Special Guests 2019 - oz-stravaganza2019

Special Guests for 2019 Oz-Stravaganza!

John Fricke

John Fricke is widely regarded as the world's preeminent Wizard of Oz and Judy Garland historian/author. He has written seven books on those topics, the latest of which—The Wonderful World of Oz—is now available as a trade paperback. He is a two-time Emmy Award-winning producer/writer of Garland documentaries for PBS-TV and the A&E cable network; a Grammy Award nominee for his journalism; and the annual host/emcee of Oz and Garland festivals nationwide. Fricke has spoken about Oz and Judy Garland everywhere from the Turner Classic Movies network (TCM) and "The Today Show" (five appearances, most recently this past January) to CNN, NPR, and Sirius Radio; at The Museum of Modern Art, The Film Society of Lincoln Center, and The Paley Center in New York, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the TCM Film Festival in Los Angeles, and the Deauville Film Festival in France. John delivers the commentary track on the DVD of The Wizard of Oz movie, as well as on seven other Garland DVD releases. He is currently working with Warner Bros. on Oz-related projects; with The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., on their new, forthcoming exhibition of their pair of ruby slippers from the Oz film; on the pre-Broadway stage musical, Chasing Rainbows: The Road to Oz; and on diverse Judy Garland assignments. John's eighth book will be published this autumn.

Shawn Ryan

Shawn Ryan has been making costumes for theater and special events for more than a decade. He attended school for fashion design but has also been self-taught via his own research and creative experimentation. Currently, Shawn works out of his studio in Palm Harbor, FL. Among his theater credits are Chicago at the St. Pete Little Theatre and The Producers at the Largo Cultural Center. He also did original costume design for Largo’s Lost at Sea. Shawn interned with Susan Hilferty on the workshop of Wonderland: Alice’s New Musical Adventure. (Hilferty is the Tony and Drama Desk Award winner for Best/Outstanding Costume Design for Broadway’s Wicked.) His costume recreations include such iconic fictional characters as Elphaba and Glinda (Wicked), Ozma (Return to Oz), Winifred Sanderson (Hocus Pocus), Rose (Titanic), and Cinderella. For exhibition at last year’s International Wizard of Oz Club national convention, Sean duplicated eleven classic Dorothy Gale costumes, ranging from that worn in the 1903 Broadway musical to Judy Garland’s iconic MGM garb and those dresses seen in The Wiz, Return to Oz, and etc. He’ll present four new Oz costume recreations at OZ-Stravaganza! 2018, one of which will thereafter become a permanent part of the All Things Oz Museum collection.