New Star Trek-inspired play Love Space brings sci-fi drama to you, one-on-one

Love Space by Joe Zarrow, playing in February from Open Book Theatre Company

JANUARY 25, 2021 - Imagine for a moment that you could have a live, interactive theatre performance all to yourself, without ever leaving the comfort of your own home. Well, the Open Book Theatre Company’s One to One Virtual Theatre is making that vision a reality, producing a number of intimate one-act plays over Zoom. A report from BroadwayWorld.com brought us the news of their newest virtual play, Love Space, a Star Trek-inspired piece that author Joe Zarrow says is about “finding love and connection despite barriers of space and time.”

As many theatres continue to remain closed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the One to One Virtual Theatre was developed to bring live theatre to the home audience. “One to One” means just that: one actor performs a short play over a Zoom call, for an audience of one. The plays are fairly short, with each performance lasting about ten minutes. Love Space director K Edmonds hopes the program can provide a “much needed break from the drudgery of living through this pandemic,” allowing audiences to feel what she calls a “connection, a real connection, with another living, breathing human.”

Writing a play for a virtual audience of just one person isn’t the same as writing for a larger, in-person audience. As Zarrow sat down to write Love Space, keeping the intended audience in mind was an important factor, influencing the direction of the play. “I tend to write big fun comedies that assume a lot of vocal audience response, hopefully laughter,” Zarrow said of his prior work. “Writing for Zoom, all of that audience feedback is silenced. Instead, the moments that tend to shine are the quiet ones. "

While we don’t know many details about the plot of Love Space, a short description of the play reads, “Captain Talosi makes one last video call – an intergalactic love connection – as Vorgon Shock Troops are closing in on the bridge of the Starship Hieronymus.”

That’s right. Captain Talosi. That name might sound a little... familiar to some of you Trek fans out there. In the play, Talosi is played by Jeremy Kucharek. It’s a lucky gig for the Michigan based actor, who admitted to being a fan of the play’s source material. Calling the role “a treat” to play, Kucharek said, "A few years ago, I fell in love with a certain beloved episodic space drama starring Mr. Patrick Stewart", referring, of course, to Star Trek: The Next Generation. On his upcoming virtual performance, Kucharek said, "I would like to think that Love Space might [...] add some desperately needed local creativity to our lives. While we may all be confined to our homes, we are still surrounded by a larger creative collective going through this together."

Love Space will run for a total of six nights on Mondays and Thursdays in February, beginning February 4th, with multiple performance times available each night. Tickets are $20. For more information visit OpenBookTheatreCompany.net.