Somerset County • Community Theater

Sherwood Forest Moves to Hillsborough, and It Refuses to Behave

Forget the version you learned in school. This Robin Hood trips over his own bow. His Merry Men bicker like siblings on a road trip. Sherwood Forest, in this telling, is less a haven for justice and more a stage for controlled chaos. The Somewhat True Tale of Robin Hood, written by Mary Lynn Dobson, borrows its rhythm from Monty Python and its heart from community theater at its scrappiest and most sincere. There’s slapstick. There’s snark. There are moments where the actors seem to notice you watching, and address you directly, which is exactly the point.

Community theater has a way of turning silly scripts into something oddly moving, mostly because everyone on that stage is there for love, not a paycheck. That kind of energy tends to travel straight into the audience, and it’s a big reason this particular playhouse has kept its doors open for close to sixty years.

The theater company itself started somewhere else entirely, back in 1967, when a group tied to the PTA at Van Derveer Elementary School in Somerville decided to stage a single production a year. One show became three. Three shows eventually included a full musical, Guys and Dolls, performed in 1971 to a company still without a permanent stage of its own.

That changed in 1980, when the group finally purchased the old schoolhouse on Amwell Road. Five years of volunteer sweat went into converting a century old classroom into a working theater, and in January of 1985 the doors opened to a full house. The first production in the new space was, fittingly, Guys and Dolls again. That anniversary quietly turned forty in 2025, and the momentum hasn’t slowed since. Now in its 59th season, Somerset Valley Players remains one of the few truly volunteer driven, non profit theaters left in Somerset County, and it still runs on the same formula that got it here. Affordable tickets. Ambitious programming. A cast made up almost entirely of neighbors.

You’ll find the theater at 689 Amwell Road, also known as Route 514, in Hillsborough, New Jersey 08844. It’s air conditioned, wheelchair accessible, and unmistakably charming in a way that new construction never quite manages. Audiences consistently rate the experience highly, and it isn’t hard to see why once you’ve sat through a show there yourself.

Seats do go quickly for weekend shows, especially closer to the final performances, so it’s worth locking in tickets ahead of time rather than hoping for a walk up spot. You can reserve seats directly through the official box office, browse the full season lineup on the theater’s website, or get exact directions if you’ve never made the drive up Route 514 before.

A hundred year old schoolhouse turned into a theater. A Robin Hood who can’t quite keep his story straight. Somerset County’s stage is warmed up, and it’s waiting on an audience.