12 Miles West Theatre Company

History:
12 Miles West Theatre Company was born in the summer of 1992 when a group of local theater artists gathered informally to share ideas and collaborate on projects. We presented our first performance in a rented church space under the name "Montclair Theatre Project". By the end of our first season, we had established ourselves as the only resident theatre company in the state. We soon went on to receive six awards in the Star-Ledger's Theatre Critics' list of the season's theatrical bests where we were cited as "...one of the most promising theatre troupes in the state." In the fall of 2004, we lost our lease to our long-time home in Montclair, and we moved to the Historic Center Theatre in the heart of downtown Bloomfield. Our new home will eventually have a 199 seat theatre, and intimate 99 seat theatre, rehearsal suite, office suite, multiple classrooms, shop and storage space, as well as a comfortable lobby area.

Over the past seasons, we have garnered several Star-Ledger Critic's awards and nominations and have received consistently excellent reviews from both the press and our audiences. The Star-Ledger called our 1999/2000 production of "The Glass Menagerie" the best of the 5 productions of the play seen in New Jersey in the past 4 years. Our first musical Inside Out was named on of the ten best productions in the state in 2000. Bob Rendell of Talkin' Broadway says of our 2003-04 production of Nicky Silver's "Fit to Be tied" "12 Miles West proves again to be a valuable resource to Jersey theatre goers." Last season's world premiere musical "One Way Ticket to Hell" broke all box office records, and was part of our New Jersey Playwright's Festival of New Plays, which received a Citation of Excellence by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.