StarFest Guests
Last Updated February 10, 2012

Jonathan Frakes
Actor, Director, lets just say it… He’s #1

In 1987 it took Jonathan Frakes six weeks and seven auditions to win the role of Commander William Riker on Star Trek: The Next Generation. That might seem like a lot of work for a pilot episode, but that six weeks led to a long and productive run on one of television’s most loved and revered shows.

The hard work during the seven years of Star Trek: The Next Generation gave him valuable experience as both an actor and director. Frakes reprised his Riker role on the Star Trek spin-offs Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise. However, not content to stay on the lens side of the camera, Frakes jumped at the opportunity (on Star Trek: TNG) to step behind the camera and learn directing skills that translated into continuous work on film and television.

Jonathan has appeared on numerous genre shows including:  Leverage, Family Guy, Star Trek: Enterprise, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Roswell, Gargoyles, The Paranormal Borderline (host), Lois & Clark, Wings, The Twilight Zone, North and South (mini-series), Falcon Crest (Damon Ross), Paper Dolls (Sandy Parris), Remington Steele, The Fall Guy, Bare Essence (Marcus Marshall), and Voyagers!

Mr. Frakes additionally appeared in the following genre Film and TV Movies: The Librarian: Return to King Solomon’s Mines, Star Trek Nemesis, Clockstoppers, Dying to Live, Star Trek: First Contact, Brothers of the Frontier, and Star Trek: Generations.

After getting a taste of directing on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Mr. Frakes has focused increasingly on his directorial pursuits. He has helmed many television episodes and films: NCIS: Los Angeles, Burn Notice, The Good Guys, Leverage, V, Castle, Dollhouse, The Librarian: The Curse of the Judas Chalice, Masters of Science Fiction, The Librarian: Return to King Solomon’s Mines, Thunderbirds, The Twilight Zone, Clockstoppers, Roswell, Star Patrol, Star Trek: Insurrection, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – just to name a few. Mr. Frakes will be attending StarFest on Saturday and Sunday, April 21-22. He is currently scheduled to speak on Sunday the 22nd.

 

David Prowse
Athlete, Actor, Cancer Survivor and a guy you don’t want to disappoint

David Prowse is best known for playing Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy. His commanding stature (6’6″) undoubtedly influenced George Lucas’ decision to use him in the iconic role, however, because Lucas wanted a deeper voice (and American accent) for the character, his lines were later re-recorded by James Earl Jones. It’s interesting to note that David’s script for the second Star Wars movie did not include the revelation that Luke was his son. He didn’t learn about it until he saw The Empire Strikes Back in the theaters, like the rest of us.

Prowse began attracting attention as a weightlifter and represented England in the 1962 British Empire Games in Australia. He continues to work as a personal trainer and his client list (past and present) includes the likes of: Christopher Reeve (for his role in Superman), Daniel Day Lewis (The Last of the Mohicans), Vanessa Redgrave, Edward Heath M.P., Peter Davidson, H.RH. Prince Khalid Bin Sultan Bin Abdul Azziz of Saudi Arabia, and Stephanie Powers.

One of his first credited movie roles was as Julian the bodyguard in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. On TV he played the star of The Green X Code, a series of public service safety commercials for kids. His genre appearances include: Vampire Circus, The Time Monster, The Tomorrow People, Space 1999, The Beta Cloud, BBC’s The Hitchhicker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Doctor Who, Ace of Wands, Casino Royale, The Horror of Frankenstein, and Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell. He had notable appearances: as The Black Knight in the Terry Gilliam film Jabberwocky and in The Saint TV series.

David is a cancer survivor and has worked tirelessly as a spokesperson for various cancer charities and causes. He currently serves as the Commander in Chief to the 501st Star Wars club. He’ll be reviewing his troops and meeting fans here in Denver at StarFest all three days. You’ll be able to meet see at the Meet and Greet on Friday.

Jewel Staite
Actor – Firefly & Stargate: Atlantis

Jewel Staite hails from Canada, where she has filmed most of the TV shows and movies in her career. Starting in the 90’s she appeared in lots of genre TV shows including: Are You Afraid of the Dark, The X-Files, The Prisoner of Zenda, Space Cases, Flash Forward, Mummies Alive! The Legend Begins, Sabrina (Animated), So Weird, Honey, and I Shrunk the Kids (TV).

