Susan Jennings has been friends with her Weehawken neighbor, Linda Corrandina, for a few years now, so when Corrandina, the executive producer of the “Martha Stewart Living” television show, said she needed a handful of youngsters to participate in the show’s Halloween episode, Jennings was quick to volunteer her own.
“I always told Linda that if she ever needed children to do anything, that she should let me know,” Jennings said. “When I got the e-mail from Linda about the Halloween show, she said, ‘This might just suit your children.'”
So Jennings took her 6-year-old twin daughters, Ellis and Chase, her nephew, 7-year-old Alex Dragona, and her friend’s child, 6-year-old Mia Zentner, to the Martha Stewart studios in Greenwich, Conn. last August to see if they were the variety of children Stewart’s staff was looking for to use as part of the Halloween show. There was only one obstacle.
“Linda was on vacation that week,” Jennings said. “We had to do it on our own.”
Well, sure enough, Stewart’s staff liked the Jennings twins and Zentner so much (as well as Dragona, who lives in Glen Rock) that they were selected to appear on the Halloween show, complete in elaborate hand-made costumes. The show aired Thursday across the nation in syndication.
“The staff had things in mind that they were looking for,” Jennings said. “They needed someone to wear a cape, so Chase was Little Red Riding Hood. Ellis and Mia were glamour girls and Alex was a magician.”
Jennings said that the costumes were supplied by the Stewart staff.
“There were also professional makeup artists there to do the girls up,” Jennings said. “The girls just loved that. That was probably the best part. They went on the set and twirled around in their costumes for Martha. It was great.”
The kids were filmed for about a half hour with Stewart on the main stage.
“She thanked them for being part of the Halloween show,” Jennings said. “She gave them a Halloween goody bag for being on the show.”
So it was a boon for the kids, receiving Halloween candy in August.
“That was also great for the kids,” Jennings said. “They were treated very well. Martha even treated them to lunch. I think it was a great experience for them, because they got to know what it was like to meet someone famous and to be on television.”
Jennings said that all of the kids were a little shy at first, but after they were in costume and on the set for a while, they warmed up to the fact that they were new TV stars.
“The kids had a lot of fun,” Jennings said. “After they were on the set for a while, it became their own.”
While the show aired locally at 2 a.m. Friday on CBS Channel 2, Jennings said that she got to see the show at 9 a.m. Thursday because her friend had DirecTV and it aired on Channel 21 on Long Island.
“We kept the kids out of school so they could see it,” Jennings said. “They had apple cider and donuts and were thrilled to see themselves on television.”
The Martha Stewart crew said that they were sending a tape of the show to Jennings, so they could have it forever. Once Jennings gets the tape, she will bring it to Webster School, where Chase, Ellis and Mia all attend first grade, so the rest of the students can see their classmates transform into TV stars.
“They’ll all get a chance to see it together,” Jennings said. “They were all TV stars for the day. They were given the star treatment and were given anything they wanted.”
It was such a great experience that Ellis slept that night with her hair still done up as a glamour girl and Chase has told everyone that she wants to be like Martha Stewart.
“It obviously affected them,” Jennings said. “The whole experience made an impression on them.”