Deanna Troi Cosplay

By Sabrina L. Nelson

Close friends know that while I enjoy “Star Wars,” and while I even made a General Leia Organa costume, I’m much more of a Trekker. “Star Trek” was my first love and remains a guiding light in my fantasies of the future. And when I was a pre-teen, I had my fangirl crushes: Captain Kirk for about five minutes, Mr. Spock for about a month, the devilishly handsome Chekov and Sulu, and of course, that old country doctor with sad and soulful eyes, Bones. I loved them all, yet the characters who have truly stayed with me, influenced me, and touched my heart in profound ways are the smart, powerful and gifted women of “Star Trek:” Lieutenant Uhura, Nurse Chapel, and the women of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (aka Next Gen), such as Dr. Crusher, and one of the most misunderstood of all the “Star Trek” women, Deanna Troi.

I believe she’s misunderstood because, as an actor, it is hard to act out stuff going on inside your head and make the audience feel what you’re feeling. I believe Marina Sirtis did an outstanding job of portraying inner turmoil, empathy, and all-encompassing compassion. Her character is sensitive to a fault, and represents the soul of the crew, particularly, Captain Picard’s soul. I’ve often thought of cosplaying Deanna but was looking for the right venue. I wanted to give this cosplay the credit she was due and perhaps even explain to anyone who would listen why I think she’s amazing.

So there I was, literally just finishing my annual rewatching binge of Next Gen, when a friend frantically texted me about a costume event at Chabot Space and Science Center on August 24, 2019. The event was in two weeks; it was a “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” mashup called Highly Mixological. I thought: “A costume party? At a planetarium? How cool is that?!” The fact that I only had two weeks to pull together my Deanna tribute didn’t faze me in the least, thanks to the advent of online shopping.

I had a friend who was a prop mistress for the Boston Lyric Opera who used to brag about being able to find an elephant in three phone calls. I often think of her when I start hunting for costumes and props online. I can usually find what I want in three clicks. While Amazon did not disappoint, the sad truth is that I clicked a few hundred times before I found the best representation of Deanna’s iconic sky-blue ensemble, given my time, budget and sewing constraints. At this point, you might ask, “Sabrina, why didn’t you just make it?” Well, to be perfectly honest, I just didn’t have enough time, and as I learned with the General Leia costume, I need to practice more with sewing knits; I just didn’t want to go back to that scary place so soon!

What I found was a lovely sky-blue, fit-and-flare dress with a scoop neck and long sleeves. The shape was close enough to Deanna’s dress, and time was running out — it was now five days before the party. At about the same time I found matching tights and ballet slippers. I could have gone with the beautiful square heeled pump that I saw, but I know me and my feet would have been unhappy after about 10 seconds in those shoes. I have flat and wide feet, like a duck. Nothing works for my duck feet except sneakers or ballet flats. I ordered all three items and prayed to the costume muses that they would all actually match. As we all know, objects on the computer screen don’t always look the same when you get them home, and what looks like the same color under fluorescent lighting might look totally different under incandescent lighting.

Three days before the event, everything arrived. I took a deep breath, opened the packages, and tried everything on. Miracle of miracles, everything matched, in sunlight, under fluorescents, under incandescents! And everything FIT! This was probably the easiest cosplay I’d ever done, I thought! Then I remembered that Deanna’s dress had a squarish angle on one side of the scoop neck and I spent a couple of hours finagling the dress to this shape without damaging it. Pins, both safety and straight, did nothing. Folding, tacking, squishing, did nothing. I gave up and declared the costume “good enough.” But what about my communicator badge?

I remembered that I was looking for my communicator badge and pips for another event and had turned the house upside down looking for them, only to lose them yet again. I really need an assistant, but that’s a story for another time and another universe in which I am idly rich and spend my time donating to social justice causes and wearing outlandish outfits everywhere I go and having a bevy of assistants at my beck and call. So I went digging through the accessories stash one more time and thankfully, there they were, but with the Steampunk stuff rather than the sci-fi stuff. Curse me for wanting to do mashups!

The day of the event finally arrived, and I got dressed, then worked on the absolutely easiest part of the costume, my hair. I have long, dark, curly/wavy hair just like Deanna’s, and I love costumes that feature my hair. (Is that vain? Please be kind in the comments, LOL). I just needed to add a little extra product to pump up the volume, then comb back the bangs, tucking them under a headband. I checked the reference pictures and discovered she had a jeweled headband. I happened to have something similar from an old flapper outfit. Then I couldn’t figure out what to do about earrings. She never seemed to wear them, but I can’t leave the house without earrings. I feel naked without them, so I found these lovely little glass prism studs in my stash and wore those.

Upon my arrival at Chabot Space and Science Center, my friend and I realized that the event had been under-publicized. There weren’t that many folks there, and more than two thirds were in “Star Wars” costumes. While there were a few red shirts, a Kirk and a Picard, I didn’t see many Trekkers. I was a little sad, but drowned my sorrows in one of their very clever cocktails, a Gin Luc Picard. For gin cocktail fans, this is the “Star Trek” version of a Bees Knees, made with Earl Grey tea (cold),  honey and gin. It was amazing!

There were fun “Star Trek” or “Star Wars” games and puzzles all over the museum, in addition to their permanent exhibits, so even though there were not that many people to hang out with and compare costume notes with, we still had fun. Then they announced the costume contest. Contest?! Heck yeah, I’d enter. I worked hard on this costume… maybe not as hard as for the General Leia but hard enough given the time constraints. I had no hope of winning, or anything. I just wanted to show off.

As we were lining up, I noticed in front of me a guy dressed like what I thought was older Spock, when he became an ambassador and grew a beard. I honestly still am not sure, but he definitely looked Vulcan. I turned to him and asked him if he wanted to team up with me. We could pretend we were having trouble communicating and he could mind meld me while I “sensed” him. We did a quick rehearsal, and when our time came, we gave it our all.

We had a good laugh and walked back to our friends while the judges tabulated the results. I was completely dumbfounded when they announced we’d won second place. I didn’t even think we’d made any impression at all, except to make everyone groan and giggle, but the groans paid off. We won two tickets to their next costume event, “The All Hallows Eve Costume Party” on October 27, 2019. We also won a poster with Spock hands doing the “Live Long and Prosper” salute. A final prize was a “Star Wars” picture book, and while I would have liked to have it, I also realized that I don’t have enough room in the house for all the books I already have, so I told my partner to take it.

I never did get my partner’s name, but I definitely have to thank him for a fantastic end to an out-of-this world evening. All’s well that ended well — far more “well” than I could have imagined. I attended “The All Hallows Eve Costume Party,” and out of fairness, I cosplayed General Leia Organa.