to tell you all how excited I am to be standing here tonight. I have
brought with me some of the most talented writers and performers I know, and we hope to
present you with a show youâll never forget. We are Mind Meld , and our
show is called, Assimilate This !â
There is wild applause, and the lights dim. I walk offstage, trading places with Kristen
and Tracy who are to begin the first scene.
The lights come up, and the show begins.
It goes incredibly well. We are all funny, and we never miss a beat in any of our
sketches.
Jim is a natural. He never misses a cue. A few times, he even anticipates when an
improvised bit needs to end and blacks it out like heâs been doing it for years.
We are extremely lucky to have him doing our lights. If we take this show on the
road, weâll take him with us , we decide.
All our sketches kill [ 4 ] except one, and thatâs a great batting average for us.
We only have one real problem, and the audience never knows about it: With about 20
minutes remaining in the show, Maz and I both have to pee worse than weâve ever had to pee in
our lives! Normally, this wouldnât be a problem. All theaters have a bathroom backstage, but
weâre in a ballroom, behind pipe and drape, and thereâs no way to run off to the real bathroom
without distracting the entire audience.
We have little choice but to do the pee-pee dance for the rest of the show, even when
weâre on stage for sketches. I seriously consider using an empty bottle of Crystal Geyser, but
think better of it.
Months of planning, hair pulling, and agonizing have resulted in 90 incredible minutes,
and the show is over. When we do shows at ACME, there is always a touch of sadness on closing
night. That feeling currently mixes with the opening night excitement that weâre also feeling.
I canât believe itâs over.
When the lights go down on the final sketch, the crowd roars, whistles, stomps their feet.
They demand more, but we donât have anything else to give them. We have left it all on the
stage.
I walk out to thank the audience for coming, and introduce the cast.
As I step out from behind the curtain, the most amazing and unexpected thing happens â
they leap to their feet. They scream. They applaud. They whistle. They howl. I stand there,
dumbfounded, and struggle to keep myself together. The validation I feel from this crowd is
overwhelming, and my eyes fill with tears.
Itâs hard for me to share with anyone how much shit Iâve gotten over the last 15 years
because of Star Trek . The lousy treatment at the hands of WILLIAM FUCKING
SHATNER is nothing compared to some of the things Trekkies have done to
me. Theyâve insulted me. Theyâve called me names. Theyâve hated me without knowing why. It was
risky for me to put up this show . . . if it had tanked, I would never have been able to show
my face at a Star Trek convention again.
Iâve been working so goddamn hard for so goddamn long to get people to just give me a
chance â to let me challenge their expectations of me, and hopefully change their minds about
me. Getting this huge, genuine, passionate, heart-felt standing ovation, from this group of
people, is simply magical. I will cherish it for the rest of my life.
My only regret is that I forgot to thank Jim, our sound and lighting technician.
So, Jim, if youâre reading, here is what I would have said:
âThis show did not come together overnight and it didnât come together easily. We all
worked very hard to make it happen and the whole thing could have been easily ruined by a bad
tech guy. Fortunately, we had the most amazing tech guy ever. Jim [here is where Iâd point to
the side of the stage and call you up] has never lit a sketch show before and he didnât miss a
beat tonight. If you enjoyed the show, Jim deserves your applause as much as any of
Matthue Roth
Darlene Panzera
Stolen Charms
Richard Parks
Blake Pierce
Johnny O'Brien
Lynn Raye Harris
Bethany-Kris
M. William Phelps
Laury Falter