The Sanford Meisner Center for the Arts opened in Spring 1995 with a mammoth nine play "One Act Festival".  Sanford Meisner was President, Jimmy Carville was VP, and Martin Barter was Artistic Director.  28 invited Meisner grads pitched in 900.00 each to finance the opening.  We produced 3-4 fully reviewed Main Stage plays each year, the last play being a memorable production of "Waiting for Lefty" in June of 2005.  Notable productions were:  "The Job" written/directed by Oscar nominee Lynn Mamet, and "Fallen Eagle: the untold story of Charles Lindberg" written/directed by the great Larry Cohen.  "Modigliani", "God's Country", "Adam and the Experts", and "The Day they Shot John Lennon" had nice runs as did a pair of plays we did with Tony/Grammy award winning playwright Steven Sater:  "Carbondale Dreams" and "In Search of Lost Wings". The Theater Company typically consisted of 25-35 dues paying members and a 5 member board.  For transparency we all watched each other audition, so the best audition got the role.  We ran it like a mini studio, with various committees running key areas:  Script Reading, Public Relations, Back of House, Production, Set Building, etc. The roped off chair you see in the front row is where Sandy sat, and after his death Feb 2nd, 1997 we retired it.  He attended every meeting and every performance until the end, and Sandy's funeral service was held here as well (I cried like a baby).  In the early days the Theater Company was separate from the Meisner/Carville school which was over on Vineland.  2nd year graduates (from any legit Meisner program) had to audition to be invited in.  Later the rules were relaxed and no audition was required, you just had to be a graduate of a 2 year program.