By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
Hillsborough’s theater family came home for a party Saturday afternoon.
About 40 people who act on stage or who work behind the scenes of the nearly 50-year-old theater organization came to applaud family and friends who have been nominated for awards by the New Jersey Association of Community Theater.
They also heard Todd Bennington, an officer, director and actor, announced the bill of shows that are being planned for production in 2016.
Appropriately, the clan gathering was crammed on the 23-by-27-foot stage of “home” — a distinctive theater in a former schoolhouse on Amwell Road in Neshanic. Sets for the current offering, “9 to 5,” were pushed back so generous amounts of food could be laid out on tables the risers, desks and even a bed.
Another of the reasons for the party was an anniversary of sorts — the 30th anniversary of making the more than 100-year-old schoolhouse into the troupe’s permanent home.
Hanging in a shadow box above the door to the 99-seat theater was a broken claw hammer, an emotional and historic remnant of the conversion of the building from a printing company into a theater.
Karen Abbatiello remembers the hammer well. She bought it as her own personal tool to join in the tearing down and building up.
As she was using the hammer, it broke at the wooden handle, she remembered Saturday.
The hammer remained in her car for three years, she said. When three years of work finally yielded a theater, she said that was the time to bring it out and display it proudly.Joe Giordano, who can recount many of the renovation details from his countless hours at carpentry, said the theater was created from the remains of a printing company, but the building with iconic bell tower originally was the community schoolhouse.
A photocopy of the school register from 1913-14 hangs on the wall of the basement, which doubles as the kitchen, library, partial storage area and waiting room for the restrooms.
Crystal Coddington recalls accompanying her parents, Randy and Bonnie, to work at the theater going back more than 20 years. She slowly got involved herself — mostly backstage, but sometimes in productions — to the point where she has converted her experiences into a new fulltime job in the props department at McCarter Theater in Princeton.
“People say that the theater is like a second family, but I say no,” she said. “It’s like a family, your first family.”
The Somerset Valley Players organized more than 47 years ago and presented their first productions at Van Derveer Elementary School in Somerville. This group of volunteers put on one production a year in the beginning, increasing the bill to three shows, including their first musical, “Guys and Dolls,” performed in 1971.
According to the Players’ website, after a long search, the troupe purchased the former one-room schoolhouse and moved props, scenery, furniture, and costumes in 1980. The printer was generous enough to hold the mortgage, Mr. Giordano said.
Over the next five years, members spent countless hours renovating the building. In January 1985, the doors of the Somerset Valley Playhouse opened to a full house. The first show in their new theater, mirroring their beginnings, was “Guys and Dolls.”
