Saturday, July 30Saturday morning I was downstairs early for a 10:30 rehearsal with the Collinsport Players (John Schafer as Julia, adamsgirl/Deckert as Mrs. Johnson, Jay Keaveny as Roger, Peter Mac as Carolyn/Barnabas, and myself as Vicki/Carolyn.) However Nancy Barrett was rehearsing her cabaret act in the room we had used the previous evening so we went up to one of the cast members' rooms to rehearse. I slipped away to catch the fan videos at 11:00.  This is one of my favorite events each year and I was pleased to see a new crop of videos this time around by DLA75. He used montages of various episodes set to classic rock music such as "Clap for the Wolfman" for Quentin and Chris, "Gypsy Woman" for Magda and Jenny, and "Frankenstein" for Adam. A video of "The King of Queens" episode about a DS convention followed at 11:30 but I didn't stay to watch it. Of course, I did return at 12:00 for Guy Haines's video tribute to Dana Elcar, Anthony George, and Don Briscoe. The video was touching and beautifully done. It comprised still photos of each of the actors, clips from their DS episodes, (including Chris's first visit to Amy at Windcliff and Burke and Barnabas comparing their adversarial relationship to a duel) and footage from other shows and movies they had been in (e.g. "Bonanza", "I Dream of Jeannie", "Checkmate", "The Untouchables",
2010: The Year We Make Contact,
Adam at 6 AM). I was impressed that Guy had taken the trouble to find scenes where the deceased actors were performing alongside other DS alumni such as Dennis Patrick and Grayson Hall.Â
The charity auction followed the tribute video, but I left then to eat lunch with EmeraldRose, QueenKitty, mazinG, bananabry, and Philip from our Shadows in the Sun club. However I understand that the original Blue Whale sign from the 1991 series sold for $1,100; I could not find information about the model of Greystone that was also supposed to have been auctioned. My friend erfette did win the Ouija board used on the show (I told him he should bring it to our SITS club Halloween party.) When we returned from lunch, I was able to sit with QueenKitty, her husband, and EmeraldRose.Â
I came in after the start of Robert Cobert's Q&A panel and I'm very glad that I did not miss the entire event. Cobert is a hilarious, peppy, friendly man and he was a highlight of the Fest. I really enjoyed his session. Throughout the panel whenever he was asked questions about specific songs, he would hum a few bars of his tunes. He told us first of all that he was not a horror fan. "I don't like scary movies! I watched the original Dracula and Frankenstein, the old movies, when I was a kid, but that's as far as I'll go. DS was almost too much for me." He also told us how Dan Curtis had always believed Cobert was home watching the show. "In fact I hadn't seen any of it. I only came down to the studio once or twice. Whenever Dan wanted me to write a new piece of music for whatever spook he was introducing next, I'd ask him for a brief description of the character and go from there." One fan asked if there had ever been lyrics for the DS theme song. "No, it was too short. But there were lyrics for "Quentin's Theme"." He was also asked about the distinctive theramin used in the DS them and music cues. That's when Cobert dropped a bombshell. "I'll let you in on a little secret. That actually wasn't a theramin. A buddy of mine, Dick Hyman, had a Yamaha with a loose string and that's what we used to make the weird noises." Somebody asked Cobert how he'd gotten his start in music and where he studied. "I studied at Julliard (this drew a rousing applause as Julliard is one of the most renowned music schools) but I didn't start out to be a composer. I started out in medicine. But music was always my first love and after a while I realized that the world would be better off if I did not become a doctor." "What about the music in the Blue Whale?" somebody else asked. "Where did you get your inspiration for that?" Cobert hummed a bit of the Blue Whale theme for old time's sake. "Those were patterned after the popular music of the day like the Beatles, a light and cheery beat." One woman asked him, "What musicians do you admire today?" "Hmmm¢â‚¬¦" Cobert mused for a moment. "Well, you finally got me to shut up. Who do I like in the world of music today? Well, I like Eminem." (I'm not sure if that was a joke or not.)  Cobert finally confessed that he couldn't think of anybody else. The final person who went up to the microphone told Cobert how much he enjoyed the song "Ode to Angelique" and that it was his favorite. "I don't think I know that one. I don't remember it," Cobert admitted. "Can we hear it?" Obligingly, the sound crew cued up the music. As it played, Cobert smiled. "Oh, yes, this is good. This is really good! I like this. I think this one is my favorite now. Who wrote it? I like this guy!" He sang along with the song until the end and then went off-stage. Cobert was great of fun and I hope he decides to go to Brooklyn next year. He's someone you really ought to see as well as hear. It would have been fun to put him onstage opposite Johnny Karlen.
