I stayed at the convention hotel, the ten-story Renaissance Newark Airport Hotel, and enjoyed the indoor pool and the restaurant. My room (820) had a flat-screen high-definition television with HBO, so I got to see an episode of HBO's popular vampire drama True Blood for the first time.
On Thursday, August 13, I spent twelve hours in New York City. To reach Manhattan from Newark (actually Elizabeth, New Jersey), I had to ride the hotel shuttle back to the Newark airport, take the airport monorail to the New Jersey Transit train station, and ride the train to Pennsylvania Station beneath Madison Square Garden in New York City.
I hadn't been to New York in 15 years, so I was thrilled to see everything again. In my more than one dozen previous trips to New York, I had toured numerous attractions, museums, buildings, stores, and theatres, so this time, I was content just to wander around Times Square and take in the sights. Times Square is more dazzling than ever. Enormous billboards, illuminated signs, and video screens stretch across whole sides of buildings, and huge ads for Broadway shows (Mary Poppins), movies (GI Joe), and TV shows (The Good Wife) are everywhere. Taxicabs, cars, and buses whiz by, but in the center of Times Square, near the George M. Cohan statue, there is an area for foot traffic only.
At lunchtime, I made my way to Ollie's Sichuan Restaurant (411 West 42nd Street), a fine place that my friend Jeffrey had recommended to me. The shrimp with lobster sauce was delicious and reasonably priced.
I spent three hours taking a very relaxing yet thrilling ride around Manhattan on the open-air top of a City Sights NY double-decker bus (www.citysightsny.com). City Sights NY specializes in "hop on, hop off sightseeing": tourists may get off the bus at any stop and then catch the next City Sights bus that soon comes along. My tour guide, Lorna, was excellent as she doled out information, history, humor, and even rain ponchos to her passengers. The light rain didn't last very long. I took the Downtown Tour, which afforded me dozens of photo opportunities as it presented me with many new sights and just as many happy memories of past trips. I can't begin to name every landmark that I saw--the Pratt Institute, Village Vanguard jazz club, Manhattan Bridge, Flatiron Building, golden bull statue, New York Times building, Waldorf Astoria hotel--but the double-decker bus's stops included ones at the Theatre District, Carnegie Hall, Times Square, Empire State Building, Ladies' Mile, Greenwich Village, SoHo, Chinatown, Little Italy, Battery Park, South Street Seaport, East Village, United Nations, and Rockefeller Center. Lorna pointed out certain buildings that had been seen on Law and Order, and she mentioned that the Woolworth Building had been in Ghostbusters and Enchanted and on Ugly Betty. (It also is mentioned in Langston Hughes's poetry.) My three-hour tour was a marvelous way to spend time in New York and to enjoy the many locales.
Later, I walked through the Hotel Pennsylvania, Macy's, and several other stores, and I shopped for 2010 calendars at Borders at Madison Square Garden. Around suppertime, I met my Long Island friend Ira at Penn Station, and we walked to Ben's Kosher Delicatessen (209 West 38th Street; www.bensdeli.net) for a delicious steak dinner. Ira told me that he had seen one copy of my McFarland book The Television Horrors of Dan Curtis at a Barnes and Noble bookstore on Long Island. Ira and I enjoyed catching up with each other. I missed seeing Ira's wife Wendy, who couldn't make the trip. After dinner, Ira and I walked to Mid-Town Comics (200 West 40th Street; www.midtowncomics.com), a two-story emporium of comic books, graphic novels, action figures, super-hero statuettes, books, DVDs, and much more. I found a 2010 calendar that I hadn't seen anywhere else (Sci-Fi Comics: Art from the DC Comics Archives). Later, Ira and I walked around the brightly lighted Times Square, now even much more crowded with people than it had been during the day. Finally, we walked back to Penn Station and said good-bye. The Dark Shadows Resurrected Weekend--the 27th annual Dark Shadows Festival--was held at the Renaissance Newark Airport Hotel on August 14-15-16. More than 1400 fans of all ages attended the convention and welcomed six Dark Shadows stars--Jonathan Frid (Barnabas Collins), John Karlen (Willie), Jerry Lacy (Trask), Lara Parker (Angelique), Kathryn Leigh Scott (Maggie), and Marie Wallace (Eve). Lara Parker and Kathryn Leigh Scott brought their husbands with them, and Jonathan Frid traveled down from Canada with more than a dozen of his friends and relatives, including his niece and his great-nephew. Jerry Lacy was accompanied by his wife Julia Duffy of The Doctors and Newhart, and they very kindly made a special point to greet a nine-year-old fan who knew them best from the Nickelodeon TV series Drake and Josh. Even more than usual, the Dark Shadows Festival was a family affair, for several of my fan-friends from the 1980s and 1990s were there with their young children.
Again this year, I saw many long-time friends and pen pals, and I made several new friends. I didn't have too much time to socialize, however, because I was busy emceeing the Festival in the ballroom and running over to the dealers' room where I was selling and signing copies of my book The Television Horrors of Dan Curtis: Dark Shadows, The Night Stalker, and Other Productions, 1966-2006 (McFarland, 2009; foreword by Festival chairman Jim Pierson). I brought 45 copies of my book, and I sold all of them! I had sold all but three of them even before I gave my Saturday-afternoon talk about the book! Many other fans wanted to buy the book after it had sold out, so I urged them to acquire the book through www.mcfarlandpub.com or www.amazon.com. I thoroughly enjoyed my role as Festival host and was delighted that quite a few fans complimented my efforts. To me, hosting a Dark Shadows Festival and teaching a class are similar because in both settings, I must capture and hold the audience's attention; impart information, instruction, entertainment, and human interest; and keep things moving. I enjoyed emceeing quite a few of the Dark Shadows Festivals back in the 1980s.
