Manley Theatre - 711 Jenkinne Street

The Manley is New Jerusalem's honored legitimate stage. The New Jerusalem Amateur Theatre Players pay a major portion of the rent (the season begins rehearsals in February and lasts through August), as do Mrs. Alice Turner's University Players, who schedule performances throughout the school year.
New Jerusalem Amateur Theatre Company: the company rehearses and performs in the Manley Theatre. Their last production was Eugene O'Neill's "Anna Christie", starring Elizabeth Peabody, youngest daughter of New Jerusalem's mayor.
Those inclined to strut the boards find it inexpensive to join (a $30 initiation fee and $15 annual dues). Hours can occasionally be long. Cast parties at the end of a production are reputedly wild.
The troupe is anonymously funded each year by a rich anonymous Massachusetts resident. Over the past few decades, thanks to interest from many college students, the company has been moving into more abstract fare. Most of these plays are written by someone in-house as a way to save on having to pay for the rights to the play.
Older Gilbert and Sullivan shows did very poorly at the box office, even for this theatre's standards, pushing the older-school members to the back, as younger and more progressive artists entered the fold.
In 1933, during the depths of the Great Depression, an individual calling himself Dr. Theo Rapalynt put on "Modern Inventions and A Look to the Future," an exhibition of magic and electricity that sent the crowd screaming for the exits. Very little is known about this event, as there are advertisements in old newspapers leading up to the show, but no reviews published afterwards. No one present at the lecture is still alive.
Several months ago head director Lawrence Jago found a copy of Sous le Monde tucked away in one of his bookshelves. Jago could not recall placing it there or ever seeing it before, but became fascinated with this unsettling piece. He is contemplating putting it on the stage at the theatre next October, if he can figure out the script. Unknown to Jago this copy of Sous le Monde was left here back in 1933 by the mysterious Dr. Theo Rapalynt.
The theatre's director Lawrence Jago, 43, is a good mannered, rotund man whose one and only love is the theatre. He is considered a progressive director and scriptwriter, for whom many local thespians enjoy acting. Jago is a large fan of France's infamous Grand Guignol, and he is trying to work up a set of his own morbid morality plays for a Halloween show. Recently, he has becoming very intrigued by a copy of Sous le Monde.
Harold Dudley works at the Manley Theatre, primarily working the lights but also as a projectionist for the films the theatre occasionally shows. It is the films that are his true love, and he is constantly trying, and failing, to get the place to show more of them. Should he ever get offered a job that was full time in the film industry, whether projectionist or something related to making them, Harold would be gone in a shot. He’s currently trying to save up enough to buy a movie camera, and he might be willing to do jobs related to filming if they result in him being able to get one.
Gus, short for Asparagus, the theatre's cat is an old but revered local cat. He suffers from palsy, which makes his paws shake, and his once bright grey coat is now a bit shabby. Though he is no longer a terror to mice or to rats he is still kept and cared for by the theatre crew who considers him to be lucky. He knows a thing or two but tells few; he is considered a trusted ally and mentor by the Atomic Fireball.

Parent Location

Northside