Next came Darren Gross's
Night of DS restoration panel. He began by telling us the sad story of how Curtis had originally made the movie 1310 minutes long. However,
House of DS had only been 97 minutes long and MGM wanted the sequel to be the same length. So the night before the movie was supposed to be released in theaters, Curtis and company had to do a quickie edit, what one producer nicknamed "The Night of the Long Knives". Bob Cobert began to chime in excitedly during this part of the story. He was one of the few people who had been able to watch the uncut film as it was meant to be seen and he deplored what MGM had done to it. "They didn't understand the movie; they cut all the good parts." The cuts backfired on MGM in the end; NoDS bombed at the box office. Ultimately a number of vital scenes were chopped out but Darren was lucky enough to have uncovered some scenes in a Kansas salt mine. Some of the reels didn't have sound and weren't in color, but he was working diligently to restore it. "We're almost done with the voicework," he reported proudly. "We've recorded all of John Karlen, Nancy Barrett, Lara Parker, and Diana Millay's dialogue and we're half-way through with David Selby and Kate Jackson's dubbing. This is difficult work," he reminded us. "The actors have to match their words with their movements on film and they have to pitch their voices to sound as they did 30 years ago. Very few people sound like they did 30 years ago." He added that they were looking for a voice artist to imitate Grayson Hall since Carlotta is no longer with us, but he didn't name any prospects. The clips he showed us were mostly violent extensions of scenes already in the movie: a scene of Rev. Strack (Thayer David) being trampled by a horse, Quentin roughing up Tracy in bed, Angelique's body swinging form the trees, Gerard's bloody face at the window with Claire and Tracy screaming, Gerard fondling his prisoner Tracy in the car, a scene of Gerard plummeting to his death on the train trestle and Alex making a snide comment about how the 9:30 will be running late tonight, and a silent scene of Angelique and Charles at the piano when Charles's wife Laura bursts in. This was an important scene for Cobert. "This scene was supposed to set the tone. The music she's playing at the piano is the same song we hear when Charles's ghost has possessed Quentin in the present. The music establishes that connection." The piece de resistance was a (silent B&W) seance held by Claire, Alex, Quentin, and Tracy to contact and hopefully put to rest Angelique's ghost when Carlotta bursts in and interrupts them.
