Academy Award-winner Shirley MacLaine joins the all-star cast of the PBS Masterpiece drama series Downton Abbey, Season 3 beginning Jan. 6, 2013. WTCI-PBS friends and supporters are invited to the studio for premiere screenings and community engagement events on Thursday, Jan. 3.
WTCI-PBS will host a fundraising event, "A Bridal Dessert Tea for Lady Mary," that will be followed by a free screening of Downton Abbey, Season 3 and will feature a dessert tea with champagne cocktails.
The afternoon event begins at 1 p.m. Seating is limited and registration is required. Guests are invited to join staff in donning period attire, hats or gloves to honor Lady Mary Josephine Crawley's upcoming wedding.
Online registration is available at
http://events.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=sozle6cab&oeidk=a07e6sxrdm7e10fcec4.
A 6:30 p.m. reception with wine, beer and hors d'oeuvres will be followed by a free screening of the first 60 minutes ofDownton Abbey, Season 3. Seating is limited for this event and registration is required. Guests are invited to don period attire in honor of Lady Mary Josephine Crawley. Online registration is available athttp://events.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=sozle6cab&oeidk=a07e6qptkk4f373d562.
Written and created by Jullian Fellows,Downton Abbey is a Carnival Films and MASTERPIECE coproduction that won 6 Primetime Emmy Awards in its first season. Hailed by theHollywood Reporter as "one of the great melodramas of the modern television age"Downton Abbey, Season 2 had a remarkable 17.1 million viewers and was acclaimed as the most-watched MASTERPIECE series on record.
Rebecca Eaton, Masterpiece producer, was recently interviewed on WTCI's The A List with Alison Lebovitz and said "long-form episodic drama is the ideal for the way people watch television today. With time-shifting, DVDs, and streaming, viewers have rediscovered the joys of luxuriating in a sweeping story."