Personal Log: Helen Parson (Mr. Spock)


Helen Parson has portrayed Spock in every Hello Earth Outdoor Trek and she estimates that she is now approximately 37.02% Vulcan. When she is not applying spirit gum to her ears her logical life choices include making comics, writing music, and playing all the pretty guitars.


What do you think of Outdoor Trek so far, and what are you looking forward to about the upcoming production?
Outdoor Trek is like the magical summer camp in outer space I've always wanted to attend. It's been such a privilege to play Spock four times - I just love fighting with Captain Kirk in my emotional freakouts, getting squirted with bliss-inducing flower chemicals, mind-melding with sentient rock creatures, giving people the Vulcan neck pinch and saying insulting things about humans. I have also established a history of falling in love with fellow cast members and asking them to marry me (well, only one. It's a short history.)

If I've been having the time of my life playing Spock, the apex of my entire existence is going to be playing Evil Spock. The actual original Evil Spock! It's almost as good as playing Hamlet.

What cool things do you do in your life outside of Outdoor Trek?
I've been working for the past eleven years on hand-painting the pages of a post-apocalyptic graphic novel based on a dream I had (which seems fairly illogical actually, if you think about it) in and will probably still be working on it eleven years from now; I also make shorter comics as a means of procrastinating/maintaining my sanity. I am also in a band called Princess Seismograph.

What history do you have with theatrical productions?
I was a drama major at a specialized performing arts high school in Manhattan which had a very demanding regime of study, so I was lucky enough to do a ton of serious acting when I was a teenager as well as read a million plays. In college I was part of a lot of amazing productions, including Heiner Müller's Medeamaterial (in translation) a combination silent film/live theater production of Hamlet in which I played Ophelia. I was also part of Hard Bard Macbeth with Greenstage, playing four characters and being brutally stabbed to death on stage as two of them!

What history do you have with Star Trek?
I, weirdly enough, was first exposed to Star Trek in my childhood by a museum exhibit about the original series at, I think, the Haydn Planetarium. The exhibit had tons of behind-the-scenes as well as on-camera still photographs, set pieces, costumes, and props - I particularly remember the tribbles in a glass display case! I was really awed by the story of this show that no one liked and which was cancelled but then everyone actually loved because it reached toward universal dignity for the human species - I was deeply affected by the hero journey of the original series itself. Since then Star Trek has had a special place in my heart.

What excites you about the future of mankind?
Roads and sidewalks made of solar panels! And the thought of that bright day when it will sound just impossibly weird to say things like "the future of mankind" because we no longer hold the deep subconscious belief that humanity is a male-gendered species and that women are an awkward anomaly.

1 comment:

  1. Saw OUTDOOR TREK "Day of the Dove" 7/29 & 7/30. Most excellent indeed. You have a fan in me. BTW, I'll be wearing my OUTDOORTREK tee shirt when I take a picture with Felicity Jones at NYCC in
    october.

    ReplyDelete

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