PINK
Here is a roundup of arts events taking place around New Jersey, through Oct. 3.
MUSIC
• Sheryl Crow was impressed with she began opening shows for Pink, Aug. 10. “Not kidding … this woman blew me away!!,” she posted on social media. “Not only is @pink’s voice insane, and not only does she fly through the air WHILE she is singing, she makes everyone in the room feel seen and loved! … And there is not one thing about her that doesn’t ring true. What an amazing artist and woman!! Such an honor to play for her audience!”
Crow has remained on the road with Pink and will open for her again, Oct. 3 at 6:30 p.m. at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford. Joining them will be the Irish rock band The Script, and DJ KidCutUp.
This will be the stadium’s second-to-last concert of the year; Travis Scott will perform on Oct. 9.
• Bruce Hornsby & the Noisemakers will perform at The Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, Oct. 1 at 7:30 p.m., and The Scottish Rite Auditorium in Collingswood, Oct. 2 at 7:30 p.m. The shows will celebrate the 25th anniversary of Hornsby’s Spirit Trail double album and also feature an opening set by the improvisational trio Heavy MakeUp, featuring Edie Brickell, CJ Camerieri and Trever Hagen.
The cover of the album,”Once More: Jenni Muldaur & Teddy Thompson Sings the Great Country Duets.”
• The Hudson West Music Festival will take place at Nimbus Arts Center in Jersey City, Sept. 28 from noon to 10 p.m., with the duo of Jenni Muldaur & Teddy Thompson (backed by multi-instrumentalist David Mansfield) headlining, and other performers including Lily Henley, Adam Falcon, Christine Santelli & Heather Hardy, Ed Snodderly, Joe Crookston, Jared Tyler and Paul Sachs. The festival also will feature workshops led by these artists and others, and a street festival featuring songs for children, jamming, and more.
Muldaur and Thompson’s 2023 album Once More features their versions of hit duets recorded by country teams such as George Jones and Tammy Wynette, and Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn. Click HERE for a 2022 review of them in concert.
• Audacy’s 11th annual “We Can Survive” concert, which will take place at The Prudential Center in Newark on Sept. 28 at 7 p.m., will feature Justin Timberlake along with New Kids on the Block, Tate McRae, Benson Boone, Khalid and Isabel LaRosa.
Audacy is an audio content and entertainment company, active in the fields of radio, podcasting and more. According to a press release, “A portion of the event’s proceeds will benefit Audacy’s longstanding I’m Listening partner, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), and their life-saving work of delivering education, loss support, advocacy efforts and community-based programs, including their ongoing public service campaign, ‘Talk Away the Dark,’ which raises awareness of how to spot the warning signs for suicide and having real conversations that connect people to help.”
As part of his Forget Tomorrow World Tour, Timberlake will return to The Prudential Center, Oct. 8 at 7:30 p.m., for a show of his own.
LUCIE ARNAZ
• As part of the Kean Stage series, singer and actress Lucie Arnaz will perform at Enlow Recital Hall at Kean University in Hillside, Sept. 29 at 7 p.m., in a songs-and-storytelling show titled “I Got the Job! Songs From My Musical Past.”
According to promotional material, in the show, Arnaz “returns to her theater roots, looking back at some of the roles she has had on stages throughout the world. From her first role at 14 as The Cheshire Cat in Alice In Wonderland to a grandmother hanging upside down on a trapeze while singing about the preciousness of life in Pippin, Lucie and Musical Director Ron Abel offer audiences this brand new concert sharing stories and songs that Lucie has long been known for.”
• Russell Malone — the great jazz guitarist and William Paterson University music professor who died of a heart attack on Aug. 23, at the age of 60 — had been scheduled to headline the multi-city Middlesex County Jazz Festival‘s Metuchen show, which will take place Sept. 28 from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at Metuchen Plaza at New and Pearl streets. That slot in which he had been scheduled to play will now be devoted to a tribute to him, featuring members of his quartet (pianist Rick Germanson, bassist Vince Du Pont and drummer Neal Smith) with his longtime friend Mark Whitfield on guitar.
The Mariel Bildsten Septet, The Metuchen High School Jazz Ensemble and Metuchen High School Chamber Orchestra, and Prāna Arts will also perform.
The Middlesex County Jazz Festival has started already and also will include free shows in New Brunswick, Sept. 28; and Woodbridge, Sept. 29. For the complete schedule, visit middlesexcountyjazzfestival.org.
EBRU YILDIZ
SUZANNE VEGA
• Having recently released the nightmarish rock song “Rats” (to be included an upcoming album) as a single (watch video below), Suzanne Vega will perform with guitarist Gerry Leonard at The South Orange Performing Arts Center, Sept. 28 at 8 p.m. Vega plans to include some songs from the upcoming album in her set, as well.
• The New Jersey Festival Orchestra, conducted by David Wroe, will perform at St. Helen’s Church in Westfield, Sept. 27 at 7 p.m.; and The Sieminski Theatre in Basking Ridge, Sept. 29 at 2:30 p.m. Both concerts will feature Tan Dun’s Crouching Tiger Concerto (featuring music composed for the 2000 film “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”) with Mo Mo on cello.
The orchestra also will perform Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 in E major, Sept. 27; and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (arr. Yu), Sept. 29.
• Peter Bradley Adams, the Nashville-based singer-songwriter who began his career as a member of the duo eastmountainsouth but has been releasing solo albums for almost 20 years now, will perform at Spanish Pavillion in Harrison, Oct. 3 at 6 p.m. (For a chance to win two tickets, send an email to njartscontest@gmail.com by 11 a.m. Sept. 30 with the word “Adams” in the subject line.)
