August is winding down, and many students are already returning to school. Summer is drawing to a close. Alas!
Summer has always been my favorite season, and not just because it signaled a respite from schoolwork. I love the hot weather, the long days--and from 2000 until 2016, summer signified something else very special to me: the Dark Shadows Festival. This annual three-day convention celebrating the 1966-1971 TV show was held in summer in either the Los Angeles area or the greater New York area (though I understand that in the 1980s and 90s, there were sometimes two events per year, one on each coast, during either summer of fall)
With its slew of supernatural characters and excursions into the past, Dark Shadows quickly became one of my favorite TV shows after I started watching it on the Sci-Fi Channel during my freshman year. After I attended my first Festival at the LAX Marriott in July of 2000, I became hooked on the convention experience, too. Each year, I eagerly looked forward to the next event, counting down the days until I could again see my friends from all across the country. Summer didn't just mean freedom from homework, attending the county fair, or going on family trips; it meant I'd get to hear stories from the actors and crew about the making of a much-loved TV series and be among other people who understood and shared my interests in music, television, and movies (interests that most other people, at least in my age cohort, tended to think were weird). After the Anaheim Festival in June of 2002, it also meant I got the chance to be onstage, either singing a song parody I had written for the Festival's costume gala or acting in a satirical skit with the Collinsport Players.
The cast of Scooby-Doo and Barnabas Too (2004)
The last full weekend convention occurred in June of 2016, but even years later, I still think about the Festival whenever summer rolls around. My friend Phil and I even joke about "Festival weather." Like birds flying north as spring turns to summer, we feel signals telling us we ought to be in Brooklyn or Anaheim or Tarrytown for another big event.
DS fans got to enjoy a taste of the good old days this past July at the Dark Shadows Remembrance Weekend, which took place in beautiful downtown Burbank. This occasion was marked by solemnity as much as celebration. Day One served as a tribute to Lara Parker, who passed away in October 2023, while Day Two was a retrospective of the career of Jonathan Frid, who passed away in April 2012. I delighted at the opportunity to make new memories, even as the setting of this event triggered old memories of Festivals gone by. (The Festival had been held at the same hotel in 2008 and 2010). I loved stepping out of the freezing ballroom into the humid afternoon, seeing people dressed in banquet finery, quirky T-shirts, or DS-themed costumes, and above all, being face to face with dear friends after far too many years. The events of Day One of the Remembrance Weekend were professionally videotaped and can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&si=p8JwEABMryHbp_cXlink&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0jsuXQb1IIDwwom0Xnmp0pZnVUnwbtgWuVGaMfeMKD8MUfxOXK_PTTJiI_aem_nzMaYgu2ulqeCS4XXp8alg&v=QKc8qdWsM7o&feature=youtu.be
The author at the 2024 Dark Shadows Remembrance Weekend
After each Festival, I would commit my memories of the weekend's excitement to the Internet, sharing my "Fest reports" on the various message boards, mailing lists, and other fan groups that were active at the time. I posted under the name "ProfStokes," my favorite character on DS. My write-ups started as a means to preserve for myself what people at the event had said and done and how I'd thought and felt about it all. Soon, they became a way for me to share the convention experience with others who weren't able to attend. I tried to recall as much detail as I could of the question and answer sessions, performances, and special video presentations we enjoyed. I also wrote reports about non-Festival events: book signings, film screenings, and independently operated DS gatherings.
DS Actresses reminisce at the 2002 COLLINS Association Halloweenathon
As the nature of the Internet changed and message boards and mailing lists gave way to social media sites like Facebook and the website formerly known as Twitter, many of the sites where I posted my reports disappeared. Host servers folded, moderators allowed their subscriptions to lapse, or posters simply lost interest. But fortunately, all was not lost, and I have been able to collect over a dozen of my reports spanning from 2001 to the present, which I will issue in my forthcoming book, The Dark Shadows Event Diary: Memories of Festivals, Film Screenings, and Fan Gatherings.
In it, I recount appearances by now-departed actors like Dennis Patrick, Denise Nickerson, Chris Pennock, Diana Millay, John Karlen, and Lara Parker, and cherished stars who are still with us, like Kathryn Leigh Scott, David Selby, Marie Wallace, Jerry Lacy, Nancy Barrett, James Storm, Sharon Smyth-Lentz, Roger Davis, Donna Wandrey, and Donna McKechnie. I also cover guest appearances by non-DS actors like June Lockhart (a friend of Joan Bennett's family), Jeanne Avery (mother to David Henesy), and the real Marilyn Ross (wife to the prolific novelist Dan Ross, who penned the DS Paperback Library novels). Special presentations, like the unveiling of lost footage from Night of Dark Shadows and the launching of the Big Finish Dark Shadows audio drama series, formed a highlight of the Festivals, as did actors' dramatic performances, like a recreation of the Art Wallace teleplay "The House," which formed the basis of the first year of the series, and original sequels like "Return to Collinwood" and "Vengeance at Collinwood." A big part of my own Festival experience involved rehearsals with the Collinsport Players, and I offer a peek behind the scenes of the skits.
Apart from the Festivals, I also report about the COLLINS Association's Halloweenathon in Tarrytown in 2002, the Friends of the 1991 Dark Shadows Reunion in Tarrytown in 2012, a special screening of Daughters of Darkness with John Karlen and Harry Kumel, and separate appearances by Lara Parker and Seth Grahame-Smith (screenwriter for the 2012 Dark Shadows film) at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Find out what the actors thought about their characters, which post-DS projects were their most memorable, and even which breakfast cereal was a favorite. This book is not only a time capsule of convention experiences, it's also a sampler of my writing from my teenage years to adulthood. I'm proud to have it all collected in this, my first nonfiction book.
Whether you are a long-time DS fan and Festival-goer or a newcomer to the series who never got to attend a Festival, I hope you will enjoy this vicarious experience.
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