Paul Giamatti and Julianne Moore co-star in “The Debut,” which will be shown at this year’s Montclair Film Festival.
Here is a roundup of major arts events taking place around New Jersey, through Oct. 29.
FESTIVALS
• This year’s edition of New Jersey’s leading film festival, The Montclair Film Festival, began on Oct. 15 and continues through Oct. 25, at various venues. Among the screenings still to come is “The Debut,” which stars Julianne Moore as a suburban New Jersey housewife who auditions for a role in a community theater musical, and lands it. The musical’s demanding director is played by Paul Giamatti; Jesse Eisenberg, who wrote and directed the film, plays another actor in the musical.
The film will be shown at Montclair Kimberley Academy Upper School, Oct. 24 at 7:30, with Stephen Colbert moderating a question-and-answer session with Moore, Giamatti and Eisenberg, after it.
For complete festival listings, visit festival.montclairfilm.org.
• This fall’s edition of the biannual Exit Zero Jazz Festival takes place on six stages in Cape May, from Oct. 22 to Oct. 25, with Kenny Garrett, Marcus Miller, Chucho Valdés (in an 85th birthday celebration, with special guest Etienne Charles), The Danilo Pérez Trio, Michael Mayo, The Eddie Palmieri Experience (playing the music of the Latin-jazz giant, who died last year), The Marel Hidalgo Sextet, The Brian Betz-Behn Gillece Quartet, and others.
The festival will begin Oct. 22 at 6:30 p.m. at Convention Hall, with a gala featuring singer Kurt Elling and pianist Orrin Evans and benefiting the Cape May Jazz Festival Foundation. Pianist Kyle Roussel will open.
GEORGE LI
MUSIC
• New Jersey Symphony will kick off its 2026-27 season with concerts at The Richardson Auditorium at Princeton University, Oct. 23 at 7:30 p.m.; Prudential Hall at NJPAC in Newark, Oct. 24 at 7:30 p.m.; and The State Theatre in New Brunswick, Oct. 25 at 2 p.m.
The orchestra’s music director, Xian Zhang, will conduct, and George Li will be featured on Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, “Emperor.” The concerts will also feature Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 9 in C Major, “The Great.”
• The renowned classical violinist Itzhak Perlman, who turned 81 in August, will perform at Prudential Hall at NJPAC in Newark, Oct. 25 at 3 p.m. According to the NJPAC website, this will be a “multimedia program (that) interweaves storytelling with personal photos, clips from the GRAMMY®- nominated Itzhak documentary, and performances with his pianist and friend, Rohan DeSilva.”
• Reagan Richards of the Jersey-based country-rock duo Williams Honor will present a show titled “Good Morning, Heartache: Torch Songs and Timeless Classics” at The Avenel Performing Arts Center, Oct. 28 at 7:30 p.m.
Richards developed the show — originally titled “With Love, Reagan” — as an homage to her mother Harriet, a big band singer who worked with Les Paul and others. Past shows have included songs associated with artists such as Judy Garland, Billie Holiday and Bing Crosby.
Duain Richmond performs as Fela.
• Newark Symphony Hall will present “Fela! The Concert,” Oct. 22 at 7 p.m. Inspired by the life and funky, high-energy music of Nigeria’s Fela Aníkúlápó Kútì (1938-1997), “Fela!” was a jukebox musical that ran off-Broadway in 2008 and then moved to Broadway from 2009 to 2011, winning three Tonys. This touring concert version features 10 musicians and six singer-dancers.
Click HERE for an interview with Duain Richmond, who will sing lead at the concert.
• Raul Malo, frontman of The Mavericks, died in December, but surviving band members are continuing to play Mavericks music on a tour that will come to The Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown, Oct. 29 at 8 p.m.
Drummer Paul Deakin, guitarist Eddie Perez and keyboardist Jerry Dale McFadden, who were in the last version of The Mavericks with Malo, will participate in the tour, as will bassist Robert Reynolds, who was a co-founder of the group in 1989 and remained in the lineup until 2014. The singers will include Emily West and James Otto; both performed at the tribute “Dance the Night Away: A 35 Year Musical Legacy Celebration Honoring Raul Malo,” which took place at The Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on Dec. 5 and 6.
