Pennington Players Programs

Here are seven Pennington Players programs from 1958 through 1966, plus one more from the Prevue Players from 1958.

These are wonderful historical records of these performing groups, of course, plus they provides the names of local people in the production staff and the patrons, and include advertisements for a wide range of local businesses, including from Pennington, Hopewell, Princeton, and Trenton.

Updates: More on both the Pennington Players and the Prevue Players below.

The selected plays and musicals are not familiar names for today’s audiences. It would be interesting to understand why they were chosen for 1950s and 1960s audiences.

Pennington Players and Prevue Players programs, 1958-1966

== Browse the Pennington & Prevue Players programs in the Pamphlet Collection ==

The Pennington Players programs grew from 4 pages (1 folded sheet) in 1958 to 16 pages in the 1960s – with 12 pages for the ads.

The 1950s shows had two performances, with four in 1961, seven in 1962, and back to two in 1965 and 1966.

The shows from 1958 through 1962 were held in the The Playbarn, 105 West Franklin, described as off Route 69 (now Route 31). The 1965 and 1966 shows were held in local schools, with requests in the programs for information on a “barn or similar facility for the players.”

The 1962 program reports that it was the tenth year of the Pennington Players as an active group, which puts their founding in 1953. They were doing both Spring (May) and Fall (October) productions, plus had been doing a children’s play each winter for the past four years. The productions were also available for benefit performances, at a cost of $75 to the group for the night, with 150 seats available.

See the Pennington Players website and Pennington Players Facebook group. The group has been “entertaining local audiences since 1951,” with the last performance apparently in 2021.

Pennington Players Programs, 1958 – 1966

4/1958 – The Solid Gold Cadillac 4 pp. – Central High School Gym, S. Main
4/1959 – The Matchmaker – 4 pp. – The Playbarn, 105 W. Franklin (off Rt. 69)
5/1961 – The Gazebo – 12 pp. – The Playbarn, 105 W. Franklin (off Rt. 69)
10/1961 – The Gioconda Smile – 16 pp. – The Playbarn, 105 W. Franklin (off Rt. 69)
5/1962 – A Majority of One – 12 pp. – The Playbarn, 105 W. Franklin (off Rt. 69)
4/1965 – See How They Run – 16 pp. – Hopewell Township Central High School
4/1966 – The Curious Savage – 16 pp. – Pennington Grammar School, 275 S. Main

Prevue Players Program

The Prevue Players program is 24 pages, with only four pages of information on the play and the group (including the cover), and many display ads – from full-page to 16 ads per page.

The cover does not specify the year of the production, but if the dates (Sept. 26 – 27 – 28) are a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, then the date is probably 1958. [But unlikely – see comments below.]

The program does mention one upcoming production in December: Amahl and The Night Visitors.

Mary Beth Sine Simon adds:

My dad, Robert R. Sine, was the creator and creative director and producer of the Prevue Players and produced a lot of shows under that creative umbrella at the Open Air Theater. I don’t believe that the 1958 date lines up as far as a local production as Wildcat wasn’t produced on Broadway until 1960. My dad loved producing shows that he considered “hidden gems” and not necessarily those that were super commercial successes. I came to know Wildcat through the Broadway cast album that my parents owned and played often at home. I can’t attest personally, but it’s likely he saw that Broadway production and liked it enough to produce it himself. I took a quick look at the program and recognized a lot of student’s names from my childhood. My father used these local productions to showcase the talents of the kids that he taught music and theater to at HoVal HS. After my father stopped producing under the Prevue Players, he formed Razzle Dazzle Productions which produced locally starting in 1983. My parents and my family were long time residents of Pennington until moving to Robbinsville in the early 90s.

Prevue Players Program, 1958[?]

1958[?]-09 – Wildcat, 24 pp. – St. James Auxiliary Church, Eglantine

Program Advertisements

The advertisements in these programs highlight the wide selection of types of stores that are no longer available in Pennington or Hopewell.

These include dry goods (e.g., Kesler & Bellis), clothing (Di Iorios), sportswear (Reynolds), 5 & 10 (Circle), china (Bay Ridge), jewelry (Pakman), flowers (Allen’s), decorating (Saums), appliances (Twin Pines, Jones), hardware (Pennington Hardware, Larkin’s, Rorer’s), lumber (Woolsey & Cadwallader, Van Doren), automobiles (Blackwell Chevrolet, Lamson Ford), bowling (Hiohela), and travel (Revere).