Interior Painting Starts This Saturday! Volunteers needed!

We will be starting the painting of the new theatre this Saturday, May 1st at 8:30AM We will meet at the corner of 4th and Jasper and work on all three floors of the theatre [inside only...the outside has been done]. You don't need to be a great painter. We ask that you bring your own materials [brush, roller, disposable pan, roller covers, paper towels] . The drywall will be complete this Thursday and it is time to start painting our new home on Saturday. Please come if you can. Please bring friends, neighbors or students [painting the inside of the first theatre built just for theatre in Camden's history is great for earning high school service hours]. We can't have too many people! The more the merrier. Please come out. The primer will be waiting and all we need is you! It's also a great time to see the theatre from all three floors! Email me at joep@southcamdentheatre.org with any questions or to let me know you can join us. This is how Camden changes....people working together towards changing a neighborhood. Heal Camden!

Michael McAteer

I received a call this afternoon from my long time friend Ron Chiumento that Michael McAteer had been found dead in LA this morning, having died in his sleep. Michael had produced Howard Zinn's great play "Marx In Soho" directed by my friend John Doyle and featuring my friend Bob Weick this past February in Santa Monica where I was privileged to be invited. A couple weeks before the show, we were stunned by the sad death of Howard Zinn, a death I learned about from Michael via a phone call. It is a sad irony that I found out at noon today of Michael's passing in the same way. Michael had a true passion for right and wrong, Howard Zinn and Camden. He and I were both "Camden kids" and our friendship was quickly a deep one. I cannot attempt to describe the grief his wife Barbara and children feel at this time. I am deeply saddened, as we all are who knew him. We just spoke Friday and had drinks together on Good Friday. There is a seat in the new theatre named after him, a gift of his great friend John Finn. I had planned on sitting next to him in it.

He will always be remembered as a compassionate friend and a true native son of Camden. He will be sorely missed.

Walls go up today!

I was in the theatre for a while yesterday afternoon and was happy to see the insulation was installed preparing for the drywall to start going up today. For the first time, one could really feel the size and warmth of the new theatre. I went room to room imagining what was about to be with such hope for our future. Theatre has the power to transform. It changed me forever and, hopefully, this new space will do the same for people who may have never seen the type of plays we produce. This season we will take you everywhere from Camden in the late 1960's to Harlem in the 40's to New York in the 30's and end the season in Eugene O'Neill's heart.

This year will be all of our transformations...both internally as well externally as a neighborhood comes to blossom. Please join us on the ride we are about to take. We need you to be a part of it. Heal Camden!