Perez said in a press release: “Raul used to tell me that every time we released new music, it didn’t belong to us anymore; it belonged to the fans. To me, the band has always transcended the people in it. It’s more about the feeling, the vibe, and the high-energy entertainment we give people. We want to continue giving that spirit to our fans.”
Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman co-star in “All the President’s Men,” which will be shown at ShowRoom Cinema in Asbury Park, Feb. 19.
FILM
• Peak Performances will launch its free “Classic Films Now” series — devoted to movies released 50 years ago (i.e., in 1976) — with the Watergate-themed, Academy Award-winning “All the Presidents Men,” Oct 25 at 2 p.m. at Montclair State University’s Presentation Hall. Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman co-star as investigative reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, respectively.
Future films in the series will include “Network,” Nov. 1; and “Rocky,” Nov. 8.
• The Monmouth County Historical Association will present the documentary “The Legend of Freehold Pond” at The Powell Soundstage at The Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, Oct. 29 at 7:30 p.m. Admission will be on a pay-what-you-wish basis, and director Adam Worth and musician Richie Blackwell — a Freehold native who performed on Springsteen’s 1973 album The Wild, the Innocent & The E Street Shuffle — will participate in a post-screening discussion.
According to Worth’s website, the 45-minute film is “an exploration of Bruce Springsteen’s childhood in the small New Jersey town where he was born, and of the town itself: its history, its people, and the forces that shaped it.”
Art House Productions in Jersey City will present “Lizzie Borden,” Oct. 28.
DANCE
• Grant Jacoby & Dancers will present a work titled “Lizzie Borden” at Art House Productions in Jersey City, Oct. 28 at 7:30 p.m. This does not represent an attempt to tell the story of Borden’s life; instead, according to a description on the venue’s website, it is “an abstract love letter/ghost story dedicated to classical ballet, true crime, gay club culture, and final girls from slasher films. A lucid fever dream of overlapping shards of spectres, Lizzie Borden unfolds a strange world where failings of humankind and sexual tension blur the edges of beauty, decay, rust, and rot.”
• Ballets With a Twist will present “Cocktail Hour: The Show” — featuring dances inspired by Hollywood classics — at The Barrymore Film Center in Fort Lee, Oct. 23-24 at 7:30 p.m. The choreography is by Marilyn Klaus; the music, by Stephen Gaboury.
THEATER
• As part of its Revolutionary Voices reading series, The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey will present “We Declare: Words That Changed a Nation” — feature writings of famous Americans including Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Maya Angelou, Robert Frost and James Baldwin — at its F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theatre at Drew University in Madison, Oct. 26 at 7:30 p.m.
The passages will be read by veteran actors including Robert Cuccioli, John Ahlin, Michael Stewart Allen, R.J. Foster, Amber Friendly, Darlene Hope, Erin Partin and Raphael Nash Thompson.
The cover of Jeff Garlin’s book “Best Seat in the House: Moments No One Asked Me to Capture … But I Did Anyway” features a photo of Richard Lewis.
BOOKS
• Last month, actor and comedian Jeff Garlin, who is best known for playing Larry David’s manager and confidante Jeff Greene on the HBO series “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” released a book, “Best Seat in the House: Moments No One Asked Me to Capture … But I Did Anyway,” that includes his photographs of comedians, onstage and offstage, and stories about them.
He will sign copies of it at the Bookends bookstore in Ridgewood, Oct. 24 at 2 p.m.
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REVIEWS
“Destroying David,” presented by American Theater Group at Sieminski Theater, Basking Ridge (Through Oct. 25)
“Pipeline,” presented by Vanguard Theater Company at Vanguard Theater, Montclair. (Through Oct. 25)
“Nacho Ate Spiderman” at New Jersey Repertory Company, Long Branch. (Through Oct. 25)
“Hank Willis Thomas: LOVERULES — From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation” at Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick. (Through Dec. 20)
“Hank Willis Thomas Selects: NJ Arts Annual” at Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick. (Through Dec. 20)
“Salvador Jiménez-Flores: Raíces & Resistencias” at Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton. (Through Aug. 1)
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