1997 Dark Shadows Festival

August 22-24, 1997--Marriott Marquis Hotel; New York City, NY

(the following account was written on June 8, 1998)

August 22, 1997;

I woke around 6:00 am and left for Danielson around 8:30 to catch the 9:00 bus to New York City. This was my first time going there, and I was excited . We got to New York around 4:30. Mom and I hailed a taxi to the Roosevelt Hotel where we were staying. We waited in line for about half an hour to check in. We went to our room, 1679, called Dad, and left for the Marriott Marquis Hotel for the Dark Shadows Festival. At first we were heading the wrong way.
When we got there, we were waiting for an elevator when Mom grabbed my arm saying, "John Karlen is right over there!" where she proceeded to drag me. We waited until all the other fans had left, then wallked up to him where Mom introduced us. We got one picture of him with his arm around me! We went to the sixth floor to get our Festival books, then went to Sbarros to eat dinner.

August 22, 6:00PM

Mom and I were once again at the elevators waiting. We saw Marie Wallace getting on an elevator, but it was too full for us. Once we were finally on the sixth floor, we saw a giant crowd for the opening ceremonies outside the ballroom. I saw Kathryn Leigh Scott selling books and signing autographs. I tried to get closer, but the crowd was too thick.
I tried to find my friend Craigy and his wife in the crowd. Craigy had blonde hair and I had seen his picture on the internet before. A blonde man in a pink shirt politely pushed past me while Mom was trying to find water downstairs.
About 2000 fans crowded into the ballroom at 6:15. Immediately after the ceremonies was the Michael Stroka auction. He had passed away April 13, 1997 and had attended the 1996 fest in Los Angeles, but I didn't attend the fest that year.

August 22, 8:00PM

The Michael Stroka auction ended at 8:00. At this time, John Karlen, Kathryn Leigh Scott, Lara Parker, and Louis Edmonds went up on stage where they answered questions the fans asked. This lasted until 8:30. Mom and I still had not found Craigy and our other friends, so we called their hotel room. We left a messaeg on their answering machine which told them we would wait at the Clock Restaurant until 9:00 for them to come. Believe it or not, the lobby was on the 8th floor, same floor as the Clock. A few nights before, Craigy had told us the Clock was on the 3rd floor.
At 8:45, the man in the pink shirt from earlier got off the glass elevator at the 8th floor. The first thought that went through my head was "Oh my God, that's Craigy, and I walked right by him without even knowing it!" Sure enough, the man in the pink shirt definitely was Craigy. We had not known that his wife, Lynda, had dyed her hair red instead of blonde, and Craigy had lost quite a bit of weight. With Craigy and Lynda was Denise K., also a good friend, and Jessica, "the baby". None of us ever knew that Jessica existed until that day. She had come all the way from Milwaukee, only to be ditched and left alone on her first time to New York City. She was 18, and of course, soon became one of us. We went downstairs to find Rhonda and went to the Clock for drinks.

August 22, 11:00PM

We all left to go downstairs at 11:00 and got in the autograph line, which was on the 7th floor. This was also the time when the coordinator of the Fest, Jim Pierson, decided to shut down the lines. Mom and I were quite mad! Soon we learned that Denise Nickerson was at the door of the ballroom signing autographs for anyone who hadn't gotten one yet. Her autograph was the first one in my fest book!

When I had my picture taken with her, I had to sort of kneel down because I was 5'7" and Denise only 5'! At 11:30, Craigy walked with Rhonda, Mom and I to Times Square where we said good night. Rhonda was staying at the Edison Hotel, across the street from the Marriott. Mom and I were so hyper that we didn't go to bed until 12:30AM!

August 23, 9:45AM


Saturday morning we were down at the Marriott at 10:00. We got in the fast moving line for Kathryn Leigh Scott. I gave her excerpts from my novels (Double Exposure and at the time, the still unfinished The Jennings Twins). She said she would read the excerpts and pass them on to Lara Parker, who might get in touch with me about them. I got an autograph and a picture!