Continuing to work feverishly, after the turn of the century, she appeared in: Higher Ground, The Immortal, Seven Days, Da Vinci’s Inquest, Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction and Just Deal before landing in one of her most memorable roles as Kaylee Frye in the super-hot series Firefly and the follow-up movie Serenity.

After working with “The Joss,” she got to play Heidi Gotts on the cult hit Wonderfalls before landing a really great gig on Stargate: Atlantis, replacing Carson Beckett as the show’s resident physician. Few people know she played two different characters on Stargate, first as a Wraith in 2004 and then again as Dr. Jennifer Keller for 32 episodes.

She’s currently working on The L.A. Complex, playing Raquel Westbrook. The show is a Drama about a bunch of 30-somethings working in the entertainment industry. It is currently slated to premiere on the CW network this spring.

Jewel will be attending all three days of StarFest and you can say hi to her at the Meet & Greet on Friday.

 

Jonathan Tiersten
Actor/Songwriter/Performer

Ask Jonathan Tiersten what type of music he performs on his new EP, We’ll See (Edward Records), and the Colorado-based singer/songwriter and actor quickly responds that it’s root music with an edge. Tiersten has performed a variety of music over the years, but on We’ll See, he offers an earthy blend of roots rock, folk-rock and adult alternative pop-rock that is at once contemporary and timeless.

“People I’ve never even met before have told me, ‘You have this knack for writing songs that I could see myself listening to 20 years down the line,’” Tiersten explains. “I want to write songs that are like John Huston’s films, which hold up well over time and never become dated. I think that the more honest you are in what you write, the greater the odds are that what you write is going to be timeless. Honest emotion doesn’t have a half-life; neither should honest songwriting.”

We’ll See moves quickly into aggressive, hard-rocking territory on “In the Air,” which is used as the theme song in the horror film The Perfect House and sounds like a cross between Tool and Cream. But “In the Air” is atypical of the EP on the whole, as Tiersten favors a much more rootsy and contemplative approach on “Sancta Caecelia,” “Black Rain” and “Theodore.”

Born in Queens and raised in New York City and Northern New Jersey, Tiersten has been involved in both music and acting since his teens. Tiersten, who studied French horn and guitar when he was growing up, was still a teenager when, in 1983, he played Ricky Thomas in Robert Hilzik’s cult horror film Sleepaway Camp. Tiersten went on to study acting at New York University’s prestigious Circle in the Square Theater School (where one of his classmates was future “Saturday Night Live” cast member Molly Shannon), and in 1987, he had a principal role in the Emmy-winning ABC after-school special Seasonal Differences. It was also in the late 1980s that Tiersten had a part on the NBC soap opera Another World.

As a singer/songwriter, Tiersten made his presence felt on the Greenwich Village folk-rock/roots rock scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s as one-half of the acoustic duo The Magic Box. But in 1991, Tiersten surprised his admirers by leaving the Big Apple and moving to Fort Collins, Colorado, where he opened a beer bar/live music venue called The Mountain Tap Tavern. Tiersten’s bar attracted its share of well known artists (including Dishwalla, David Gray and Victor Wooten), but he ended up selling it to devote more time to his own music. His contributions to Colorado music included everything from solo performances to AC/DC and Black Sabbath cover bands to the alternative rock outfit Bambi’s Apartment (which he co-led with guitarist/singer Micah Stone). Tiersten (whose first solo album, Heaven, was released in 1998) also has been a member of the alternative funk-rock band Gaphiltaphunk, and currently leads the band Ten Tiers, whose debut album, Don’s Club Tavern, Part 1, was released in 2006.

Tiersten returned to acting in a big way in 2008, when he reprised the role of Ricky Thomas in the Sleepaway Camp sequel Return to Sleepaway Camp. And 2010 proved to be an even busier year as an actor, thanks to major roles in two independent films: Redemption and The Perfect House.

Redemption is a psychological thriller that also stars George Loros (best known for his portrayal of Raymond “Buffalo Ray” Curto on the HBO series “The Sopranos”), Meredith Ostrum (known for her roles in Love Actually, Men Don’t Lie and other movies) and veteran film/television actor Barry Primus. The Perfect House, meanwhile, stars Felissa Rose (the film’s co-producer), John Philbin and Monique Parent along with Tiersten. Rose and Tiersten Rose go way back; she played Angela Baker in both Sleepaway Camp and Return to Sleepaway Camp, and it was Rose who recommended Tiersten for The Perfect House.

