In front of the Woostock Opera House, May 2014

So I went to Woodstock. Not that Woodstock; I mean the village in Illinois where Orson Welles attended boarding school as a kid. He wasn’t born there, but since he had a sort of atypical upbringing biographers point to the Todd School as maybe the first stable environment he had ever experienced. He certainly made the most of his time there, and in later years Welles tended to think of Woodstock as his hometown.

What does Welles’ adopted hometown do to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the theater festival Orson co-produced so after graduating from the Todd School? A whole lot of events and exhibits! They bring in Welles experts (and I mean experts–these people knew their subject). They hold a film festival at the local historic movie house (We screened The Lady from Shanghai) and offer all kinds of other Welles/Todd School-related stuff.