Five Things to Do This Week

Five Things to Do in Collingswood This Week: 12/10/12 to 12/15/12

Loads of family Christmas events are on tap in the borough this week, including the annual Parade of Lights—which starts at 7:30 tonight!

Tuesday, Dec. 11  at 7:28 p.m.—Scottish Rite Auditorium Directed by Dale Carey, the Collingswood Community Chorus will present its free, annual "Come On, It's Christmas!" performance. "The 50-voice chorus will present an evening filled with favorite songs of the season that you learned as a child, some brand new music of the holidy that you may not know yet, and old standards with brand new arrangements." Wednesday, Dec. 12—Dig This In its final sale of the year, Dig This is offering 12 percent off every item in the store, and an additional 12 percent discount on items of $200 or more to all of its Facebook friends.  Dec. 13-15, 20-22 at 7 p.m.; Dec. 16, 23 at 3 p.m.—Collings-Knight House Move throughout the Collings-Knight House and enjoy…

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I Am Collingswood

I Am Collingswood: Eileen Boyle

A Collingswood resident for more than 25 years, Eileen Boyle is a business owner, volunteer and one of the architects of the local arts scene as we know it.

It's no wonder that "welcome change" is a mantra for long-time Collingswood resident Eileen Boyle. She's weathered the changes in her own life gracefully, including raising children after the loss of her husband and starting her own business, all while helping Collingswood transform itself into the vital, artistic community we know today. An independent life coach and business consultant, Eileen moved her graphic arts business to Haddon Avenue in the late 1990s. Her work with Newton Colony Arts Bank helped revitalize the town, and she says Collingswood has sustained her through difficult times. Collingswood Patch: Can you tell me about your role in the redevelopment of 729 Haddon Ave., the building that now houses El Sitio and the Pop Shop…

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Fusing Snark and SciFi: 'Starcrash' at the Scottish Rite

Collingswood Community Theatre staged a benefit with a fun twist, involving beer, running commentary, and a little bit of David Hasselhoff.

"It wasn't nearly as horrible as I'd hoped it would be." That's pretty much the most complicated one-sentence review I've ever seen. The lights came up, and that's what Thomas Coombs of Collingswood turned to me and said. Collingswood Community Theatre presented Starcrash this past Thursday and Friday in the ballroom at the Scottish Rite. The 1978 science fiction film is a clear attempt to cash in on the success of Star Wars, and is both a) a blatant rip-off and b) gloriously, professionally, deliberately awful. Characters fall in and out of accents, the female lead traipses around in a bikini and heels for no discernible reason, and there are all sorts of awkward pauses and terrible editing choices. It also features some terrible hair, …

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Rain to Flood Scottish Rite—In a Good Way

A new rain garden represents one of many to come in town in advance of the April 21 Green Festival.

In advance of the April 21 Collingswood Green Festival, the borough will debut a working rain garden at the Scottish Rite Auditorium Tuesday at 7:30 a.m. Similar demonstrations will be a feature of the Green Festival, but the rain garden at the Scottish Rite is part of a larger beautification project underway at the site. “The idea is to show how useful and stunning rain gardens can be,” said Commissioner Joan Leonard in a statement. “We’re proud to be showing off such a great feature at the Scottish Rite.” A rain garden is a landscaping strategy designed to collect and manage stormwater runoff. When properly designed, it channels water away from areas where it can flood or damage a property and into places where it can be reabsorbed …

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Geoff DiMasi

7:27 am on Thursday, March 29, 2012

The next article lists that the rain garden was paid for by a grant from Rutgers University: http://collingswood.patch.com/articles/rise-of-a-rain-garden#photo-9435101   more ›

Scottish Rite Seeks Volunteers for Restoration Efforts

The venue is hosting a 7 p.m. meeting tonight to recruit skilled and unskilled help for landscaping and general handyman work.

It’s one of the 150 Best Buildings and Places in NJ, a venue where national and international entertainers regularly perform, and it’s right in our backyard. Now the Scottish Rite Auditorium is looking for help from its neighbors to refresh its majestic exterior. “We’re trying to reach out to the community to help us with this historic landmark, our beautiful venue,” said Scottish Rite Director Jerry Chambers. “We’re trying to find people with professional skills and an interest in the place.” At 7 p.m. this evening, the facility will host a general interest meeting to try to recruit volunteers who can lend a hand maintaining the building and its grounds. Maintenance is quite a task. Chambers is looking for skilled volunteers who can lend …

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The Music Man Debuts Friday at Scottish Rite

The popular musical features a "cast of thousands," plucked right from the borough.

