The Bergen Performing Arts Center

Bringing Creative Vitality to Northern New Jersey

The Bergen PAC theater

Russ Berrie was passionately committed to fostering arts and culture in New Jersey and for many years provided operating and capital support to the John Harms Center, one of the major theatres in northern New Jersey that sponsored live performances of many well-known and talented musicians and artists. The John Harms Center closed several years ago due to excessive debt.

Under new board leadership and with a challenge grant from the Russell Berrie Foundation, it has reopened as the Bergen Performing Arts Center, or bergenPAC. The Foundation’s challenge grant will provide a total of $3 million in matching funds, once bergenPAC has raised an equal amount. This is part of a $15 million capital endowment fund-raising campaign that the Center is undertaking to build long-term financial stability. The Foundation awarded the first million dollars of its challenge grant in the summer of 2005.

The bergenPAC auditorium will be renamed “Russell Berrie Hall” in honor of the Foundation’s seed gift.

The mission of bergenPAC is to make the live performing arts accessible to the entire population; and to build a creative home that guides and liberates the imagination of young people, inspires and expands the lives of adults, and attracts established and emerging artists of excellence and relevance.

This year’s exciting calendar of programs includes artists ranging from the Michael Bolton, and the Flying Karamazov Brothers, to Art Garfunkel and Bob Newhart.

In addition to performances, education has an important role at bergenPAC. Its expanded community programs serve area schools by bringing the magic of live theatrical performances, master classes with visiting artists, and skills training in the performing and recording arts directly to students. In addition, the new performing arts school at bergenPAC offers professional-level acting, music, dance and confidence-building skills to underserved and at-risk children.

"It's a major grant that we've worked on the past year and we're just incredibly excited," said bergenPAC President Frank Huttle III. "It's a demonstration that we're here to stay."

http://www.bergenpac.org