Community Theater

The weather outside was cold, the ground soggy, but in the small theater of the Cheltenham Playhouse, there was a glow of anticipation as patrons, many well-dressed and of middle age, waited for the play to begin. "I don't have the faintest idea what this is about," one woman said as she and her husband settled into their seats at the Nov. 9 matinee of Quartermaine's Terms. "I like to be surprised. " The woman - a first-time subscriber to the playhouse - carefully read her playbill as the seats around her were filled.

Mike Makofsky, clad in a two-pronged jester's hat, red leotard, multicolored boxers, pointed shoes, and red-and-yellow tights, stood in front of the stage as piano chords echoed, floors were swept, and other cast members did splits. "I must say, you look worse than I do and I'm very happy," said one man, dressed in a red tunic and tights. Makofsky's daughter Lee, wearing a long, medieval-style dress, agreed. "Dad, you look funny," she said. But Makofsky was willing to endure it all. The rehearsal was for the newest production of the community theater group New Season Theatre Ensemble, Once Upon a Mattress, and he was playing a lead part as a jester.

When the Haddonfield Plays and Players' production of Lone Star placed first in the New Jersey Theatre League's 1992 Drama Festival on March 29, Jim Alexander, founder of the league, was in the audience cheering. Never mind that Alexander was also in the competition as director of the Village Playbox production of A Chance Meeting, the second-place winner. For the Haddon Heights resident, good theater is all that matters. "I'm pleased that the Village Playbox placed high, and I think it shows consistency in our performances," he said.

Bianca DiMaio of Avondale stood on the stage at Avon Grove Intermediate School, holding three small orange balls. As she waited for her cue, she took a deep breath and then smiled. Moments later, the 19-year-old brunette was juggling not only balls, but also giant rings and clubs to the music of "Love Song" by Sara Bareilles. When a club hit the floor, she flipped it back into the air with her foot and finished the routine like a pro. "I just love to juggle . . . and I'm a bit of a show-off," said DiMaio, a Temple student who has been juggling since she was 14. Hers was one of more than 20 acts Friday night at the annual community variety show and fund-raiser for A.C.T.

Debbie Mastroianni turned on the house lights as Frank Gohr sat down in a first-row seat. Barbara Wakemen took the cue. Strolling to center stage, Wakemen, 61, of Washington Township, took advantage of the moment, ogling the other two with a dramatic shrug. "Years ago, when I directed Dracula here, we created a small sensation by making the vampire disappear on stage before everyone's eyes," Wakemen recalled, gesturing with her hands. "No trap doors or fake smoke, either. "We did the illusion with timing, flair and old-fashioned ingenuity.

When the lights dim and the curtain rises tomorrow, actors will take the stage in a quaint community theater on the Delaware River for the first time, launching a performance of Man of la Mancha and its popular theme song "The Impossible Dream. " In a way, the tune has become an anthem for Morrisville and a project that has transformed an aging municipal garage into the 75-seat Center for the Performing Arts - the first step of a plan to revitalize a blighted waterworks complex and, ultimately, the image of this gritty river town.

Ernie is the glue. He paints stage sets till 4 a.m. He and his father patch the leaky roof. He mastered a leading role in three days when the actor who had the part got a better-paying job shooting a sports car commercial. He even proposed to his wife on the marquee. Ernie Jewell, 27, is one of five founding partners of the Living Arts Repertory Theater, a fledgling community theater based in the old Westmont, a 70-year-old anchor on Haddon Avenue in Westmont. He and Bill Esher, 38, the artistic director, spend most of their waking hours at the theater doing everything from selecting, casting and rehearsing the plays to repairing the theater, rigging stage lights, answering phones and selling tickets.

When he signed on to direct two plays last year, Ken Marini didn't know officials of the Cheltenham Center for the Arts were looking for an artistic director. Center officials didn't know Marini was looking for just that kind of job. But Marini's freelance treatment of radically different plays - On the Verge, a sophisticated fantasy by Eric Overmeyer, and Breaking the Code, a biographical drama on the life of Allen Turing by Hugh Whitemore - persuaded Marie Alexander, the center's executive director, to offer him the position.

Melissa Lynch, 27, a prolific stage actress who impressed Philadelphia critics in more than 17 productions, died Thursday, Dec. 30, of injuries from a car wreck. Ms. Lynch most recently appeared in the Lantern Theater Company's production of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya , a performance that Philadelphia Weekly described as "heartbreaking. " The show, which closed in November, capped off a year her colleagues said was the busiest and most successful of her burgeoning career. "She was booked straight from September 2010 through May 2011 - five or six shows," said Jared Delaney, associate artistic director of the Inis Nua Theatre Company.

Robert Buxton, 63, flirted briefly with nostalgia as he sat near the stage inside Colonial Playhouse in Aldan, waiting to rehearse his lead role in The Sunshine Boys. When he and his wife, Dorothy, and their four children moved to Nether Providence from Rhode Island in 1965, the first thing they did was scan the county for theaters. Especially the kind in which they could participate. "We discovered that there were quite a few playhouses around," said Buxton, who was rehearsing his 50th role at Colonial Playhouse.

