Grant and Cole Remmen noticed a gaping hole in the pantheon of musical theater: no one had created a show based on the much loved Star Trek series. And who would be better suited to write it than the brothers from Detroit Lakes, Minnesota?

One has a background in theater, the other is steeped in science, and both are musicians. The Remmens, both recipients of the Bentson Family Scholarship, harnessed their love of music, science, and theater into developing a Star Trek parody, Boldly Go!

Writing the play and its 19 original songs wasn’t easy. Grant, ’12 B.S., was completing his doctorate in theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology at the time, and Cole, ’16 B.A., was a student at the University of Minnesota (he is now pursuing a theater doctorate from the University of California-Santa Barbara). Between Skype and school breaks, they completed the project in 18 months. 

Boldly Go! pokes fun at musical theater and Star Trek and has something for everyone—sly humor, romance, political drama.

The Remmens say the Bentson Scholarship was key to accomplishing their goals. “It allowed us to succeed in classes and pursue other things like research for me and directing for Cole, which set us up well for graduate school and our careers,” Grant says.

The brothers staged the musical at Caltech last spring and hope to one day bring it to Minnesota.