Hedgerow takes a bow for 95 years of local theater
ROSE VALLEY » The mood was festive inside the rustic Old Mill Friday evening as Hedgerow Theatre Company’s actors, actresses, directors, patrons, supporters and friends celebrated 95 years of theatre excellence. Hedgerow Theatre is America’s oldest professional resident theatre company. In addition to marking the theatre’s 95th anniversary, the Belle of the Ball Benefit gala also honored Penelope Reed for her lifetime of work. Reed is not only the 2017 Barrymore Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, but, according to a press release, she is “the heart and soul of Hedgerow.”
The event included dinner and cocktails and was co-chaired by Hedgerow board members Jane Mc- Neil and Richard Taxin. A group of tudents from the Hedgerow Theater School sang at the event. The school, started by Reed, currently has 67 students. All monies raised at the event benefitted the Penelope Reed Education Fund to preserve the theatre’s educational programming for underserved youth and the Jewel Box Theatre Campaign, dedicated to the refurbishing and preservation of Hedgerow’s theatre, which dates from 1840.
A former president of the Rotary Club of Media, Reed is known in theatre circles and throughout the community as a visionary leader. Her work in repertoire theater has been a vital part of not only the Philadelphia theatre community but nationally recognized. Reed created a vigorous outreach program at Hedgerow and began the theatre school and theatre camp there.
Reed took the microphone and dramatically read some of Emily Dickinson’s “The Belle of Amherst,” whom she called one of her favorite characters. She thanked everyone for the honor, and paid special tribute to her generational family of actors, including her mother, Janet Kelsey, her husband Zoran Kovcic, her son Jared Reed and her grandsons.
Jared Reed is the current producing artistic director at Hedgerow. His congratulatory message to his mother was played on a big screen at the event. He was unable to attend the benefit because he was home mending a recently broken leg. Penelope Reed is director emeritus at Hedgerow Theatre, serving as both an actor and a consultant. She has handed the company off to her son, Jared who, according to the press release, “is following his mother’s example and strengthening the core company of the theater.”
“I want to thank all of Hedgerow’s patrons and supporters because theatre does not exist without an audience,” the fourth generation theater artist honoree said. “I want to thank my mother for keeping Hedgerow going through so many years, and Zoran, who came to know all things Hedgerow and has become quite an accomplished actor. None of this would have been possible without him. He has devoted decades of excellence to all areas of the theatre. And I am so thankful to my son Jared, who is taking this theatre to the next stage and a whole other level, and my grandsons Sebastian and Quentin who are our future.”
Her roots with Hedgerow stretch back into her youth. Along with her now95-year-old mother Janet Kelsey, Reed studied under Jasper Deeter, the founder of Hedgerow Theatre, in 1962, at the age of 17 when her family moved to Rose Valley. Little did she know that many years later she would return to Hedgerow as its producing artistic director, reviving the theater to national prominence and, like Jasper himself, creating new theater artists along the way.
Before coming to Hedgerow, Reed was a leading actress for 12 years at the Milwaukee Repertory Company, where she was also a director and a playwright. She has directed over 100 productions at a variety of theaters across the United States. In 1992, Reed took the helm of Hedgerow after a fire there. Reed transformed Hedgerow from a burned-down shell of a building back into a professional theater with an identity both for theater production and education.
In addition to Penelope and Jared, the Hedgerow Theatre Company includes Ari Baker, Owen Corey, Patrick Derrickson, Art Hunter, Darlene McClellan, Kate Sparacio, Susan Wefel, Shaun Yates, Lisa VillaMil, Essie Windham and Matthew Windham.
Hedgerow Theatre Company was founded in 1923 by Deeter as a haven for cuttingedge artists of the early 20th century. Hedgerow quickly gained a national and international reputation as a proving ground for era defining artists such as Susan Glaspell, Eugene O’Neill, Countee Cullen, Henrik Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw, Theodore Dreiser and Wharton Esherick. Today, the company consists of seven resident actors and an extended company of ten. According to a press release, Hedgerow Theatre continues to seek connections and to enrich the lives of company, patrons and community in the shared experience of ensemble theater, through performance and theatre education.