2010 was a year of dark, edgy characters for Tiersten, who portrays a pimp in Redemption and a serial killer in The Perfect House. “Apparently, I’m everyone’s favorite bad guy now,” jokes Tiersten, who explains that John Doesy (his character in The Perfect House) is an insane sociopath who sees the murders he commits not as crimes, but as artistic performances. In fact, Doesy keeps a woman hostage and makes her observe his crimes because he needs a “muse.” Tiersten is preparing to reprise his The Perfect House role as the star of a full-length prequel centered around his character.

“John Doesy sees himself as a performance artist akin to Andy Kaufman, who thought his whole life was a performance,” Tiersten notes. “My wife saw a clip of The Perfect House, and even she said, ‘You are absolutely terrifying in that role.’”

Tiersten, who recently wrote the score for the short film Demption (a crime drama starring David Krumholtz of the hit TV series NUMB3RS), is a triple threat: he can score films as well as produce and act in them. Tiersten, in fact, has been doing some work for the independent film company Brittany House Pictures, and recently was hired by its president, Anjul Nigam (Grey’s Anatomy, Terminator Salvation) to help produce Good Ol’ Boy (a film with a score from guitarist/composer Andy Summers of The Police) and also act and do soundtrack/score work on future projects. But Tiersten stresses that no matter how much acting he will do in the future, his music will never take a back seat.

“When I got back into acting,” Tiersten asserts, “I realized how much that was an itch that needed to be scratched. I’m very passionate about my acting, but I don’t want to be perceived as an actor who became a musician. Music is always on my mind. Music is not what I do. It’s who I am.”

Ed Kramer
Award-winning Visual Effects Artist

Mr. Kramer has worked in the VFX industry for more than 30 years. He spent 12 of those years as a Senior Technical Director and Sequence Supervisor at George Lucas’s company, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM). He was an integral effects creator for some of the biggest blockbusters of all time, including the Academy Award winning Pirates of the Carribbean II: Dead Man’s Chest. Four other movies he worked on received Oscar nominations for Visual Effects: Twister, The Perfect Storm, Star Wars Episode I and Star Wars Episode II. If you recall the droid factory and the fiery lava planet in Star Wars II and III, the skittering scarab beetles in The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, the T-Rex and dinosaur stampede in Jurassic Park II, the Quidditch course in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the Kraken in Pirates of the Carribbean II, or the Rock Monster in Galaxy Quest, you have experienced an impressive sampling of some of Ed’s many visual effects creations for film and television. He also helped create the Columbia Pictures “Lady with a Torch” logo seen at the beginning of every Columbia Pictures film since 1993.

Ed is currently the Visual Effects Supervisor for Denver-based Bloom Animation, and is a professor of Computer Graphics and Visual Effects for Regis University and the Colorado Film School. Through Bloom, he is also involved in two potential efforts to build large-scale studios in the Denver area. One of these is a feature-film studio with a plan to hire up to 200 animators to create a slate of both traditional and CGI animated films. The vision for the other would be a boutique-style digital 3-D movie production company that would utilize a Pixar-style approach to create virtual sets and locations, together with an elaborate process of virtual storyboarding, to revolutionize how visual effects in feature films are created and to save producers tremendous amounts of money in the process. This effort is being spearheaded by one of the most influential Visual Effects artists in the history of cinema.

At StarFest, Ed will show footage from his many years in CGI, hilighting important milestones in the evolution of the industry. He will also conduct a Q&A to discuss what it was like working at ILM on Star Wars and so many high-profile feature films, and any aspect of his VFX adventures the audience is interested in finding out about. Depending on the progress of the new studio ventures, he may be able to give us a glimpse into Denver’s future as the country’s newest high-tech feature film production center.

Dayton Ward
Author, Programmer, Father

When not slaving away within the sterile environs of a drab gray cubicle, one of millions that populate the deep dark recesses of Corporate America, Dayton spends his evenings and weekends in pursuit of a pseudo-second career: writing. His first career being a software developer for a big greedy company.

Before he got into writing, and involved with Corporate America, Dayton spent the first eleven years of his post-high school life serving in the United States Marine Corps. He jokes that his most traumatic experience since then has been having to coordinate his own clothes.

“After all, the private sector tends to look at you funny when you wear the same thing to work everyday. And for some reason, a lot of companies discourage camouflage in their dress codes. Go figure.”

He credits his interest in writing to being a Star Trek fan.

“I’ve been a follower of the show since the womb, I’m told. My earliest memories of watching television involve Captain Kirk and company. Though I’m too young to have seen the show during its original run, I grew up on the reruns.”

Reading various books over the years, Dayton decided that it would be fun to write a story of his own. He started by writing fan fiction, taking correspondence writing courses and attending the odd writing seminar. However, it wasn’t until Pocket Books announced their first Star Trek: Strange New Worlds writing contest, that he decided to take a stab at the big time. He credits his good pal Deebz for giving him the push to enter the contest.

Dayton often collaborates with Kevin Dilmore on various Star Trek projects. His most recent tales include: Paths of Disharmony – Star Trek: Typhon Pact (Feb 2011), A Batman for All Ages (Feb 2011), Counter-Protest (Oct 2010), Into the Abyss – Full-Throttle Space Tales #4: Space Horrors (Oct 2010), What’s Past – Star Trek: Corps of Engineers (Aug 2010 w/Dilmore),Counterstrike: The Last World War, Book II (May 2010), and The First Peer – Star Trek: Seven Deadly Sins (Mar 2010 w/Dilmore).

Mr. Ward also contributes to the ForgottenFlix.com and Tor.com websites. This year he released How to Write With Your Best Friend and Not Kill Each Other, which seems to be a work of non-fiction at this point. Dayon will be chowing down with the rest of us on Friday night at the Meet and Greet Party.

Kevin Dilmore
Author, Nice Guy and Friend

Kevin has found ways to turn geek into cash for more than a decade.
It all started in 1998 with his eight-year run as a contributing writer to Star Trek Communicator, for which he wrote news stories and personality profiles for the bimonthly publication of the Official Star Trek Fan Club. Since that time, he also has contributed to publications including Amazing Stories, Hallmark and Star Trek magazines.

Then he teamed with writing partner and heterosexual life mate Dayton Ward on Interphase, their first installment of the Star Trek: S.C.E. series in 2001. Since then, the pair has put more than 1 million words into print together. Among their most recent shared publications are the novella Things Fall Apart in Star Trek: Mere Anarchy, the short story “Ill Winds” in the Star Trek: Shards and Shadows anthology and Wet Work, a novel based on the television series “The 4400.”

By day, Kevin works as a senior writer for Hallmark Cards in Kansas City, Mo., doing about everything but writing greeting cards (including helping to design Star Trek-themed Keepsake Ornaments). His first children’s book, Superdad and His Daring Dadventures with illustrations by Tom Patrick was published by Hallmark.

A graduate of the University of Kansas, Kevin lives in Overland Park, Kansas. Keep up with his shameful behavior and latest projects on Facebook and Twitter. Kevin will be attending StarFest thoughout the weekend and you’ll get to see him at the Meet & Greet on Friday.

Christie Golden
Award-winning Author

Award-winning author Christie Golden has written over thirty-five novels and several short stories in the fields of science fiction, fantasy and horror. She has over a million books in print. In 2010 she released Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi—Allies(book five in the nine-book series) and The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm in the StarCraft universe. This year she expects to release Devil’s Due, in April and Golden’s third Fate of the Jedi/novel, Ascension.

In 2009 Christie hit the New York Times Bestseller list for the first time with Arthas: Rise of the Lich King, a feat she turned around to repeat three months later with Fate of the Jedi: Omen. June saw the conclusion of her StarCraft: The Dark Templar Saga with the release ofTwilight (No, not that Twilight!) the third book in the series. The first two are Firstborn and Shadow Hunters.

2004 saw the launch of an original fantasy series called The Final Dance, from LUNA Books. The first novel in the series, On Fire’s Wings, was published in July of that year. The second, In Stone’s Clasp, came out in September of 2005. With In Stone’s Clasp, Golden won the Colorado Author’s League Top Hand Award for Best Genre Novel for the second time. The third book, Under Sea’s Shadow, is available only as an e-book. While there are currently no plans to continue or reprint the series, Golden very much wishes to return to it one day and encourages readers to keep the faith.

Golden is also the author of two original fantasy novels from Ace Books, King’s Man and Thief andInstrument of Fate, which made the 1996 Nebula Preliminary Ballot. Under the pen name of Jadrien Bell, she wrote a historical fantasy thriller entitled A.D. 999, which won the Colorado Author’s League Top Hand Award for Best Genre Novel of 1999.

Golden launched the TSR Ravenloft line in 1991 with her first novel, the highly successful Vampire of the Mists, which introduced elven vampire Jander Sunstar. Golden followed up Vampire with Dance of the Dead and The Enemy Within . In September of 2006, fifteen years to the month, The Ravenloft Covenant: Vampire of the Mists enabled Jander Sunstar to reach a whole new audience.

Other projects include a slew of Star Trek novels, among them The Murdered Sun, Marooned, andSeven of Nine, and The Dark Matters Trilogy: Cloak and Dagger, Ghost Dance and Shadow of Heaven.

The Voyager novel relaunch, which included Homecoming and The Farther Shore, were bestsellers and were the fastest-selling Trek novels of 2003. Golden continued writing Voyager novels even though the show went off the air, and enjoyed exploring the creative freedom that gave her in the two-parter called Spirit Walk, which includes Old Wounds and Enemy of My Enemy.

Golden has also written the novelization of Steven Spielberg’s Invasion America and an original “prequel,” On The Run, both of which received high praise from producer Harve Bennett. On The Run, a combination medical thriller and science fiction adventure, even prompted Bennett to invite Golden to assist in crafting the second season of the show, if it was renewed.

Christie Golden will have many of the books listed here, some of which are now out of print at her table in the Author’s Alley.

Stephen Graham Jones
Horror Novellist, Educator & Blogger

Stephen has seven novels and two collections on the shelves. His most recent creations are It Came from Del Rio and the horror collection The Ones That Got Away. Jones teaches fiction and horror and horror fiction in the MFA program at CU Boulder. You can find out a lot more about his work at demontheory.net.

Stephen Graham Jones enjoys long walks by quiet lakes, the silence broken only by the occasional zombie across the water, moaning to the night about his insatiable need for brains.

Guy Vardaman
Actor, Robot Builder

Starting in October of 1987, Guy worked on Star Trek: The Next Generation for all seven seasons. He started out doing background, stand-in and photo doubling work (for Brent Spiner) and was also tapped to work on “off days” as a research consultant for Gene Roddenberry.

After Gene’s passing, the work on set continued and Guy enjoyed playing Darien Wallace as well as various Klingons and Romulans. Finally, Guy accepted a position in Paramount’s licensing division where he built up a reference materials library for licensees and then worked in publishing where he edited comic books, magazines and trading cards.

When a new group was forming to help Paramount “New Media” focus, Guy was invited to join as producer of what would become Star Trek Continuum for the Microsoft network, launched in conjunction with Windows 95. The “guts” of that site were then turned into Startrek.com and made available to everyone on the internet.

Guy is coming to Denver to participate with RoboFest. Isn’t it ironic that he enjoys working on robots, considering that he played one on Star Trek: The Next Generation?

More information about Guy is available at
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Guy_Vardaman, http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Darien_Wallace and http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1849645/

Mario Acevedo
Author – Felix Gomez Vampire Detective Series

Mario Acevedo is the author of the Felix Gomez vampire-detective series from Eos HarperCollins. In his latest adventure, detective-vampire Felix Gomez is trapped between rival werewolf clans in Charleston, SC in a rumble that could doom the supernatural world.

After Mario bought his first computer, he decided to write a novel. Four computers and with six unpublished manuscripts later, he finally wrote a story good enough to get the interest of an agent and a publisher.

In the Army he flew attack helicopters. In civilian life he worked as an engineer. Later, flexing his art muscles, he became an artist in residence for Arte Americas in Fresno, California. He was called up during Operation Desert Storm and served as a combat artist. After many publisher rejections, Mario finally got some much needed advice about his writing and then got two books published. He is now prepared to share those nuggets of advice and help you get your work published too.

His previous books include: Jailbait Zomby, The Undead Kama Sutra, The Nymphos of Rock Flats and X-Rated Blood Suckers.

For the latest information and additional details about Mario, visit his website at marioacevedo.com.