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Bucks County Playhouse

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Coordinates: 40°21′44″N 74°57′01″W / 40.3623°N 74.9502°W / 40.3623; -74.9502
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Opening Night at the Bucks County Playhouse July 2012

The Bucks County Playhouse is located in New Hope, Pennsylvania.

When the Hope Mills burned in 1790, Benjamin Parry rebuilt the grist mills as the New Hope Mills. The town was renamed for the mills.

Bucks County Playhouse, 1934
Bucks County Playhouse, 1934

The building was saved from demolition in the 1930s. It was purchased and run by a group of people including playwrights Moss Hart and Kenyon Nicholson.[1] Renovations converting the building into a theater began in 1938. The first production at the new Bucks County Playhouse was Springtime for Henry featuring Edward Everett Horton. It opened on July 1, 1939.

The Bucks County Playhouse became a summer theater. It was the starting point for many actors and became a place where plays slated for Broadway were tried out. Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park, starring Robert Redford and Elizabeth Ashley, had its premiere at the theater in 1963. Other notable actors who performed at the theater over the years include Bela Lugosi, Dick Van Dyke, Tyne Daly, Grace Kelly, Angela Lansbury, and Walter Matthau.[2][3]

The Bucks County Playhouse Conservancy, a public/private partnership, raised sufficient funds to regain the property following a 2010 foreclosure. Following an extensive renovation, the theater reopened on July 2, 2012.[3]

Bucks County Playhouse in 2012

It is a member company of the New Jersey Theatre Alliance.

Memorable productions

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1939:

1941:

1946:

  • James M. Barrie's Alice Sit-by-the-Fire featuring Helen Hayes and her 16-year-old daughter Mary MacArthur, who made her stage debut as a BCP Apprentice.

1949:

  • BCP Apprentice Grace Kelly makes her stage debut in playwright George Kelly's The Torchbearers, followed by The Heiress.

1951:

  • Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn star together for the first time on stage in the pre-Broadway opening of The Fourposter.

1952:

  • Angela Lansbury graced the BCP stage in Affairs of State.
  • Grace Kelly returned to the BCP, fresh from Broadway, television and Hollywood to star with Jerome Cowen in Accent on Youth.

1955:

  • The Today Show broadcast live, with host Dave Garoway, from the BCP with an NBC radio simulcast which had never been done before in the US.

1959:

  • Dick Van Dyke's first dramatic stage appearance in BCP's Cradle and All and Robert Redford's first role at BCP in Tiger at the Gates.

1960:

  • Come Blow Your Horn was Neil Simon's first play and made its world premiere at the BCP. Producers Michael Ellis and William Hammerstein, after Simon's rewrites, took Come Blow Your Horn from BCP to Broadway.

1963:

  • Neil Simon's third play, Barefoot in the Park (Nobody Loves Me), had its world premiere there with Robert Redford and Elizabeth Ashley in the lead roles. In addition to earning him his first Tony Award for Best Director (Dramatic) on Broadway in 1964, it was Mike Nichols' first play that he had ever directed.
  • James Daly and his family, seventeen-year-old daughter Tyne, fifteen-year-old daughter Glynn and seven-year-old son Tim all appeared together in playwright Jean Kerr's first comedy, Jenny Kissed Me, in 1963. James Daly first starred in 1954's Millicent's Castle and later in the 1962 hit The Advocate at the BCP. Tyne Daly started her career by performing in summer stock with her family, earned her Equity Card at age 15, and made her professional debut at the BCP.
  • Alan Alda appeared in Jean Kerr's King of Hearts, directed by James Hammerstein.

1964:

  • Liza Minnelli stars in Time Out For Ginger by Ronald Alexander with Chester Morris.
  • BCP Apprentice Rob Reiner worked on Sunday In New York (starring Alan Alda & Sherry Lewis), Bus Stop (starring Johnnie Ray), The Choice is Murder, Broadway (starring Merv Griffin), and A Perfect Frenzy by John D. Hess (starring Shelley Berman)
  • The Arthur Godfrey Show, on CBS radio, originated from the stage of the BCP for two weeks while Mr. Godfrey starred in a revival of Thornton Wilder's Our Town.

1965:

  • James Daly and Colleen Dewhurst star in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Also co-starring Danial J. Travanti. Rob Reiner was a BCP Apprentice this entire season.
  • Eddie Bracken and Doddie Goodman star in The Thurber Carnival. Timmy Brown, Nancy Nuegent, David Doyle, & Margaret Hamilton co-star.

1966:

  • George C. Scott and Colleen Dewhurst star in The Lion in Winter.
  • Bernadette Peters appeared in Riverwind, starring Robert Alda, directed by James Hammerstein.

1970:

  • John Lithgow Directed and/or acted in four shows at BCP: Sir in The Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crowd, Dr. Talacryn in Hadrian VII and Captain Vale in The Magistrate (which he also directed). Mr. Lithgow even directed a BCP revival of Barefoot in the Park in 1970 right before heading off to the bright lights of Broadway.

1974:

  • Give ‘Em Hell Harry, world premiere starring James Whitmore- went on to Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.

1976:

  • Anne Jackson and Eli Wallach's two-week run of The House of Blue Leaves broke the Playhouse's attendance record. Ms. Jackson starred in Dear Ruth, under the direction of Theron Bamberger, which provided the biggest profit in the 1947 season, and S. J. Behrman's witty comedy of the thirties, Biography, during the tenure of producer Walter Perner Jr. in 1966.

1989:

  • Audra McDonald garners rave reviews as Aldonza in BCP's Man of La Mancha.

2012:

  • Actor's Equity shows return to the BCP with Producing Director Jed Bernstein.
  • Rodgers and Hammerstein's A Grand Night for Singing, directed by Lonny Price, starring Courtney Balan, Ron Bohmer, Greg Bosworth, Erin Davie and Kenita R. Miller
  • Barefoot in the Park, directed by Sheryl Kaller, starring Robert John Biedermann, Candy Buckley, Jonathan Hadary, Lee Aaron Rosen and Virginia Veale
  • It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, directed by Gordon Greenberg, starring Justin Guarini, Garth Kravits, Lauren Molina, Jill Paice, Kevin Pariseau, and Mark Price

References

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  1. ^ Walker, Don (1953-08-06). "Local barn makes good". The Bucks County Herald. Archived from the original on 2012-03-08. Retrieved 2012-05-23.
  2. ^ "Bucks County Playhouse - History". Archived from the original on 6 July 2012. Retrieved 8 July 2012.
  3. ^ a b Reed, Bill (2 July 2012). "The curtain rises Monday at the refurbished Bucks County Playhouse". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Archived from the original on November 9, 2013. Retrieved 8 July 2012.
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