The film, What the Notes Say, was created under the guidance of three faculty mentors and ultimately submitted to the prestigious competition. For the students involved, the project became far more than an academic assignment—it was an unforgettable lesson in the power of storytelling, creativity and collaboration.

Working as a team, the students learned firsthand what it takes to bring a meaningful vision to life: balancing roles, supporting one another through challenges, and combining individual talents into a shared success. The experience underscored how teamwork and dedication can transform a student project into something with lasting impact.

Two students were flown to Hollywood to attend the awards ceremony, where the project received national recognition. When the moment arrived, the announcement was unforgettable:

“And the winner is
 What the Notes Say!”

As then-Department Chair and Adelphi alumnus Paul Pitcoff ’65 reflected, the honor was “a testament to how significant student hard work, dedication, and passion can guide and affect educational advancement.”

Their achievement remains a lasting example of the creativity, teamwork, and excellence that define our alumni community—aČÔ»ć a reminder of what students can accomplish when they come together with purpose.

We proudly recognize the talented student filmmakers from the Classes of 1974, 1975 and 1976: Rich Baron, Patrice Benneward, John Bencivenga, John Costello, Kurt Derner, Rosemary Ravinal, Sharon Thompson, Walter Trepashko, Tom Bisset, Sean Britt, Ken Cohn, Dorie Hightower, Karen Grossman and Rich O’Neill, along with their faculty mentors Marge Hudson, Len Price and Paul Pitcoff.

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From launching a new trilogy set in the 1950s, to bringing Practical Magic to Broadway with help from a musical icon, Hoffman is proving that her storytelling is as potent as ever.

A Return to Her Roots

Founded by Hoffman herself two years ago, the Writers & Readers Festival returns to Adelphi’s Garden City campus from April 15–17. The event has become a staple of the New York literary scene, and this year’s lineup is no exception.

Hoffman will headline a keynote conversation with fellow No. 1 New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult, focusing on the resilience of storytelling in an era of increasing book bans. She is also set to appear in a discussion of the writer-editor relationship alongside novelist Jessica Knoll and Scribner Books publisher Marysue Rucci.

Practical Magic 2, the Movie Sequel 27 Years in the Making

The phrase “midnight margaritas” is trending once again. Production has officially moved into the final stages for Practical Magic 2, scheduled to hit theaters nationwide on September 11. The film serves as a generational bridge, reuniting the iconic “aunts”—Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest—with stars Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman. While the plot remains largely under wraps, it is confirmed to be inspired by Hoffman’s 2021 novel, The Book of Magic. Newcomers like Joey King, Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams and The Hobbit trilogy star Lee Pace join the coven, promising a sequel that explores the legacy of the Owens curse for a new era.

Published in 1995, Practical Magic was the basis for the 1998 film adaptation starring Kidman and Bullock as sisters descended from a long line of witches. The film became a cult classic, a supernatural drama blending romance with a story of sisterly bonds. The book went on to spawn a media franchise of the same name, which in addition to the film includes a 2004 television pilot (Sudbury), two prequels—2017’s The Rules of Magic and 2020’s Magic Lessons—aČÔ»ć a sequel, 2021’s The Book of Magic.

From Page to Stage: The Practical Magic Musical

The most surprising development in the Hoffman universe is the leap to the theater. A stage musical adaptation of Practical Magic is currently in development. In a powerhouse collaboration, Hoffman is writing a book/script for the stage with playwright Peter Duchan (Dogfight), while 10-time Grammy winner Norah Jones will provide the music and lyrics in a collaboration with Grammy-nominated record producer Gregg Wattenberg. The project marks the first stage musical by Jones.

“This story of love and sisterhood is meant for the theater. Music is the heart and soul of Practical Magic,” Hoffman said of the project. “You can hear it as you read the book, even though it Ÿ±ČőČÔ’t there. Now you will finally hear the story as I always imagined it. You will hear magic.”

Celebrating a Different Kind of Magic

Amid the witches and Broadway lights, Hoffman has also found time for a more personal project. She recently edited a new anthology titled The Best Dog in the World: Essays on Love.

The collection features 14 celebrated authors—including Isabel Allende, Amy Tan, Roxane Gay and Bonnie Garmus—sharing stories of the canine companions that changed their lives. Hoffman will discuss the collection at the April festival, offering a “love letter” to the loyal animal friends who teach us about empathy and unconditional love.

