The Twilight Zone comes home to Westport to celebrate 100 years of Rod Serling.
Join The Westport Library and resident Twilight Zone expert and award-winning author Arlen Schumer, along with other featured authors and Serling scholars, for four days and nights of landmark episodes, films inspired by the series, and insightful discussions of all aspects of Serling's life and work — including facts you never knew about Westport’s critical role in The Twilight Zone.
Author Nick Parisi will be in conversation with Schumer about his definitive biography, Rod Serling: His Life, Work, and Imagination, as well as Nick’s latest, America's Twilight Zone: How Rod Serling Foreshadowed the Age of Trump. We’ll screen the Serling-centric episode, “Walking Distance” and then transition from one of Serling’s most personal episodes to one of his most political, “The Obsolete Man,” about a near-future totalitarian state where individualism is scorned, starring Burgess Meredith and Fritz Weaver. We’ll cap off the night with a screening of a rare one-hour Twilight Zone episode of Serling's from 1963 that presciently forecasts the Age of Trump: “He’s Alive,” starring the legendary Dennis Hopper.
Author Mark Dawidziak speaks with Schumer about his book, Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in The Twilight Zone. Following the discussion, get ready for a blockbuster Saturday night at the movies — starting with the seminal, Oscar-winning Twilight Zone episode, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” and capped off by a screening of Jacob’s Ladder, the 1990 cult classic film directly inspired by that same episode.
We close out the symposium in style with a pop-up art show of Staples High School students’ artworks inspired by one of the most memorable Twilight Zone episodes, “Eye of the Beholder.” After a screening of this fan-favorite episode, we have a real treat in store for you — a screening of the episode, “Number 12 Looks Just Like You” — complete with original commercials from its airdate in 1964! Finally, we close out the weekend with a screening of the cult classic 1975 film The Stepford Wives, sharing thematic ties with “Number 12,” and also partially filmed right here in Westport.
We’ll see YOU in The Twilight Zone!
We encourage everyone to come dressed in their best black and white Twilight Zone outfits — and enjoy black and white cookies throughout the Symposium!
