Chester Theatre Group

Swing Into Spring!

Join a comedy workshop!

Next 8-week session begins March 19!

Information on our CLASSES page.

For further information and registration call 908-892-5458 or go to www.humorinthemidst.com

8 weeks. Saturday mornings 9:30 to 12 noon.

Just $195.

DISCOUNT! Mention Chester Theatre Group and receive a 10% discount!

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The comedy workshops are brought to you by Chester Theatre Group and Humor in the Midst. Taught by Kate Lyn Reiter, and MFA Yale School of Drama graduate with 12 years experience as a comedienne in NYC.

Additional session held May 14.

Since our upcoming production of Urinetown is a musical comedy satirizing a country in which the shortage of water requires everyone to “pay to pee”, the cast and crew of  Urinetown have developed a special humanitarian project dubbed, Pennies for Potties. 

Named by cast member Roxanna Wagner who is heading up the effort, Pennies for Potties will raise money to be be donated to the international non-profit organization, Foundation for Peace, based in Ironia, NJ. 

The Foundation for Peace has provided much needed emergency care to many materially impoverished countries.  They are currently working tirelessly in Haiti by building schools, providing medical care and most importantly, building water filter and purification systems and latrines to stem the outbreak of cholera. Coin drops will be placed at the public rest rooms in the theatre through the run of the show. 

It takes $400 to build a latrine and the Urinetown folks are hoping to collect enough money to build two latrines.

 For more information about Foundation for Peace, go to http://www.foundationforpeace.org/

The Chester Theatre Group at the Black River Playhouse will present a special concert production of a new musical in development, “Nightmare Alley” by noted composer and local resident Jonathan Brielle.

We are particularly pleased to provide the Black River Playhouse as a venue at this level of development for “Nightmare Alley” in order that the author may further hone his work.

The four performance dates are; Friday March 25 at 8pm, Saturday March 26 at 2pm and 8pm, Sunday March 27 at 2pm.  Admission: $10 Reservations: 908-879-7304. The Black River Playhouse is located at the corner of Maple and Grove in Chester, New Jersey.

Based on the darkly evocative 1946 William Lindsay Gresham novel of the same name, which became the subsequent cult-classic film noir, Nightmare Alley, staring Tyrone Power and Joan Blondell,  the musical now has book, music and lyrics by noted performer and writer Jonathan Brielle. It received its world premiere at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles with Gil Cates as director last April and is now in further development prior to opening in New York.

“When I first read the novel, I was so struck It by the question of how someone becomes part of a carnival side show that I felt compelled to put the story to music,” said creator Jonathan Brielle. “After working closely with the Gresham estate, we are close to raising the big top and watching these fantastic characters come to life in all their revelry and tragedy.”

Jonathan Brielle moved from TriBeCa, in Manhattan, five years ago, and now works in his state of the art studios in the former Farmersville Schoolhouse, in Califon New Jersey. Brielle looks forward to working closer to home now after being the composer in residence at the Circle Rep Company in New York for many years.

Whether on Broadway teaching his songs to the legendary Jessica Tandy in Foxfire; writing the musical themes for Ford Motors; writing music and lyrics for Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus, producing the music for “Rugrats Live,” presenting his new musical about James Joyce in Dublin; or creating one of the longest running spectaculars in Las Vegas at the legendary Stardust Hotel, Jonathan has spent his life pursuing his passion in music. He is formerly the National Projects Director of the Songwriters Guild of America and currently serves as an Executive Board Member of the Johnny Mercer Foundation, dedicated to supporting the discipline of songwriting in the tradition of the Great American Songbook.

You can find snippets of the score and production stills at BrielleMusic.com: http://www.briellemusic.com/music/nightmare.html

Nightmare Alley Facebook Page

The Chester Theatre Group at the Black River Playhouse in Chester, New Jersey will present a Valentine’s Special… the romantic comedy “Love Letters’ by A. R. Gurney. “Love Letters’ will be staged this weekend for two nights only, Friday and Saturday February 11 and 12 at 8pm.

The Pulitzer Prize-nominated play, follows the “near misses” of a relationship through a lifetime of letters between a man and a woman, will feature Pat Sheffield and Robert Sackstein, both CTG veterans. Their friendship unfolds from what is written — and what is left unwritten — in 50 years of letters, from summer camps and boarding schools through college, war, career and relationships.

The review of the Broadway production in TIME called the play “an exquisite jewel of a play….one of the four or five best American plays of the 80′s.”

“Love Letters” was first produced at the Long Wharf Theatre in 1988.  Over the years it has starred such luminaries as John Rubenstein, Stockard Channing, Kathleen Turner, Christopher Walken, Swoosie Kurtz, Richard Thomas, Elaine Stritch, Cliff Robertson, Colleen Dewhurst, Jason Robards, Robert Wagner and many others.

All seats are $10.00, Reservations recommended: 908-879-7304. The Black River Playhouse is located at the corner of Maple and Grove in Chester, New Jersey.