Confessions of a Klingon Curmudgeon: It Begins

". . . We would like to offer you the part of SQuja'."

The breath left my body as I was sitting in my parked car, a bit late for a meeting. My heart raced. Tears welled up in my eyes. I was sitting in my car, Lando, laughing and almost on the verge of tears because I landed the lead in _A Klingon Christmas Carol._

I was elated that the show was returning to the Twin Cities for the first time in four years. I wanted to be in the show since I first saw it and was simply appreciative that I could audition for it. I didn't care which role I got — I just wanted to be in it. I never dreamt that I would be cast as Scrooge in one of the most marvelously up-my-alley shows that exists. This feels much bigger to me than the Guthrie Theater's annual production.

After a couple of weeks of keeping it quiet I was finally able to tell everyone. Actually, before that I did tell my girlfriend, my family, my best friends, and a friend in Chicago who was engaged in a now-successful Klingon pop songs Kickstarter (a podcast interview is here)— but social media was out of the equation. The best part about it for me is that I have something I can invite friends to come see and it's in the same city or at least the same country.

I've been in rehearsals for about three weeks now, but I only just now thought to chronicle this experience. I was aching to return to writing and eventually get paid for it again and this seemed as good a time as any. I'm receiving scads of support and nerdy elation novas (or "novae", I suppose) from friends and family and it's a large part of my happiness right now as I'm working on settling back in the Twin Cities.

I suppose you could say this is my version of The Voyage Home.