SHADOWGRAM OFFICIAL ONLINE DARK SHADOWS NEWS:
SHADOWGRAM NEWS UPDATE   # 318
May 12, 2014
 
Hello, Dark Shadows Fan,
 
ShadowGram (SG), The Official Newsletter & News Source for Dark Shadows (DS), announces the following key breaking news in this Official DS News Online Update "bulletin."
 
*** DS PERSONNEL NEWS:
--- 2 REMEMBRANCES: MICHAEL MAITLAND & ALAN MATLICK
--- CONDOLENCES TO MARIE WALLACE
--- 4 DS ACTORS INVOLVED IN 3 DIFFERENT STAGE PLAYS
--- DAVID SELBY & DONNA McKECHNIE IN NEW DS AUDIO DRAMA
 
**** Please Note: This Update was intended for release early this month. However, my computer abruptly failed and required more than a week in repair. I’m now in the process of learning my way around its new features and simply catching up with everything. I appreciate your understanding and patience. Thank you.     - Marcy Robin
 
 
**** PASSINGS OF MICHAEL MAITLAND & OF ALAN MATLICK
 
--- MICHAEL MAITLAND (“Leviathan Child” Michael) passed away 4-23-14 at age 57 after a long battle with cancer. His sister tells SG: “I'm sure that wherever he is, he is very touched by everyone who remembers him. After Mike left acting, he went into restaurant management and concentrated on his artwork, of which he was especially proud.  We will be doing a memorial service for him later this summer and will have an obituary as well.”
 
Michael loved to play softball in NYC’s Central Park. His family and friends have started a < gofundme > campaign to establish a memorial bench with a plaque in his honor near the Park’s ball fields. Fans who wish to support this effort can go to http://www.gofundme.com/8npg98
 
Born 8-27-56, Michael’s acting career included “Edge of Night,” “Search for Tomorrow,” and a guest role on “Emergency.” He was on Broadway in “Mame” and also did other theater work.
 
--- ALAN MATLICK was 59 when he died suddenly 4-17-14. A music composer and writer, he worked in the television industry 30+ years. He was an engineer at WNYC-TV in the 1980s when the PBS station aired DS reruns. He loved the show and created professional-quality music videos using some of Jonathan Frid's original dramatic recitations from the 1969 DS Soundtrack music album and scene clips from the series. These were aired on WNYC during their repeats of DS and subsequently included on the VHS and DVD releases of "DS Music Videos" on MPI Home Video with other footage.
 
An avid music theatre fan, Alan also wrote a Christmas-themed DS play that was presented on stage at the DS Festival in New York with the original series actors.
 
Fans who wish to remember Alan may support “any Humane Society.”
 
--- Condolences to MARIE WALLACE (Eve, Jenny) whose oldest sister Margie “passed peacefully on the eve of Easter,” a short time before her birthday. Marie says Margie had become ill and eventually went into hospice care. “We all miss her tremendously. She was a kind, loving, generous person and oh so nice.”
 
 
**** 4 DS ACTORS INVOLVED IN 3 STAGE SHOWS - EAST & WEST COASTS
 
--- DONNA McKECHNIE (Amanda, Olivia) is an award-winning dancer, singer, and actress. She choreographed the play “Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks,” running at the Laguna Playhouse in Laguna Beach, CA, now to June 8.
 
Theater publicity: It stars acclaimed dancer/actress Leslie Caron as “a formidable, headstrong widow who opens her world by hiring a dance instructor to give her private dance lessons.  What begins as a tentative and even challenging relationship between the pair blossoms into an intimate friendship as these two people from very different backgrounds reveal their secrets, fears, and joys while dancing the Swing, Tango, Waltz, Foxtrot, Cha-Cha and Contemporary Dance. This life-affirming comedy with music and dance will be one you won’t want to miss.”
 
The Laguna Playhouse is located at 606 Laguna Canyon Rd., Laguna, CA 92651. 949-497-2787. 
 
Tickets are $30-$76. Call the theater or visit http://purchase.lagunaplayhouse.com/single/PSDetail.aspx?psn=3584
 
--- MARSHA MASON (Vampire) is directing a production of the comedy “Chapter Two"
 
It runs May 22-June 13 at the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, PA. Performances are weeknights and weekends with Fri. and Sat. matinees.
 