Following the presentation of the fabulous footage, Darren had a brief Q&A session with Lara Parker, Chris Pennock, and Diana Millay. "Were you upset that you weren't involved in the first movie?" he asked. They responded no. "We had to stay behind at the theater and hold down the fort," Lara responded. (True enough; their characters were the focus of the 1970 PT storyline while the other actors were away filming.) Lara then reminisced about her role in the film. She was supposed to have been the leading lady, but Curtis cut down her part to just a few ghostly appearances and a couple of flashbacks. "My white dress was very stiff and I had trouble sitting down," she remembered. "I also had to wear a lot of very stiff sparkly white make-up to look ghostly. Those first days on the set were interesting. Dan had just gotten started as a director and we spent a lot of time standing around waiting for him to yell, ¢â‚¬ËœAction.' He would forget." Chris also spoke about his role. "I had just come from playing Gabriel in parallel time, a nervous, drunken wimp--just like I would become in real life a few years later. But at the time, I thought I had made it big as a film star." "Did you know, Diana, that Virginia Vestoff was originally supposed to play Charles's wife?" Darren asked Millay. Diana claimed she did not know this. "She would have been Samantha Collins, but she got tied up doing
1776" (Thank goodness! I adored Virginia's portrayal of Samantha on the series, but
1776 is my favorite musical and one of my favorite movies so I much prefer having her as Abigail to having her in NoDS.) Diana claimed she had not known this. "Is it true that if DS had continued, you would have returned to the series?" he followed up. "Yes," Diana confirmed. "But only as Laura Collins," Lara added. "How different was it to film the movies from filming the show?" Darren next asked. "It was intimidating at first," Lara admitted, "but we had several members of the cast who had experience at making movies: Grayson Hall and Thayer David. We all thought Grayson was a real pro. She said, ¢â‚¬ËœDon't move. When the camera is on you, it can see
everything you do. Your face will be huge on-screen.' On television, you're supposed to react. Harry Kaplan, one of the directors, always told us, ¢â‚¬ËœIf I don't see something happening on your face, you're not going to get your close-up!'" "Is it true that Kaplan used to give you grades at the end of taping the day's episode?" Darren asked. Lara said that it was. "He used to scream at me: ¢â‚¬ËœB¢â‚¬¦minus!'" "He never did that to me," Diana said stiffly. "But I have a photographic memory, so it wasn't a problem for me to learn lines." "I learned to do whatever Grayson Hall told me to do," Chris said. "Do you remember," Lara said, turning to him, "your death scene as Jeb? You were dragging it out, crawling around the stage, rolling around and covered with green slime. They kept telling you to hurry up and cut it out because you were taking too long to die." Chris said that he did remember, and they laughed about it. (Actually this is a false memory; it was really Dennis Patrick as Paul Stoddard who had the interminable death scene. The cameras finally had to tear away from him before he had finished dying. Jeb died by falling from Widows' Hill.) Then Chris returned to talking about Grayson Hall. "As a matter of fact," he added, "I'm involved in a production of
Night of the Iguana at the Actors' Studio for this fall." (This was the film for which Hall was nominated as Best Supporting Actress. Our local DS fan club is planning to see Chris's show when it begins its run.) Then Darren broke away from NoDS talk to give a shout-out to Julia99, the founding mother of Grayson's Legion and one of her greatest fans. She has made an admirable effort to keep Grayson's memory alive and to honor her legacy. "Rebecca Jamison is working on a biography of Grayson Hall. She recently wrote an article on-line (see link here:
http://home.comcast.net/~flickhead/GraysonHall.html) that she's planning to expand and she's also working to track down one of Grayson's early movies,
Run Across the River. There's only one print of it left that we think survived, but it's been lost. It was given to the wife of the film's producer but she's dropped off the face of the Earth. Nobody can find her and it seems that this is now a lost film." Nevertheless, we wish Julia99 the best of luck tracking it down. Darren went on to talk about other lost films and lost footage and films that had ultimately been restored. As an example, he cited
The Big Red One. Funny he should do that, because bananabry was the sound editor for that particular restoration and he happened to be visiting the Fest that day. I thought it was a neat coincidence.
