In a recent interview with AMCtv.com's Scifi Scanner, John De Lancie talked about his upcoming production of Madame Butterfly, his time creating and recording 'Alien Voices' with Leonard Nimoy, and J.J. Abrams 'Star Trek'.

AMCtv: You're directing a stage production of Madame Butterfly set 1,000 years in the future. How did that idea occur to you?

JDL: Well, what I didn't want to see was a sushi restaurant up on stage -- I didn't want to see women dressed up like Geishas that look like they're in packing blankets with knapsacks on their face, because it becomes artifice. So I placed them on a magical island that provides everything -- light and food and that type of stuff. And it gets me in a place where I can concentrate on the music and concentrate on the story.

AMCtv: You and Leonard Nimoy used to do a series of radio dramatizations of classic scifi called Alien Voices. Why did you stop?

JDL: The problem with Alien Voices was we had four really terrific years. And then it began to be about selling: Simon & Schuster wanted whatever, 40,000 units sold a year. And what we wanted to do was create really well-produced shows and have a library so that people in the future will simply know to come to an Alien Voices production that will always be good. And they didn't see it that way, and I thought, "Oh my God, what am I doing? I'm going around peddling audio books! This is not what I want to do." I loved writing them and directing them and doing them live, but I just didn't want to get involved any more.

AMCtv: And now Leonard is reimagining scifi with the new Star Trek. What did you think of the movie?

JDL: Oh I thought that Abrams had really breathed life and a whole new way of looking at a very honored franchise. And I think that it was certainly time to do it that way. Those frontally-didactic shows that they were doing towards the end were just a little old-fashioned. This felt new and fresh, and Leonard was terrific. I think that they somehow were able to get the franchise off of life support and back on its feet. Maybe 40 years ago it was new, but they had too many television shows and too many vain attempts of late that this was very refreshing. My wife was crying in the first part of it [Laughs]. I was like, I can't believe it. And Leonard had told me they really do some nice stuff with the characters, and he was right. So it was nice. (source AMCtv.com's Scifi Scanner)

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