Craig Fols Named Artistic Director Of East Lynne Theater Company

After a nationwide search conducted by its Board of Trustees, East Lynne Theater Company (ELTC) of Cape May, N.J., has announced that Craig Fols, an actor, director and playwright, has been named the company's new artistic director.

As only the third artistic director in ELTC's 43-year history, Fols will be responsible for conceiving and implementing the artistic vision and strategy for ELTC, a nonprofit professional theater dedicated to promoting, reimagining, and producing entertaining and thought-provoking American theater.

Says Fols, "I am thrilled beyond words to return to Cape May as ELTC's artistic director. My first encounter with the company was in 1997 when I saw ELTC founder Warren Kliewer's production of Rip Van Winkle at the old Franklin Street School. It was then that I fell in love with ELTC's unique identity and its work in resurrecting the American theater of the past in beautiful Cape May. Gayle Stahlhuth refined that identity over the years by producing notable world premieres and contemporary plays. When I saw ELTC's production of Possessing Harriet last season, I fell in love with the theater company all over again. In partnership with ELTC's supporters and staff, I look forward to honoring ELTC's legacy and helping to guide it into the future."

Adds Susan Tischler, president of the ELTC Board of Trustees, "We are thrilled to welcome Craig to ELTC. Not only is he a talented artist, he also has great respect for our longstanding mission of producing classic American plays. Craig's love for ELTC is only underscored by his love for Cape May. He is the perfect person to lead us into what is going to be an exciting new chapter for East Lynne."

Craig Fols first began putting on plays in his grandmother's basement when he was four years old. Growing up in South Jersey, he created theater in grade school and the community and had his first one-act play published by Eldridge Publishing Company when he was 12.

At 15, he started getting acting gigs in Philadelphia, including performing for three summers at LaSalle Music Theatre and for six-show weeks in Philadelphia dinner theaters. At 18, he studied and worked at Bob Hedley's The Philadelphia Company before moving to New York at age 19 to study acting at Circle in the Square on Broadway. Early acting credits include playing Colleen Dewhurst's son in The Trials of Mrs. Surratt by Lanie Robertson. He also originated the role of Kenneth Halliwell in Nasty Little Secrets, first at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia and later at Primary Stages in New York.

While working at Robert Redford's Sundance Institute, he began writing plays as an adult. On his 30th birthday, he acted in his comedy Buck Simple at Theatre Club Funambule on New York City's Lower East Side. He went on to act in that show at venues such as the La Mama Experimental Theatre Club before the play was published in The Best American Short Plays 1994-1995.

In 2001, his long association with The Musical of Musicals began while he was a writer at the BMI Workshop. He first pitched the show to Jim Morgan, the producing artistic director of the York Theatre, and eventually played the Leading Man off-Broadway for more than 500 performances (Original Cast Album, Jay Records). During this time, he performed The Musical of Musicals for many of his childhood heroes, including John Kander and Fred Ebb, Harold Prince, Arthur Laurents, Carol Channing, and Stephen Sondheim. He subsequently directed his own version of the show at the Walnut Street Theatre, where he also played the Villain.

Recent work includes directing the Hank Williams bio Nobody Lonesome For Me at the American Heartland Theatre in Kansas City and developing his play A Tale of Two Cities, Cobbled Together by the Brothers Lovejoy at Centenary Stage in North Jersey. As a writer, he has received the Berilla Kerr Award, the BMI Foundation's Jerry Harrington Musical Theatre Award, and a residency at Edith Wharton's The Mount in support of his musical The Age of Innocence. He has also been a frequent resident at the Edward Albee Foundation in Montauk.

Cape May theater audiences of East Lynne Theater Company will also remember him as Maxwell Davenport in The Late Christopher Bean in 2013.

Founded in 1980, East Lynne Theater Company (ELTC) was the first theater in the country with the unique mission of presenting and preserving America's theatrical heritage. The New York Times listed ELTC as one of the 75 top summer theaters in North America. In 2018, the New Jersey Senate and General Assembly passed a joint legislative resolution recognizing ELTC as "one of the state's most important cultural treasures."