Shockwave toured the country in 2002-2003, and another sequel entitled Blast II: MIX, Music in Extreme opened in 2006 and toured Japan in 2008.