Axelrod Contemporary Ballet Theater will present “Something’s Coming: Song & Dance from Movie Musicals,” April 8-10 at the Axelrod Performing Arts Center in Deal.
Here is a roundup of arts events taking place around the state, through April 14.
DANCE
• Axelrod Contemporary Ballet Theater will present “Something’s Coming: Song & Dance from Movie Musicals,” April 8 at 8 p.m., April 9 at 2 and 8 p.m., and April 10 at 3 p.m. at the Axelrod Performing Arts Center in Deal. Scenes from movies such as “West Side Story,” “An American in Paris,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Brigadoon,” “The Sound of Music,” “Kiss Me, Kate” and “The Wiz” will be featured. Members of AXCBT will be joined by singers Evy Ortiz and David Smolokoff plus guest dancers from the Sarasota Ballet, The Metropolitan Opera, Paul Taylor Dance Company, The Ailey School and others. (For a chance to win two tickets to any show — the winner gets to choose — send an email to njartscontest@gmail.com by 10 a.m. April 8 with the word “Ballet” in the subject line.)
BOBBY BANDIERA
MUSIC
• Point Pleasant Beach Cares, a benefit concert for Ukrainian refugees, will be held at Jenks Club at Jenks Pavilion in Point Pleasants Beach, April 10 at 5 p.m. Performers will include Bobby Bandiera & Friends, Steve Forbert, Joe Bonanno & the Godsons, the Eddie Testa Band, Green Secret, and the Ukrainian Chorus of Dumka of New York. Proceeds will go to World Central Kitchen, Caritas Poland and the Polish Red Cross.
• The New Jersey Symphony will play Mozart’s Symphony No. 41, “Jupiter,” at Prudential Hall at NJPAC in Newark, April 8 at 8 p.m. and April 10 at 3 p.m., and the Count Basie Center for the Arts, April 9 at 8 p.m. NJS music director Xian Zhang will conduct, and the concerts will also feature Nokuthula Ngwenyama’s Primal Message; Rouse’s Bassoon Concerto (an East Coast premiere, featuring Robert Wagner on bassoon); and Rossini’s Overture to Guillaume Tell.
• Longtime Jerry Garcia Band member Melvin Seals will bring his JGB Band to the South Orange Performing Arts Center, April 13 at 7:30 p.m. The keyboardist will be joined by guitarist-singer John Kadlecik (who has played with Dark Star Orchestra, Furthur, Phil Lesh & Friends and other Grateful Dead-connected bands), bassist John-Paul McLean and drummer Jeremy Hoenig, with saxophonist Ron Holloway appearing as a “special guest.” (For a chance to win two tickets, send an email to njartscontest@gmail.com by 10 a.m. April 11 with the word “JGB” in the subject line.)
• Little Feat is performing its classic 1978 album Waiting for Columbus in its entirety on its current tour, which comes to the Scottish Rite Auditorium in Collingswood, April 13 at 7:30 p.m., as well as the Beacon Theatre in New York, April 12 at 8 p.m. A double live album, culled from seven 1977 concerts, Waiting for Columbus contains many of the band’s signature songs, including “Dixie Chicken,” “Willin’,” “All That You Dream,” “Oh Atlanta,” “Time Loves a Hero” and “Fat Man in the Bathtub.” Three musicians from the band’s lineup at that time — keyboardist-singer Bill Payne, percussionist-singer Sam Clayton and bassist Kenny Gradney — are still with the group, joined by guitarist-singers Fred Tackett and Scott Sharrard and drummer Tony Leone.
MOLLY TUTTLE
• Molly Tuttle, the first woman to win the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Guitar Player of the Year award, will bring her band Golden Highway (featuring mandolinist Dominick Leslie, banjoist Kyle Tuttle, fiddler Bronwyn Keith-Hynes and bassist Shelby Means) to the Outpost in the Burbs in Montclair, April 8 at 8 p.m. The indie-folk band Oliver Hazard will open. The show will take place at the First Congregational Church at 40 S. Fullerton Ave.
• The Anna Maria Ciccone Theatre at Bergen Community College in Paramus will host “A Conversation With Eddie Brigati of The Rascals,” April 14 at 7:30 p.m. The event will feature a guest appearance by Brigati’s brother and Rascals bandmate David Brigati, and music by the BCC Pop/Rock Ensemble.
FAMILY
• Four singer-actresses who have played Disney princesses on Broadway — Susan Egan (the original Belle in “Beauty and the Beast”), Arielle Jacobs, Anneliese van der Pol and Syndee Winters — are featured in Disney Princess in Concert, a tour that comes to Prudential Hall of NJPAC in Newark, April 13 at 7 p.m. Songs from various Disney musicals will be sung, clips from animated Disney films will be shown, and the Egan, Jacobs, van der Pol and Winters will tell “behind-the-scenes stories,” according to the NJPAC website. The show is recommended for ages 6 and older.
THEATER
• Nutley Little Theatre will present “Perfect Arrangement” from April 8 to April 23. Written by Topher Payne, the comedy-drama is set in the height of the McCarthy Era in the 1950s and is about two State Department employees who are gay but closeted, and whose job is it to identify “sexual deviants” within department ranks.
Polina Snisarenko stars in the movie “Julia Blue.”
FILM
• Jersey City Theater Center Studios will screen the Ukraine-set film “Julia Blue” (see trailer below), April 14 at 7:30 p.m., with proceeds benefiting the people of Ukraine. The film’s Ukrainian-American director, Roxy Toporowych, will introduce it and participate in a discussion and Q&A session following it.
In a press release, Toporowych said the inspiration for the film came from time spent in Kyiv in 2014. “I found myself thinking about the basis of one’s identity,” she said. “What makes us feel that we are part of a certain ethnic or cultural group? Is it what we are taught? Where we are born? What language we speak? How do we preserve a sense of self when our identity is attached to a country whose status is in constant flux?”
REVIEWS
“Black & White to Magnificent Color!,” group show at Watchung Arts Center (Through April 9)
“The Hombres” at Two River Theater, Red Bank. (Through April 10)
“The Forest” at New Jersey Repertory, Long Branch. (Through April 10)
“The Cleopatra Club” at Black Box Performing Arts Center, Englewood. (Through April 10)
“Painting in Excess: Kyiv’s Art Revival, 1985-1993” at Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick. (Through April 10)
“The Maximum Minimum” at Gallery Space, Rahway. (Through April 15)
“The Niceties” at Mile Square Theatre, Hoboken. (Through April 17)
“The Wanderer” at Paper Mill Playhouse, Millburn. (Through April 24)
“Carlos Villa: Worlds in Collision” at Newark Museum of Art. (Through May 8)
“Tenacity & Resilience: The Art of Jerry Pinkney” at Montclair Art Museum. (Through June 26)
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