Who: Anne Serling, Marc Scott Zicree, Richard Christian Matheson, Christopher Beaumont, Mark Dawidziak, more
What: Virtual festival honoring Rod Serling
Where: Facebook Live
When: Saturday, August 15, free (donations encouraged), 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Why: Just in case you didn’t already feel like you were living in the Twilight Zone, you can take part in the annual SerlingFest, which this year moves online. The virtual all-day 2020 edition features special guests and video presentations celebrating the creator of The Twilight Zone, the greatest television anthology series ever made, a prescient, ahead-of-its-time, socially conscious program hosted by the inimitable Rod Serling, who wrote many of the episodes as well. Born on Christmas Day in 1924 in Syracuse, Serling served in the military (earning the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star) before writing for radio and television, including Patterns in 1955, Requiem for a Heavyweight in 1956, The Twilight Zone from 1959 to 1964, Seven Days in May in 1964, Planet of the Apes (with Michael Wilson) in 1968, Night Gallery from 1970 to 1973, and other projects before passing away in Rochester on June 28, 1975, at the way-too-young age of fifty.
It’s free to watch on Facebook Live, but donations are encouraged to benefit the Rod Serling Memorial Foundation, a nonprofit founded in 1986 “to educate the public about Rod Serling’s genius and his passion, hoping that they will understand and appreciate his mastery of the creative arts, his unique understanding of human relationships, his esteem as a writer, his generosity as a speaker in and around Binghamton, and his uncompromising commitment to quality.” Among the participants are Anne Serling, author of As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling; Marc Scott Zicree, author of The Twilight Zone Companion; Richard Christian Matheson and Christopher Beaumont, children of two of the best TZ writers, Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont, respectively; and Mark Dawidziak, author of Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in the Twilight Zone. It’s a different kind of marathon, but it could be one for the ages. (Be sure to watch the end of the above video for some very fun TZ references.)