This weekend, Collingswood Community Theatre (CCT) will revive the best-attended show in its nine-year history with the premiere of The Music Man at the Scottish Rite Theatre. CCT hopes this run will generate as much interest as it did in 2003, when the group set a single-show high-water mark of 800 audience members. Directed by Mary Baldwin, the cast is expansive, and includes more than 80 local performers of varying ages and theatrical experience. The plot centers on Harold Hill (played by Denny Matousch): a grifter who promises the residents of River City, Iowa that he can put them on the map by teaching their children music in just a few weeks. He intends for the con to run long just enough for him to collect the money and leave—but …

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Collingswood Says "Welcome" to The Machine

Tickets are still available to see the Pink Floyd tribute act perform this Saturday at the Scottish Rite Auditorium, 8-11.

Pink Floyd fans who didn’t get a ticket to see Roger Waters’ last swing through Philadelphia can catch the next best thing Saturday at the Scottish Rite Auditorium. Tickets are still available for The Machine performs Pink Floyd, a 20-year-old international touring act that promises “an authentic Floydian experience,” according to its website. Admission ranges from $29 to $34, and Camden County residents who provide proof of residency are eligible to purchase discounted tickets from the county store in the Echelon Mall (856-566-2920). The Machine does everything Pink, from hits to deep cuts, and has worked to perfect a repertoire accompanied by a full symphony orchestra. Its high-end stage show may have some audiences harkening back to the…

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Viewfinder: Book Club Welcomes Chris Matthews

Michael Smerconish's Book Club guest on Thursday, MSNBC's Chris Matthews, was welcomed by a sold-out audience at the Scottish Rite Auditorium.

Thursday evening, Michael Smerconish's Book Club hosted its first meeting of 2012. And, as promised, this year's club is living up to its quality reputation. In a sold-out show at the Scottish Rite Auditorium, which ran from 7 to 10 p.m. Thursday evening, Smerconish welcomed his first guest of the year, MSNBC's Chris Matthews. Matthews, whose presence generated a full house—including one man who claimed he and Matthews were schoolmates, and arrived with his old yearbook in tow—had much to talk about. Thursday's topic of discussion? Matthews' new book, Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero, which has become a New York Times bestseller since its late 2011 release. Guests filed into the Scottish Rite Auditorium with copies of the book, anxiously waiting…

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Chris Isaak to Bring Back Old Classics at Scottish RIte

After 25 years, the square-jawed rocker with the Brylcreem voice pays homage to the greats who inspired his musical approach.

In his decades-long musical career, singer-songwriter Chris Isaak is still probably best known as one of the top male sex symbols of the 1990s. In a span of eight years, the baby-faced crooner with the rockabilly haircut canoodled in the surf with Helena Christensen to the tune of “Wicked Game” and then leered like a cuckold at a pouty Letitia Casta in “Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing.” Wikipedia recalls that Isaak’s Gen-Y machismo was further cemented in a short-lived Showtime sitcom The Chris Isaac Show as well as a Super Bowl-themed episode of Friends. So concertgoers who pony up for his Dec. 16 show at the Scottish Rite Auditorium this Friday might be surprised to learn that Isaak is currently touring on the strength of tunes that predate …

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Theatre to Stage The Laramie Project

Collingswood Community Theatre will perform "The Laramie Project," a production based on the true story of Matthew Shepard, who was murdered for being a homosexual.

The true story of Matthew Shepard, murdered in 1998 for being a homosexual, is coming to Collingswood's stage, with a four-performance production of The Laramie Project. Performed by Collingswood Community Theatre (CCT), the production was written by Moisés Kaufman—and, according to the play's official website—is based on over 200 interviews the Tectonic Theater Project conducted with residents of Laramie, WY, where Shepard's body was found. "This play is about what happened to the town of Laramie, WyY, after Matthew Shepard was beaten, tortured and subsequently murdered," said Amy Henderson Riley, CCT director of The Laramie Project . "A Manhattan-based theater group (Tectonic Theater Project) went to Laramie, WY, a number of times to …

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