Some of the highlights of this year's convention were the DS Recollections panels, at which groups of Dark Shadows stars spoke, commented on clips from the 1966-1971 TV show, and answered questions from the audience. There also were talks by authors Frank Borzellieri (The Physics of Dark Shadows), Brian Kellow (The Bennetts: An Acting Family), and Marcy Robin (Shadowgram; www.shadowgram.com). Festival chairman Jim Pierson treated the fans to Joan Bennett on Love, American Style and The Governor and J.J.; Kate Jackson on Password; John Karlen in Night of Terror; and two showings of the never-aired 2004 WB pilot for a new Dark Shadows series that never came to be. Of course, there was also much talk about the planned Dark Shadows theatrical movie written by John August, directed by Tim Burton, and starring Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins. On Saturday night, fans watched the MGM films House of Dark Shadows (1970) and Night of Dark Shadows (1971) on the big screen above the stage in the ballroom. In the dealers' room, many of the stars had their own autograph/merchandise tables, MPI Home Video (www.mpihomevideo.com; www.darkshadowsdvd.com) was selling the latest Dark Shadows and Dan Curtis DVDs, Big Finish Productions (www.bigfinish.com; www.collinwood.net) debuted two new CD audio dramas (Echoes of Insanity and Curse of the Pharaoh) featuring the original stars of Dark Shadows, and other dealers sold books, TV Guides, fanzines, movie posters, and countless Dark Shadows collectibles. My old friend Lawrence, whom I hadn't seen in years, had his table of rare Dark Shadows photographs next to the table where my 45 Television Horrors books were displayed, and he kindly sold them for me when I couldn't be in the dealers' room. More Dark Shadows items were up for grabs at the two charity auctions. Jonathan Frid donated some of his photographs, scrapbooks, and legal contracts and documents concerning Dark Shadows to be auctioned off, and there were numerous scripts and documents from Dan Curtis Productions up for auction. Dan Curtis's personal director's clapboard from the 1991 remake of Dark Shadows sold for $500.00!
In 1984, Dr. Laura Brodian Freas and I co-founded the Collinsport Players, and this year, the troupe celebrated its 25th anniversary. The Players performed Peter Mac's musical play Bewitched Shadows, which featured characters from both Dark Shadows and Bewitched and which guest-starred Lara Parker herself as Angelique. Marcy Robin's Costume Gala featured two dozen fans of all ages dressing up, singing, dancing, and acting out short skits. I got into the act because my friend Charles dressed as Johnny Carson's psychic-medium character Carnac the Magnificent and he needed an "Ed McMahon" to hand him the sealed envelopes. My friend Jenny, who started acting in the Collinsport Players' skits when she was a young teenager, now entered her two-year-old daughter in the costume parade. The little girl was dressed as Sarah Collins, the character whom Jenny herself had portrayed in some of my plays years ago.
On Saturday afternoon, August 17, I gave a talk about my McFarland book The Television Horrors of Dan Curtis. I discussed how I came to write the book, and I revealed that I had spent this summer writing a second book, House of Dan Curtis: The Television Mysteries of the Dark Shadows Auteur. Then, I showed a montage of scenes from all 17 of Dan Curtis's horror productions that are featured in my Television Horrors book. The audience applauded as the name of each Dan Curtis production--Trilogy of Terror, Burnt Offerings, Curse of the Black Widow, et al.--flashed across the big screen.
On Sunday afternoon, August 16, the Dark Shadows Festival climaxed with Jonathan Frid on Stage, the 84-year-old star's presentation of dramatic readings. Jonathan Frid read aloud Jack Finney's great time-travel story "The Third Level," as well as poems by Percy Shelley, Walter de la Mare, and Robert Frost. Later, the fans and the stars enjoyed the closing banquet together. I sat at Kathryn Leigh Scott's table and chatted with Kathryn, her husband Jeff, their friend Anthony, and the six other fans. Kathryn remarked that this had been "an especially good Festival," and the rest of us shared her sentiment.
I flew back to Nashville on Monday, August 17, and began catching up on letters, e-mails, newspapers, TV programs, and more. I returned to work at Tennessee State University for the fall semester on Thursday, August 20, my parents' 55th wedding anniversary. Classes at TSU will begin on Monday, August 31. I hope that your work is going well and that you are looking forward to a pleasant autumn. Halloween will be here before we know it! I hope to see you on my doorstep on Halloween night--and until then, keep in touch!
Dr. Jeff Thompson
And the SEASON FINALE OF BBC'S BEING HUMAN also airs.... I hope it is a GREAT WEEKEND....TWO MORE WORK DAYS and BANG IT IS HERE!
14th, 2009 is the DARK SHADOWS FESTIVAL in New Jersey. I wish I could attend, I have not attended since 2004. Even though the last two conventions I attended for the series I really was more annoyed with everything than having FUN. There are two MAJOR DARK SHADOWS things I really want to see.....the PILOT to the 2004 WB DARK SHADOWS series that was proposed by the WB network and NOT picked up and the CUT footage from NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS. Both have been previewed at the DS CON in recent years. Perhaps these might surface on DVD.
Last Nite...It POORED RAIN with all the SCARY elements, Wind, THUNDER, LIGHTENING...... It was FUN...
CHEER ON THE PITTSBURGH STEELERS!!!! A SUPER BOWL REMATCH THIS THURSDAY AUGUST 13th,2009.........