Following this was a tribute to Joan Bennett with Brian Kellow, author of the new biography
The Bennetts, Joan's daughter Diana (called Diddy) Anderson, and June Lockhart of "Lost in Space" fame. Lockhart, who also hails from a prominent acting family, had gone to school with Diddy and remembered Joan fondly so that was her connection to the Bennett family. The tribute opened with a stellar DS scene of Joan as Judith Collins who taunts her brothers with the contents of their grandmother's will, lording her newly-elevated position over them. Kellow was up first and he told us some background information on the various family members. Richard Bennett was the father and the head of the clan. He was an irascible stage actor known for making snarky asides in the middle of a show if he didn't think the audience was responding well. Once when he didn't think they were applauding as much as they should, he turned to the audience and said, ¢â‚¬ËœI guess I'll have to tell a dirty joke in order to get you to pay attention.' Barbara Bennett, who was briefly married to Morton Downey and who is the mother of Morton Downey, Jr. was the middle daughter. She was a successful dancer. Unfortunately, she went through a messy divorce and Downey practically blackmailed her into giving up custody of the children (an unusual thing for a woman in those days to do.) Barbara regretted giving in to him for the rest of her life. Constance Bennett was the eldest and best known of the performing daughters and a wild child much like Carolyn Stoddard. Kellow described her as "the quintessential flapper." She had no interest in acting but she only turned to it when she needed a job and couldn't (or wouldn't) settle for any other actual work. Fortunately she was a natural at it and had a successful career in film. Joan was the youngest Bennett and the one from whom the least was expected. And yet she was the one who had the lengthiest and most diverse career and the one who had the most interesting life. Kellow claimed he felt a special connection to Joan when he started working on the book and was privileged to know her in her last years. Joan started making movies as a blonde and then dyed her hair dark so that she could get better roles as a femme fatale instead of the ingenue. She had four daughters, the eldest of whom, Diddy, had brought with her a video retrospective of Joan's work that had played at her mother's 70th birthday party. The film consisted of still photos of Miss Bennett and film clips, some of which dated back to the silent era. (She was absolutely gorgeous! I always thought so since I started watching DS. I was 14 at the time and wishing I was Mrs. Stoddard. If only I could look as good as Joan Bennett when I'm 60.) The photos and films showed a range of Joan's styles with bobbed, curled hair and long, flowing tresses, blonde and brunette, from the 20s, 30s, 40s, innocent, vampish. We also saw a few film clips, including
Scarlet Street with Edward G. Robinson in which Joan's character Kitty is a conniving, manipulating tramp who rebuffs Chris's (Robinson's character's) overtures for marriage. In the story, Kitty has only been stringing along Chris, essentially using him as a sugar daddy while maintaining a masochistic relationship with a hood called Johnny. When Chris realizes she's made a fool out of him, he murders Kitty with an ice pick. Diddy also read from some letters that Joan had written to her while she was at boarding school. The letters were affectionate but filled with smirking asides. I had no idea Joan was such a smartass. The first letter was written after Easter break and Joan was expressing her displeasure that Diddy had lost a cross necklace. ¢â‚¬ËœI was very saddened by the loss of your cross,' Joan wrote. ¢â‚¬ËœI noticed you didn't have it at Easter and I hoped that you had merely misplaced it. But now I know how foolish it is to be optimistic when total carelessness is concerned. I am sorry about it. I had hoped that you would pass that cross on to your own children--that is if you don't leave them in the park by mistake.' It went on like this with Joan gently berating her daughter while at the same time letting Diddy know that she loved her. ¢â‚¬ËœI think of all the people in my family, I am the only one who truly found happiness,' Joan wrote. ¢â‚¬ËœIt took a long time and it was a difficult road but I have found it. While other girls my age were worried about boys, parties, and make-up, I was worried about you. I had you to take care of and think of. (Diddy was born when Joan was 16, IIRC) I am so proud to have such lovely daughters.'Â
Finally, June Lockhart stepped up to read "a few pages" of The Bennetts that turned out to be an entire chapter. I didn't stay for all of this; I was feeling restless so I got up for a quick walk outside. The section that June read dealt with
Scarlet Street, Joan's best and most controversial film, the clips of which we had just watched in the tribute video. The film was originally released in the mid-1940s and although film noir was popular back then,
Scarlet Street was more shocking and immoral than the usual fare and it provoked an outcry. First of all, Joan's character was supposed to be stabbed seven times by the icepick but the censors were so perturbed by this that it was cut down to one stab. There's an amusing sing-song rhyme about this in the book. June also read a reprint of an angry letter from a California moviegoer who was outraged at the violence, the immorality of the characters, the fact that Robinson's character was never punished for the crimes he committed (though his guilt eventually did drive him insane) and the catcalls of the teens in the audience. "But I bet she stayed for the entire movie," June added. There was a moment toward the end when the microphone emitted a terrible shriek. A fierce look came over June's face, and she fell silent, glowering at the crowd. For a moment I thought she might storm off-stage, but she collected herself, back-tracked a sentence, and finished her reading. It was her pleasure and honor, she said, to be involved in this tribute and to see so many people in the audience. (At this time the ballroom had been partitioned in half even though there were too many people in the front half and a lot of room in the sealed-off rear section. Numerous people had no choice but to stand along the sides of the room, crowding in front of the doors, left with nowhere to sit. It made for a nice fire hazard.) "Joan would have loved this crowd," Lockhart said.
