I grew up in central New Jersey.  Kendall Park to be exact.  Our circle of family friends were largely transplanted New York Jews from Brooklyn and the Bronx.  This was a vibrant group of opinionated story and joke tellers who could laugh and argue with the best of them.  Many, if not most of the circle of friends, were natural performers for whom the spotlight was never bright or large enough.  Some of them, including my father, appeared in amateur stage productions over the years, but most of those took place before I was cognizant of what was going on.  But what I was aware of were the productions that…