Laura Palmer and other characters of an iconic 1990s show, 'Twin Peaks', come to Monterey.

How would you like to hang out with Laura Palmer?

If you experience shivers down your back, it’s probably because Laura Palmer was already dead in the opening scene of Twin Peaks, the show which developed a massive cult following and shaped late director David Lynch as a storyteller.

Over 30 years after the tragedy that shook the small fictional town on the Canadian border, it’s possible to meet Laura (Sheryl Lee) and ask her what exactly she whispered to FBI agent Dale Cooper in his infamous dream about the dancing red dwarf. As sheriff Harry Truman (that’s right) tells Cooper early on in the series, there is something ancient and evil inhabiting the old woods around Twin Peaks – not that it cools Cooper’s enthusiasm for the smell of local douglas firs and the taste of cherry pie at Lamplighter Inn, that hangout by Lewis Fork off Highway 2.

It’s the weirdness of the show – long shots and haunting music – and the eccentricity of its inhabitants (remember Log Lady?) that fans came to love. In Twin Peaks, nothing is as it should be, and neither the camera nor the music pretend otherwise

The retrospective celebratory event Twin Peaks: A Conversation with the Stars consists of a video presentation and a panel discussion.

In addition to Lee, the actors coming to Monterey are Ray Wise, who played Leland Palmer, Laura’s heartbroken father, and Dana Ashbrook, football star Bobby Briggs and Laura’s official boyfriend on the show. The panel moderator is writer and Lynch scholar Josh Eisenstadt. Sabrina S. Sutherland, a longtime producer and frequent collaborator of Lynch, will also provide insight. Lynch died in 2025.

Lynch was obsessed with the idea of a girl next door who leads a double life and gets murdered. He was allegedly inspired by a real life story of domestic servant Hazel Irene Drew, who was murdered in 1908 in Sand Lake, New York. In the Oxford English Dictionary, we find the adjective “Lynchian” defined as something of dreamlike quality, “juxtaposing surreal or sinister elements with mundane, everyday environments.”

The Twin Peaks experience helped Lynch to create such masterpieces as Lost Highway (1997), Mulholland Drive (2001) and Inland Empire (2006).

TWIN PEAKS: A CONVERSATION WITH THE STARS takes place at 8pm Sunday, Oct. 18. Golden State Theatre, 417 Alvarado St., Monterey. $53-$95. (831) 649-1070, goldenstatetheatre.com.