Summer Stage theater program teaches youths confidence

Move over, Jonas Brothers.

Less than two weeks into this year's version of the Summer Stage children's theater program, three boys from South Jersey were already belting out a tune first performed by the sibling trio in the musical Camp Rock.

Around them, other kids - sixth graders and up - were dancing their way through production numbers as if it were easy. Just before that, they were hamming it up with gymnastic antics for a video other youngsters were shooting.

"I love this place!" exclaimed first-time camper Iyanla Kollock, 11, of Buena, N.J., after nailing a backflip. "Oh, my gosh!"

This is the 23d year that South Jersey kids have been saying that. In 1989, career schoolteacher Ed Fiscella started a New Jersey version of the popular and still-going-strong summer children's theater camp that he helped get going in Upper Darby with founder Harry Dietzler in 1976. He even kept the name, with Dietzler's blessing.

Much has happened since.

What began with 65 kids in grades six through 12 and 10 staff members at Glen Landing Middle School in Gloucester Township has ballooned into nine programs that serve more than 500 young people, from second graders through young adults, on Camden County College's Blackwood campus. The staff, which includes former campers and parents, is a larger group than the first summer's campers.

Out of the summer program grew the Mainstage Center for the Arts, which offers theater productions year round and, last year, offered its first subscription series.

For Fiscella, it has meant living his dream.

"My goal ever since college was to be a teacher, to do theater part time and have my own theater," said Fiscella, 58, who retired as a middle school language-arts teacher in 2009. "I'm the luckiest man in the world."

He has spread that luck and love of theater around. While the Upper Darby and Camden County Summer Stage programs aren't the only theater camps in the region, they are among the oldest. The Walnut Street Theatre's summer program also began in 1989.

Thousands of youngsters have gone through and grown up in the programs. Campers report making friendships that last into adulthood. People have met their future husbands and wives at Summer Stage.

Quite a few of the camp's alumni have gone on to perform professionally or work in the entertainment business.

Dietzler said he and his former partner over time had played "a friendly game" of alumni can-you-top-this. Fiscella's past campers include a Miss America, Kate Shindle.

"For years, I couldn't top that," Dietzler said, chuckling. "Then I called him up and said, 'Ed, we had Tina Fey.' "

And, yes, both men said, she was funny even then.

But Summer Stage's main goal is not grooming future thespians and entertainers.

"The focus of the program is developing self-confidence and self-esteem, which are qualities that will help them be successful no matter what they do," said Anne Marie Weaver of Cherry Hill, a performer who, with her husband, Tom, a set designer and theater teacher, was involved with Summer Stage from the start.

All four Weaver children went through Summer Stage. They include a son who is a stage lighting designer, another who wants to go into the theater of politics, a daughter who is a professional actress, and their youngest, Caitlin, 20, who made her first appearance at Summer Stage in a baby carrier.

A theater student, she's home this summer from the State University of New York at Purchase and directing Annie Jr. at Summer Stage.

"It's helpful have grown up in the program," she said. "You know what kids are thinking at all moments."

Stacy Napolitano began lending her public relations skill to Summer Stage after she saw its impact on her older daughter.

"Everyday she came home with this big smile," said Napolitano of Gloucester Township. "You could see the self-confidence growing."

"The whole purpose behind Summer Stage is about chances and opportunities," Fiscella said. "They have the chance to do something where they might discover something about themselves."

Francine Odri, 18, of Lumberton, did.

"This program made me the person I am today. I totally came out of my shell," the Drew University student said.

She's back this summer as an assistant director-in-training.

"I want to present the values I learned to a whole new generation of kids so they won't be afraid to be themselves," Odri said, "and do what they love no matter what anyone else tells them."