The Twilight Zone at 50: A Celebration of Rod Serling

October 2009 marks a milestone as the 50^th Anniversary of Rod Serling's popular television show, The Twilight Zone. As entertainment and enlightenment, this long running series presented cautionary tales that wove social commentary throughout its half hour narrative of the strange and supernatural events visited upon the ordinary people featured in each program. This year, Binghamton, New York, the upstate city that Rod Serling grew up in and visited often in his morally toned and topical stories will celebrate with a week long series of festivities and events.

For four days, from October 1-4, Greater Binghamton residents and Serling fans from around the world will be invited to participate in The Twilight Zone at 50...A Celebration of Rod Serling. This hometown party will be sponsored by the Rod Serling Video Festival, the Rod Serling School of the Arts and the Rod Serling Memorial Foundation. It will coincide with the annual educational Serling Conference at Ithaca College's Roy Park School of Communications, where Serling taught for nine years.

Beginning on Thurday of the week, Serling aficionados can attend the celebration kick-off which will feature a re-enactment of Rod Serling's Graduation address to the Binghamton Central High School class of 1968. This event will include remarks from Tony Albarella, a magazine writer and Ithaca College Conference presenter who is currently chronicling Serling's work in a new 10-volume book series entitled As Timeless as Infinity:The Complete Twilight Zone Scripts of Rod Serling. Throughout the four day celebration, trolley and walking tours of local Serling sites will include his westside childhood home on Bennet Avenue, the Serling Display at the Forum Theater, a visit to his "Star" on the Metrocenter Walk of Fame, carousel rides in the neighborhood park that inspired his episode Walking Distance and a special gallery display in Binghamton High School's Rod Serling School of the Arts. The downtown Forum Theater will run a continuous 12-hour loop of 24 of Serling's Twilight Zone episodes and the 90 minute PBS American Masters history of Rod Serling's life, Submitted for your Approval:Rod Serling will air in a not yet disclosed public venue. To round out the festivities, local actors will be featured in two public television broadcasts of the TwilightZone scripts, Walking Distance and Mirror Image.

Just 50 miles north of Binghamton, in the Fingerlakes town of Ithaca, Celebrating 50 Years of the Twilight Zone, the Ithaca College Rod Serling Conference will begin on Friday October 2^nd and run through Saturday October 3^rd. This interdisciplinary academic conference is dedicated to the works of Rod Serling. Activities will include a Rod Serling Video Marathon, a Scriptwriting Competition open to non-produced or non-optioned writers, poster presentations and video sessions. A long list of suggested scholarship topics for television, film, or table readings will be the featured events. Previous conferences have focused on the creative work of Rod Serling, through offerings in research, personal anecdotes, and views of the early classics in television. Themes related to Planet of the Apes, Radio Days in Cincinnati, The Lynching of Emmet Til (censored by network television--twice!), and The Twilight Zone as philosophical concept have been explored. Researchers visiting the Serling archives will find an exhaustive holding of television scripts, film screenplays, films, stage plays, unpublished works, photographs and letters held from his days of teaching at the college and writing from his home on Cayuga Lake.

If you love American heroes these two events are well worth a fall trip to beautiful upstate New York. As the first television writer to dramatize the heart of darkness behind current events, Rod Serling's writings remain fresh and relevant to audiences old and new. Fans should be sure to visit www.RodSerlingVideoFest.com as the date approaches for a schedule of activities in Binghamton. Those who want to make the trek into lake and wine country for a visit to Ithaca College or to register for the Serling Conference can find out more information by visiting the Ithaca College website at www.ithaca.edu/rhp/serling/.

References:

1. www.ithaca.edu/rhp/serling/

2. Kassan, Lawrence. "Rod Serling:A Celebration." Broome County History Bulletin;Broome County Historical Society 8 (2009): 3-4.