Roger Davis

We went over to the line for Roger Davis' table. He was selling shirts from his Packing Crate Classics company. Craigy was helping him sell shirts all day. We got a picture of Roger Davis, and him with Craigy. We also got autographs. At 1:30 we watched some funny fan videos and the first memorabilia auction was held at 2:00. Joan Bennett's cape went for $1000 and her gloves went for $740. The auction became quite intense when Ben Cross' ring (from the 1991 DS series.) went up for bidding. The prices quickly climbed to $1500 and finally went five minutes later for $2000. After that was the Cast Reunion. Same as the day before, John Karlen was wearing shorts! Lara commented, "I see everyone is dressed FORMALLY!" which received a loud applause. During the question and answer session, someone asked, "If Maggie was out of the picture, how would that have changed Willie's and Barnabas' relationship?" John answered, "Barnabas would ask Willie to marry him, and Willie would say yes!" Everyone started laughing hysterically.
When Roger Davis was talking on stage, Jim Pierson interrupted him, telling everyone that we were running an hour late and for everyone to leave so David Selby could set up for his performance. Roger yelled at Jim to let him finish, but Jim didn't.
So David Selby's "Lincoln and James" performance was at 5:45. Mom and I didn't dare go get supper-- we wanted good seats, which we found in the 3rd row from the stage! The performance was very intense. It lasted three hours. Mom and I got supper afterwards in a mad dash to the hotel room to get our costumes for the costume gala later that evening. We had to pass up the question and answer session right after the play, as well as the autograph line. We got changed in Denise K.'s room, and got to rehearsal for the gala at 11:15. The fest was running nearly two hours behind now. Mom was dressed as Rachel Drummond the 1897 storyline, and I as Magda frmo the same time. I was number 33, and Mom was number 34 to go up on stage. Several people did a skit, so it took forever for us to go up. Lara Parker's daughter Caitlyn was in it too, so Lara was in the audience.
When we got back to Denise K's room, Nick R. (who arrived that morning) and she were asleep. Downstairs we found everyone after we were changed. We talked for a while. We got back to the Roosevelt at 3:00AM, and the hall door was locked. We had to go to the lobby and didn't get in the room until 3:30.

August 24, 10:00AM

This was the time we were supposed to meet Craigy and co. at the Ooh La La cafe for breakfast. However, we had gotten up late and called Craigy to tell him we couldn't make it.

No one could predict what was going to happen this day, the most surprising one to come. At about 10:30, Mom and I were walking towards 5th Avenue when we saw John Karlen turn on it, heading north. We picked up out speed to catch him, and approached him after 3 blocks.
He recognized us from our first meeting at the elevators. He asked us where we were going, and when we told him we were looking for breakfast, he said, "This really isn't my town anymore, so I don't know what to tell ya, but you really should take a few minutes right now to look around and really appreciate the city. Isn't it beautiful?" He pointed to a large cathedral and asked me, "Do you know what that is?" I didn't and he told me it was St. Patrick's Cathedral. "You should really take a few minutes to go in and look around. It will really take your breath away." As we continued walking, he asked us where we were from, how far it was to travel, if we were enjoying the fest, how much we were paying, if we were paying a lot for the hotel. We answered, then his mind went elsewhere as he asked us what was going on that day. We stopped in front of the Episcopal Church and he said he had to go in for a few minutes, so Mom and I asked him if we could have autographs and pictures.
John left us on the corner of 5th and W.53rd. I said, "To Hell with breakfast, let's go to the old Dark Shadows Studio!" The studio was located on W.53rd and 9th. It didn't take us long to get there, and it is now the Montel Williams Studio.

At 11:45, we pulled into Roger Davis' table. We ended up having breakfast at the McDonald's in Times Square. We told Craigy what happened and he couldn't believe it! He had also walked with John for one block on Friday, but it was quite brief.

Louis Edmonds

We went and got Louis Edmond's CD, picture and autograph. We went to the vendor's room again where we ran into Diana Millay. We bought her last two scarabs and got her autograph once again. She remembered us from Lyndhurst!

On the other side of the room, we saw Ed Lambese filming Marie Wallace saying a special message for the fans for the Halloween Dark Shadows Event. We were standing right on the side of her the whole time. Then she turned around and asked us if we wanted her autograph!

