Upper Darby Summer Stage celebrates its 50th season

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Upper Darby Summer Stage, a youth theater program that counts Tina Fey and David Corenswet among its alumni, is celebrating its 50th season this weekend.

“It’s really like a full-fledged community theater, but it’s theater for young people and by young people,” said Harry Dietzler, founder and retired director of Summer Stage.

Dietzler, who has received a Barrymore Lifetime Achievement Award and an honorary doctorate from Villanova University, founded the theater program in 1976. More than 800 students and young people ages 9 to 35 participate in Summer Stage each summer, producing eight professional-quality shows.

Upper Darby Township provides scholarships to Upper Darby School District students to participate in the program. For students from across the region the participating fee is $450. The nonprofit also depends on fundraising and grants, and is part of the Upper Darby Arts and Education Foundation.

Dietzler said Summer Stage has shaped Upper Darby, and has put it “on the map as an arts community.”

“It gave lots of people an opportunity to experience the arts, maybe, who wouldn’t have had it. And nowadays, the township is very diverse,” he said. “The number keeps rising, but it’s like 75 languages spoken in the schools, and a lot of those kids are now coming to Summer Stage. So I think that’s really cool, because they’re experiencing Broadway and children’s theater and all that kind of stuff, and sharing it with the community.”

Dietzler said the performances are also a way for parents and the community to celebrate young people’s achievements.

“To come to a show and sit there and cheer on your your son or daughter, and then bring them flowers afterwards or take them out, you know, it’s just a great family experience to celebrate your child and for the child to be celebrated, like, ‘I’m special, like, look what I did. I accomplished this,’” he said. “And that just builds community.”

‘Sharing the joy’

According to a 2022 article in “Arts & Health: An International Journal for Research, Policy and Practice,” theater programs increase participants’ social competencies by fostering empathy, bolstering social communication skills and expanding tolerance for people with different ideas and experiences.

“It teaches people even experiences about relationships and things like that that happen on stage,” Dietzler said. “And you have to work on a character, and you think, ‘How does this person feel?’ And it’s also a way, and especially in our program, we really stress that the kids are sharing what they have inside of them with an audience … In a way, it’s a service, like we’re reaching out to an audience. We’re sharing the joy that we have.”

He said the program also encourages students to learn how to collaborate and create something as part of a larger group.

“There’s nothing like working on a show to develop teamwork  … there’s no deadline like opening day of a show, like there’s going to be an audience,” he said. “It’s almost like the final game of your season, whatever team you’re on, and you’re in the playoffs.”

For current Summer Stage students Karthik Malickel Ramakrishnan, 16, and Amalyah Callahan, 17, the program has transformed them on and off stage.

“Summer Stage just makes you feel so happy and like so goal oriented, in a sense,” Malickel Ramakrishnan said. “Because you have to put on a show in three weeks, you have to work together, but you also want to have fun and spend time with each other.”

He said the program “gives you a new way to think about community and even performing.”

“It’s never one individual or one lead character or one person in the ensemble,” Malickel Ramkrishnan said. “It’s everyone working together as a full group. And I think Summer Stage really focuses on community rather than individualism.”

Callahan said her Summer Stage experience is informing her college search.

“I’m going to always be looking for that kind of community that Summer Stage has given me,” she said. “There’s no way to replace this kind of community, but it’s something I’m always going to look for when I go on college visits. I will always be looking for that sense of home that I have at Summer Stage … I’m going to be looking to connect with people, looking to find that kind of connection. And I wouldn’t be looking for that without Summer Stage.”

She said the program has broadened her artistic and personal horizons.

“I think it forces you to be uncomfortable, but that is such an important thing,” she said. “It forces you to put yourself on stage in front of these big, sold-out audiences. It forces you to meet new people because there’s so many people to meet, and there’s so many people of different backgrounds. It forces you to get out of your comfort zone just the right way … so that you find yourself and you have so many opportunities to become a leader.”

Success beyond Summer Stage

Dietzler said the program has had a lasting impact on the children and young people over the past 50 years. It counts among its alumni several famous people in show business, including Tina Fey, Monica Horan and David Corenswet, star of the new “Superman” movie. Other former students have gone on to apply what they’ve learned about set and lighting design and tech theater to full-time careers backstage, Dietzler said.

“I’ve had a lot of jobs in my life but directing children’s theater at Upper Darby Summerstage might have been my favorite,” Fey said in a statement. “Putting up shows with sixty kids that then would be seen by five hundred little kids every morning – we were really providing something fun and wholesome to the community.”

Corenswet said in a statement that he made close friends while performing at Upper Darby Summer Stage, and learned a “valuable lesson” about enjoying the process.

“Dream of the leading role, compete hard for it, then let it go and enjoy the chorus,” he said. “Dance your feet off in the ensemble. You may have your solo moments center stage in life, but if you’re lucky, you’ll spend most of your time surrounded by a chorus of friends and family, singing in harmony together. The culture, the leadership, and the people of Summer Stage instilled that truth in us — and continue to remind us, summer after summer.”

For Dietzler, some of the most important alumni stories come from former students who shared how Summer Stage helped them develop careers in other industries.

“One year we did a show called ‘Inherit the Wind’, and it was two lawyers arguing on stage,” he said. “And one of the lawyers told me later, as an actor, he was a lawyer, he became a lawyer, and he said the first case that I ever tried was on that stage.”

Dietzler recalled a nurse who was able to connect with a patient through a song she had learned at Summer Stage, and alumni who are now teachers who told him they apply the performing skills they learned in the program in the classroom every day.

For the organization’s 50th season celebration, more than 175 of those alumni are returning to put on a show Friday and Saturday nights highlighting some of the best productions in the theater’s history.

“It’s a night for alumni to reminisce and get together, but it’s also for the community to kind of celebrate what’s been for 50 years and to look forward and say we want to support it for the next 50 years,” Dietzler said.

Tickets are available for the weekend 50th anniversary performance. Summer Stage will have several other productions throughout the summer that community members can purchase tickets to attend.

Celia Bernhardt contributed to this story. 

Editor’s Note: This story is part of a series that explores the impact of creativity on student learning and success. WHYY and this series are supported by the Marrazzo Family Foundation, a foundation focused on fostering creativity in Philadelphia youth, which is led by Ellie and Jeffrey Marrazzo. WHYY News produces independent, fact-based news content for audiences in Greater Philadelphia, Delaware and South Jersey.