Get Your Geek On For Nerd Night, And Benefit Women & Children
Laurie and Michael Wright are organizing a special event for Sunday, September 6, at Edmond Town Hall. For the event, “Can’t Stop the Serenity: A Global Charity Screening Event for Equality Now,” the Sandy Hook residents are encouraging attendees to “Get your geek on for a good cause!”
The evening will run from 5:30 until 10:30 pm, and will feature a screening of the film Serenity and “Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.”
Pre-movie entertainment will include programming from Geek & Sundry, among other offerings. The Wrights announced on August 12 that singer-songwriter Sean Faust will be part of the event. Faust is revered in the Can’t Stop The Serenity (CSTS) community thanks to his song “Hero of Canton,” which was included in the Firefly episode “Jaynestown” (and which Faust has performed “at many CSTS events in recent years,” according to the Nerd Night in Newtown Facebook page). He also wrote and released “Signal,” a song reportedly inspired by Firefly and Serenity.
There will also be a raffle, trivia, door prizes, and a cosplay/costume contest.
Winners of the costume contest will be invited to ride on Newtown Cultural Arts Commission’s float the following morning, in Newtown’s 54th Annual Labor Day Parade. All costumed guests will also be welcome to march behind the float, according to the Wrights.
Merchandise and refreshments will also be available throughout the event.
Tickets are $10 in advance, or $12 at the door.
Proceeds from the event will be divided between Equality Now, a charity dedicated to promoting and protecting the human rights of women around the world, and The Mary Hawley Society, the nonprofit organization that supports the historic town hall building at 45 Main Street.
Serenity (2005) is an “American space western film,” according to Wikipedia. Written and directed by Joss Whedon, it is a continuation of Whedon’s short-lived 2002 science fiction television series Firefly.
Set in 2517, Serenity stars the same cast as its predecessor — Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk, Adam Baldwin, Summer Glau and Chiwetel Ejiofor — and it picks up after the events of the final television episode.
Serenity has a running time of 119 minutes, and is rated PG-13 for sequences of intense violence and action, and some sexual references.
While it received generally good reviews upon its release in September 2005, the film did not earn back its budget until after its home release. Fandom has kept Firefly and Serenity in their own spotlight since, with fans flocking to conventions and repeated viewings of their beloved episodes and movie.
TV Guide ranked the show #5 in its 2013 listing of 60 shows Cancelled Too Soon (in addition to canceling the series, Fox aired only 11 of the 14 episodes that were produced).
Five months after it was released, Serenity was screened — with permission from Universal, the studio that released the film — by a fan in Portland, Ore., to benefit Equality Now, an organization favored by Joss Whedon. More than 50 similar screenings were planned, around the world, within six months. The event, first called “Serenity Now/Equality Now,” officially had its name changed in 2007 to Can’t Stop The Serenity.
Newtown is joining a global phenomenon which has, as of August 10, raised more than $1 million for Equality Now. As of that same date, according to cantstoptheserenity.com, 2015 events had raised $17,073.08. That was less than one-third of the way through a six-month CSTS season.
Newtown’s will be one of 19 events registered at cantstoptheserenity.com taking place in September alone. Dozens of events had been registered on the website, taking place around the world, in the months of May through October.
The Wrights promise that the event can be enjoyed by Browncoats (fans of Firefly and Serenity) and newcomers alike, with a brief synopsis.
“Imagine,” said Laurie, “if you’re a Star Wars fan — that the Rebellion lost, and now all of the rebels — like Han and Chewie — are living at the edge of the universe, or the edge of the known galaxy, picking up work and living in dives.
“That’s sort of what this is. It took part of its inspiration from Gene Roddenberry — a Western in space, but much more Western. On the civilized world you have lasers, and all sorts of technology. And on the fringe, where the people who were on the losing side, you still have guns, and they’re smugglers. They smuggle cows, because they’re a hot commodity.
“It’s sort of like Southern reconstruction era, but in space,” she concluded.
The Emmy Award-winning “Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” is being screened by permission from Time Science Blood Club, LLC. Featuring Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion, and cameos that will be recognizable to Whedon fans, the three-part blog has a total running time of approximately 42 minutes.
The evening is being co-presented by Newtown Cultural Arts Commission.
If you haven’t already noticed it on the posters, the September 6 event is actually called Nerd Night in Newtown 1.0.
It will not be, the Wrights say, the only Nerd Night in Newtown event.
“We approached Newtown Cultural Arts Commission,” said Laurie, “and said that we would like to do this in conjunction with their arts festival, in various forms, each year.”