A New Era of Witchcraft

Hoffman is already inviting readers back into the world of the supernatural. Her latest novel, The Witches of Cambridge, is slated for release on September 8.

The book, which kick-starts a new trilogy, was inspired by Hoffman’s own recent academic pursuits. Set on a college campus in the 1950s, the story follows two students, Ava and Lauren, who find refuge from the shadows of McCarthyism within a secret society of witches. Early praise from authors like Leigh Bardugo describes the work as “rich with history, heartbreak, and magic.”

“I went back to school and what began as my term paper ended up as a novel about witches, love, magic, sorrow, betrayal, sisterhood and best friends,” Hoffman said.

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How does this specific trip to Italy align with the College’s mission to prepare future leaders and professionals for a globalized world?

aligns closely with the College’s mission by preparing students to become future leaders and professionals who can work effectively in a globalized world. The program is intentionally designed to move learning beyond the classroom by placing students in environments where history, culture, education, community and daily routines are experienced as interconnected realities rather than separate systems. Through visits to schools, historically significant sites and engagement with daily life, students encounter firsthand how social values, historical development and local resources shape approaches to education and everyday practices. These experiences allow students to see that professional practice is always embedded within cultural and social contexts, often shaped by constraints and priorities that differ from those in the United States.

Working in unfamiliar linguistic and cultural settings requires students to adapt, communicate across differences and reconsider assumptions they may have previously taken for granted. Rather than observing passively, students engage in structured reflection and faculty-guided discussion that connect daily experiences to their emerging professional roles. They examine how professional practices are influenced by history, policy and community expectations, and consider how these insights inform their own future work with diverse populations.

As a result, students develop not only cultural awareness but also practical judgment, flexibility and ethical sensitivity, capacities that are essential for professionals who will serve increasingly diverse communities. More importantly, the experience helps students recognize that effective professional practice requires the ability to understand context, listen across difference and respond thoughtfully rather than relying on a single model or assumption. In this way, the program advances the College’s commitment to educating professionals and leaders who are prepared to navigate complexity, engage responsibly with diverse communities and contribute meaningfully to an interconnected world.

Why was Italy chosen as the flagship destination for this faculty-led initiative?

Italy was chosen as our destination because it offers a uniquely layered learning environment that allows students to examine how culture and community are shaped over time and across civilizations. As a crossroads of Mediterranean, European and global exchange, Italy has played a significant role in the development of many ideas, institutions and artistic traditions that have influenced Western societies, while itself being shaped by interactions with other civilizations through trade, migration, religion and conquest. This historical layering provides an ideal context for helping students understand that contemporary professional practices do not emerge in isolation, but are the result of ongoing cultural dialogue and adaptation.

Italy’s cities and regions offer living classrooms where ancient traditions coexist with modern systems. Walkable urban spaces, strong regional identities, and a cultural emphasis on family, community and everyday well-being allow students to observe learning, care and social relationships as lived practices rather than abstract institutional models. Within a relatively compact geography, students can engage with schools, cultural institutions and community settings, making Italy especially well suited for a short-term program that seeks depth rather than superficial exposure.

Italy was also selected with equity and access in mind. Many of our students come from Italian or broader European heritage backgrounds, yet would not otherwise have the opportunity to engage meaningfully with this heritage through an academically structured, faculty-guided experience. At the same time, for students without personal or familial ties to Italy, the program offers an accessible entry point into global learning, one that combines cultural richness, linguistic diversity and strong infrastructure in a way that supports first-time international travelers. Without a college-organized program, financial, logistical and experiential barriers would prevent many students from participating in study abroad at all.

Taken together, Italy provides a powerful setting for a flagship program because it allows students to explore how historical depth, cultural exchange and contemporary professional practice intersect. The destination supports the College’s commitment to preparing future leaders and professionals who can understand complexity, appreciate multiple perspectives and apply culturally responsive thinking in an interconnected global context.

Does the program provide opportunities for education students to observe classroom instruction and student learning in local schools?

Yes. The program provides education students with opportunities to observe both elementary and secondary school settings in Italy. During these visits, students are able to observe classroom instruction, student engagement and teaching approaches within a different cultural and educational context. These observations allow participants to compare instructional practices, classroom organization and student-teacher interactions with those commonly found in the United States.

