Paul Giamatti, left, will be interviewed by Stephen Colbert at NJPAC in Newark, July 26.
Here is a roundup of arts events taking place around New Jersey, through Aug. 1.
WORDS
• Actor Paul Giamatti will appear “in conversation” with Stephen Colbert at Prudential Hall at NJPAC in Newark, July 26 at 8 p.m. Giamatti was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar this year, for “The Holdovers.” He was previously nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category for “Cinderella Man.” He has won an Emmy (for “John Adams”) and three Golden Globes (for “John Adams,” “Barney’s Version” and “The Holdovers”).
Proceeds from the event will benefit Montclair Film, which produces the Montclair Film Festival; owns and operates The Clairidge movie theater in Montclair; and offers film-related educational programs year-round. Colbert is a member of the festival’s advisory board and his wife, Evelyn, is the president of its board of trustees. (The Colberts live in Montclair.) In the past, Colbert has interviewed people such as Meryl Streep, Daniel Craig, Jimmy Fallon, Martin Scorsese and Jon Stewart as benefits for Montclair Film.
• Garrison Keillor, of “Prairie Home Companion” fame, will present a show titled “Garrison Keillor Tonight” at The Vogel at The Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, Aug. 1 at 7 p.m. It is described as “an evening of stand-up, storytelling, audience song, and poetry. One man, one microphone. There are sung sonnets, limericks and musical jokes, and the thread that runs through it is the beauty of growing old.”
Keiller, 81, stopped hosting the syndicated radio show “A Prairie Home Companion” in 2016.
SAMMY HAGAR
MUSIC
• Former Van Halen members Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony are being joined by guitarist Joe Satriani, drummer Jason Bonham and keyboardist Rai Thistlethwayte on The Best of All Worlds Tour, which is emphasizing songs from Hagar’s albums with Van Halen in the ’80s and ’90s. The tour will come to The PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, July 27 at 7 p.m., with Loverboy opening.
The name of the tour is a play on Van Halen’s 2004 The Best of Both Worlds greatest-hits album (featuring songs recorded with original Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth as well as Hagar) and follows the release, last year, of the Van Halen boxed set The Collection II, which compiled the four Van Halen studio albums that featured Hagar, along with rarities from that era.
Hagar, Anthony and Satriani have all previously played together in the band Chickenfoot.
• Veteran hit-makers Earth, Wind & Fire and Chicago are teaming up for a tour, titled Heart & Soul 2024, that is including separate sets by both groups as well as an encore featuring members of both teaming up to play songs from both catalogs. The tour will come to The Freedom Mortgage Pavilion in Camden, July 31 at 7:30 p.m.; and The PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, Aug. 3 at 7:30 p.m.
Harlem Quartet (from left, Felix Umansky, Melissa White, Jaime Amador and Ilmar Gavilán).
• Harlem Quartet — which won its second Grammy this year in the Classical Compendium category for its contributions to the Passion for Bach and Coltrane collection — will perform outdoors at The Morris Museum in Morris Township, Aug. 1, as part of the Lot of Strings Music Festival.
The group features first violinist Ilmar Gavilán, second violinist Melissa White, violist Jaime Amador and cellist Felix Umansky. It describes itself as committed to “diverse programming that combines music from the standard string quartet canon with jazz, Latin, and contemporary works.”
• New Jersey Opera Theater will present a “staged opera” production of Richard Wagner’s 1870 “Die Walküre (The Valkyrie),” July 27 at 5 p.m. at The Union County Performing Arts Center in Rahway. “Die Walküre” is part of Wagner’s “Ring Cycle,” which is based loosely on Norse mythology.
The setting of the play will be moved to the 1920s, and to maintain that atmosphere, jazz will be played during the two intermissions.
• The Hunterdon Choral Alliance will present four groups — Vocal Synergy, Evolution in Harmony, The Hunterdon Harmonizers and The Balance — at a show in the free Music Under the Stars Concert Series at Deer Path Park in Readington Township, Aug. 1 at 7 p.m.
ALLISON RUSSELL
• Allison Russell — who won her first Grammy after eight nominations this year, in the Americana Roots Performance category, for her boldly confrontational “Eve Was Black” (listen below) — will perform at Ross Farm in Basking Ridge, July 28 at 6 p.m.
