YOLANDA ADAMS
Here is a roundup of major arts events taking place around New Jersey, through April 10.
MUSIC
• Yolanda Adams, Vashawn Mitchell and Rich Tolbert Jr. will be among the performers at the 42nd annual McDonald’s Gospelfest, taking place April 5 at 7:30 p.m. at The Union County Performing Arts Center in Rahway.
This year’s show will also include the inaugural presentation of the Cissy Houston Lifetime Achievement Award. Houston, the great singer who died last year at the age of 91, was a frequent Gospelfest performer as well as a huge presence on the New Jersey gospel scene since the 1950s.
• Peter Frampton billed his 2019 tour as a farewell, due to his diagnosis of inclusion-body myositis, a progressive muscle disorder. But he has felt well enough since then to have been able to tour several more times. His Let’s Do It Again! Tour will come to The Hard Rock Live at Etess Arena at The Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, April 5 at 7 p.m.; and The State Theatre in New Brunswick, April 7 at 7:30 p.m.
Todd Rundgren and others are performing Burt Bacharach songs on tour this year.
• Todd Rundgren, who has called the late Burt Bacharach “the greatest songwriter of my lifetime,” is performing on a tour that is titled “What the World Needs Now: The Burt Bacharach Songbook Live in Concert.” It will come to The Music Box at Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa in Atlantic City, April 5 at 8 p.m.; and BergenPAC in Englewood, April 11 at 8 p.m.
Wendy Moten, the 2021 runner-up on the television reality series “The Voice,” is singing on the tour; longtime Bacharach arranger and music director Rob Shirakbari is leading the band; and Kasim Sulton, who has worked with Rundgren often in the past, is playing bass. Other performers will include singer Tori Holub, multi-instrumentalist Probyn Gregory, saxophonist Woody Mankowski and drummer Elise Trouw.
Bacharach — whose 52 Top 40 songwriting hits include “Walk on By,” “Alfie,” “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” “Close to You,” “That’s What Friends Are For” and “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do)” — died in 2023, at the age of 94.
Check out a video, below, of Rundgren singing “Anyone Who Had a Heart” (co-written by Bacharach and Hal David).
• The Red Bank-based Jazz Arts Project, which is devoted to the preservation and promotion of jazz, is celebrating Jazz Appreciation Month, and its own 20th anniversary, with a series of Wednesday night “Jazz Café” shows at Triumph Brewery in Red Bank. Django Reinhardt-influenced guitarist Stéphane Wrembel will perform April 9 at 7 p.m., followed by saxophonist Bruce Williams’ quintet, April 16 at 7 p.m.; vibraphonist Behn Gillece’s quintet, April 23 at 7 p.m.; and a “Jazz Age: Roaring ’20s”-style fundraising gala, April 30 at 6:30 p.m., featuring The Anderson Brothers, Warren Vaché, The Eddie Allen Quintet, The Sunken City Sax Quartet, and The Jazz Arts Academy Allstars.
TONY TRISCHKA
• Banjo master Tony Trischka‘s Grammy-nominated 2024 album Earl Jam — featuring guest appearances by artists such as Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle, Ronnie McCoury and Darol Anger — is a tribute to the late bluegrass luminary Earl Scruggs, with some of its recordings directly inspired by unreleased tapes of Scruggs jam sessions. Trischka will play songs from it at Flounder Brewing Co. in Hillsborough, April 9 at 5 and 7:30 p.m.
• It was a reunion concert, of sorts. On March 29, most of the artists who appeared on the hit soundtrack album for the 2004 movie “Garden State” — including The Shins, Colin Hay, Iron & Wine, and Thievery Corporation — performed at a 20th anniversary concert at The Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. The show was filmed and, April 6 at 9 p.m., it will stream on Veeps, with proceeds benefiting The Midnight Mission, a food distribution center in Los Angeles.
Laufey, Madison Cunningham and The Milk Carton Kids, who were not on the album, performed as well. Zach Braff — who wrote, directed and co-starred in the movie, and executive-produced the soundtrack album — appeared at the concert, as did co-star Natalie Portman; Danny DeVito (whose Jersey Films company co-produced the film); Braff’s “Scrubs” co-stars Donald Faison and Sarah Chalke; and actress Sarah Paulson.
MUSIC/FILM
• “Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens” (2015) will be shown with New Jersey Symphony, conducted by Constantine Kitsopoulos, playing John Williams’ score live, April 9 at 7:30 p.m. at The Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank; April 10 at 7:30 p.m. at The Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown; April 12 at 8 p.m. at Prudential Hall at NJPAC in Newark; and April 13 at 3 p.m. at The State Theatre in New Brunswick.
