Stars Under The Stars: It Happened In Cherry Hill!

Near the intersection of Brace Road and Bortons Mill Road in Cherry Hill sits a pagoda with a stylized roof. If you stand there, squint a bit and allow your imagination to roam free you may begin to see a colorful, three pole circus tent and some bright lights.

That tent stood at what is now Challenge Grove Park and under it, each night throughout the summer some of the greatest names in entertainment performed for audiences of up to 2,500. Stars like Milton Berle, Mickey Rooney, Diahann Carroll, Howard Keel, Don Ameche, Betty Grable, Angela Lansbury and Lee Remick appeared in Broadway musicals. And equally big names like Duke Ellington, Simon & Garfunkel, Smokey Robinson, Jose Feliciano, Ray Charles, The Four Seasons and the legendary Judy Garland appeared in concert. It all happened beneath the tent not far from where the pagoda now stands.

This was the Camden County Music Fair, a place that magically appeared for twelve weeks each summer presenting a new show every week in a makeshift theater-in-the-round with a recessed center stage that sat much like the center ring of the big top. The performers at these events were often hustled from their bare-bones dressing rooms up and down aisles and on and off the stage as acts and scenes changed. 

The place was called Camden County Music Fair because it sat on county property but it was actually run by Music Fair Productions under the direction of  show biz impresarios Lee Guber, Shelly Gross and Frank Ford. At their peak, this triumvirate reportedly ran six tent operations along the east coast that hosted six companies. Each company would play a tent for a week and then move to another tent for a six week tour. While it was touring it would reherse a second show which it would do for the second half of a twelve week season. The dance and vocal chorus would be the same for the two shows, but the principals (the stars) would change. 

Judy in Cherry Hill, 1967

On Broadway, this was what was known as "summer stock" or the "straw hat circuit." The circuit began because Broadway theaters were once shuttered during the summer since they were not air conditioned. So, shows that were no longer on Broadway (but were still considered hits or classics) moved into the tents. It could get quite hot under the tent but at least you could reap the benefits of evening summer breezes. Still, if a thunderstorm came along, it could get dicey. But the show almost always went on.

As far as we can tell, the Camden County Music Fair operated from about the late 1950s up until the early 1970s. Eventually, Guber, Gross and Ford shuttered three tent theaters (including Camden County) and  enclosed their operations in Valley Forge, Westbury, NY and Shady Grove, Maryland. Those three permanent venues became what was left of Music Fair Productions. Now, they are gone as well. Today, at Challenge Grove Park you won't even find so much as a marker commemorating this once hustling attraction.

When Judy Garland appeared at the Music Fair in 1967 she was actually rehearsing what later became her comeback concert at New York's storied Palace Theater. Judy brought her son Joey and daughter Liza along and they performed on stage with their mom in Cherry Hill. After the show each night Judy was a regular at the bar at Henry's across from Garden State Park on Haddonfield Road. Two years later Judy was dead, the result of a drug overdose. She was 47.