In addition to observation, students have opportunities, when appropriate, to interact with Italian students and educators. These interactions allow for informal exchanges about school life, learning expectations and cultural perspectives on education. Faculty-guided reflection following the visits helps students connect what they observe to their own developing teaching philosophy, encouraging them to consider how cultural, social and policy contexts influence educational practice. As a result, the experience supports the development of culturally responsive perspectives and broadens students’ understanding of teaching and learning in diverse settings.

For health science students, does this trip help them compare the Italian healthcare system or wellness culture with the U.S. model?

While students do not formally observe the Italian healthcare system or clinical settings—as we are not allowed to have access to healthcare facilities—the trip provides meaningful opportunities for students to examine broader concepts of wellness and well-being within the Italian cultural context. Students observe how health is embedded in everyday life through dietary practices, food preparation and social routines centered around meals and community interaction. Activities such as cooking classes and discussions of regional food traditions allow students to explore the relationship between nutrition, lifestyle and preventive approaches to health.

In addition, students observe patterns related to walkable cities, daily physical activity, social connectedness and the pace of daily life, all of which contribute to broader understandings of wellness beyond clinical care. Faculty-guided discussions encourage students to reflect on how cultural values, environment and lifestyle influence health outcomes, and to compare these observations with prevailing models in the United States that often emphasize treatment rather than prevention.

Through these experiences, students gain a more holistic perspective on health and well-being, recognizing that healthcare systems operate within cultural and social frameworks. This comparative perspective helps students consider how lifestyle, community practices and cultural attitudes toward health may inform future professional practice in diverse populations.

In what ways does navigating a foreign country help our students become more empathetic educators or healthcare providers when they return to diverse New York communities?

Navigating Italy places students in the position of linguistic and cultural outsiders. They must ask for help, interpret unfamiliar cues and manage moments of uncertainty. These experiences foster humility, patience and perspective-taking. When students return to New York, they carry a deeper understanding of what it feels like to navigate systems that were not designed with them in mind. This lived empathy translates into more responsive teaching, more compassionate care and greater sensitivity to the experiences of multilingual, immigrant and culturally diverse populations.

What is one “off-the-syllabus” experience you hope every student has while in Italy?

I hope every student has a moment of genuine connection in an ordinary setting, a conversation with a local shopkeeper, a shared meal, a moment of misunderstanding that turns into insight. These unscripted encounters often become the most meaningful learning moments. When students pause, reflect and talk through these experiences together, they begin to see how learning happens not only in classrooms, but in everyday human interaction.

How can students best translate this short-term Intersession experience onto a résumé or into a talking point during a job interview?

Students can frame this experience as evidence of global competence, adaptability and reflective practice. Rather than presenting the experience simply as travel, they are encouraged to articulate the specific skills developed through the program, including cross-cultural communication, careful observation, ethical awareness and teamwork in unfamiliar environments. In interviews and professional settings, students can draw on concrete examples of how navigating new cultural and social contexts in Italy challenged their assumptions, required flexibility in communication and problem-solving, and strengthened their ability to work thoughtfully and respectfully with diverse populations.

If you were a student again today, what part of this trip’s itinerary would you be most excited about?

I would be most excited about the moments that blend learning with lived experience, walking through historic cities, observing daily life, visiting schools and engaging in conversations that connect past and present. These are the moments when assumptions become visible and open to reflection, and learning feels alive. They are also the moments that stay with you long after the trip ends.

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Louise Geddes, PhD, an expert on Shakespearean drama and performance, teaches English in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Adelphi’s resident Shakespeare expert, Louise Geddes, PhD, associate dean for student success strategic initiatives, who teaches English in the College of Arts and Sciences, notes that this 2025 adaptation of the novel spins a yarn of what little is known about William Shakespeare’s family life and focuses on his marriage to Anne/Agnes Hathaway. It also suggests that his tragedy Hamlet was inspired by the death of their real son, Hamnet, in 1596.

According to Dr. Geddes, “The screenplay is created from a fascination with all that Ÿ±ČőČÔ’t known about Shakespeare’s life—aČÔ»ć this has prompted numerous movies and books before this.” Spoilers ahead.

Adelphi’s Shakespeare Expert Weighs In

Dr. Geddes, whose research interests include Shakespeare in performance and the ways his work is interpreted in modern life, shares what she believes has earned Hamnet the Oscar accolades.

