“I’ll bet I’d been in every empty building from here to Lansdale,” said Blumenthal, 78, of Blue Bell. “Then I got a call that the Ambler movie theater was for sale and my heart stopped. It seemed like the best possible site.”

But when he arrived at the 1928 theater to look it over, he had to think again. The dilapidated building—which has since undergone renovations, and is now run as a community-based nonprofit—needed more than $2 million in repairs.

“So I walked up and down the street and came across this karate studio,” he said. “And I thought: ‘This would be perfect.’ I called the Main Street Manager and found out it had been put up for sale the day before.”

Eight months later, on April 21, 1999, Act II Playhouse put on its first production.

“That night, I did my first curtain speech,” said Blumenthal. “And when I got onto the stage, I couldn’t talk because of the tears. The audience didn’t know what to do. Somebody yelled, ‘we love you Steve.’ And that was when I realized the dream had come true.

“It had been a whirlwind, but a joy.”

As quickly as the construction of the 130–seat theater commenced, Blumenthal’s plan to bring professional theater to the area was a long time coming. From 1951 to 1995, Blumenthal worked in advertising, eventually running his own agency. For more than four decades, he also participated in regional community theater. It was through his work with theater groups in the area that his passion for the art really took hold.

In the summer of 1992, Blumenthal founded Actors Community Theater, which performed at Gwynedd Mercy College. The next summer he had to find a new location at which the group could perform.

“I realized then that there is a market for theater in the area, that people don’t necessarily want to go into Philadelphia to see quality productions,” he said.

With this in mind, he developed the idea for a permanent Montgomery County location. But instead of a community theater, which utilizes volunteer actors, directors and staff, he opted to create a professional theater, in which at least 60 percent of the people working on a performance must be union. In short—everyone working on a production at Act II gets paid.

“I was in community theater for over 40 years,” said Blumenthal. “I know the difference between a community production and a professional production, and wanted to give people the best quality we could. And because of that, things just took off. People were thrilled to see the same actors performing close to home as they would if they went into the city.”

And, with the establishment of the theater, area residents started looking at Ambler as a destination. The town is now seeing a renaissance, with the establishment of new high-quality restaurants and boutiques. Blumenthal unabashedly takes some of the credit.

“We were the ones who started it,” he said. “We opened our doors and developers saw that a theater would bring people into the area.”

Though his original plan had been to act in and direct every show the theater produced, Blumenthal soon learned this was not a possibility. His role as Act II’s producing artistic director has been primarily behind the scenes (with the notable exception of his curtain speeches, and a brief performance in one of the productions as a character who he’s dubbed, “the grandfather who died by page 13”). Along with his staff, Blumenthal works to select plays that are appealing, but thought provoking. Blumenthal argues that not everyone wants to go to the theater to see a fun, light-hearted musical, and pushes the envelope with edgier, dramatic productions.

This year, Blumenthal got the opportunity to direct “Scotland Road,” a psychological drama that leaves the viewer to interpret the conclusion.

“We know we’re not going to appeal to everyone, so we try to incorporate a mix into each season,” he said. “But we also know that people want to see a production with meat on its bones.”

Today, eight years after it’s first production, Act II has more than 1300 subscribers, has received 23 Barrymore nominations and three Barrymore awards. Blumenthal said now there’s only one thing he’d like to do to complete his dream: teaching.

“If I could teach theater, that would be the ultimate experience,” he said. “I’d teach any number of things, acting, directing, producing. People don’t understand, they don’t know what it takes to put on a play. I’d love to have a part in that education.” For information about Act II Playhouse’s upcoming season, visit the Web site at www.act2.org. Act II Playhouse is located at 56 E. Butler Ave., Ambler, Pa. 19002.

  As an educator and an artist, Kirby Fredendall is making her mark in more ways than one.

“I didn’t always know I was going to be an artist. What I have always known is that the arts would be the defining force in my life,” said Fredendall.

Fredendall started out as pre-med student at Duke University. She went on to research art history in Italy and cooked up her culinary skills in London. Then, taking a turn for the life of an artist, Fredendall attended graduate school with a desire to work with children in the arts. She now teaches figure drawing at Solebury School in New Hope.

Teaching artists like Fredendall work to create an environment where children can dream beyond the challenges of the age, and imagine a place that adults could never conceive. As the world becomes increasingly more indivisible and interdependent, it is the creative, artistic mind that will see new prospects for civic solutions, improved economic systems and never before imagined relationships between diverse communities and individuals. “It’s wonderful to see kids each year who devote themselves to their artwork. Teaching forces me to delve into the study of art from a different point of view,” Fredendall said.

Blending a lyrical, New York School gesturalism with intense areas of pure hue, her paintings are a celebration of the versatility of color and reveal the depth of human experience. Fredendall said she is inspired by the process of making the visual image—by the random movement of wet acid as it etches the tin, or by paint as it interacts with wax. By gradually building opaque layers of paint and beeswax, Fredendall’s pieces portray a spiritual and emotional journey that represents closures and new openings in her life. Her rusty palette of antique greens and golds is a world apart from anything we see in modern life, the colors of other people’s memories.

“The layers and shifting space create a sense of looking into a ‘world’ of sorts, where faces, figures, and landscapes can be glimpsed—none of which I intentionally paint,” said Fredendall.

While tin paintings are her hallmark, Fredendall also experiments with paintings inspired by vintage and antique cookbooks. She settled on the theme of a woman’s role in procuring, cooking and serving food during her research of the postwar era of the ‘40s. These pieces will be on display at the Lambertville Public Library until April 10th.

Visit www.kirbyfredendall.com or www.newhopecollective.com to schedule an appointment to tour her studio or purchase work.