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Cutchogue native in new ABC television series

COURTESY PHOTO | Katie Tardif (left) with fellow cast members from “The Vineyard.”
Less than eight months ago Cutchogue native Katie Tardif received a very unexpected phone call from ABC Family television producers.

The network, they said, was preparing to film a new, unscripted reality show about a group of 20-somethings living and working together on Martha’s Vineyard, MA and was she interested in being a cast member?

She said yes.

“It was an overwhelming experience,” Ms. Tardif, 25, said of being asked to join the docu-series, which is called “The Vineyard” and premieres on ABC Family July 23. “You’re freaked out and excited, and then you think realistically about it – ‘wait, is this something I really want?’ It all happened very quickly.”

Indeed. Ms. Tardif, who lives in New York City and has worked for the past year as a merchandise manager at the David Glazer Showroom in Manhattan, traveled in May to Martha’s Vineyard, an island south of Cape Cod notable for its affluence.

The eight-episode series follows a group of seven women and four men – some of them Martha’s Vineyard locals and others, like Ms. Tardif, island transplants – living and working together for the summer. Filming wrapped at the end of June, an ABC Family spokesperson said.

Read the complete story in this week’s Suffolk Times.