The Blairstown Theater Festival operated from December 2006 through November 2007 at historic Roy's Hall (also known as Roy's Theatre), a former silent movie theater built in 1913 at 30 Main Street in Blairstown Township, New Jersey

Blairstown Township, New Jersey

-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 5,747 people, 2,040 households, and 1,638 families residing in the township. The population density was 185.3 people per square mile . There were 2,136 housing units at an average density of 68.9 per square mile...

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On July 13, 2007, the company attracted considerable media attention when they presented three screenings of the classic horror film, Friday the 13th, which was shot in and around Blairstown in the fall of 1979. Roy's Hall appears in the film shortly after the opening credits.

The company's January 2007 production of Letters from the Inside was selected by The Star-Ledger

The Star-Ledger

The Star-Ledger is the largest circulated newspaper in the U.S. state of New Jersey and is based in Newark. It is a sister paper to The Jersey Journal of Jersey City, The Times of Trenton and the Staten Island Advance, all of which are owned by Advance Publications.The Newark Star-Ledgers daily...

 as one of the top five new plays of the 2006–2007 New Jersey theater season and actress Kelli Ambrose, who played Mandy in Letters from the Inside, was selected as one of the top five Best Leading Actresses in a Play.

Among the other concerts and productions presented by the Blairstown Theater Festival were Nancy Anderson singing early Broadway songs backed by the Baroque Orchestra of North Jersey (Baroque to Broadway), the Still River Band in Concert, Malachy McCourt

Malachy McCourt

Malachy Gerard McCourt is an Irish-American actor, writer and politician. He was the 2006 Green Party candidate for governor in New York State, losing to the Democratic candidate Eliot Spitzer. He is the younger brother of Frank McCourt.-Personal life:Born in Brooklyn, New York, McCourt was raised...

 and Jarlath Conroy in A Couple of Blaguards, Betsy Palmer

Betsy Palmer

Betsy Palmer is an American actress, best known as a regular panelist on the game show I've Got a Secret, and later for playing Pamela Voorhees in the notorious slasher film Friday the 13th.-Life and career:...

 and Will Hutchins

Will Hutchins

Will Hutchins is an American actor most noted for playing the lead role of the young lawyer Tom Brewster in the Warner Brothers Western television series Sugarfoot on ABC from 1957-1961.-Biography:...

 in A.R. Gurney's Love Letters

Love Letters (play)

Love Letters is a Pulitzer Prize for Drama nominated play by A. R. Gurney. The play centers on just two characters, Melissa Gardner and Andrew Makepeace Ladd III...

, the New Jersey premiere of I Am Anne Frank, and concerts by cabaret performers KT Sullivan

KT Sullivan

KT Sullivan is an American singer and actress known for her performances in cabaret and musical theatre.-Early years:Born Kathleen Sullivan in Boggy Depot, Oklahoma to Elizabeth, a composer of religious and show music, and James A...

 (Vienna to Weimar), John O'Neil (So Kaye), the Western Wind Vocal Ensemble (Holiday Light), Cris Groenendaal (Music of the Night), Jana Robbins (One Hell of a Ride! The Songs of Cy Coleman) and jazz pianist Bill Mays

Bill Mays

William Allen Mays , best known as Bill Mays, is a jazz pianist from Sacramento, California He came from a musical family and at fifteen he became interested in jazz at an Earl Hines concert....

 and his Inventions Trio.

The company also presented several film festivals with such classic titles as Gone with the Wind

Gone with the Wind (film)

Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American historical epic film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel of the same name. It was produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Victor Fleming from a screenplay by Sidney Howard...

, Casablanca

Casablanca (film)

Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid, and featuring Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Dooley Wilson. Set during World War II, it focuses on a man torn between, in...

, Seven Samurai, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is a 1948 American comedy horror film directed by Charles Barton and starring the comedy team of Abbott and Costello. It is the first of several films where the comedy duo meets classic characters from Universal's horror film stable...

