One Cube or Two? A Star Trek fan play (1973)
“Baltimore recently played host to a rather unique stage production. ONE CUBE OR TWO?, a musical comedy satire, based on tv’s STAR TREK, was performed at the University of Maryland’s Baltimore County Campus, March 16-18, for the benefit of Retinitis Pigmentosa. Permission for this special charity play was readily given by ST’s creator, Gene Roddenbcrry,and by Paramount Pictures to produce the production. Similarly, six different music publishers permitted a number of their songs to be especially re-written for the show. Yours truly, George Stover, played a cube-headed Coalation, an unfortunate victim of the mad scientist of Pentor 8, who thru the efforts of Captain Kirk and crew is finally transformed back to normal at the climax. — George Stover & Bill George” [2]
The play was described in detail in the 1973 newspaper article ‘Star Trek’ now an odyssey of the mind.”
“Among those attending the February convention was a delegation from the University of Maryland Baltimore County, who had gone a bit further than most Trekkies. They had written a new “Star Trek” entertainment, incorporating all the familiar characters and adding elements of gentle spoof and musical satire.
Begun as a joke some eight months before, the project bloomed into a full-scale production, sanctioned by the university, with proceeds to be donated to the Retinitis Pigmentosa Foundation.
The three authors - Dorothea Rau, Joyce Rodey and Delia Schmidt - compiled the script from a series of scenes each had written. As a gag, they sent a copy to Gene Roddenberry, creator of the original “Star Trek” series. To their astonishment, Mr. Roddenberry liked the idea and Paramount Studios, which owns the rights to “Star Trek” copyrighted the script and gave the students permission to produce it.A scene from the show was performed at the New York convention, and proved to be a hit. The girls were worried, however, that audiences less predisposed to adulation of anything remotely Trekkian might have a hard time catching the esoteric references and jokes. They needn’t have worried.
Playing to packed houses at the college last Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights,“One Cube or Two” was a boffo smash, and the mock-up of the; bridge of the Enterprise, with Federation regalia and suitably inscrutable aliens, would have drawn nods of approval from the “Great Bird of the Galaxy,” as the original “Star Trek” production crew dubbed Mr. Roddenberry.
The UMBC production and the large number of non-pointed-eared, non-green-skinned Baltimoreans who turned out for it are indicators of the interest in the show that survives. Nine “Star Trek” books have been published in the last several years, fan magazines have sprung up and a corporation had to be created to handle the requests from all over the world for old scripts, production stills, props or just information. A perfectly serious 400-page tome was published, tracing the development and impact of the show with an attention to detail worthy of a doctoral dissertation.” Source.