Dark Shadows festival

The Dark Shadows con was loads of fun. I hung out some with my friend Lamar (Lara Parker), though she did non-stop autographing for hours (the autograph line never seemed to get shorter), until I started to think autographing was her superpower. The con was much more widely attended than Dark Shadows cons tend to be--there were about 1,500 attendees, among them a number of people there for the first time, and some enthusiastic kids there with their parents.

Some highlights:

John Karlen (Willie) opened a coffin that contained Jonathan Frid (Barnabas), who mock-strangled him. Then Frid screened Dark Shadows clips and provided commentary (often hilarious). He talked about how, in the scene where Barnabas discovers his beloved Josette has married his uncle, he humiliatingly blanked out on his dialogue for at least a full minute. He managed to prevail upon the editor to fix it (which was almost never allowed). The edited scene, he said, is his favorite of all his years on Dark Shadows, and because of the editing, it conveys the heartbreak of Barnabas, "not the heartbreak of Frid."

David Selby (Quentin) still looked damn good after all these decades. My favorite Selby quote: "I think Quentin secretly wanted Barnabas to bite him. I know I did."

Sy Tomashoff (scenic designer) talked about how some of the Dark Shadows sets/props got recycled for Ryan's Hope!

ETA: Forgot to mention that the guys from Big Finish were there, and I bought one of their Dark Shadows audio CDs in the dealer room!