The Bennett panel was only scheduled to last for an hour but it went on for more than an hour and a half. This pushed the Fest schedule, which until then had only been about 10 minutes behind, to a half hour and then 45 minutes behind as they set up and tested the microphones for the "Vengeance at Collinwood" play. Thankfully, they also opened up the rest of the ballroom for this event. Finally it was time for the radio play. Unfortunately, this portion of the Fest was not videotaped and I don't believe there are plans to put it on CD either. This was the only performance of the show. I didn't like it as well as "Return to Collinwood". I don't think it was as well written. It contains many repetitious bits of dialog (e.g. Trask constantly prods Tony to "Kill them. Kill them now!" and Tony replies, "Shut up. I'll do it my way, when I'm ready.") In one of the opening scenes, Quentin and Maggie, who are now an official couple, have an exchange wherein Maggie wakes up to find Quentin out of bed.Â
Q: "I thought I heard a noise."Â
M: "I didn't hear anything."Â
Q: "Well, I didn't either. I only thought I heard a noise."Â
M: "Oh, you thought you heard a noise but you didn't really hear a noise?"Â
Q: "That's right, I only thought I heard something but I really didn't."Â
There was a wonderful scene between Lara Parker and Nancy Barrett when a lonely Cassandra makes an appearance at the Big House (Cassandra is now living in Rose Cottage) to make her presence felt (and to point out the absence of Donna Wandrey and Roger Davis.) In the story, it is explained that Ned is traveling on business and Mrs. Franklin has taken two weeks off. "Then you won't mind if I keep you company," Cassandra says. "Oh, it's heartwarming to see you," Carolyn replies in a tone that says anything but. The cattiness between these two leading ladies was delicious; I think their scene was my favorite to watch. Thin dialogue aside, the plot was pretty straightforward and engaging. Tony Peterson returns to Collinsport to take vengeance against the family that ruined him (In 1968, Cassandra Collins used her witchcraft to make Tony her slave) and his family, for Tony is a descendant of the Trasks and he is possessed by the spirit of his witch-hunting ancestor,r who urges him to destroy the evil Collinses. Posing as a representative of Trask Industries who is interested in buying land from the Collins family, Tony weasels his way in to see Quentin, who is suspicious of Peterson's intentions. Both Quentin and Willie recognize the name Trask and decide to research what they can about the Trask family and to shadow Tony wherever he goes so they can discover what his plans really entail. Carolyn is pleased to see her old beau return while Cassandra remains coy and seems to behave as though she does not remember him clearly. She is the real target of Tony and Trask's ire. Tony is unconcerned who he has to hurt in order to get his target. He kidnaps and poisons Quentin's lover Maggie, using her as a hostage until Quentin can bring him Cassandra. Quentin agrees to go along with it, drugs Cassandra, and brings her to Tony, who then shoots Quentin. Fortunately because of Quentin's magical portrait, he survives the attack and later confronts Tony. It is revealed that Quentin did not really drug Cassandra; she was only pretending to be Tony's prisoner and her witchcraft is still as strong as ever. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," she explains as she and Quentin join forces to rescue Maggie, turn the tables on Tony, and entomb him in Barnabas's old coffin. It is implied that Tony is turned into a vampire and will have to spend the rest of eternity in that box with the ghost of his vicious, berating ancestor Trask. The performances were good all around. I especially enjoyed Lacy's Gollumesque turn in a dual role during which he would speak one line in his normal voice as Tony and then follow up it up with one of Trask's rasping orders. Even though I don't think "Vengeance" was as good as "Return" or "The House", I'm still happy that I saw it.Â
