Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2002

There are now approximately 100 amateur and little theater groups in the State. Their presentations range in interest and taste from the smart drawing room comedies of the Montclair Dramatic Club and the Green Door Players of Madison to Bury the Dead and other plays of social pro- test presented by the Newark Collective Theater. Many of the more important groups (such as the Chatham Community Players, the Monmouth Players of Deal, the Group Players at Trenton, and the Playhouse Association of Summit) specialize in recent Broadway successes. The university theaters, notable the New Jersey College for Women Theater Workshop and the Stevens Theater of the Stevens Institute of Technology, have led the way in experimenting with less well known plays and unorthodox stage techniques. At Millburn the Paper Mill Playhouse promises to develop into an art center with proved theatrical productions as its nucleus. A particularly valuable offshoot of the little theater movement is the New Jersey Junior League Children's Theater, which presents juvenile productions in Newark, Elizabeth, Orange, Englewood, and Plainfield.

While this new theater was spreading over the State, the old theater suddenly staged a spectacular last stand in Hoboken. There in the winter of 1928-29 Christopher Morley and Cleon Throckmorton added a chapter to American theatrical history by reviving the thriller of the 1860's, After Dark, and the musical comedy, The Black Crook. The novelty of these productions to a new generation and the lure of Hoboken's celebrated beer came near to overshadowing the New York stage for the entire season. The beer continued to run the following year but not the plays. Theatrically, however, the work of Morley and Throckmorton created a fresh interest in mid-Victorian entertainment.

Theatergoing in New Jersey today is chiefly a matter of buying two sets of tickets-one for the play, and one for the train to New York. The "road" has been reduced to Newark, Atlantic City, and occasional events in Montclair, Trenton, and Princeton. In recent years the New England practice of converting barns into summer playhouses has penetrated into New Jersey mountain and shore resorts, with particular success in Maplewood and Deal. Because of their inherent impermanence, however, these ventures cannot be expected to "save the theater" in New Jersey.

That never-ending task first assumed by the little theaters has recently been undertaken by the Federal Theater Project of the Works Progress Administration. During 1936, 1937, and 1938 the project has presented its varied repertoire of more than a dozen plays to thousands, many of whom were seeing their first professional performance. As the amateur groups continue to convert playgoers into participants, the Federal Theater widens the potential theatrical audience. Individually realizing a greater measure of dramatic appreciation for the State, jointly they seek to lay a new foundation for the rehabilitation of the professional theater.

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