In Seattle? See this summer's Outdoor Trek, 'Amok Time'

If it's Trekland in the summer in Seattle, then it must be time for "Outdoor Trek"—a live Trek-in-the-park by the homegrown Hello Earth troupe that plays for donations as a non-profit, and offers an innovative, fun, Shakespeare-esque approach to minimalist staging, the Redshirts backing band, and "blind-sex" casting.

Here's my impromptu vidchat (below) with director Joy DeLyria and Kris "Kirk" Hambrick at Emerald City Comic-Con in 2014 (just before my panel!) and their goals and history—but the keys are all the same as they are for this summer's offering, "Amok Time". Listen for their intriguing thoughts about Star Trek's boldness, then and now, and translating that via today's cultural and gender points of view.

The group, with assistant to the producers Phillip Duff along (and standing just off-camera here), took their cue from Portland's "Trek in the Park," which since has run its planned five summers and ended. The Seattle crew has received good press and support locally, as well as around the fandomosphere, and has no plans for stopping with a similar five-years-only mission: The tell me that show number six is due to follow for 2016, and audience-goers once again vote by coin and cash for their choice among finalist titles for the next year's TOS script.

Check the links to the website and their Facebook for more details, both under Hello Earth (Twitter too) ...but "Amok Time" performances are 7 pm Saturday and 2 pm Sundays in Blanche Lavizzo Park, with pre-show musical guests an hour prior (Marc Okrand helped kick off opening weekend!), and food trucks on hand an hour before that. See the video for images as well from past and current park-TOS moments (Photos by This Apeture, Phil Duff, and others).



OH—and I love the live stage transporter beams.

STV: Watch Gerald Fried play his OWN '60s Trek music

A little Trekland gift for all Trekfans everywhere... and one that is long overdue: 

This, posted at last, is the HD video I shot of what can only be called an amazing night in Star Trek history—shot off guard, from my seat, on hand-held zoom, on Dec. 3, 2012. It was already an electric evening at Hollywood's Egyptian Theater—the ballyhooed launch party for LaLa Land Records' incredible 15-disc original Star Trek complete soundtrack box set, a landmark moment for Trek and true film audiophiles everywhere. Friends Jeff Bond and Neil S. Bulk, among others, had all labored with love over it. And I have more vidchats from that night to share as well.

But the breathless moment of the evening was its climax, when an audience sat spellbound and delighted as TOS composer Gerald Fried, then 82, not only presented a duet medley of themes from his three classic scores for "The Paradise Syndrome,"  "Amok Time" and "Shore Leave"—but took to the oboe to play them himself, with pianist Rich Ruttenberg deftly adding the undertow.

It was simply 9 minutes of music intersecting history for a result I'd never experienced before, much less in Trek—and with no other apparent video cameras around, I'm just glad to have been able to capture it and share it now. The audio alone would be one thing—and those audience recordings are out there, I believe—but this decidedly unfancy video still adds the visual joy and drama as well...including the audience's delighted reaction to you-know-what from that Vulcan episode, and their 45 seconds of final applause.

Maddeningly, I ran out of chipspace just before the piece ended, but was covered by my iPhone mic—so I hope you enjoy what I edited together here, with sounds and sights alike: