On August 21 and 22, 2026, the Mahoning Drive-In Theater in Lehighton, PA held their fourth “Wild World of David Lynch” celebration. What started as a biennial event blossomed into a yearly staple lovingly curated by longtime Lynch fan Faye Dorsey.
THE WILD WORLD OF DAVID LYNCH 2026
This year’s programming was centered around Twin Peaks, with each night presenting a double feature of the prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me and the show’s masterfully directed pilot episode in chronological order. Actors Sheryl Lee, Michael Horse, Dana Ashbrook, and George Griffith were in attendance alongside prop master and scenic artist Dave Robinson at his very first fan event.
The Mahoning lot fits a whopping 1,000 cars, and both night’s showings were completely sold out.
THE MAHONING DRIVE-IN THEATER IN LEHIGHTON, PA
The Mahoning Drive-In Theater has been operating since 1949 and boasts one of the largest drive-in screens in the country. Their twin Simplex E-7 projectors are original from the 1940s, and the theater puts them to use screening 35mm prints of classic films. Since 2024, it has been owned and operated by Virgil Cardamone.
Enshrined in a mural on the side of the building are images from many of the cult classics the theater has screened, each occupying a film cell on a reel passing through the hands of the theater’s former owner and projectionist Jeff Mattox who sadly passed away in 2024.
The newest cell in the mural shows images from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, painted by artist Joe Griffin.
Sheryl, Dana, and Michael each signed the Twin Peaks cell before the show.
TWIN PEAKS PHOTO-OPS AT THE WILD WORLD OF DAVID LYNCH 2026
In addition to this permanent decoration, the Mahoning was fully decked out with special photo ops dreamt up by Faye Dorsey and executed with the help of her husband Tank Dorsey and the theater’s graphic artist Andrew Kern.
No Twin Peaks event is complete without a Black Lodge set, and fans who purchased VIP photos with Sheryl Lee would find her in the “waiting room.”
On the other side of the red curtain, Michael Horse and Dana Ashbrook posed for photos at the Twin Peaks Sheriff Department. Andrew did a fantastic job adding elements from the set into the backdrop.
Purely by chance, I stumbled upon a replica of Sheriff Truman’s green Fire King mug as seen in the pilot episode at a local antique mall and added it to the set for the second day’s festivities.
Across the lot stood an oversized dresser featuring a large knob rigged with nylon for fans to push through with their best Josie Packard impressions.
Faye’s creativity is off the charts.
Lastly, in a deep cut for the true Lynch fanatics, a cardboard cow was propped up next to a banner reading “FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION, LAURA DERN.”
Fans who have been around awhile will remember the director’s unique 2006 campaign to get his leading lady recognized for her stellar performance in Inland Empire.
WILD WORLD OF DAVID LYNCH, NIGHT ONE | AUGUST 21, 2026
The sun was beating down on the first day as vendors set up their wares and I prepared my display of screen-used props. Things got a little less sweaty when the sun dipped behind the movie screen.
I loved seeing all the great costumes as the autograph line paraded past the prop table.
It was a joy to see Dave Robinson recognized for his work in creating the tactile world of Twin Peaks, having painted the iconic chevron floor, made numerous props and set pieces, and appeared onscreen briefly as the scantily clad Georgia Peach.
He didn’t believe me when I told him that was the photo he’d run out of the quickest, but this wasn’t my first rodeo.
I have always admired the craft that went into the props and sets of Twin Peaks, and having interviewed his successor Jeff Moore at several Twin Peaks events on the West Coast, it meant a lot to me to share a similar experience with Dave. Twin Peaks is the crew’s legacy as much as it is the cast’s.
Q&A WITH THE TWIN PEAKS CAST
Between the film and the pilot episode, Faye introduced the cast onstage below the movie screen where Mike McGraner (who hosts his own Twin Peaks event series at Studio 35 Cinema & Drafthouse in Columbus, OH) would facilitate a Q&A. Here are some highlights.
When asked about his decades-long working relationship with David Lynch, Michael Horse said, “David and I were friends. We were both painters and artists. We had long discussions about art and about how a single image, no matter how abstract it is, can touch something in the soul and the DNA of a person.”
Dana Ashbrook shared the story of his first encounter with David, before the two had actually met.
“I had seen David once before when he was dating Isabella Rossellini in DuPars in the Valley,” he remembered. “I was with a group of people and they knew who he was. I didn’t know who he was…We were taking little packets of sugar and there was a vent on the ceiling, and you could throw the packet of sugar up and it magically would go [sucking noise] right up. And we were doing it and we were laughing. We thought it was so funny. And David and Isabella saw that, and they laughed! It was, like, a moment.”
Sheryl Lee recounted how she was cast as Laura Palmer.
“I was studying theater in Seattle and I got a call that this director, David, who had done Blue Velvet, was in town and he had seen my headshot and thought I was this dead girl, and so would I come talk to him … I said sure. So I went and talked to him and he still thought I was the dead girl, and so here I am!”
Dana wouldn’t let Sheryl get away with that level of modesty, saying, “He only liked her so much that he wrote an entire part for her other than that dead girl.”
“And then another one in The Return,” Mike chimed in.
“And they all died!” Sheryl joked.
Mike caught something and prodded, “Are you saying Carrie Page…wait a minute, what are you saying? She didn’t die, or did she?”
“Don’t start reading into something that I didn’t say!” she insisted, and Mike said, “Alright, I’m going to quit while I still have a job.”
On the difficulty of filming a movie as intense as Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Sheryl said “I was in the presence of people like this,” patting Dana on the shoulder.
“Acting is a dance with whoever is there with you, and that includes the crew, and great writing, and music, and every artist involved in it. So that was just a process of the beautiful collaboration that David nurtures … There’s no way I could’ve done any of that if I didn’t feel physically safe, emotionally safe, spiritually safe, mentally safe in that environment with him and with everyone else that creates that safety.”
