Middletown Folk Festival  The Middletown, New Jersey, Folk Festival, which ran from 1968-1984, was a folk music and crafts event which attempted to show to local audiences the variety and breadth of American folk music. It was conceived and produced by Marlene and Dick Levine, who after attending the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island and the Fox Hollow Folk Festival in Petersburgh, New York, wanted to have a festival in their own community using local facilities. Marlene and Richard met in college where together, they became interested in the Folk Revival of the 1950’s. After Marlene graduated and Richard completed dental school, they settled in Hazlet, NJ, where Richard opened his practice and where they would raise their family. During this time, the two often traveled to Greenwhich Village in NYC where they frequented the folk club of Israel Young, seeing such performers as Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul and Mary and Pete Seeger. Soon, Richard and Marlene started performing themselves, Richard on guitar, concertina and a variety of other instruments and Marlene the autoharp. Eventually, they met two other couples who were playing folk music and starting in 1962, they gathered monthly to share songs. They called these gatherings hootnannies and was their first change to realize that music was more than performing, but rather a chance to come together with others in community. In time, the Levines began attending folk festivals; initially Newport and then Fox Hollow. In 1967, they determined to bring their love of folk music and community to the community where they lived (which was now Middletown, NJ), and they made plans for a folk concert which was held in June, 1967. They called it the $.99 Hootnanny. Response to the concert was so positive that beginning in 1968, they produced the Middletown Folk Festival. The festival consisted of a series of folk music concerts, workshops, a children's activity area and numerous crafts exhibits. In the first year 700 people attended. The Middletown Recreation Department provided support and services including the use of a municipal park with a mobile stage with the local Kiwanis and Junior Woman's club organizations handling the food concession. The festival was a community event with a true community flavor and family appeal with most of the attendees from the local area, with over 33,000 attending over the 17-year period in which the festival took place. This excerpt from the 1969 festival program (June 28, 1969) articulates the mission of the festival:  "What we are trying to do here today is to show you some of the tremendously varied kinds of folk music that people play for their own enjoyment right here in the Middletown area.