MANSFIELD — Red and Andy have been invited back to Shawshank State Prison.
In fact, Lee Tasseff, president of Destination Mansfield-Richland County, told Richland County commissioners on Tuesday morning that many of the cast and crew from “The Shawshank Redemption” have been invited to Mansfield this summer to help celebrate the 30th anniversary of the film’s release.
He said several events are being planned Aug. 9-11 to commemorate the classic movie filmed at the former Ohio State Reformatory and other locations around Mansfield and north central Ohio.
Tasseff said he wasn’t ready to announce which actors or crew members would attend. So there is no idea yet if Morgan Freeman (Red) or Timothy Robbins (Andy) will return.
“Obviously, (the events) are to promote the (Shawshank) Trail, which is ongoing,” Tasseff said. “We can’t tell everybody who’s coming yet. We’ve secured a lot of actors, but not everybody we want to go after.
“Everybody’s been contacted and once we get sufficient numbers or a certain segment of that actor group, then we’ll go public,” he said.
Tasseff said the event would be similar to the celebrations centered around the 25th anniversary in 2019 for the film, selected in 2015 for by the U.S. Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
That event included a showing of the film at the Renaissance Theatre, preceded by a panel discussion with director/writer Frank Darabont and cast members, moderated by Ben Mankiewicz, host of Turner Classic Movies.
“There will be sessions for the public, which is good if they want to meet some of the crew, primarily,” Tasseff said Tuesday.
“There will be something at the Renaissance (Theatre). How we design things will be a little different, depending on who comes in,” he said.
“There will be an opportunity for people to meet the actors,” Tasseff said.
The film’s 30th anniversary is on the cover of Destination Mansfield-Richland County’s new 58-page visitors’ guide, which helps to highlight events and attractions around the county.
Tasseff said 80,000 copies of the guide were produced and are being distributed around the region and the state.
“We took possession of these about 10 days ago and they’re being distributed in waves,” he said. “We will make sure they get out as far and wide as possible.”
Tasseff said its the third local visitors’ guide to to be “fully branded” using the county’s branding logos and messaging that Richland County is “a family of communities.”
He said the guide again has great photos, including an aerial taken during the evening at the 2023 Inkcarceration Music & Tattoo Festival.
“It blows people’s minds that something like (Inkcarceration) can happen in a smaller, medium-sized town in the midwest,” Tasseff said.
“But it can and we have got something that people want to come see that way.”
Tasseff said the visitors’ guide shows off a myriad of sites, venues and events.
“When you come here, you may come for one thing in particular, but you never sit still. You go other places. So if you really want to get the personality of a community, or countywide, you get out of one jurisdiction and you go to another,” he said.
“A lot of times they don’t know when they have crossed corporation limits, anyway. They just go where they want to go and where things attract them.
“Our job is to put as much out there as possible.”