Following this was the autograph session. This was the first year since my first Fest in 2000 that I waited in the autograph line. I wanted to make sure I got Jerry Lacy's autograph. I had purchased some pictures of him as Gregory Trask at that first Fest and I wanted him to sign one. I was also hoping to have my picture taken with him. Ultimately I did. Everyone lined up inside the ballroom while they screened an episode of "Love, American Style" featuring Joan Bennett. Handicapped and special needs people went up first. The security guard would send 6-7 people from the ballroom door to the autograph table. Unless you only wanted KLS's autograph, you were unable to skip to a specific actor so those of us who only wanted Jerry Lacy had to wait. The bouncer at the door was a very nice man. He chatted with us at length about our interest in DS and the convention. He had watched the show too, but wasn't as devoted to it as we all were. We also talked about other TV shows on the air. He was very friendly and not at all intimidating. He talked about some of the other people he had worked for, including Michael Jackson, though he wouldn't say much about him. Finally, he sent us to the autograph table. I was standing with EmeraldRose at this time and I took her picture with David Selby, John Karlen, and Jerry Lacy. Joan Bennett's daughter was also briefly at the autograph table, but she left before we could get to her. The line stopped for about 20 minutes in front of Selby's table and did not move at all. We couldn't figure out why this was so but we were growing restless. His publicist was angry too; we overheard her complaining to Jim Pierson on her cell phone, asking him to get the line moving. A volunteer, Damian, came along reminding everybody that the actors could only give one autograph to each person in order to speed things along. It was still another 10-15 minutes before the line budged but at last we reached Lacy. I got to talk briefly with him. He asked me how I had gotten involved in DS since obviously I wasn't around for the original broadcast. He signed my picture and I went around the table to get a picture taken with him. Then I was free to get into costume for the skit and the gala.Â
By this time, the events were running about two hours behind schedule. The pilot was supposed to air at 7:00 with the Collinsport Players' first skit at 8:00 and the costume gala at 8:30. Ha! The pilot would have aired a lot sooner except that the fans insisted on watching the blooper tape (even though this is available for sale through MPI and will be on DVD next year.) At long last the WB pilot aired for the first and perhaps last time. I am staunchly opposed to remakes and I did not want to see this film so I walked out, but not before I heard a little bit about what the commentator Mark Dawidziak had to say about it. First of all, he commented that we would not have a discussion or Q&A after the screening because "we'll be here until 2 AM." He informed us that the WB fully acknowledged that not picking up DS was the biggest mistake it had ever made. What with the slew of popular supernatural-themed shows on the air today--Lost, Medium, Ghost Whisperer, Invasion, the new Night Stalker--"WB could have been there too. They could have been there first, but they passed it up. Now they're kicking themselves. In fact, they went out and bought a machine that will kick them." He informed us that what we were about to watch was a rough cut with unpolished special effects and with just standard music laid down, instead of Cobert's soundtrack. He also warned us that some characterizations were very different than what we were used to (specifically Blair Brown as Elizabeth). Again, once the lights dimmed I walked out so I don't what transpired in the pilot. Most of the people I later talked to who did watch it enjoyed it and lamented that it did not become a series. Only a couple of people said they hated it and practically everyone denounced Blair Brown's portrayal. You'll have to read one of their reviews to get an idea of what the pilot was like.