THEATER
• “7th Inning Stretch,” an annual tradition at Mile Square Theatre in Hoboken, will offer six new 10-minute plays about baseball. This year’s edition, coinciding with the start of the Major Leagues season, will be, like last year’s show, a 24-hour edition, featuring plays that were written, staged and rehearsed starting on April 5. The performances will take place April 6 at 7 p.m., after a reception at 5:30 p.m. Proceeds will benefit Mile Square Theatre’s 2025-26 season.
The first baseball game was played in Hoboken, in 1846.
Participants in the Hoboken Literary Weekend will include Lucy Sante, author of “I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition,” and Deborah Treisman, editor of “A Century of Fiction in The New Yorker, 1925-2025.”
WORDS
• The fifth annual Hoboken Literary Weekend will take place April 4-6 at Little City Books, with Lucy Sante, Jean Hanff Korelitz, Deborah Treisman, Marie Howe Nick Flynn, Meredith Ochs and Kay Miller, and Caoilinn Hughes discussing and signing their new books. There will be comedy, theater and musical offerings as well, and a panel discussion of Young Adult authors. (Click HERE for NJArts.net’s feature on this year’s festival.)
• New Jersey Hall of Famer Harlan Coben will discuss his new thriller, “Nobody’s Fool,” with Danielle Monaro (co-host of “Elvis Duran and the Morning Show” on Z100) — and sign copies of it — April 5 at 6 p.m. at The New Jersey Hall of Fame at the American Dream mall in East Rutherford. Tickets include signed copies of the book and admission to the entire New Jersey Hall of fame itself.
FAMILY
• Tanglewood Marionettes will present a marionette version of “Hansel and Gretel” — using music from Engelbert Humperdinck’s 1893 opera version of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale — April 5 at 11 a.m. at The F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theatre at Drew University in Madison.
This production is recommended for children in grades 1-6, and is part of the Shakespeare Theatre’s Classics for Kids series.
Members of Carolyn Dorfman Dance perform “Echad (One).”
DANCE
• Carolyn Dorfman Dance‘s 4 p.m. April 6 show at The Morris Museum in Morris Township is titled “Live Laugh Love” and will include “The Attitude of Doing” — choreographer Dorfman’s 2022 collaboration with jazz violinist Regina Carter — as well as Dorfman’s “Echad (One),” “Keystone” and “Divide and Conquer.”
Carolyn Dorfman Dance describes “The Attitude of Doing” as “a joyously moving dance of nurture, growth, relationship and, ultimately, the power of community.”
FILM
• The ReelAbilities Film Festival — whose mission is to “authentically showcase disability experiences and talent both on screen and behind the camera through award-winning short and feature-length films” — will take place April 3-5 at The North Avenue Academic Building at Kean University in Union, with online streaming also available. Discussions will follow the screenings.
• The documentary “Secret Mall Apartment” looks at a bizarre 2003-2007 art/activism project in which eight artists created a secret apartment inside the Providence Place mall in Rhode Island and lived there for four years. It will screen at The Clairidge in Montclair, April 10 at 7 p.m., with a question-and-answer session with producer-director Jeremy Workman following.
• “A Night at the Opera,” to be shown April 6 at 2 p.m. at The Barrymore Film Center in Fort Lee, will kick off a series of Marx Brothers screenings that will also include “Animal Crackers,” April 12-13 at 2 p.m.; “Horse Feathers,” April 20 at 5 p.m.; and “Duck Soup,” April 26 at 2 p.m. and April 27 at 5 p.m.
REVIEWS
“King James,” presented by George Street Playhouse at New Brunswick Performing Arts Center. (Through April 6)
“Legacy of Light” at McCarter Theatre Center, Princeton. (Through April 6)
“Sarah Canfield: The Circuit Unseen” at BrassWorks Gallery, Montclair. (Through April 26)
“Safe Passage in Conversation with Her Flowers: Disruption of Old Narratives: Heather Williams” at Karl and Helen Burger Gallery at Kean University, Union. (Through May 9)
“James Prosek: At Work” at Morris Museum, Morris Township. (Through June 8)
“Tatyana Kazakova: In Spite of Our Fears” at Grover House Gallery, Caldwell. (Through June 27)
“Nanette Carter: A Question of Balance” at Montclair Art Museum. (Through July 6)
“Morven Revealed: Untold Stories From New Jersey’s Most Historic Home” at Morven Museum & Garden, Princeton. (Through March 1)
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