Spend any length of time in the company of Kate Mulgrew and you realise that her schedule would rival
that of a starship captain. Let's just say that she doesn't rest much. Star Trek Monthly was in
Hartford, Connecticut, for just four days, where Mulgrew has been appearing in a one-woman play
"Tea at Five" - Matthew Lombardo's biopic of famed actress Katharine Hepburn.

Nine performances in the first seven days of the current run took a heavy toll on Mulgrew's vocal
chords. But not only did she go ahead with this interview, she also went on to complete a two-hour-perfomance
that very night. fifteen minutes after the performance finished ath 10.30pm, she was putting in an
appearance at a cocktail reception in her hotel - a fundraiser for her husband's political campaign,
where we were greeted with open arms once more.

Even with her strained vocal chords, there was no mistaking that voice. The woman we met, with her arms
outstretched in greeting, was not Kathryn Janeway, but could easily have been her sister. Wearing a stunning
green shawl draped around her shoulders, her hair pinned up in a simple twist, Mulgrew looked tired - not
surprising after such a busy few weeks of two-hours alone on stage; she appeared to be running purely
on adrenaline. Nevertheless, her eyes were sparkling and her manner unforced, friendly and warm.

She is smaller than you imagine her to be, yet she has a commanding physical presence - a natural
air of authority. She is extremely tactile, a quality she endowed Janeway with in spite of objections
from producers. She holds hands easily, wraps her arms around you, kisses and hugs unselfconsciously.

Throughout the reception Mulgrew was charm and grace personified. At almost midnight, when she left, she
did so with a hug, a cheery wave and instructions that we were to stay there all night - "the bar's free,"
she wispered conspiratorially.

Earlier, Mulgrew spoke at length about how she had tried to give Captain Janeway an inner depth; her
emotions could always be seen in her eyes without the need for dialogue. She says that's because in
those moments she was "totally concentrated on what Janeway must be concentrated on." Fine with a
television close-up, but was that still in evidence watching her on stage? It was. That's crucial
to the authenticity "especially on stage," she laughs.

Watching her perform offers up a large dose of her energy and vitality, fully demonstrating her
commitment to the role she is playing - the same kind of dedication that made Kathryn Janeway such a
strong and well-rounded character in Star Trek:Voyager. The emotional journey she takes her audience
on is compelling. Her performance is breathtaking. The dramatic scence heartrending, her comic timing
impeccable.

But what is it like preparing to do a play where you are the only actor on stage for two hours? "I have
to really go into myself," Mulgrew says. "You wouldn't recognise me." She scrunches her nose up as if
to confirm that she becomes a different person. "I really have to go into my own world, it is so
concentrated." She describes the process as "total immersion" and speaks of the importance of warming up,
often arriving at the theatre two or three hours before the actual performance.

Mulgrew's exhausted vocal chords have resulted in part from the intense strain that doing the Hepburn
voice puts on her. Portraying Hepburn at the ages of 31 and 76, the voice is markedly different for each.
And in spite of people constantly comparing her to Hepburn throughout her life, Mulgrew's distinctive voice
is her own. The voice she 'adopts' as Hepburn is Hepburn, not Mulgrew.

During the entire run of this play Mulgrew has been deeply moved by the loyalty and support she has
seen from her Star Trek fans. People have literally been coming from all over the world to see her.
"They are coming to see me I think because they loved Janeway," Mulgrew says. That may be so, but they
went away from the theatre loving Kate Mulgrew, with an even deeper appreciation of her as an actress,
which goes beyond her portrayal of the U.S.S. Voyager's captain.

Mulgrew continues: "I have been dazzled not only by the unconditional support but by the people who are
coming to see me... This was the turning point for me as Captain Janeway." The realisation of this kind
of incredible support made her even more painfully aware of how devastated some fans have been following
necessary cancellations of the Tea at Five show because of her vocal problems - something she hopes to
remedy later this year by adding extra performances.

Recently, of course, Mulgrew revisited the role that gave her this loyal following when she did a guest
cameo in Star Trek Nemesis - and she's been promoted! Admiral Janeway is given the chance to order
Captain Picard around in the movie. "That was very brief, you know," she says "It was a small thing. I
started very early in the morning. Patrick Stewart, gracious human being that he is, came in and did
the off-camera with me." She describes it as fun but short. "It was over in under an hour."

And speaking of Admiral Janeway, the older version of Janeway who appeared in ST:Voy' finale, Endgame,
was very much down to Mulgrew. "I chose her," she says and just as she loves the character of Captain
Janeway, she fell in love with the Admiral. "I think that's the key, you know," she says thoughtfully.

But how do you prepare to play an older version of a character you know so well? Mulgrew says it's "kind
of like having a baby. You know when you really want that baby and everybody is screaming at you 'breathe,
breathe', you just sort of do, and the baby comes. The more you fight, the worse it is."

So she just allowed it to happen? " I slipped right into her." The character of the Admiral was born quite
naturally as an extension of Captain Janeway. Older but believable as "someone that Janeway would become,"
says Mulgrew.

Admiral Janeway had come to understand things about life and death that her younger self hadn't. And Mulgrew
says that she was "fearless when it comes to the lives of her crew," as evidenced by her heroic self-sacrifice
to kill the Borg Queen, played by Alice Krige, reprising her role from the movie Star Trek: First Contact.
According to Mulgrew, there was no doubt that "Admiral Janeway would sacrifice herself for Captain Janeway
and this crew."

There may have been two Janeways in Endgame but there is only one Kate Mulgrew. What was that like as an
actor, effectively playing against nothing? "They were technically the most challenging scenes of my life.
And that too was interesting to me. I was playing to nothing. When you see Admiral Janeway talking to the
Captain, there's nothing there." Mulgrew describes the challenge as "the height of the transformation. I
had to really believe that she is there while I was looking at a dot or maybe there's a stand-in or
something. But that's the work of the imagination, which is exactly what we're paid to do, right?"

Like Kathryn Janeway, Kate Mulgrew's dedication to duty far exceeds what she is paid to do. Her audience
is important to her. That could not have been illustrated more clearly than the day after her fundraising
reception. At high noon the theatre had organised a luncheon for 120 Star Trek fans and for an hour and a
half, Mulgrew and her husband Tim Hagan (who had just flown in) kept the audience spellbound.

She signed more than 120 autographs and posed for a personal photograph with everyone. And in spite of
the vocal problems, not forgetting she had a performance that evening, she took time to talk to each
person as they came forward. When she was told to stop talking and rest her voice, Mulgrew just said, "You
keep telling me that."

She wouldn't take a break and she wouldn't eat anything "as I wouldn't have time to eat it." A hastily
consumed throat sweet allowed her to continue when she probably should have stopped, but she didn't want
to let her fans down.

In retrospect, Mulgrew says that in ST:Voy she tried to give us "a Janeway you can identify with," one
who would "endure in your hearts." Who wasn't perfect, but who you could love in spite of her flaws. She
describes Janeway as "the quintessential human being." And perhaps that is a good way to describe Kate Mulgrew,
the actress who breathed life into a starship captain and now admiral of the fleet.

But what about after the lights finally went out at the end of the seven years? Mulgrew admits that she
was "on the verge of tears" when she found herself alone on the bridge in the dark. "Bob Picardo walked over to me
and put his arms around me," she says. It was a quiet ending, but perhaps fitting that it is finished with the
captain on her bridge.

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