As soon as the pilot wrapped, the Players went on. This was an encore of "My Fair Julia", the show we did last year in Tarrytown. This time, fortunately, we did not have any technical errors, though there were a couple of prop mishaps. Everyone was able to ad-lib and keep the show running smoothly though. The audience seemed to really enjoy it. The plot of this show is that Julia is so fed up with being overlooked by Barnabas, who would prefer to go out with Victoria "your name is so lovely I couldn't surrender a syllable of it" Winters. Carolyn decides to give Julia a make-over and they head out for a night on the town. At the Blue Whale, Julia has too much to drink and makes a fool of herself. Barnabas finally realizes he's been an idiot for not giving her the time of day and the two of them waltz off into the night together. There were minor modifications to this skit; the most noticeable was that two actors (myself and Peter Mac) played dual roles. I appeared as Vicki and Carolyn and Peter played Carolyn and Barnabas. We did double duty to cover for Richard Halpern, who was unable to be in our skit that night. I had never played two roles in one play before and it was quite an experience (especially those speedy costume changes) but we explained it away by saying that I was Diana Walker, the actress who filled in for Nancy Barrett in one episode of the series. There were even a couple of jokes about how different my Carolyn was from Peter's. We also had a couple of stalling jokes during which the characters chased around the infamous intrusive fly with fly swatters; these comic chases bought us some time for our costume changes. It was brilliantly designed and it went off very well.
The costume gala came next. Surprisingly a good number of people still remained to participate (nineteen in all) although many more people had been in costume earlier in the evening. Presumably those folks had either had to leave to catch their trains and buses, or were just too tired to stick around. It was really only the die-hards left, and I think the audience must have been pretty worn out too because they were a tough crowd this year (you could say they were pretty dead.) Usually there is some kind of reaction during the performances--laughter, applause, participation--some kind of acknowledgment of what is happening on-stage and what people think of it. This time there was only silence. I know I felt awkward during my performance (a parody of Disney's "Be Our Guest" called "He's Possessed" about David Collins and Quentin's ghost.) Other performers included victoriawinters and her parody of "God Bless America", "Blair Curse My Colinwood"; a woman dressed as a 1960s waitress, Maggie Evans; a skit in which Vicki (QuentinsGal/Toni) tries to help Maggie (Maybellique/DJ/GracefulKittah) recover her memories of being held prisoner by Barnabas; Alice Faye Landis's monologue about a vengeful Polynesian spirit accompanied by a hula dance; VAM as Rev. Gregory Trask performing "The Final Brick in the Wall" (Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall"); a skit in which Julia hypnotizes Maggie into giving her all of Maggie's jewelry; a top ten list about dating on DS by Massachusetts fan club co-president Janice; a hilarious parody of "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay" about the various female characters on DS sung a capella by Irene (I was very impressed; I know I could never sing without music); another a capella song by Lalinda about the fallout from Grandmama Edith's will (to the tune of "Red River Valley"); the Collinsport Players' John Schafer as Julia/Julius singing "You Made Me Love You" and Peter Mac as Liza Minelli doing a short DS-themed cabaret routine. Costumed performers included a realistic vampire with sharp fangs and red contact lenses; a young girl who was a dead-ringer for Angelique in NoDS; Princess Margaret, an original character who is a Bavarian countess related to the Collinses; Amanda Harris and Tim Shaw; Jeremiah's ghost; Quentin Collins and vampire Angelique. Generally the acts are supposed to last only 2-3 minutes although some leeway is given to songs and skits. This year though some performances lasted nearly 10 minutes! I could see Marcy chafing and I sensed the audience growing restless too, but I applaud her for not cutting anybody off. It was a very long show and a very long night, and I'm grateful to everybody who stayed long enough to watch it. I only wish the schedule had been on time so more people could have enjoyed what was going on on-stage.Â
When the gala ended, I went down to the lobby to visit with friends and stayed there until about 2:30 AM.
ProfStokes
