On a quiet stretch of stage in Hackensack, inside the Hackensack Meridian Health Theatre, a familiar ritual unfolds nightly: grandparents argue over dinner, parents wrestle with letting go, and a family tries, in its imperfect way, to love fiercely enough to last. At a time when regional theatre companies across New Jersey are fighting not just to survive but to remind audiences why live storytelling still matters, The Company Theatre Group’s revival of Joe DiPietro’s Over the River and Through the Woods arrives as both an artistic offering and a statement of purpose. For longtime Company member Elizabeth Nicholas, who balances a life as a teacher, and her day job with her work on stage, the production feels less like performance and more like testimony.
Nicholas had been waiting years for this moment. “In 2020, they asked if I was interested in playing the wife of Teddy Coluca’s character, Frank,” she recalled recently. “It was a no-brainer. I love Teddy, his work, performing, the story is beautiful, and I love The Company.” Then the pandemic intervened, shelving the production just as it began. When the opportunity returned, it carried with it the weight of what had been lost and what had endured.
DiPietro’s play, which premiered Off Broadway in 1998 and has since become a staple for regional theatres, centers on a young man whose career opportunity threatens to pull him away from the gravitational force of his Italian-American grandparents. But for Nicholas, the script’s emotional terrain is not theoretical. “There are probably more moments that resonate in this play for me than in others performing experiences I’ve had,” she said. “Two specific scenes occur that I have to focus on being very present, as they mirror moments with my own dad and my son.”
That dual identity — actor and parent, teacher and artist — shapes Nicholas’s understanding of the play’s central tension. Her own son is graduating from college, preparing to step into a life that will carry him beyond the daily intimacy of home. “The feeling of letting go tears at my heart,” she said. “It’s a gift to love someone so much we want them to go and grow, yet stay at the same time.”
The rehearsal room, she said, became a place where personal histories merged into collective purpose. The cast includes Teddy Coluca, widely known to television audiences as Lester the doorman on Only Murders in the Building and for his recurring role on The Blacklist, alongside Andrea Prendamano, Paul Whelihan, and fellow Company members whose roots in the regional theatre scene run deep. “From day one we all had a mutual goal: tell this beautiful story,” Nicholas said. “We’ve literally laughed and cried together. It’s been a fabulous process.”
The Company Theatre Group itself has long been part of New Jersey’s cultural fabric, one of many organizations that sustain a theatrical ecosystem often overshadowed by New York but no less vital. Their productions rely on a delicate balance of professional rigor and community trust — a commitment Nicholas understands intimately. “The only way to tell a story honestly,” she said, “is by drawing on our own life experiences. Anyone can memorize lines, but it’s different when you dig deep and share the story.”
In the classroom, where she teaches young performers just beginning to imagine lives in the arts, Nicholas emphasizes the same principle. “Be yourself,” she tells them. “I don’t believe in perfect; I believe in commitment to the process.” She watches as students confront their own fears of vulnerability and emerge stronger. “Hopefully, they gain a bit more confidence and empowerment to want to do it again,” she said. “And above all, always have fun.”
That philosophy carries her through each performance, where the line between actor and witness blurs. Night after night, she steps into a family’s story that feels uncannily like her own, trusting that audiences will recognize something of themselves there, too. “I think people will see someone they know in one of these characters,” she said, “and hope it elicits conversations of memories with their own families.”
Photo features –Teddy Coluca, Elizabeth Nicholas, Andrea Prendamano, Paul Whelihan
Over the River and Through the Woods runs March 7 through March 15 at the Hackensack Meridian Health Theatre in Hackensack, presented by The Company Theatre Group and directed by Lou Scarpati. The production stars Teddy Coluca, Joey Nasta, Elizabeth Nicholas, Andrea Prendamano, Veronica Shea, and Paul Whelihan. Tickets and information are available at HacPac.org.
