Writing “Pitman’s Broadway Theatre at 100: The Story of a Beloved Landmark and the Town That Saved It” was personal for Richard Eldredge.
He’s a fourth-generation Pitmanite, a fact which he found out through the book project.
“I was able to track family back to my great-grandfather,” Eldredge said. “I thought I was third [generation].”
In 2023, Eldredge, who now lives in Atlanta, was home for his aunt’s 90th birthday celebration. He stepped inside the Broadway Theatre for the first time in 35 years and, he admits, “it was emotional.”
“It was beautiful – and clearly had been fully restored,” he recalled.
And as an arts journalist for 35 years, Eldredge needed to know, “How did this happen?”
“The theater had gone to a sheriff’s sale in 2006,” he learned. Eldredge says Pitman native Peter Slack bought it and then sank “a million dollars into it. And the entire town came out to help restore it.
“Everything from scraping gum off the floor to refinishing the seats and pulling out old carpeting to polishing brass.
“It was astonishing to me.”
Then the wheels started turning for the longtime journalist. In the author’s note, he shares that his first taste of journalism was as a sixth grader at Pitman Middle School where he wrote for the Message newspaper. He mentions Claudia Cuddy, the advisor for the newspaper, and Marsha Hahn, the school’s media center director.
“I thought the theater is coming up on its 100th anniversary and it may be a perfect time for a book,” Eldredge said.
“Pitman’s Broadway Theatre at 100” is an engaging story that transports readers through a century of the Broadway Theatre’s colorful history.
As Eldredge will tell you, he sifted through 100 years of digital archived newspapers. The Pitman Grove Review, a weekly newspaper from 1903 to 1970, was only found on microfilm at the Gloucester County Historical Society.
“You literally had to hand crank,” he explained, noting microfilm was the bane of journalists’ existence back in the day. “They are lovely and still work, but they are very antiquated.”
The Broadway Theatre, which debuted on May 19, 1926, created an economic engine for Pitman’s downtown business district. The beautiful French revival-style, 1,200-seat movie palace became a community center for cooking demonstrations, prom nights, World War II bond fundraising, and screenings of Hollywood epics.
“Remarkably in 100 years, the Broadway has only had four owners,” Eldredge said. “Ralph Wilkins was the first owner operator of the theater with his dad in 1926. He ran the theater to his death in 1971.
“That was a big chunk of time.”
And through research, he discovered Wilkins “didn’t really talk to the press much.” Eldredge found only three occasions: First, when the theatre opened in 1926, then when he installed a pricey $10,000-dollar General Electric air-conditioning system in 1937, and then in 1969 when he was trying to get Sunday blue laws overturned so the theatre could open on Sundays.
“There was a lot of mystery surrounding Wilkins,” he said.
Eldredge got in touch with Bobbi Snelbaker Wilkins. She grew up in Pitman Grove and she married Ralph Wilkins’ grandson, Robert Wilkins, in 1961.
“She had this sort of insider’s vantage point,” he explained, noting, Bobbi lovingly referred to him as “Pop Pop.” “She not only was a girl, who grew up [in Pitman], but then she married into the Wilkins’ family. She got to see private moments and got to know him on a personal level in addition to him being a movie theatre operator.
“Her insights are so invaluable in the book. She talks about him as a person and what he was like. He always wore a grey suit. He stood in the back of the theatre. At some point in the book, she says she doesn’t know if he ever sat down because he was always in the back overseeing everything and making sure everything was running smoothly.”
Under the direction of Wilkins, Abbott and Costello, Jackie Gleason, Mickey Rooney, George Burns and Gracie Allen, and Bob Hope and Bing Crosby were among the rising vaudeville acts to perform on the Pitman theater’s stage.
But with the arrival of shopping malls — including the nearby Deptford Mall — in the 1970s, Pitman’s once-thriving business district started to flounder. In response, the theatre’s second owner Clayton Platt reinvented the theater as a live country music venue, bringing the biggest stars from Nashville’s scene to South Jersey, including Tammy Wynette, Kitty Wells, Don Williams, Freddy Fender, Mel Tillis, George Jones, Johnny Cash and Loretta Lynn.
Sadly, by 2005, the decaying Broadway’s peacock neon marquee was dark and the landmark fell into bankruptcy. Scheduled to be sold at a sheriff’s sale, three generations of Pitmanites banded together to save, preserve, and fully renovate the borough’s beloved crown jewel.
On a Saturday in February 2024, Eldredge conducted his first interviews — Peter and Jill Slack (current owners of the theatre), Walt Madison (who painted the entire theatre) and Darryl Blood (current general manager of the theatre) — for the book at the McCowan Memorial Library.
It was the same library he used to ride his bike to after school as a child to check out books or bring books back home to read.
“It was really powerful for me to do the interviews in a place that nurtured my love of reading as a kid,” he said.
During one of the interviews, a couple who was unfamiliar to Eldredge sat down on a nearby couch, patiently waiting for his conversation to conclude. It turned out to be current mayor, Michael Razze, and his wife Tammy. They had heard about his project.
“They shared wonderful stories,” Eldredge said. “Tammy had been in the Miss Pitman Pageant at the Broadway and when they were dating in high school, Michael would sit in the box to watch and cheer her on.
“They were both part of the [theater’s] restoration effort.”
Eldredge recalled on a flight home after, he thought the mayor would be perfect for the introduction of his book.
He asked and the mayor said yes. “He was very gracious,” Eldredge said.
As the Broadway prepares to celebrate its 100th anniversary in May 2026, the landmark is thriving, drawing 100,000 theatergoers a year to Pitman for its popular line-up of Broadway musical mainstage shows and live concerts.
Deeply researched and featuring over 40 interviews, “Pitman’s Broadway Theatre at 100” is both the history of an iconic building and the inspiring story of small town America over the last century — its struggles, successes and the residents who united to save a beloved piece of its history.
In September, Eldredge, along with his graphic designer Paolo R. Aguila, previewed the book, which was published through their publishing company Ardmore Avenue Publishing, at the Pitman Craft Show. The book was officially released at a free community program at the Broadway Theatre. There was also a publication-date celebration at Words Matter bookstore and a Zoom panel discussion, which included the administrator of Old Images of Pitman NJ, a local Facebook group.
“Pitman’s Broadway Theatre at 100” is a love letter to anyone who has ever chucked a Milk Dud from the Broadway balcony during a Saturday matinee. Eldredge saw his very first film, “Disney’s The Jungle Book,” at the Broadway. He has been in love with storytelling and his hometown theatre ever since.