Q: What is known about Anne Hathaway?

A: We know that Anne was older than Shakespeare and that she was likely pregnant when they married. She had her garden and she was known for herbal remedies. I think O’Farrell’s book Hamnet comes from a response to the casual and institutional sexism in the idea that if she was older and pregnant, he must have been forced into it—that he probably didn’t like her and went to London to escape her.

Q: What do we know about her life with Shakespeare?

A: The book addresses that and the fact that Stratford might have felt too small for him. We do know he ended up going back to Anne and living out his retirement with her. The book, more than the movie, really digs into what was left behind. To me, the book is a portrait of a marriage from a woman’s perspective. The husband wanted to find his path elsewhere, but they were living a small-town life. She had her children; she made sacrifices for him to have his life. I think the book really beautifully engages in this idea and does a lot to undo the narrative that he must have hated his wife.

Hamnet the Film Versus Hamnet the Book

Q: What do you think the buzz about the movie stems from?

A: That it’s the story that inspired Hamlet. But it shifts the focus away from the wife onto Shakespeare and why he wrote the play. I really enjoyed it, but it’s different from the book where he’s only known as “the Latin tutor” and “the husband.” Agnes doesn’t really understand that he’s a successful playwright.

In the book, when she goes to London and realizes that he’s incredibly famous, it’s such a shock to her, not because of the grief for their son, but because she’s been married to this man for so long, and there’s this whole part of his life that she doesn’t know. The book works really hard to tell their story. The movie does the exact opposite. It makes it about Shakespeare, and Hamlet is the product. It makes the suffering of losing Hamnet worthwhile because the art happens. That’s a very different narrative.

Q: And yet the director is a woman.

A: Yes. Honestly, I was a little disappointed that it focused so much on Shakespeare, because Agnes is such a rich character in the book. The movie shows us moments of Shakespeare crying alone over the death of his son. The book doesn’t care whether or not he’s crying. The book cares about what he’s doing for his family, for his marriage and for her. The movie lets him off the hook a little bit for not taking care of his marriage. It says he’s feeling his grief in his own way and his wife may need to understand that. It asks us to ask more of her.

I know many women, as wives and mothers, often put our feelings aside to take care of others, and the book says it doesn’t have to be that way. So I was a little surprised that a woman would take that perspective.

The Study of Shakespeare Today at Adelphi

Q: As an expert on Shakespeare, what did you enjoy most about the movie?

A: Visually, it was absolutely stunning. The depiction of the Globe Playhouse was gorgeous and the way they presented Hamlet was really beautiful. And there were these very striking moments, like after the death of their child where Agnes is pushing Shakespeare away. He just grabs her and holds her. I think it really conveys the depth of their love for one another and of their loss. I do think it did a lovely job of presenting Shakespeare the man.

But the movie did something the book didn’t want to do. While the book didn’t want to tell Shakespeare’s story, the movie wanted to tell both of their stories. I don’t think that was necessarily a bad thing. It’s also natural, because I don’t think you’re going to sell a movie worldwide about a woman most people have never heard of and who is Shakespeare-adjacent. It made for a really powerful movie.

Q: Why is there a fascination with what motivated William Shakespeare?

A: I think we all like the idea of a romantic genius.

Shakespeare continues to be popular because we adapt and modernize him constantly. When I teach Shakespeare in my English classes students always ask, “But what is it about?” I tell them it’s about anything you want it to be. It frustrates them, but I’ve been teaching for a while, and you see different generations of students respond very differently to the plays.

Hamlet, to a lot of people, isn’t a romantic hero. I’ve had students who thought he was a brat. One of the reasons we love Shakespeare is that we can use him to talk about contemporary issues. But there’s also this real desire from so many people who ask: What did he want me to get from it? The answer is probably that he didn’t care. He wanted to sell tickets.

But it’s a lot of fun to teach that way, to loosen up from the idea that there is a correct way of reading Shakespeare.

There’s a famous line from Hamlet when he’s talking to the actors, and he says, “to hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to nature.” That’s arguably what all of Shakespeare’s plays do: They reflect back at us what we want to see in that particular moment.

We’re constantly reinventing him, and we probably always will.

The post To Win or Not to Win: Adelphi’s Shakespeare Expert Reviews the Oscar-Nominated Film “Hamnet” appeared first on 91łÔčÏÍű.

