COURTESY OF THE PRUDENTIAL CENTER
Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance, performing at The Prudential Center in Newark, in 2022.
Here is a roundup of major arts events taking place around New Jersey, through Aug. 14.
MUSIC
• My Chemical Romance is playing its 2006 album The Black Parade in its entirety on a tour that will include a 6 p.m. Aug. 9 concert at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford. The bands Death Cab for Cutie and Thursday will open.
The Black Parade was the most popular of the four studio albums My Chemical Romance released between 2002 and 2010 (the band has not released any since then) and yielded the hit singles “Welcome to the Black Parade,” “Famous Last Words” and “Teenagers.”
On previous tour stops, MCR has played The Black Parade in the first set and other songs, including a cover of Smashing Pumpkins’ “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” (see video below), in the second set.
Thursday (from New Brunswick) was very supportive of My Chemical Romance (from Essex County) in the band’s early days, and also opened for My Chemical Romance when the band performed at The Prudential Center in Newark, in 2022.
• A day after the My Chemical Romance show — Aug. 10, at 7:30 p.m. — a very different kind of 21st-century, New Jersey-bred band, The Jonas Brothers, will headline at MetLife Stadium, with The All-American Rejects and Marshmello opening.
The concert will take place two days after the release of the band’s album, Greetings From Your Hometown, and will kick off their Jonas20: Greetings from Your Hometown Tour. Kevin, Joe and Nick Jonas — now 37, 35 and 32, respectively — recorded and toured together for the first time 20 years ago.
For those who can’t make it to the Meadowlands, the show will be livestreamed on samsungtvplus.com.
ANGEL ROSADO
ANTOINETTE MONTAGUE
• The Newark Museum will celebrate the 60th anniversary of its outdoor Jazz in the Garden series with a show by singer Antoinette Montague (a Newark native) and her band, and pianist Bill Charlap’s trio (featuring bassist David Wong and drummer Kenny Washington), Aug. 9 at 5 p.m.
Among the many artists who have performed at Jazz in the Garden, over the years, are Ron Carter, Dee Dee Bridgewater, David Murray and Jimmy Heath.
• As part of its Summer Opera Festival, New Jersey Lyric Opera will present Georges Bizet’s “Carmen” at 7:30 p.m. Aug. 7-8 and Giacomo Puccini’s “La bohème” at 2 p.m. Aug. 9-10 at The Kelsey Theatre at Mercer County Community College in West Windsor. Also as part of the festival, there will be a gala concert at the Kelsey at 7:30 p.m. Aug. 9, featuring operatic favorites performed with the backdrop of clips from classic movies, related to them.
Click HERE for a new interview with NJLO founder John Calkins about this year’s festival.
• Low Cut Connie‘s 8 p.m. Aug. 8 concert at Sound Waves at The Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City will kick off the new Garden State Live! series, presented by the Hard Rock in conjunction with the North to Shore festival. The idea is to showcase “some of the best artists on the music scene with a focus on southern and central Jersey.”
The band Isn’t It Always? will open.
Future shows in the series will focus on “Emerging Blues Artists,” “Emerging Pop/Rock Artists,” “Emerging Country Artists” and “Emerging Singer-Songwriters.”
• Dramarama will play two of the band’s albums in their entirety at shows at The Wonder Bar in Asbury Park. Aug. 9 at 8:30 p.m. and Aug. 10 at 7 p.m. The band will perform Color TV (2020) on Aug. 9, and Stuck in Wonderamaland (1989) on Aug. 10 — plus, of course, other songs from other albums, on both nights.
Lambert Tamin will play Muhammad Ali, in the days when he was still known by his birth name, in “And in This Corner … Cassius Clay.”
THEATER
• The Theater Project will present “And in This Corner … Cassius Clay” at The Oakes Center in Summit, Aug. 14-17 and 21-24. The 2016 play — written by Idris Goodwin and set in the 1950s and 1960s — focuses on Muhammad Ali’s Louisville youth, and the early days of his career.
In Goodwin’s words, it “tells the story of (Ali’s) rise from a local gym to the world stage.”
FILM
• Karen Etcof, who worked as the casting director of “Quiz Show” — the Robert Redford-directed 1994 film that co-starred John Turturro, Rob Morrow and Ralph Fiennes, and was about a 1950s scandal having to do with a television quiz show — will participate in a question-and-answer session following a screening of it at Acme Screening Room in Lambertville, Aug. 9 at 5 p.m.
OTHER
• The free New Brunswick Heart Festival, taking place from 2 to 6 p.m. Aug. 9 on Livingston Avenue in Downtown New Brunswick, will feature The Discoteks (performing disco and Motown hits); Afro-Peruvian music and dance by Socabón Peru Cultural Association; folk dancing by Grupo de Danza Folklórica La Sagrada Familia; the New Orleans-style brass band New Brunswick Brass; tap dancer Omar Edwards; dance instruction; food and crafts vendors; children’s activities; and more.
The State Theatre will present “LUMIA: A Futuristic Cirque Show,” Aug. 9.
Also, beginning at 1 p.m. that day, New Brunswick’s State Theatre will present a ticketed, 90-minute, family-friendly show: “LUMIA: A Futuristic Cirque Show,” blending acrobatics with elaborate visuals utilizing the latest in light technology, including lasers, holograms and more. (see video below)
• Multimedia artist Robin Frohardt’s residency at ArtYard in Frenchtown, which began in early July, will culminate, Aug. 9 at 7:30 p.m., with a work-in-progress showing of her “Shopping Center Parking Lot.” ArtYard describes this work as “a live-cinema performance that blends puppetry, prose, live music, and intricate handmade cardboard sets”; “a speculative non-fiction piece, grounded in reality yet deeply reflective, that offers a poetic meditation on our relationship with the natural world”; and “Frohardt’s attempt to reconcile the predicament of being born a soul in a body raised in a Walmart.”
REVIEWS
“How My Grandparents Fell in Love: A Musical” at New Jersey Repertory Company, Long Branch. (Through Aug. 10)
“Andrea Chung: The Ocean Doesn’t Recognize Tears” at Project for Empty Space, Newark. (Through Aug. 17)
“The Garden State” at Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Summit. Works by members of New Jersey Photography Forum. (Through Aug. 25)
“Pulp: The Fluid and The Concrete” at Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton. Paper-making works. (Through Aug. 31)
“Indigenous Identities: Here, Now & Always” at Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick. (Through Dec. 21)
“Morven Revealed: Untold Stories From New Jersey’s Most Historic Home” at Morven Museum & Garden, Princeton. (Through March 1)
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