THEATER/MUSIC
• The Two River Theater in Red Bank will present this year’s edition of its annual “Crossing Borders (Cruzando Fronteras) Festival,” Aug. 1-4. It will consist of a series of free events spotlighting Latine playwrights and musicians.
In addition to four play readings, the fest will include a “Community Kick Off,” Aug. 1 at 5 p.m., with music by Mariachi New Jersey Suárez, food, and other attractions; and a salsa-fusion concert by Flaco Navaja & the Razor Blades, Aug. 3 at 8 p.m.
THEATER
• As part of the Plays in the Park program, Trilogy Repertory will present Ken Ludwig’s “Shakespeare in Hollywood,” July 26-27 and Aug. 1-3 at 8 p.m. at the Pleasant Valley Park Amphitheater in Basking Ridge. The comedy is about a 1930s Hollywood production of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at which Oberon and Puck themselves — the supernatural beings that Shakespeare wrote about in this play — show up.
The shows are free, though donations will be gratefully accepted. Lawn chairs and flashlights are recommended.
• Maren Wade will star in the autobiographical “Confessions of a Showgirl” at The Avenel Performing Arts Center, Aug. 1-2 at 8 p.m. and Aug. 3 at 2 p.m. According to the APAC website, the show features “a variety of music from pop, jazz, musical theater to one of a kind medleys and originals” and, in it, “This showgirl confesses to what it was like working with Wayne Newton, getting stuck in a birthday cake, meeting Mariah Carey, impersonating a Madonna impersonator and much more.”
Brian Eno, in “Eno.”
FILM
• “Eno,” a documentary about the musical visionary Brian Eno, will be shown at The Clairidge in Montclair from July 26 to Aug. 1. Described as “a film that’s different every time it’s shown,” it will, indeed, be different on each of these seven days. According to The Clairidge’s website, the film does this through “bespoke generative software designed to sequence scenes and create transitions out of (director Gary) Hustwit’s original interviews with Eno, and Eno’s rich archive of hundreds of hours of never-before-seen footage, and unreleased music. The film is meant to be experienced live.”
Eno is known as an original member of Roxy Music; a solo artist; a pioneer of the ambient music genre; and a producer who has worked on landmark records by Talking Heads, David Bowie, U2 and others.
• The hugely popular 2015 Indian adventure movie “Baahubali: The Beginning” will be shown, with New Jersey Symphony (conducted by Constantine Kitsopoulos) playing M.M. Keeravani’s score live, at Prudential Hall at NJPAC in Newark, July 27 at 7:30 p.m.; and The State Theatre in New Brunswick, July 28 at 3 p.m.
• The Barrymore Film Center in Fort Lee will present a series of 1940s Alfred Hitchcock movies this weekend: “Suspicion,” July 26 at 7:30 p.m.; “Shadow of a Doubt,” July 27 at 2 p.m.; “Notorious,” July 27 at 7:15 p.m.; and “Foreign Correspondent,” July 28 at 2 p.m.
• The story of Cymande — the British funk band that came together in the ’70s and had some minor chart success in that decade — is told in the documentary “Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande” (see trailer below), which will be shown at Monty Hall in Jersey City, July 28 at 7 p.m., with group members Patrick Patterson and Steve Scipio engaging in a post-screening question-and-answer session.
Hip-hop groups including The Wu-Tang Clan and The Fugees have sampled Cymande’s music, and the band still commands a cult following, while remaining intermittently active.
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Click HERE for a list of free shows taking place throughout New Jersey.
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REVIEWS
“The Book of Will” at Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey at Drew University, Madison. (Through July 28)
“Still” at Bauer Boucher Theatre Center at Kean University, Union. (Through July 28)
“Crossing the Hudson” at MORA Museum of International Art, Jersey City. (Through July 30)
“George Segal: Themes and Variations“ at Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick. (Through July 31)
“The Bookstore” at New Jersey Repertory Company, Long Branch. (Through Aug. 4)
“Set in Motion: Kinetic Worlds from the Studio of Richard Whitten” at Morris Museum, Morris Township. (Through Sept. 1)
“Morven Revealed: Untold Stories From New Jersey’s Most Historic Home” at Morven Museum & Garden, Princeton. (Through March 2)
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