Marsha starred in the 1978 movie based on the play, receiving an Academy Award nomination for “Best Actress Performance in a Leading Role.” It’s a semi-autobiographical story of director / writer Neil Simon – to whom Marsha was married at the time.
 
Theater publicity: “A comedy about love the second time around,” as “a successful writer mourning the recent loss of his beloved wife…meets a vibrant, recently divorced actress. They begin a whirlwind courtship that leads to marriage” in a “hilarious and touching story that asks if you can start a second chapter when you can’t let go of the first?”
 
Bucks County Playhouse is located at 70 S. Main St., New Hope, PA 18938. bcptheatre.org

Tickets: 215-862-2121.   http://www.bcptheater.org/shows-events/chapter-two/
 
--- Recent SG Updates detailed DAVID SELBY (Quentin) and SUSAN SULLIVAN (Ghost) are starring in the prize-winning play “A Delicate Balance” May 3-June 15.
 
The play continues its run through June 15 at the Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025. (310) 477-2055.
 
Order tickets online:  boxoffice@odysseytheatre.co    Order by phone:  (310) 477-2055 – ext. 2.
 
 
**** DONNA McKECHNIE & DAVID SELBY currently are recording a new DS audio drama episode titled "The Darkest Shadow," in a story that reunites their characters of Amanda / Olivia and Quentin. SG Online Updates and upcoming SG print newsletters will announce and report confirmed details.
 
 
**** The huge Double SG # 122-#123 is the current Official DS Published Newsletter. Jonathan is remembered with photos, biographical information, and career highlights. He also is fondly and gently saluted by MARIE WALLACE. Her unique perspective extends outside DS, as they were longtime friends. Jonathan directed a college stage production of “The Lion in Winter” in Milledgeville, Georgia, in which Marie starred. He earned a Masters in Fine Art in directing from the Yale School of Drama

(where, say, it was with Marie Wallace being dropped from hoDS).

Ditto Denise Nickerson, who has said (during one of the old DS Halloween parties) that she and her mom asked to be released from her contract to do Neon Ceiling, and Curtis did so begrudgingly and then cut her costume ball scene from HoDS.

'Penny Dreadful' New York City premiere photos

Thanks, MB.  I haven't been reading reviews or cast lists, so I don't know for sure who Reeve Carney will be playing but can't wait til he joins the series.

Anyway, I saw PD today and it made me change my mind about getting rid of Showtime.  In fact, I want to watch the first ep over again.  The entire cast was fantastic.  I can't say I felt a lot of dread during in this one but there was certainly plenty of gore.  And the final scene was amazing; how cool was it to see a fresh take on something we've seen umpteen times in movies and even on DS?

Hmm, was Eva Green after Jonny Lee Miller's current job when she "read" Hartnett's character (without using her Tarot)?

Since today's the birthday of Forum cousin Uncle Roger , it seems fitting today to share a couple of Martin Donovan's upcoming projects:

Donovan has a part in the soon-to-be-released film Sabotage as the boss of an elite DEA team led by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

He's also a series regular in the upcoming futuristic Lifetime series The Lottery, where he's reunited with '04 series cast member Marley Shelton.

Donovan recently guested on the series Homeland, Hannibal, and Motive.

Happy Birthday   JoeNathan!

Posted on the Purchase College Acting Conservancy (SUNY), Class of 1981's Facebook page:

RIP Michael Maitland
b. August 27, 1956 - d. April 23, 2014
It has been my profound privilege to share so many deep, sad, joyous, silly, creative and frank conversations with Mike as the time dwindled and this day neared. Today, at the hospice his sister held the phone to his ear after letting me know that he could no longer speak but that he could still hear me. And I expressed myself to him for the last time. I just learned that only minutes later, after all those months of struggle, Mike's pain finally ended. Goodbye, brother.

A youtube memorial video posted by a fellow alumnus:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wFQrep83M8

A fundraiser page was created by one of his sisters to adopt a memorial bench in Central Park in Michael's memory near the field where he enjoyed playing softball:  http://www.gofundme.com/8npg98