The New Brunswick Heart Festival will take place on Aug. 10.
This year’s edition of the free, annual New Brunswick Heart Festival will take place Aug. 10 from 2 to 6 p.m. on Livingston Avenue. Performers will include The Suyat Band (playing funk and Motown hits), InSpira Performing Arts, The New Brunswick Jazz Project Brass, Grupo de Danza Folklórica La Sagrada Familia, DJ IZM, American Repertory Ballet Dance Power Scholars, the blues/soul/rock band Crowfield, and tap dancer Omar Edwards.
Other attractions will include a poetry reading by the Thinkery & Verse theater company, an outdoor salsa dance class with Amy Garcia Phillips, a presentation by George Street Playhouse about its upcoming show “What the Constitution Means to Me,” dance classes for kids with American Repertory Ballet, free balloon animals and face painting, arts and crafts activities, a health and wellness tent, a history corner hosted by East Jersey Old Town Village, and art and food vendors.
The New Brunswick Heart Festival is presented by The State Theatre, The New Brunswick Cultural Center, The New Brunswick Performing Arts Center, and consultant and curator I Am D. Muse.
A little earlier in the day, at 1 p.m., Bill Blagg will present a family-oriented magic show at The State Theatre.
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Here is a roundup of other arts events taking place around New Jersey, through Aug. 15.
RUSSELL CROWE
MUSIC
• Actor Russell Crowe is also a rock musician who has toured and recorded with various groups over the years. He and his current group The Gentleman Barbers will perform at a show being promoted as an “Indoor Garden Party” — described as “a festival where I gather people I admire, musicians and storytellers, and we put on a show” and as a show that is full of “wild stories, unexpected songs and special guests” — Aug. 11 at 7 p.m. at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park, with singer-songwriter Lorraine O’Reilly opening.
• Allman Brothers Band drummer Jaimoe — the group’s only still-living original member — will make a guest appearance with Friends of the Brothers, Aug. 9 at 7:30 p.m. at The Vogel at The Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank. This group, which plays Allman Brothers Band music, has strong connections to the band itself, particularly when it comes to its three guitarist-singers: Junior Mack fronted Jaimoe’s Jasssz Band for more than a decade, Andy Aledort played extensively with Dickey Betts, and Alan Paul, who is primarily a music journalist, wrote the definitive Allman Brothers Band biography, “One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band.” Friends of the Brothers are sometimes joined by singer Lamar Williams Jr., son of the Allman Brothers Band bassist.
• Sad Summer Festival, one of the touring rock festivals that sprang up to fill the void left by the demise of the annual Warped Tour in 2019, was supposed to take place at The Stone Pony Summer Stage in Asbury Park on Aug. 4. But it was postponed, because of bad weather, to Aug. 10, when it will start at 2 p.m. with Mayday Parade, The Maine, The Wonder Years, We the Kings, Real Friends, Knuckle Puck, Hot Milk, Daisy Grenade and Diva Bleach. As with the Warped Tour, the order in which the bands will play is not announced before the show itself.
JESSICA RIVERO ALTARRIBA
• Jessica Rivero Altarriba will conduct New Jersey Symphony at The Victoria Theater at NJPAC in Newark, Aug. 15 at 7 p.m., in a preview of the upcoming 2024-25 season. The program will include Tchaikovsky’s “Polonaise” from Eugene Onegin; Robert Schumann’s Overture, Scherzo and Finale; Debussy’s Clair de Lune (arr. Caplet); selections from Stravinsky’s The Firebird; and Márquez’s Danzon No. 2.
• Hoboken’s Julio Fernandez, who plays guitar in the jazz fusion band Spyro Gyra, will present a free show with a band billed as Julio Fernandez & Friends, Aug. 15 at 7 p.m. at the Concerts in the Park series at Hoboken’s Sinatra Park. The show is being advertised as “an eclectic mix of jazz, funk, Latin and rock including originals and covers.”
• The new Fletcher’s Listening Room music series at Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Montclair will launch, Aug. 10 at 8 p.m., with Walter Parks‘ “Woodstock Variations” show. Parks, a longtime member of the late Richie Havens’ trio, will play his own versions of songs performed at the 1969 Woodstock Festival and tell stories about touring with Havens. Singer-songwriter-guitarist Scott E. Moore will open the show and also perform with Parks.
THEATER
• Pianist and SiriusXM satellite radio host Seth Rudetsky will kick off his “Big Fat Broadway LIVE!” series, featuring music and conversation, at The Bell Theater at Bell Works in Holmdel, Aug. 10 at 8 p.m. Mandy Gonzalez — whose Broadway credits include “Wicked,” “Hamilton,” “In the Heights” and “Aida” — will be his guest.
“Even if you’ve seen these stars in concert, my series will be like nothing you’ve seen them do!” said Rudetsky in a press release. “Yes, they sing all their hit songs, but they also recreate the roles they’ve done in high school, the jobs they wish they’d have gotten and the roles they’ll NEVER get a chance to do! It’s all unscripted and never the same!”
Future guests will include Sierra Boggess, Sept. 7; Adam Pascal, Oct. 12; J. Harrison Ghee , Nov. 9; and Krysta Rodriguez (“The Addams Family,” “Spring Awakening”), Dec. 7.
• The Theater Project will present Joseph Vitale’s “The Interpreter” at The Oakes Center in Summit, Aug. 15-18 and 22-25. According to the Theater Project website, the play was inspired by real events and “imagines the complex relationship between Hermann Goering, the leading Nazi on trial for war crimes, and his interpreter, a 23-year-old Jewish U.S. Army private.”
Post-show discussions with Vitale and others will be offered after each performance.
GARLAND JEFFREYS
FILM
• The Lighthouse International Film Society will present the first New Jersey screening of “Garland Jeffreys: The King of In Between” — a new documentary about the bold and eloquent rock singer-songwriter, featuring interviews with artists such as Bruce Springsteen (who calls him “one of the American greats”), Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson and Vernon Reid — Aug. 11 at 8 p.m. at The Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences in Loveladies.
You can watch a trailer for it, below.
• WFMU will screen “Stand by for Failure: A Documentary About Negativland,” Aug. 11 at 7 p.m. at Monty Hall in Jersey City, with a Zoom interview with director Ryan Worsley following. Negativland, formed in the San Francisco area in the late ’70s, is an experimental and provocative band that is best known for titling a 1991 EP U2, prompting a legal struggle with U2’s record label, but has been involved with many other controversies, over the years.
Watch the “Stand by for Failure” trailer, below.
OTHER
• “Paranormal Cirque III” — described as “A crazy yet fun fusion between Circus, theatre, and cabaret … that will transport you to a dark world inhabited by creatures with incredible circus art abilities” — will come to the American Dream mall in East Rutherford, Aug. 15-25. It is rated R, meaning no one under 13 will be admitted, and those younger than 17 must be accompanied by a parent or adult guardian older than 21.
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Click HERE for a list of free shows taking place throughout New Jersey.
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REVIEWS
“Set in Motion: Kinetic Worlds from the Studio of Richard Whitten” at Morris Museum, Morris Township. (Through Sept. 1)
“Portrait as Statement” at Halsey Arts, Newark. (Through Sept. 6)
“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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