William Shatner is coming to downtown Indianapolis. The 95-year-old actor best known as Captain James T. Kirk will appear live on stage at the Old National Centre following a screening of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, sharing behind-the-scenes stories from a career that spans acting, producing, directing, writing, recording music, and even a real trip to space.
What to Expect at the Old National Centre
The event, set for October 30, will include a moderated question-and-answer session giving fans in the audience a chance to ask Shatner questions directly, according to WISH-TV. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., with the program beginning at 7:30 p.m. Tickets start at $49, and VIP upgrades add extras like photo opportunities and an autographed tour poster, per the same report.
Shatner's screening tour also makes stops in Madison, Wisconsin on October 28; Joliet, Illinois on October 29; Louisville, Kentucky on October 31; and Northfield, Ohio on November 1, with additional dates planned into 2027. Tickets are available through William Shatner's official tour website, and further tour details can be found there as well.
Kirk's Most Famous Foe Returns to the Big Screen
The film pairing Shatner's live appearance is 1982's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, directed by Nicholas Meyer with a score by James Horner. Ricardo Montalbán reprises his role as Khan, seeking revenge against Admiral Kirk, and the cast includes Leonard Nimoy, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, and DeForest Kelley alongside Shatner. Meyer had never seen a Star Trek episode before taking the job, and he completed an uncredited 12-day script rewrite that drew heavily on C.S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower naval novels, according to Deep Focus Review.
That nautical influence helped shape the film's tone. The film was produced on a $12 million budget after Paramount slashed funding following the costly 1979 original, yet it went on to gross $97 million worldwide, according to Wikipedia's entry on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Its opening weekend brought in $14.35 million, a then-record for the highest-grossing debut in film history, as noted by WhatCulture. James Horner, just 28 years old at the time, was brought on to score the film after original composer Jerry Goldsmith was deemed too expensive for the reduced budget, per ASMAC.
A Career That Went Far Beyond Kirk
Shatner, born March 22, 1931, turned 95 this year and holds two Primetime Emmy Awards along with a Golden Globe he won in 2005 for playing attorney Denny Crane in The Practice and Boston Legal, according to Britannica's biography of William Shatner. Decades earlier, in the 1968 Star Trek episode Plato's Stepchildren, Shatner and co-star Nichelle Nichols shared what is widely cited as the first televised interracial kiss in U.S. broadcast history, a scene that faced intense network scrutiny before it aired, per the Jewish Virtual Library.
In 2021, Shatner became the oldest person to travel into space, flying aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard NS-18 suborbital mission at age 90. He described feeling an overwhelming sense of Earth's fragility during the 10-minute flight, according to The Guardian. That real-life journey has only added to the mystique surrounding an actor once fictionally famous for commanding a starship.
Inside a Century-Old Downtown Landmark
The venue hosting Shatner, the Old National Centre, was constructed between 1909 and 1910 as the Murat Shrine Temple and houses the 2,500-seat Murat Theatre, the oldest surviving stage house in downtown Indianapolis, according to Wikipedia's page on the Old National Centre. The building is owned by the Murat Shriners and operated by Live Nation. Its Moorish Revival and Egyptian-inspired architecture, designed by architect Oscar D. Bohlen, draws from the Bir Murat oasis in the Nubian Desert, making it the only Shrine Center in the world with a French-origin name.
Shatner's Indianapolis stop lands amid a broader wave of Star Trek 60th-anniversary programming this year. In September, movie theaters across the country hosted marathon screenings pairing Wrath of Khan with the 1967 prequel episode Space Seed, which first introduced Montalbán's Khan Noonien Singh, as Bay Area theaters beamed up nationwide. Shatner has also kept a busy convention schedule this year, with prior appearances tied to sci-fi gatherings elsewhere in the country.
