It is with great sadness that we announce that Charles W. Ott III passed away on June 3rd at the age of 77 from lung and heart cancer. Chuck was one of the few Moebius Theatre founding members who continued to be active in the company from its inception.
Chuck was one of the troupe’s most prolific writers of both plays and comedy sketches. Along with numerous writing collaborations with other troupe members, Chuck was sole author of at least three plays and 43 comedy sketches. The plays included Parking Orbit (1978), Spark (1981), and Nowheresville (2024). Among his sketches that the troupe performed most often were Gizzard Exam, Martians, Jake Makes a Namesake, and Virtual Reality.*
In addition to his huge written legacy, Chuck also contributed to Moebius as a producer, director, writer, and Board Governor. Among other accomplishments, he produced Four Hundred Years Out (1988); directed Canada – A Pageant (1989), The History of Science Fiction Theatre (1991), and Tales from Martha Stewart’s Science Fiction Magazine (1993); and performed in many shows over his 50 years with Moebius.
Chuck had a rich life outside of Moebius as well. A versatile professional, he worked as a technical writer, a computer programmer, and a college teacher. He held a master’s degree in computer science from North Central College and proudly served his country in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. In addition to his theatrical writing for Moebius, Chuck wrote and published three science fiction and fantasy novels: The Floor of the World, Something Made of Vacuum, and A Weapon of Mathematics,** alongside several published short stories.
He is survived by his loving wife, Kat Huddleston, also a member of Moebius Theatre; as well as his brothers, Roger Ott and Christopher Ott and his sister, Cindy Malinowski.
On June 18, a celebration of his life was held with a packed room of friends and family, as well as numerous others attending virtually from around the country. Chuck will truly be missed by many, and Moebius Theatre will not be the same without him.
We would like to close with a brief snippet of Chuck’s comic genius, we offer Crab Rap,*** a “song” Chuck wrote for the end of his 1993 sketch Cops*** (which spoofs the TV show of the same name):
Oh, we are the Crabs from Arcturus.
We are here to invade your fair world.
We have no sense of rhyme or of meter,
But we snap with our claws, which is neater.
In the ‘hood I left behind my little crabwife,
She’s as good as they come, I must say.
You should see her when she sidles down the highway,
Boys’ antennas rise up stiff everywhere.
On Arcturus we all shred our dinners,
And we pick them apart with our claws.
We don’t know from napkins or chopsticks,
We don’t know from barbecue sauce.
How I long to be back on Arcturus,
With my own little puppies or grubs,
Or fingerlings or fry or coral,
Or whatever it is that Crabs have.
From this planet they say we are going,
We will miss your french fries and Toyotas,
Murphy Brown, Deep Space Nine, and the Cubbies,
And of course, two‑for‑oners at Red Lobster.
*Shortly before he died, Chuck agreed to allow fellow Moebius member and sometime collaborator E. Michael Blake to assemble a collection of his Moebius Theatre sketches for publication. Kat endorses this project. It is anticipated that the book will become available later this year.
**All three of Chuck’s novels are available on Amazon.
***© 1993, Charles W. Ott. Copyright transferred to Kat Huddleston.