The blending of heavy subject matter and light-hearted humor is probably what Twin Peaks is best known for, and Michael Horse shared a funny story about one of the props I had on display.
“It was really funny, I had the little badge that said T. [Hill] and halfway through, I go, ‘What’s my first name?’ And they go, ‘You don’t know?’ They said, ‘It’s Tommy.’ I said, ‘My name is Tommy Hawk?!’
Mike asked Dana about Bobby Briggs’ signature shuffle into the principal’s office in the pilot episode.
“As a young man, to be able to play such an asshole and not have any repercussions from that is very freeing,” he said. “So I started to shuffle back like an asshole and right before I hit the door I would turn around. I’d spin and just walk through the door in the rehearsal. And David said, ‘I love the shuffle, but just go straight back…’ He wanted me to shuffle all the way through the door, which isn’t as easy because you can’t hit the doorframe and can’t look back!”
David had a few notes regarding Bobby’s swagger while filming The Return, as well.
“In The Return, my first scene that I shot was going into the diner and having dinner … I kind of shuffled in like I would normally as Bobby. You know, not as much, but just definitely shuffling,” Dana recalled. “And he took me aside, and I swear to god, he said, ‘I know this sounds crazy, but not as weird.’”
Though we were at an event dedicated to David Lynch’s world, I had to ask about any memories the cast could share about the other directors that Lynch and Frost brought into the Twin Peaks fold.
“Uli Edel, man,” Michael Horse said, taking a breath to share his frustration with the German director’s approach. “I said, ‘Where do you want me to go?’ And goes, ‘You’re just furniture to me.’ And I asked the crew, I go, ‘Is that guy that good?’ They go, ‘He’s really good.’ So I said, ‘Hey Uli, the way you’re talking to me, it’s okay, but if this isn’t Emmy shit, I’m gonna come to your house and kick your ass.’”
Dana recalled working with a few other Twin Peaks directors who weren’t quite as rough around the edges.
“Tina [Rathbone] was David’s friend. She directed a movie with him and Isabella, Zelly and Me, and so they were friends. But she was, like, way indie director. Way indie director, coming in to direct the funeral scene for Laura Palmer. It was a very big ask for someone like that, so she was a little bit overwhelmed, but she was sweet.”
“I liked Caleb Deschanel,” he continued. “He was one of my favorites. He’s a cinematographer that was brilliant. Academy Award-winning, amazing movies. And I just really liked him as a person. We really got along well.”
“Lesli Glatter, she’s brilliant,” Michael Horse said of the multi-episode director. “She’s gone on to do all this incredible stuff. She’s my favorite.”
“She became the head of the DGA,” Dana added. “And she was just starting in Twin Peaks. She was cutting her teeth. It was like her first thing.”
Sheryl Lee, when asked whether she has the unseen decoy footage of Ben Horne killing Maddy Ferguson, joked, “Yes, and I watch it over and over and over and over and over!”
Michael Horse has no shame when it comes to taking souvenirs from the set. “I’m notorious for stealing shit,” he confessed to raucous laughter.
“I took claws off of a grizzly bear, the ivory things off the piano, and scripts, and backs of people’s chairs. If I would’ve know Twin Peaks was going to be a cult hit, I would’ve stole more stuff.”
Remind me to count my props!
Another fan asked about music’s role in Twin Peaks, and Michael shared something I had never heard before.
“People don’t realize John Doe from X was in The Roadhouse, and Dave Alvin,” he said. He also spoke highly of The Cactus Blossoms’ performance in The Return. “A lot of great music in David’s work.”
But Sheryl Lee was the only one who got to spend time with the maestro, Angelo Badalamenti.
“He’s the only one in the whole world who would’ve ever gotten me to sing. I loved him so much,” she said, referring to her backing vocals on “Just You.”
“In the same way as David, just such a big heart and created an environment that felt so safe. So that song – I think I was Maddy with Donna and James – to get to go into Angelo’s studio with him was very a special time.
WILD WORLD OF DAVID LYNCH, NIGHT TWO | AUGUST 22, 2026
The second day of the event saw the addition of New York-based tribute band Fuck You, Tammy!, who borrow their name from Laura Dern’s signature quip as Diane Evans.
The band played a ripping set just as the sun went down, setting the mood for the night’s screenings. In addition to energetic adaptations of Peaks classics like Julee Cruise’s “Falling,” they worked in several deep cuts from elsewhere in the director’s filmography, like David Bowie’s “I’m Deranged” and “The Perfect Drug” by (The) Nine Inch Nails.
I snuck away from the prop table to enjoy a few songs up close.
With music in the air, I enjoyed trading Julee Cruise stories with George Griffith, who got to see her perform live way back in 1991.
I showed him pictures that I took during her surreal performance at a 2016 fan event.
A personal highlight of the second night was getting to watch the opening credits of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me from the projection room.
Faye, who has a knack for granting wishes, ushered me in and I watched projectionist Robert Humanick prepare the 35mm print like the captain of a ship. I’ve seen this film many times from many angles, but this one was new. How cool!
As the film concluded, some of the Mahoning staff were in tears watching Laura Palmer meet her angel on the big screen.
I have been to enough screenings of this film across the country that it starts to feel like more of a family reunion, and sometimes I forget what a moving piece of art these friendships are built upon. Twin Peaks attracts a specific type of person. Behind the cherry pie, rock throwing, and surreal dream spaces, it is a profoundly human story. Twin Peaks fans are creative, inclusive, kind, funny, resilient, and empathetic. These qualities were all present at the Mahoning Drive-In, and I can’t wait to go back.
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