Tina Fey and Monica Horan are pitching in to a $500,000 fund to keep Upper Darby Summer Stage going
The famous alums have helped launch a fundraising drive to assure the Upper Darby youth theater program's future.
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Two notable alumni of the acclaimed Upper Darby Summer Stage youth program, comedian Tina Fey and Everybody Loves Raymond star Monica Horan Rosenthal, have helped launch a fund-raising drive to assure the Summer Stage’s future.
The two of them, along with the Upper Darby Arts and Education Foundation and the Broughton Foundation, are the four publicly named donors at this point to the Friends of Summer Stage fund-raising campaign, bringing its current total to $500,000.
A public fund-raising phase seeking additional donations will be formally announced at 7:30 p.m. Saturday during Summer Stage Night at Rose Tree Park in Media.
» READ MORE: Live from Upper Darby, Summer Stage is back. And more Philly theater notes.
In most years, Summer Stage draws 800 young people — middle-school to college — to participate in all phases of musical theatrical production, from acting to set design. Shows attract an audience of 35,000 over the season.
“We are the ones who know how it impacted our lives,” said Horan Rosenthal. Summer Stage “was a safe and positive environment where you could evolve as a person, not just as an actor or performer.
“It’s invaluable, especially now, because the world is complicated and challenging and isolating and divisive,” she said. “This is an investment in the health of our children and the health of the community.”
Horan Rosenthal remembers the panic she felt at age 15 waiting for her cue in her role as an older woman in Harvey. “I remember thinking ‘Why am I here?’”
As she exited her scene, she adjusted her pretend girdle. “It got a huge laugh. It was like a drug. I wanted to keep doing it.”
And, she did, along with a long list of notable alums.
They include Arden Theatre Co. executives Terrence J. Nolen and Amy Murphy, and Broadway actors Alyse Alan Louis and Jillian Louis (known as the Wojciechowski sisters). Some alumni started youth arts programs: Mark Morgan, who founded the Moorestown Theater Co.; Ann Pinto McCarney, who runs West Chester Summer Stage, and Steven M. Fisher, cofounder of the Keystone State Boychoir.
For executive director Harry Dietzler, 66, who started Summer Stage in 1976 as a 20-year-old and is planning to step down gradually, the gifts “really mean the future,” he said. “I know what Summer Stage has done for the community. It’s been a place where people can celebrate their children. It’s been a place for the kids to blossom.
“We try to add a goal of service,” Dietzler said. “We’re not here to serve our egos. We’re here to serve our audience with what we have inside us.”
Housed in the Performing Arts Center of Upper Darby High School, Summer Stage has been funded jointly by Upper Darby Township and the Upper Darby School District. “With the financial challenges in our township and schools, it is no longer realistic to rely upon extensive public funding,” Dietzler said, explaining efforts to broaden support for the program.