DANIEL RADER
Liam Pearce and Lorna Courtney co-starred in “Empire Records: The Musical” at The McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton.
I didn’t see the film “Empire Records” in 1995, or for many years to follow, as its cult following grew. I didn’t see it at all, in fact, until after I saw the adaption of it that was presented at The McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton in September and October. And I can now say: It’s not much of a movie, but that didn’t stop book writer Carol Heikkinen (who also wrote the movie’s screenplay), songwriter Zoe Sarnak, director Trip Cullman and a bursting-with-talent cast from making it a musical that was my favorite New Jersey stage production of 2024.
As usual, there was a lot of competition. More than I can fully do justice to, I admit. I am not a full-time theater critic, and many productions that could have vied for a place on this list … alas, I just could not get to.
In other words: I saw a lot of theater in 2024, but I couldn’t see everything that every New Jersey theater had to offer, due to the same logistical limitations I have faced in the decade that I have been reviewing theater regularly. (I started when I launched NJArts.net in 2014). A bout with COVID in April made things even worse.
But I still think it’s worthwhile to share, once again, some words about the shows I liked the most.
Here they are, in order of preference. Click on the titles to read the full reviews.
1. “Empire Records: The Musical,” McCarter Theatre Center, Princeton. A ’90s indie record store’s misfit co-workers come together for a common cause, in a musical that was loaded with youthful energy and an uplifting, feel-good vibe. The plot was a bit predictable, granted, but the production as a whole still had a freshness to it that made it hard to resist.
AVERY BRUNKUS
Christopher Sutton in “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder.”
2. “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder,” Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey at Drew University, Madison. This manically funny 2012 musical has proved itself to be a dependable crowd-pleaser. But Christopher Sutton — playing multiple members of the aristocratic D’Ysquith family who are murdered one-by-one by a low-born relative hoping to assume an earldom — and other cast members showed so much comic ingenuity that they still made it seem like a revelation.
3. “Gem of the Ocean,” Two River Theater, Red Bank. “Gem of the Ocean” is not among the best known of the 10 plays in August Wilson’s acclaimed “Pittsburgh Cycle.” But this production — with particularly memorable performances by Brandon J. Dirden as the ruthless landlord Caesar and Stephanie Berry as Ester, a regal community matriarch with magical powers — made a strong case that it should be considered among Wilson’s best.
4. “The Book of Will,” Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey at Drew University, Madison. It is 1619. William Shakespeare has just died and his friends and fellow theater company members endeavor to immortalize his words in a book, in this 2017 play by Lauren Gunderson. We don’t know much about how this actually happened, back in the 1600s. But Gunderson vividly imagined how it might have happened, and a fine cast brought her vision to earthy and frequently very funny life.
LIANNE SCHOENWIESNER, SPOTLIGHTS PHOTOGRAPHY
Kate Baldwin in “A Little Night Music.”
5. “A Little Night Music,” presented by American Theater Group at Sieminski Theater, Basking Ridge, and Hamilton Stage at Union County Performing Arts Center, Rahway. This was a more stripped-down production than “A Little Night Music” usually gets, with only 12 actors and three musicians. But it did justice to one of Stephen Sondheim’s greatest creations, with the husband-and-wife team of Broadway veterans Kate Baldwin and Graham Rowat — playing ex-lovers who rekindle their romance — anchoring it with their strong voices and commanding stage presences.
6. “The Club,” presented by George Street Playhouse at New Brunswick Performing Arts Center. Racial tension threatens to tear apart a group of hard-drinking suburban friends in this explosive new play, written by Chris Bohjalian and perfectly capturing the late-’60s world he grew up in.
7. “Pen Pals,” New Jersey Repertory Company, Long Branch. Co-stars Nancy McKeon and Gail Winar were both excellent in this new epistolary play by Michael Griffo, in which two friends read letters they wrote to each other throughout their lives, but you feel like you’re watching a rich, thorny story unfold in real time.
8. “Lonely Planet,” Luna Stage, West Orange. Luna Stage tends to produce new or recently written works. But it was a smart move to revive Steven Dietz’s frequently amusing, occasionally surreal and ultimately quite profound 1993 play, in which two gay friends — one who owns a map store, the other who spends a lot of time hanging out there — navigate life in the age of AIDS.
MIKE PETERS
From left, Dani Nelson, Michelle Liu Coughlin and DeAnna Lenhart in “Diversion” at Kean University in Union.
9. “Diversion,” presented by Premiere Stages at The Bauer Boucher Theatre Center at Kean University, Union. The word “diversion” sometimes refers to something that can take your attention away from something important. But that is not what this tense play is all about. The “diversion” here is the theft of drugs from a hospital. Someone on the staff has been doing it, the higher-ups are trying to find out who it is, and everyone is a suspect. The main characters are understandably weary intensive-care nurses, and playwright Scott Organ skillfully evokes the stress of their work lives, and the hell they lived through during the pandemic.
10. “Pippin” and “Tuck Everlasting” (tie), both presented by Vanguard Theater Company at Vanguard Theater, Montclair. The Vanguard Theater Company has done consistently strong work since it began mounting shows in Montclair in 2021, and it is hard to pick from among these two magical musicals, both directed by Vanguard’s artistic director Janeece Freeman Clark, and both staged in imaginative ways that suited their wild, whimsical storylines.
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