You can tell I’m not writing my Hideout Love List in any particular order, because one of my final entries is about one of my earliest experiences. Start Trekkin’, the Hideout’s first genre format, was one of Sean Hill’s ideas—improvised original-series Star Trek episodes, complete with costumes and set pieces. It was an early hit for the Hideout and, along with Maestro, one of my first times performing for a paid audience. 

My memories of Start Trekkin’ on the Hideout stage are faded. But I vividly recall the summer of 2004, when Andy Crouch somehow scored an invitation for us to perform at the official Star Trek convention in Las Vegas. I spent money that I didn’t have to join the excursion, my very first visit to Vegas. (It wasn’t my last; heck, it wasn’t even my last time performing at the Star Trek convention!)

We had two shows in the convention hall on consecutive days. The first was a technical disaster—we weren’t given microphones and basically had to scream our lines across the cavernous space. Despite the challenges, we delivered a decent enough show; I got to portray the villainous “Captain Kronkite.” The next day, we were given headset mics… most of us, anyway. The venue had enough for the entire cast but one. I volunteered to go without, and played a support character who spoke only in alien sign language. Ahh, the things we do for art.

I don’t remember too much else about the shows, but to this day it was the largest crowd for whom I’ve ever performed: perhaps 500 on the first day and maybe 1,000 on the second. We earned enough fans to get us stuck in the convention hall for 20 minutes posing for pictures afterwards. One boy, perhaps confused, asked our “captain” Ben to autograph his William Shatner photo.

On our last day in Vegas I was riding the elevator alone down from my room, and after a couple of floors a woman got on with me. We rode in silence for a few seconds, and then she respectfully nodded at me and said: “Captain Kronkite.” I blushed.