Photos: Paper Mill Playhouse Celebrates Its 85th Anniversary At Annual Gala

Paper Mill Playhouse hosted its largest fundraising event of the year, the Paper Mill Playhouse 85th  Anniversary Gala on Friday, May 12, at the renowned Hilton Short Hills.

The gala is proudly sponsored by Citizens, Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center, FirstEnergy Foundation, Hilton Short Hills, Jerry Rose, Wilf Family Foundations, Audrey Bartner, Kathleen and Ted Bourke, The Ferolito Family, Maria and Ian J. Mount, and Do and Rickles Family Foundation.

Paper Mill Playhouse is a not-for-profit arts organization that relies on philanthropic support to make its breathtaking productions, professional training programs, celebrated arts education, and outreach possible. All proceeds from the gala support these programs. 

PAPER MILL PLAYHOUSE, recipient of the 2016 Regional Theatre Tony Award, is a nationally renowned not-for-profit theater under the direction of Mark S. Hoebee (Producing Artistic Director) and Michael Stotts (Executive Director). A beloved New Jersey arts institution since 1938, Paper Mill creates and produces groundbreaking new musicals and reimagined classics. Several productions have gone on to Broadway and launched national tours, including Disney’s Newsies, Les Misérables, Honeymoon in Vegas, A Bronx Tale, and Bandstand. The theater is also the home to an award-winning center for musical theater education and artist training, with outreach programs that impact thousands of students each year. As one of the nation’s premier musical theaters, Paper Mill fosters a creative environment to advance the art form, educate students, develop future theater lovers, nurture inclusion, and provide access for all. We acknowledge that our theater stands on the traditional land of the Lenni-Lenape, and we honor the Indigenous people who inhabited it for thousands of years before European settlers arrived. Paper Mill Playhouse programs are made possible, in part, by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. Paper Mill Playhouse is a member of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, the Council of Stock Theatres, and the New Jersey Theatre Alliance.

Photo Credit: Terry Doyle

Honorees Kathleen and Ted Bourke and Family