, A Night at the Opera

A Night at the Opera (film)

A Night at the Opera is a 1935 American comedy film starring Groucho Marx, Chico Marx and Harpo Marx, and featuring Kitty Carlisle, Allan Jones, Margaret Dumont, Sig Ruman, and Walter Woolf King. It was the first film the Marx Brothers made for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer after their departure from...

, The Court Jester

The Court Jester

The Court Jester is a 1956 musical-comedy film starring Danny Kaye, Glynis Johns, Basil Rathbone, and Angela Lansbury. The movie was co-written, co-directed, and co-produced by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama...

, La Belle et la Bête

Beauty and the Beast (1946 film)

Beauty and the Beast is a 1946 French romantic fantasy film adaptation of the traditional fairy tale of the same name, written by Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont and published in 1757 as part of a fairy tale anthology . Directed by French poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau, the film stars Josette...

, Black Orpheus

Black Orpheus

Black Orpheus is a 1959 film made in Brazil by French director Marcel Camus. It is based on the play Orfeu da Conceição by Vinicius de Moraes, which is an adaptation of the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, setting it in the modern context of a favela in Rio de Janeiro during the Carnaval...

, Mon Oncle

Mon Oncle

Mon Oncle is a 1958 film comedy by French filmmaker Jacques Tati. The first of Tati's films to be released in colour, Mon Oncle won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, a Special Prize at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival, and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign...

, The Wages of Fear and La Strada

La Strada

La Strada is a 1954 Italian neorealist drama directed by Federico Fellini in which a naïve young woman is sold to a brutish man and goes on the road as a part of his itinerant show....

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The Blairstown Theater Festival was not able to continue past its first season for several reasons. Most significantly, Blairstown Township suddenly increased the real estate taxes on the building by more than 680% (from $1,031.55 to $7,032.30) and the landlord decided to sell the theatre.

A CD featuring highlights from the Blairstown Theater Festival's season was released in February 2008.

2007 Audio Sampler

• Hellertown Still River Band
• A Little Attila (Tamerlan) KT Sullivan with Jed Distler, piano
• Grandpa's Spells Bill Mays
• Zip Jana Robbins with Doyle Newmeyer, piano
• Carnegie Hall and Moon Landing Malachy McCourt and Jarlath Conroy
• Too Many Miles From Broadway Nancy Anderson with the Baroque Orchestra of North Jersey, Robert W. Butts, Musical Director
• Ballin' the Jack John O'Neil with David Wolfson, piano
• Phil the Fluter's Ball Jarlath Conroy
• Merry Little Minuet Still River Band
• I Am a Vamp KT Sullivan with Jed Distler, piano
• Co-Dependent With You Cris Groenendaal with Sue Anderson, piano

• Old Dusty Road Still River Band
• Old Fashioned Girl Nancy Anderson with the Baroque Orchestra of North Jersey
• Medley: You Can Always Count On Me / Nobody Does It Like Me Jana Robbins with Doyle Newmeyer, piano
• Letters from the Inside (Excerpt) Kelli Ambrose as Mandy
• Music of the Night (from The Phantom of the Opera) Cris Groenendaal with Sue Anderson, piano
• The Cherry Tree Carol
  The Cherry-Tree Carol
  "The Cherry-Tree Carol" is a ballad with the rare distinction of being both a Christmas carol and one of the Child Ballads . The song itself is very old, reportedly being sung, in some form, at the Feast of Corpus Christi in the early 15th century...
  
   The Western Wind Vocal Ensemble
• I Remember (from I Am Anne Frank) Jenny Rose Baker & Danny Rothman with the Baroque Orchestra of North Jersey
• Tango Moonlight Duo (Katherine Hoover)
• Mozart
  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
  
  : Piano Concerto #23 – Third Movement
  Piano Concerto No. 23 (Mozart)
  The Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major is a musical composition for piano and orchestra written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It was finished, according to Mozart's own catalogue, on March 2, 1786, around the time of the premiere of his opera, The Marriage of Figaro...
  
  The Baroque Orchestra of North Jersey featuring Sohyun Ahn, piano
• Tchaikovsky (and Other Russians) John O'Neil and Robert Armin with David Wolfson, piano