By Henry M. Holden

Each season, for more than 50 years, the Chester Theatre Group (CTG) has been an essential asset of the New Jersey cultural community. Their first appearance on the stage was in the 1959/60 season when they presented, Bus Stop, Our Town, and the Curious Savage.

According to their website, The Black River Playhouse was originally a Baptist Church. In 1854, the Bedminster Methodist Church purchased it and, in the winter of 1880-1881, with the help and strength of six mule teams, moved to its present location at Grove Street and Maple Avenue. 

In 1908, Chester Township purchased the Grove Street Baptist Church and used it as the Chester Township Municipal Building.

In 1930, the building became Chester Borough Hall. Eventually Chester Borough relocated its municipal offices, and the building was used for medicine shows where charlatans would sell “patent medicines,” Sadie Hawkins dances, where the girls would ask the boys to dance, and silent and sound motion picture shows. It continued serving the community in these roles for many years.

The Chester Theatre Group continued to perform plays, from The Crucible in their 1960-1961 season to Born Yesterday, during their 1965-66 season. 

Between 1959 and 1965 the group put on fourteen performances. These early productions were performed at different local venues.

In 1965, Chester Borough put its Borough Hall on the auction block. The Chester Theatre Group won the auction with $6,000. However, there were two issues: one, Alan Rubinstein, the Chester Theatre Group President at the time, did not have the 15-percent down payment, and two, the deed belonged to Chester Township, and they owned the building. Rubinstein was able to resolve the 15-percent shortfall by passing his hat around to the crowd gathered for the auction and Chester Township’s Mayor agreed to turn over the deed. The sale became official December 9, 1965, and renovations began. 

However, there was a stage but no money for curtains, spotlights, or backdrops. With no available funds for these items, a group of residents banded together to mount a production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town as a fundraiser. It was such a success they said why don’t we do this again next year and that turned into let’s do two or three.

“In January 1967 we held the first performances in the Black River Playhouse,” said Christopher Mortenson, president of Chester Theatre Group (CTG). “It was also the first year we presented a musical.”  The first CTG production in the Black River Playhouse A Thurber Carnival, was “A Smash Success.” 

Mortenson believes it is the building that makes the performances and actors shine. “It’s a great building that attracts many artistic people that have something to say and are credible,” said Mortenson. “The stage itself is unique. It is a theater-in-the-round. Everybody is looking in the same direction toward the stage. Our stage is in the middle of the room with four seating sections on each side for a total of one hundred seats. Also, each corner of the building has a little stair that we built in the two-story structure. We can use storage space on the second floor for a spare space for whatever we need it for.” 

“There are people, very artistic people, who have great vision. When they step into the stage and see a show, they say ‘you know I want to come back here and put on my own production in this space because it makes you reimagine the story you already know.’ You may have seen Hamlet a thousand times but if you see it with all the actors around you, and they are performing around people who are around them it ups the ante. It is a very intimate experience,” said Mortenson.  

The Black River Playhouse is rare among theaters in New Jersey. Mortenson asserts that: “It connects artists and audiences in a special in-the-round theater space where viewers are less than five feet away from performers. That intimacy is our greatest asset. It generates a singular energy that occurs only in live theater.”

The basic foundation of the Chester Theater Group is promoting the invaluable work of playwrights and directors, by providing a free and accessible venue for creative expression.

“We even had productions during the pandemic. Of course, they were done remotely with all the pandemic rules followed. We put a few of them on YouTube for a while, but YouTube is not a good venue for the type of production we do.”

“Directors are invited to come forward with their ideas and visions for productions,” said Mortenson. “The Chester Theatre Group does not limit itself solely to the commercial, the Avant Garde, or the classical. We welcome the dramas, musicals, comedies and plays. We limit ourselves only to answering the following questions affirmatively: Will the production be interesting, entertaining, and challenging enough to us and our audience to warrant production? And can we do it well? That philosophy has yielded for our community, enriching artists, and audiences alike for more than 50 years.”

For more information on the Chester Theater Group, visit www.chestertheatregroup.org