Chester Theatre Group: Artistry off the Beaten Path

Tucked away in a quieter corner of town at the crossroads of Maple and Grove Streets in Chester Borough, the has been offering an array of musical and non-musical plays since 1958.

When pressed to categorize the theater group's slate, board member Jeffrey Jackson described it as "off the beaten path."

“While we don’t want to be completely fringe and obscure, we do like to lure people away from the completely tried and true,” Jackson said.

“Our goal is to entertain, but our ultimate goal is to enlighten and challenge our audiences and to broaden the experience of the talented local performers and artists who volunteer at our theatre both onstage and off,” said Roseann Ruggiero, board secretary, who has been involved with the organization for 40 years.

For board president Penny Hoadley, who performed in her first play with the group one week after moving to Brookside in 1967, the Chester Theatre Group meets the highest standard of excellence of any of the four theater groups with which she has been involved.

“We are the closet thing to Off-Broadway in New Jersey. Because we are operating on a smaller scale, we can do things that other theaters don’t offer,” Hoadley said.

She attributed the organization’s success to the fact that the Chester is director-driven. She saidthe intimate, in-the-round Black River Playhouse, which seats a mere 102 audience members, offers opportunities and challenges that result in greater quality and authenticity.

“Because the audience is only a few feet away, we can’t engage in tricks with makeup to make someone appear older. If characters in the play are eating, we have to prepare real food for them,” she said.

An Asset to the Local Economy

For Jackson, the Chester Theatre Group also adds value to the community beyond the artistic experience.

“Local theatres, even ones in the shadow of big markets like New York City, play an important role in the health of the local economy,” Jackson said.

He said, while Chester Borough is already a destination town, especially in the autumn, with crowds flocking to the area to enjoy apple picking and shopping for antiques, an added attraction of the town is the theater which offers another experience to the town’s visitors.

“Having a theater like CTG in the community also provides a welcoming place to anyone new to the area where they can walk in the door, volunteer and immediately become part of the community itself,” Ruggiero said.  

The other advantage of local theater, according to Jackson, is that it is much more affordable than the trek into New York City with the expense of commuting, parking and Broadway tickets with an average price tag looming in the range of $100 to $150.

The economics of Broadway theater productions also drives the content offered, Jackson said.

“Because of the enormous expense involved in a Broadway production, the producers must produce plays that are more like theme-park productions in order to appeal to tourists from all over the world,” he said.

He said because Chester is a non-profit, entirely volunteer-run organization that is able to offer range of productions including well known and interesting, little plays that one might never be able to see in Manhattan at a price of $20 and $25.

In the last two years, CTG has offered musicals such as Nine, Urine Town and Grey Gardens, and non-musicals such as: The Cocktail Hour,  Shirley Valentine, and Night Mother.

This spring the CTG will produce the black comedy The Beauty Queen of Leenane by Irish playwright, Martin McDonagh, and this summer, the group will offer Xanadu, which Jackson described as “disco on roller-skates.”

Jackson and Hoadley agree that one of the most important things that set the CTG apart from many other theaters in the area is that what is offered is driven by the desires of local directors.

“We have encouraged directors fulfill their dreams. We contact directors and we ask them what do you want to do? So our productions are the result of heartfelt passion,” she said.