MUSIC/VISUAL ARTS
• The free, annual Hoboken Fall Arts and Music Festival will take place Sept. 29 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., with painters and sculptors displaying their work on Washington Street and music on three stages by the all-female salsa band Lulada Club; the Ebony Hillbillies, who play old-timey country and jazz and describe themselves as “the last African-American String Band in America”; soul/R&B group Men of Soul; and others including Paper Anniversary, The Young Picassos, The Dracu-Las and Allison Strong. There will also be children’s entertainment, food vendors and more.
Charlie Chaplin and Jackie Coogan in “The Kid.”
MUSIC/FILM
• Marc Ribot, the inventive guitarist who has worked with artists such as Tom Waits and Elvis Costello, will perform at The Vogel at The Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, Sept. 29 at 7 p.m. As part of the show, he will play the solo guitar score he wrote for the 52-minute 1921 Charlie Chaplin film, “The Kid,” to accompany a screening of it.
FILM
• In celebration of Bruce Springsteen’s 75th birthday (which was Sept. 23), The Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music at Monmouth University in West Long Branch will present an event titled “Springsteen on Screen: From the Vault with Thom Zimny,” Sept. 28 at 7:30 p.m. at the university’s Pollak Theatre. According to a press release, Zimny, who is a longtime Springsteen associate, “will screen Springsteen footage and discuss his work documenting, preserving, and interpreting Springsteen’s legendary, 50-plus year career.”
E Street Band drummer Max Weinberg will also participate in the event.
VISUAL ARTS
• The Perkins Center for the Arts in Collingswood will offer a one-day-only bus tour “to introduce roadtrippers and art lovers to unique outsider art creations hidden throughout South Jersey private homes, yards, and public spaces,” according to a press release. Folklorist Marion Jacobson and Sally Willowbee (author of “Found Artists: On the Country Roads, Side Streets and Back Alleys of South Jersey”) will lead the tour, during which some of the artists will discuss their creations.
The tour will take place from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sept. 29, with a stop for lunch at a local restaurant.
DANIEL QUADRINO
THEATER
• The Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn will kick off its 2024-25 season with “Jersey Boys,” the popular jukebox musical about Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons, who had a remarkable string of hits in the ’60s and ’70s. Previews will start on Oct. 2, with the official opening night on Oct. 6 and the last show on Nov. 3.
Daniel Quadrino, who will play Valli, has appeared on Broadway in “The Who’s Tommy,” “Wicked,” “Newsies” and “Bye Bye Birdie.”
• Two River Theater in Red Bank will present “American Mariachi,” José Cruz González’s 2018 comedy about two Mexican-American cousins who start an all-female mariachi band in the 1970s, with the first show on Sept. 28, the official opening night on Oct. 4 and the last show on Oct. 20.
• Julie Benko — who has worked as an understudy, on Broadway, in “Funny Girl,” “Les Misérables” and “Fiddler on the Roof” — will present an autobiographical cabaret show titled “Julie Benko: Standby, Me,” Sept. 28 at 8 p.m. at The Berrie Center at Ramapo College in Mahwah (see video below). Her husband, pianist Jason Yeager, will accompany her.
• Nancy McKeon, best known as a cast member of the sitcom “The Facts of Life” in the ’80s, will co-star with Gail Winar at New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch in “Pen Pals,” Michael Griffo’s new play about two longtime friends — one who lives in New Jersey and one who lives in England — who know each other only through their letters. It will begin previews on Oct. 3, officially open on Oct. 5 and run through Oct. 20.
• Jayna Elise, who competed on “American Idol” both last year and this year, will star in “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical” at The State Theatre in New Brunswick, Oct. 3 at 7:30 p.m., Oct. 4 at 8 p.m. and Oct. 5 at 2 and 8 p.m. The musical ran on Broadway from 2019 to 2022; Turner died last year, at 83.
WORDS
• The McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, in partnership with Princeton University, will present “A Conversation with Laufey,” Sept. 27 at 7 p.m. Princeton University assistant professor of music Anna Yu Wang will interview the Icelandic singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who won a Grammy this year in the Traditional Pop Vocal Album category, for her Bewitched. According to the McCarter website, Laufey will “share her inspirational journey, cultural influences, and creative process.”
• Heidi Schreck — the playwright of “What the Constitution Means to Me,” which The George Street Playhouse is currently presenting at The New Brunswick Performing Arts Center — will participate in a “Constitutional Discussion” with Elizabeth C. Matto, director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, at Room 4225 of Rutgers University Academic Building East Wing, New Brunswick, Sept. 30 at 6:30 p.m. Laiona Michelle, director the George Street production of “What the Constitution Means to Me,” will moderate. There will be no admission charge.
Schreck was nominated for two Tony Awards for “What the Constitution Means to Me,” and also was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
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REVIEWS
“The Other American” at New Jersey Repertory Company, Long Branch. (Through Sept. 29)
“Empire Records: The Musical” at Berlind Theater at McCarter Theatre Center, Princeton. (Through Oct. 6)
“Under a Southern Star: Identity and Environment in Australian Photography,” presented by Princeton University Art Museum at Art on Hulfish. (Through Jan. 5)
“Morven Revealed: Untold Stories From New Jersey’s Most Historic Home” at Morven Museum & Garden, Princeton. (Through March 2)
“Bony Ramirez: Cattleya” at Newark Museum of Art. (Through March 9)
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