The Chester Performing Arts Project

The Chester Performing Arts Project was part of Paul Fejko's vision for the City of Chester to have a world-class performing arts district that included a music venue, a theatre, a dance company, a performing arts library, and a radio station. He took seriously his call to bring to life one portion of that vision (the André Café Acoustique) which he did successfully for nearly 20 years. Below is his letter to the community, sharing his vision.

The city of Chester, PA has a rich history starting back in pre-colonial times through a very prosperous moment at the turn of the 20th century (until the 1950's) as the region's premier ship building center.

The city fell on very hard times as all industrial cities did in the 1960's and remained rather depressed until the mid 80's when little by little, people thought it proper and profitable to begin reforming the town.

Now, as the rebirth of Chester is in full swing, we have decided to create a Performing Arts District. At this point, we are planning 6 theatres - an Opera House, and Orchestra Hall, a Chamber Music Hall, a Theatre dedicated to Classical and Modern Dance, a Black Box Theatre and a Cabaret (the "André Café Acoustique" , now in service!). We envision also a Performing Arts Library and possibly an all Arts talk radio station as well as eventually a Performing Arts School.

While the classical arts will of course be well served in this project, our real mission is to find and nurture new creators - writers, composers, choreographers, poets, stage directors, cineasts, etc. We will look within the local community and the region for those voices, and then we will look nationally and internationally as well.

Our intention is to form a new Theatre Company, Opera Company, Orchestra and a Dance Company composed of professionals who would aide those creators in realizing their goals.

This is the heart of the Chester Performing Arts Project - very high quality performance of new work. Too often, creators do not have access to good performance of their work. This can be very discouraging and influences some to simply stop. This is an intolerable waste of talent.

This is obviously an enormous undertaking (there is the need to raise about 35 million dollars), however, the politicians of the city and also of the State of Pennsylvania understand the strength of the arts in community building and enrichment and are in full support of this endeavor.

May the arts enrich your life in extraordinary ways.

- Paul Fejko