Art students not only learn how to paint, draw and sculpt—they also learn to think. “The art department prepares students to be creative problem solvers, and we give our art students a wide range of skills based in the studio arts as well as in design, digital art and technology,” said Kellyann Monaghan, professor and chair of the Department of Art and Art History.

Adelphi offers degrees to appeal to different areas of interest, including Studio Art, Graphic Design, Art and Design Education, and Art History. Students benefit from small classes led by successful artists, branding experts and seasoned educators, along with real-world experiences like internships, collaborative mural projects and career preparation courses. “We function like a small art and design school within the larger University,” Monaghan said. Students can develop skills in complementary fields like psychology, business and communications. This flexibility helps them tailor their career paths to their interests.

Those paths are broader than many people assume. Adelphi art alumni work as photographers, art directors, school educators, art therapists, and in many other fields. “Students don’t have to be starving artists,” Monaghan said. “There are lots of different ways for them to make a living in the world.”

Case in point: Meet several Adelphi alums who built a thriving career with their art degree.

Turn a Creative Vision Into a Thriving Agency

Carl Timpone ’08, Portrait, Editorial and Commercial Photographer and Partner at Visual Natives

Photographer graduated at the start of an economic recession. Jobs were scarce, but the creativity and independence Adelphi fostered helped prepare him to think outside the box. He began sneaking backstage at concerts to take photos of musicians, which quickly led to creating album artwork. “My job was just to listen to the music, listen to their lyrics and translate that into a visual form,” Timpone said.

As he gained experience and became more successful, he partnered with a graphic design graduate he met through the music scene and launched an agency——that is still in operation today. Their clients span record labels, the fashion industry, enterprise companies, and legacy artists like Stevie Nicks and Def Leppard. “What I enjoy most about my career at this point is the ability to think quickly and creatively and the human connections that I make with the subjects, even if it’s brief,” he said. And those subjects happen to be Hollywood’s biggest stars, from Cynthia Erivo to TimothĂ©e Chalamet, and music industry icons like Post Malone and Chappell Roan.

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The accuracy of Season 5’s whimsical plot device was due to the advice and guidance given by Kaiya Provost, PhD, assistant professor of biology in Adelphi’s College of Arts and Sciences, who was called in to serve as a consultant on the show.

“I wear many hats,” Dr. Provost explained. “I’m a biologist, computational biologist, environmental biologist and an ornithologist.”

Meeting Steve Martin, Selena Gomez and the Crew

A series of serendipitous connections in early 2025 landed Dr. Provost her role on the show. After coming to the attention of unit manager and co-producer Chris George, she was invited to visit the show’s Long Island City soundstage in Queens, New York, one day in March to spend time with cast and crew members.

“It was a delight to spend time with actors Steve Martin, who is a real-life birder, Richard Kind and Selena Gomez, as well as other members of the cast and crew,” Dr. Provost said. “It was a real privilege to be the person they wanted to be there and to be able to see how the ‘Hulu sausage’ gets made.”

Adelphi’s Expert in Birds and Birdcalls

As the amateur sleuths in the show discovered, Lester the doorman—who was a birdwatcher—had left behind a ledger with bird names he had given to a group of shady billionaires. As he was dying, Lester even left additional clues via a bird whistle. No birdbrains, the trio decoded the ledger and birdcalls to expose Lester’s murderer in the season’s finale.

According to Dr. Provost, the birds whose calls needed to be replicated—the Eurasian Jay, Cowbird, Bowerbird and Kākāpƍ—had already been picked to identify the nefarious billionaires before she became involved.

“I was asked if I could replicate their noises and tell them how they sound and how actors could replicate them—aČÔ»ć whether that would be funny.” Equally important, the birdcalls had to further the comedy-drama’s plot.

Dr. Provost referenced databases, including the one at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology at Cornell University, to determine what sounds would be the easiest and funniest to mimic. “For instance, the Eurasian jay is itself a mimic,” she explained. “So I asked if it mimics blue jays, would the actors be able to be taught to make that sound.”

An Adelphi Professor Who Teaches Actors, Not Just Students

“I’ve always been interested in bird sounds and have become an expert on them,” Dr. Provost said. “And since I have some background in music as a percussionist and in theater, from high school and college, I could get close to imitating the sounds myself in order to teach the actors.”