August 24, 2:00PM

The auction prices finally went low enough for me to get stuff! I got a music cue from the original series for $20 and an autographed trading card of Kathryn Leigh Scott for the same amount. At 3:30, Lara Parker launched the new set of Dark Shadows novels which she would write. At 4:00, Marie Wallace performed a dramatic one person show. She played a sort of lonely woman in a bar. It was great. Kathryn Leigh Scott read some of her Dark Shadows movie diary. She was complaining about how Roger Davis was a royal pain in the butt and how she had to play his girlfriend! She read about how one time John Karlen got drunk out on a balcony with fans below, shouting about how Barnabas didn't appreciate him. It went on for some more complaining about several people and events and it was funnier than anything I ever heard! After Nancy Barrett sang in her Cabaret Act, we got in the two hour autograph line.


Terrayne Crawford



Donna Wandrey



Chris Pennock


David Selby wasn't there that day, so I missed out on getting him to autograph a Dark Shadows sript. I told Terry Crawford one of my favorite lines from Dark Shadows. John Karlen was there, and he said when he saw us, "These two are good. I walked with them this morning and, " he points at me and says, "she tripped me!" Everyone in the line was roaring with laughter!
The banquet was at 8:30, and it was 8:15 by the time we got out of the autograph line. Mom and I still had to change and by the time we got back downstairs, it was 8:45.


We saw the Dark Shadows 30th Anniversary tape as we ate, then the raffle for the door prizes began. John won the last prize, and when he was on stage he started this conversation with Roger about his carreer. "You're better than this..." Before John left the stage, HE KISSED ROGER!!! After midnight, the banquet ended. John found Mom and I over by Roger's table where he grabbed Mom's nose and hugged us both! Roger and he started their conversation again and John quoted Shakespeare. [it was "Tomorrow, tomorrow, and tomorrow/Creeps in this petty pace from day to day...is a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" and he knew the whole thing too. That is from Macbeth, Act 5 Scene 5].

It was something else, and you HAD to be there!

(The following account was written on August 31, 1997 in my diary and yes, I was SO star struck; the last account is probably better.)

On 8-22, I went to NYC! On the bus ride there I held up a sign that read;
"LOOK AT THIS!
QUACK!
WOW!"
When we went to get our badges, we saw John Karlen near the elevators! We got a picture of him with his arm around me! During the Michael Stroka auction, Denise K. got his blazer, shirt, hat, and a kiss from Chris Pennock!
At 9:30 we gave up looking for Craigy & co. so we called their room. I thought I had seen Craigy earlier and I was right. At 9:45 he came running up to us.
At 11:00 after joining up with Rhonda and Jess, we got Denise Nickerson's autograph! We got back to the hotel room at 12:30AM.

8-23
On Saturday we got KLS' autograph and I gave her my [story] excerpts. She said she didn't publish that kind of thing- Lara Parker would probably be interested in that type of thing. She said she would read it and pass it on!!!
The costume gala was cool. Lara Parker's daughter was dressed up as Angelique! Lara needed her room card and she went to her daughter to get it. She was standing five feet away! We got back to the hotel room at 2:30AM


8-24
We agreed to meet Craigy at Roger Davis' table after we had breakfast.
We were coming to 5th avenue when Mom spotted John Karlen again. We decided to catch up with him. After following him for three blocks, we asked if we could walk with him. He agreed! So we walked with him for 5 more blocks. We left him at the Episcopal Church. Then I noticed that we were at West 53rd st. I said, "To Hell with breakfast, let's go to the old Dark Shadows Studio!" So we did :)
At 11:45 we pulled into Roger Davis' table. We were so hyper! We had walked 22 blocks! Anyways, more fun started at 2:00. I got an autographed trading card of Kathryn Leigh Scott for $20, then I got an old DS music cue for the same amount! So much happened! When we were in the autograph line, John Karlen grabbed our fest books and singed them again! (he had recognized us) He then pointed at me and said, "She tripped me!"
Ran to Denise's room and got changed. The Banquet food was great!
After the Banquet, John came over to Mom and I and hugged and kissed us!
He and Roger Davis then got into a long discussion. It was amazing- you had to be there!



Mom and Denise Nickerson

Mom and Kathryn Leigh Scott

Mom and John Karlen after we walked with him

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