DEAR ABBY: I am a 16-year-old girl and I want to become famous. My mom says that's not a real job. I was in magazines when I was little, but now that I'm older, I want to be a singer or actress. What should I do? — Heading for Fame in Ohio DEAR HEADING: Listen to your mother. Fame, if one can achieve it, is usually accomplished after years of planning and hard work. If there is community theater in your area, volunteer and become involved. Plan to study music, drama and speech — as well as another subject so you can support yourself if it takes awhile for you to become famous.

MELISSA LYNCH was an actress with the knack of taking on the most diverse of roles and making them true. There was the delicate Sonya in Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya," in which she was attired in 19th-century Russian garb with severely pulled back hair. Then there were the tormented nun in "Agnes of God," the filthy young polio victim in "Bed Bound," the "dead-eyed hippie chick" in "When You Comin' Back Red Ryder. " She also donned the tights of Wonder Woman, played a cardinal's mistress in "The Duchess of Malfi," and a "foul-mouthed and seething" woman in the explosive "boom.

Melissa Lynch, 27, a prolific stage actress who impressed Philadelphia critics in more than 17 productions, died Thursday, Dec. 30, of injuries from a car wreck. Ms. Lynch most recently appeared in the Lantern Theater Company's production of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya , a performance that Philadelphia Weekly described as "heartbreaking. " The show, which closed in November, capped off a year her colleagues said was the busiest and most successful of her burgeoning career. "She was booked straight from September 2010 through May 2011 - five or six shows," said Jared Delaney, associate artistic director of the Inis Nua Theatre Company.

Elaine Dumoch, 80, of Mount Laurel, a former community theater actress who also put on educational puppet shows, died from complications of Alzheimer's disease on Sunday, Oct. 10, at her home. In the 1970s, Mrs. Dumoch impressed South Jersey residents with her comic interpretations of various characters, including the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg and George Washington. Mrs. Dumoch acted for a community theater that served Willingboro and Mount Holly for several years, said her daughter Gwen Stubbolo.

The music man of Upper Darby Township used to be a Winthrop. Harry Dietzler, executive director of the Upper Darby Summer Stage community theater program, saw himself as the shy little boy in Meredith Willson's Broadway musical about a shifty salesman of band instruments. "My sisters would put on a show in the backyard, and my contribution was putting the needle on the record," said Dietzler, 55, of Upper Darby. Since then, he has overseen hundreds of shows at the Upper Darby Performing Arts Center and has changed from a bashful Winthrop to an upstanding version of The Music Man 's Professor Harold Hill, selling the virtues of musical theater to anyone who will listen.

Lois C. Nosich Goutman, 86, of Rosemont, who taught drama to generations of students at the Baldwin School, died Jan. 6 at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital after a fall at home. For 42 years, Mrs. Goutman directed a dozen theatrical performances a year in a converted stable at the private girls' academy in Bryn Mawr. After retiring in 1993, she told an Inquirer reporter that she had preferred the small, rustic space. "Kids can get lost in a large auditorium. We didn't have modern technology, so the girls had to make do and be inventive," she said.

Bianca DiMaio of Avondale stood on the stage at Avon Grove Intermediate School, holding three small orange balls. As she waited for her cue, she took a deep breath and then smiled. Moments later, the 19-year-old brunette was juggling not only balls, but also giant rings and clubs to the music of "Love Song" by Sara Bareilles. When a club hit the floor, she flipped it back into the air with her foot and finished the routine like a pro. "I just love to juggle . . . and I'm a bit of a show-off," said DiMaio, a Temple student who has been juggling since she was 14. Hers was one of more than 20 acts Friday night at the annual community variety show and fund-raiser for A.C.T.

Ruth "Holley" Redington Webster, 90, of Wallingford, who published a regional theater magazine for more than 30 years, died of heart failure May 22 at home. Mrs. Webster grew up in Syracuse, N.Y., where she developed her interest in activism from her suffragette mother. She earned a bachelor's degree from Syracuse University and later a master's degree in American studies from the University of Pennsylvania. In 1940 she married her college sweetheart, Maurice L. Webster Jr., and the couple moved to Swarthmore.

The live-theater community certainly has its die-hards. But who puts on a play at 10 in the morning? Who goes to see it? On Saturday, the Barley Sheaf Players will find out. The Lionville-based community theater will raise the curtain on its One-Act Play Festival, a variety of short theater that runs the gamut - comedy, drama, new works, skits, monologue. It will showcase both Barley Sheaf members and visiting artists in six plays that will continue through most of the afternoon.

What's on stage: This newly renovated community theater produces five shows each season, mostly traditional comedies and stage dramas, with an occasional musical thrown in. It also hosts a fall program of short plays and several annual poetry events. Background: Tom Quinn and Hope deFrenes opened the theater in 1992 in the basement of an old firehouse along Souderton's main thoroughfare. They bought the building in 2001 in a partnership with Souderton borough, and they recently renovated the place.