The 2015 Newtown Arts Festival main event will be the weekend of September 19-20, when a massive festival is presented for the fourth year. There will also be “a ridiculous abundance of enriching activities throughout September all around town” the festival’s website (newtownartsfestival.com) is again promising. CSTS is in fact featured on the arts festival website events page, one of just a few events that have been announced to date.
“We’ve got ideas for years going forward,” said Laurie. “We’ve played with ideas, and we decided to start now, before our daughter heads off to college, so that she can be part of this too.”
Michael and Laurie are happy that this is their first event through Nerd Night in Newtown.
“This is a great way to get started,” Laurie Wright said, smiling. “Everyone just loves Nathan Fillion on Castle [the actor’s latest television series], even if they may not have seen Serenity...”
“or watched Firefly,” Michael added.
Equality Now, And Cosplay
Laurie and Michael Wright “are huge fans of everything Joss Whedon does,” Laurie Wright said July 30. They drove to Poughkeepsie, she said, to see a screening of Serenity because it was out of the local theaters “way too quickly,” she said. “We’re those kind of fans.”
They learned about Equality Now from Katherine White, Michael’s godmother, in 1999. Ms White was part of the volunteer corps at the United Nations.
“She was one of the chairs for the 1995 conference they had in Beijing, the Fourth Worldwide Conference on Women, and one of Equality Now’s big projects is, every five years they update that,” said Laurie. “She came up to meet our baby girl, and told us about this committee that was finding a way to measure the growth in women’s human rights around the world.”
After hearing about the first CSTS event, and learning that proceeds were donated to Equality Now, the Wrights had an epiphany. In the years since a favorite movie had been released, screenings of Serenity were being used to raise funds they too had a personal connection to.
They have seen notices for CSTS events through the years, she said, but never made it to any of them. With 2015 being the tenth anniversary of Serenity’s release, the couple decided it was time to do something.
“There are people who do this who make $6,000 at a go,” said Laurie. “There are others who raise $400. There are different reasons and different levels of fundraising.
“The reason Can’t Stop The Serenity fits in for us, especially lately,” she said, “is it’s about strong female characters. Joss Whedon sort of specializes in that, and I’m raising a daughter. I believe in that, and with what you’ve been seeing in sort of the” — she puts her hands up to indicate air quotes — “‘nerd community’ lately, while it can be a very comfortable place for women and girls, not so much this year, or last year, as we speak up about what’s not right.
“So the idea of throwing something out there that that’s sort of for that nerd or geek community, and having it be about making life better for women and children, it’s slightly ironic and I love it,” she said. “So we’re going to run with it.”
Now that The 12.14 Foundation/NewArts productions of Liberty Smith and Lion King Jr have wrapped, the Wrights are also counting on their daughter for publicity help. While her parents are handling Facebook and Twitter, Jerusha Wright will take care of getting the word about Nered Night in Newtown and the upcoming CSTS event out on Snapchat, Tumblr, and Instagram. The 16-year old, who will be a junior at Newtown High School during the upcoming academic year, had been involved in the July 31-August 2 productino of Liberty Smith at Newtown High School.
To this point it has been the three Wrights who have handled all planning for CSTS at Edmond Town Hall.
“Right now we’re getting the basics out,” Michael said.
They expect to have a small crew “ready to run the event,” Laurie added, and the couple’s niece will be joining them that night as well. Anyone interested in volunteering during all or part of the event is asked to contact the Wrights.
Can’t Stop the Serenity is kid-friendly, although organizers do suggest children be at least age 10.
The Wrights say cosplay — again, for the uninitiated — began as something people are invited to dress up as their favorite costume, anime, or mango character. It has morphed, said Laurie, through all of the genres.
“We went to ConnectiCon, for just an hour, to pass out fliers,” she said, “and we counted 57 Dr Whos, standing on the front lawn, getting their picture taken. And then we walked past a bunch of guys wearing T-shirts that said ‘This is my Deadpool costume.’ We walked past a knight that said ‘Ni!’ [a Monty Python reference], and an Ursula that would just blow your mind. It’s just taken on to all the characters, and it’s a new version of geekdom.”
No costume prop weapons will be allowed. Beyond that, there are no stipulations on the costumes.
“It’s a family theater,” said Laurie. “If you wouldn’t walk into an elementary school wearing it, you can’t bring it here.”
To keep up to date with Nerd Night In Newtown and Can’t Stop The Serenity, follow the Wrights on Twitter @NNightNewtown and on Facebook at /NerdNightinNewtown. The Wrights can also be reached at 203-364-4010 or nerdnightnewtown@gmail.com.
For tickets visit nerdnightinnewtownCSTS.bpt.me.