Eleanor Roosevelt Program Comes to Camden County College This Week

The Readers’ Theatre Project at Camden County College will premiere an original presentation about Eleanor Roosevelt in celebration of March as Women’s History Month. Eleanor Roosevelt: America’s Revered Renaissance Woman will be performed at 8 p.m. March 23 and 2 and 8 p.m. March 24 in Dennis Flyer Memorial Theatre, which is located inside Lincoln Hall on the College’s Blackwood Campus at College Drive and Peter Cheeseman Road in Gloucester Township.

Roosevelt was first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, from the Great Depression through World War II. She left the White House after the death of her husband and went on to serve first as the head of the United Nations’ Human Rights Commission and then as chair of the President’s Commission on the Status of Women.

The multimedia production is being presented by the college’s Visual, Performing and Communication Arts Department and combines readings of Roosevelt’s writings with photographs, documentary footage and period music. It was adapted and directed by Lynn Boianelli-Berkowitz, of Cherry Hill, who previously worked as a journalist for 20/20, MSNBC and The Food Network, and is now an instructor at Camden County College and Penn State University as well as a working actress.

“Eleanor Roosevelt was a humanitarian, an activist, an author, the first lady, a wife, a mother—the list goes on and on,” said Boianelli-Berkowitz. “She lived a purposeful life marked by success in her political life and sadness in private. Hers is a very human story filled with conflict.”

The college's Readers’ Theatre Project aims to heighten audience experience of written material that wasn’t originally penned to be performed but does inspire oral adaptation. The readers deliver the text from script directly to the audience. Simple props, sets and costuming combine with dramatic lighting and vocalization for a visually spare but emotionally rich presentation.

Performing the reading will be Camden County College Prof. Allison Green, of Cherry Hill, Wendy Gallagher, of Swedesboro, TerraAnn Madden, of Sewell, and Sadie Mawson, of Voorhees. Musical director and pianist is Laura Seidelmann, of Deptford, and theatrical design and technical direction is by Donald Swenson, of Pitman.

Admission is a “pay what you will” donation. For additional information, contact Green by telephone at 856-227-7200 ext. 4362 or via e-mail at ReadersTheatre@camdencc.edu.

Editor's note: This article about the college's upcoming program on Eleanor Roosevelt appears in unedited form (aside from minor formatting and style adjustments) as provided by Camden County College. If you have press releases pertaining to events happening in or around Collingswood, or involving Collingswood residents or programs, feel free to forward them to lauren.burgoon@patch.com or to self-publish them on Collingswood Patch's Announcements page and/or Events calendar.