Drama onstage and off

HAMMONTON, N.J. - As Grace Agnew flew home this spring from the Australian gap year she took after graduating from Moorestown High School, she could not stop thinking about Bare, a musical drama that theater people she respected - both in Australia and in New York - told her had changed their lives. "I knew I had to find a way to put it on here," said Agnew, 19.

The musical, by Jon Hartmere Jr. and Damon Intrabartolo, is set in a Catholic boarding school and deals with how students and adults there deal with homosexuality, premarital sex, and other issues.

"Shows like that, that take many risks, only get performed in major cities and liberal-minded areas where people are on the same page," said Agnew. "Moorestown is a wealthy, conservative town, and I thought many people I know would benefit from seeing the material.

"When I got off the plane, I told my parents, 'I'm going to produce a musical,' " she said. "They looked at me a little funny, but then said, 'All right. See what you can do.' "

Less than three months later, Bare, a mostly sung-through musical reminiscent of Rent, will run for three performances this weekend at a venue that is itself an experiment: the Eagle Theater in Hammonton, an old Atlantic County agricultural center that time forgot, whose partisans are trying to make people remember again.

Both stories - Agnew's and the Eagle's - involve that somewhat theatrical mix of perspiration, inspiration, and hope.

Agnew - who did acting, musical theater, dance, and cabaret in Philadelphia and South Jersey while growing up in Moorestown - was to enter Ithaca College's theater program last year, but decided instead to defer and study in Melbourne, Australia, where she was born and spent her first five years.

She had been involved for two summers with New York University's high school program, where she was introduced to Bare by one of the student instructors, Eddie Gutierrez. The show, first produced in 2000, had a short Off-Broadway run in 2004; a CD recorded soon after has gained a cult following in the theater world, primarily because its gay and teen themes have touched young actors such as Agnew and Gutierrez. One of her Australian teachers also was smitten with it, further inspiring Agnew.

For $1,200, she purchased the rights to perform Bare in South Jersey on the condition that the venue was more than 75 miles from New York City. She had originally hoped to stage it in Moorestown, but couldn't find a venue; churches didn't think it appropriate, and other possibilities were booked.

Hunting on the Internet, she found the Eagle Theater, a long-defunct movie house that had been rehabbed and reopened in the last year. She called the Eagle and got Jim Donio, its vice president, who told her that an act for the second weekend in August had canceled just an hour earlier.

Hammonton, fortuitously, is 79 miles from New York. The dream was that much closer to fruition.

The Eagle itself has its own dream moving forward. Though built in 1914 as a silent-movie house, for most of its life it had been used for storage. By 2007, it was scheduled for demolition when Donio and other Hammontonians bent on a downtown revival got a loan from Commerce Bank to turn it into a theater again.

"We knew people in Hammonton would support the arts - they just needed a place to do it," said Donio, 34, who grew up in the town, about 35 miles southeast of Philadelphia, and is in a family real estate and development business.

Signs around town call Hammonton "The Blueberry Capital of the World" and the 2000 census determined it had the largest percentage of people of Italian heritage of any U.S. city. "We have a lot of pride here," said Donio, "but like other small cities, our downtown had faded. The Eagle is another thing we hope we can rally around."

The Eagle has mostly small acts - children's theater, big-band concerts, cabaret singers, musical tributes to performers such as Michael Jackson and Neil Diamond, comedy nights. It doesn't pretend to compete with Philadelphia or New York or the Susquehanna Bank Center, but, said Donio, "we have plenty of people who go to the city for theater who would also come here, so we want to have a variety of things to see."

Everyone on the board of the Eagle and in Agnew's production is a volunteer - at the theater, in the town, and in the cast of Bare, a mix of Agnew's Moorestown friends and those she met in the NYU program (she has a small part).

Her father, David, who normally works in software, is working in hardware for the production, building sets and helping with the lighting. Agnew said he has lent her about $5,000, which should cover the show's budget. Whatever proceeds it reaps, she said, will go to the South Jersey AIDS Alliance to help offset cuts in this year's state budget.

Gutierrez, 23, will be coming down from New York, where he is acting and dancing, to play the lead role of Peter, a student troubled by the conflict between his Catholic beliefs and his homosexuality.

"When I was in high school, someone gave me the bootleg tape and it struck a chord with me and my friends, who had loved Rent," said Gutierrez. "It is unapologetic and dark. It doesn't throw in happy numbers just to be happy. It is a serious piece of musical theater, which doesn't happen that often."

Most of the rehearsals, said Agnew, have been in cast members' Moorestown basements, but she is sure her first production will translate to the small Hammonton venue well: "It shows what you can do with cooperation from everyone. It is as inspiring as the musical itself."

The experience, she said, has helped make her next theatrical decision easier: She will be off to Australia again next year to study and work in theater there. "They have a vibrant theater scene there and that is exciting," said Agnew, who added that she'll also be able to get her degree there less expensively than in the United States. "But Bare has given me the confidence to do this," she said. "Like with this, taking risks with theater is what it is all about."