She added that, as an example, “The brown-headed cowbird makes a ‘glug-glug-glee’ sound. You can mimic it by making a swallowing sound and then a whistle, or a screech, to make it funny.”

“I corrected the actors four or five times,” she said. “We could have continued working to make the sounds more and more accurate, but I’m quite happy with the results. My colleagues have said they were surprised at how accurate the sounds were.”

The Professor Who Made Steve Martin Laugh

“I had fun,” Dr. Provost recalled. “The experience as a whole was so positive. But if I were to pick a favorite thing, I’d have to say that I made some of these actors laugh while getting them to record a bird sound accurately.

“As an expert, I can be bombastic, but I’m not afraid to look silly to get the job done,” she admitted. “When I demonstrated the cowbird’s sound, I made its ‘glug, glug’ and then gave a big scream. No one was expecting me to scream, and I got a good laugh from that. I made Steve Martin laugh—aČÔ»ć I’ll never forget that moment. This has been a peak of my career. It’s all downhill from now on.”

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Michael LaCombe, PhD, Associate Professor of History

In this Q&A, we sit down with Michael Lacombe, PhD, associate professor in the 91łÔčÏÍű Department of History—aČÔ»ć superfan—to leaf through the series’ folklore. From the base’s original purpose to the “Satanic Panic” of the 1980s, Dr. Lacombe offers his thoughts on how the era’s paranoia mixed with the eastward explosion of suburban Long Island created an ideal breeding ground for Stranger Things.

He also offers a historian’s-eye critique of the show’s evolution, the “mindset” of the 1980s and why the series finale might have played it a little too safe—spoiler alert!

Camp Hero has been called the “Hawkins Lab” of the East End. What can you tell us about the original purpose of this base during WWII and the Cold War and why it became such a fixation of conspiracy theories?

I have no idea what the base was built for and what it may have been used for while it was active. I think that even today and especially during the Cold War, secrecy is kind of a reflex reaction for most of the military: They didn’t and don’t really need a good reason to keep things classified, beyond the fact that it makes it harder for us taxpayers to know where our money is going.

Some of the Cold War espionage stories I do know about seem either banal or just bizarre, like planting a booby-trapped seashell for Fidel Castro to find while snorkeling. If someone smuggled news of that plan out of a place like Camp Hero, or got drunk at a local bar on the East End and talked too much, no one would believe that was the real plan. A booby-trapped seashell? There would be all sorts of speculation about what the “seashell” is, and the military would encourage the weird stuff to make it even harder to know what was really going on.

is the best example: I’ve read recent articles that claim the military has fostered and even spread weird stories about aliens there to cover up the more unsavory aspects of what they do everywhere. And they may also think it’s fun, trolling the civilians.

A structure that is one of the many support buildings located at Camp Hero State Park in Montauk, NY, the real-life inspiration for “Hawkins Lab” featured in Netflix’s Stranger Things.

Do you have any thoughts on how Camp Hero influenced the mythology featured in the series?

I’m sure the base was built when there was nothing much out there and Long Island grew to meet it, so it was surrounded by ordinary people doing ordinary things by the time of the Cold War. That was also (of course) the time of the automobile and the highway and the explosion of population on Long Island, so all of a sudden suburban neighborhoods found themselves next to “secret” bases. I think this is an important part of how this mythology grew, as the American population exploded and expanded in the years after World War II.

You could say the same thing about wolves or mountain lions: They’ve always been there, of course, but now people have moved into their territory and surrounded them and they’re a thing, a problem—military bases haven’t been there that long, but I think it’s likely that in the 70s and 80s people just started to notice them.

Hawkins’s status as a kind of Everytown USA, with a mall and a Blockbuster, is very important to the show, and I imagine that 75 years ago Montauk could have thought of itself in the same way (like Amity Island was in the movies). It’s hard to imagine anyone envisioning the East End as Everytown USA today.

Are there any elements of the Camp Hero project that still remain in Montauk?

I’ve never been out there, but I understand there are some beautiful, rusting relics still standing: a radar tower and gun emplacements (there are lots of these, it turns out—I’m familiar with a series of bunkers and gun batteries in Casco Bay, Maine). I think responsibility is now New York state’s and not the Army or the federal government, and that some areas are closed off because they’re dangerous and/or contaminated. And (as we know from the Hudson River) it takes a lot of time and money to remedy some kinds of environmental contamination. But all this feeds back into the reason why we’re interested in such places and why being forbidden to go there makes us even more interested and curious—aČÔ»ć dubious—about the boring official explanations (you are likely to be seriously injured and the Army doesn’t want to get sued).

