August 2002:
A Brand New Voyage
Actress Kate Mulgrew trades in the Delta Quandrant for Hartford, Connecticut

by Andy Scahill, Out in America Editor

In Star Trek: Voyager, Kate Mulgrew's character Captain Janeway led a group of lost explorers on an "Odyssey"-esque journey to find their way home. In its seven and a half year run, Mulgrew garnered widespread acclaim for portraying a brash, authoritative character tempered by compassion and warmth.

But in her latest undertaking, Mulgrew boldly goes where no woman has gone before--on stage, that is. In the daring and multi-faceted one-woman show "Tea at Five", Mulgrew portrays screen idol Katharine Hepburn--first at 31 after Hepburn has been labeled "box office poison" and later at 76 after Hepburn's debilitating car accident.

Gay playwright Matthew Lombardo says that he began to draft the show after seeing an episode of Star Trek: Voyager and marveling at Mulgrew's "Hepburnesque" qualities. The show was fast-tracked to production and opened in February, 2002 at the Hartford Stage in Connecticut, incidentally near the town in which Ms. Hepburn, now 97, currently resides.

This month, Mulgrew takes her show to Ohio, where her husband, Ohio