Think about this comparison: The Army gave Governor’s Island to New York City and the state, but there are no stories about that: It’s a beautiful place, largely intact, that’s now a park with great old brick buildings and astonishing views. But the barbed wire, rusting tower, gloomy bunkers and “Danger–Keep Out” signs just lend to Camp Hero’s eerie 80s aura. And there are lots and lots of photo-essays of dead malls with weeds growing in the food court—it’s the same vibe of mysterious and evocative places.

And anyway, we’re still talking about it!

Eleven’s story is said to be grounded in the CIA project MKUltra. The Hellfire Club is a nod to the “Satanic Panic” of the 80s. And so much of the series is colored by fears from the Cold War era. Can you delve a little deeper into the American history that influenced the show?

The Hellfire Club was also a big shout-out to the original (D&D) players from that era. A lot of cool people today pretend they were “really into” D&D in the 80s, but they weren’t—it was a game for outcasts and recluses and misfits like Eddie and Dusty Buns and the gang. D&D changes the equation of the popular fear of satanic influence, too—there was a lot of fear in those days just as there is today, about mysterious forces preying on American youth. It wasn’t communism anymore (even the Reagan administration couldn’t make a credible case that American teenagers in the 80s were closet commies). But the broader conspiracy theories that the show is based on (secret bases, secret experiments, the military/scientific/paranormal) acted at the time against all sorts of things. The destroyed lives, and the just made it impossible for a kid I played Little League with to come over and play D&D with us. But I think the show didn’t just plant 80s cultural references like Easter eggs: It had a very 80s mindset and sensibility.

So I thought one of the most interesting things about the show was not that it was “about” anti-communist fears of sinister satanic forces infiltrating small-town, authentic American heartland lives. That was all true in the show, right? The Soviets really were training a strike force of interdimensional creatures and all that. It was more the way it inhabited that 80s world of paranoia so fully, the same world that gave us all those classic horror franchises. Subterranean tunnel networks—what could be a more obvious symbol of this? A parallel dimension—all of that.

So the varsity hoops team beating up the D&D club was part of the way the show inhabited the 80s sensibility, but so was the casual way that our heroes, including Sheriff Hopper (a Vietnam vet—another essential element of the 80s anti-government conspiracy mix) shot American soldiers as they invaded the base in the final season. That was right out of , and I found it frankly jarring—there was another scene where an Army sniper in a helicopter was gunning down scientists fleeing a secret desert lab, laughing as he shot them. The portrayal of soldiers in these ways was really not something we’re used to seeing much these days.

Stranger Things was rooted in the very real tensions of the Cold War.

Most importantly, what did you think of the ending?

Not enough death. I think the show took on a cultural resonance way bigger than its story and characters, and (let’s face it) the “tension” between Nancy and Jonathan or the bromance between Dustin “Dusty Buns” and Steve “The Hair” Harrington was never going to sustain the show. So they added character after character, and only Eddie and Bob ended up dying. I thought both of those characters’ deaths were important and gripping, and I thought we’d see a few more as they wrapped things up. But I think it just became impossible to kill off Mike, or Max, or Robin, or Hopper, etc., etc.

So as the final season wrapped up, we were left with a lot of long conversations to tie up plotlines that took too much time and were kind of implausible. Joyce vanished, and she was not only a great character but also Winona Ryder, which is a very important point to a person my age. But the biggest problem was time: There wasn’t enough time for the final boss fight, so it was a letdown—Nancy got to blast things, okay, but it was too easy. And no one died!?! Who’d have thought Hawkins v. Vecna would be a shutout?

These multi-season streaming series are a strange and new phenomenon, almost a new form of storytelling. The show writers try to get renewed, so they open up the conflict the way Stranger Things did in the first couple seasons without resolving it (so they *have* to make a new season and get paid). But this kind of narrative lends itself to just this sort of problem. My daughters would have been very sad to see Max or Robin die in the finale, so why do it? It would have soured the show for them, and the finale served the purpose of the show well enough. Not every series can end perfectly the way did.

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