AVERY BRUNKUS
Billie Wyatt and Isaac Hickox-Young in The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey’s 2025 production of “Romeo & Juliet.”
Here is a roundup of major arts events taking place around New Jersey, through Jan. 29.
MUSIC
• Cast members from The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey’s fall 2025 production of “Romeo and Juliet” — including the actors who played Romeo (Isaac Hickox-Young) and Juliet (Billie Wyatt), and seven more — will perform excerpts from Shakespeare’s timeless tragedy onstage again, to accompany New Jersey Symphony‘s performance of selections from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet at Prudential Hall at NJPAC in Newark, Jan. 29 at 1:30 p.m., Jan. 30 at 7:30 p.m. and Feb. 1 at 2 p.m.; and The Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, Jan. 31 at 7:30 p.m.
The orchestra will be conducted by its music director, Xian Zhang, and the program also will include Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture.
• This year’s Light of Day WinterFest will end with a 7:30 p.m. Jan. 24 “Songwriters in the Round”-syle concert at The Outpost in the Burbs at The First Congregational Church in Montclair. Performers will include Guy Davis, Willie Nile, Glen Burtnik, James Maddock, Deni Bonet & Chris Flynn, Joe D’Urso, Matt & Eryn O’Ree, Rick Winowski, Jon Caspi and Sharon “Pipes” Lasher.
Founded in 1998, Light of Day raises money and awareness for the continuing quest to end Parkinson’s disease and its related illnesses ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) and PSP (progressive supranuclear palsy) within our lifetime. More than $7.5 million has been raised, over the years.
Light of Day’s main 2026 concert — at which Nile, Maddock, D’Urso and the O’Rees performed — took place Jan. 17 at The Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank.
VIVIAN WANG
ANTHONY D’AMATO
• Anthony D’Amato, a veteran singer-songwriter who is also a member of the band Fantastic Cat, has replaced Nathan Graham as the headliner of the 8 p.m. Jan. 24 concert in the Split Level Concerts series at The Jersey Shore Arts Center in Ocean Grove. Tickets for the original Graham show will be honored.
The show’s opening act remains the same: Deseree Spinks, well known to Jersey Shore music fans as the frontwoman of the band Des & the Swagmatics.
• The London-based Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Vasily Petrenko, will perform at Prudential Hall at NJPAC in Newark, Jan. 25 at 3 p.m. Ray Chen — who was born in Taiwan, grew up in Australia, and has been releasing albums since 2010 — will be featured on Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major, Op.35.
The program will also include Jean Sibelius’ Symphony No.2 in D major, Op.43; and Carl Nielsen’s Helios Overture, Op.17.
An educational talk, one hour before the concert, by George Marriner Maull of The Discovery Orchestra will be offered to all ticket-holders, free of additional charge.
• The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra — featuring its music director Wynton Marsalis on trumpet — will present its “Duke in Africa” program at The State Theatre in New Brunswick, Jan. 22 at 7:30 p.m. The program will feature Duke Ellington compositions such as “Afro-Bossa,” “Liberian Suite” and “Togo Brava Suite” and celebrate the 60th anniversary of Ellington’s trip with his orchestra to Dakar, Senegal, where they performed at The first World Festival of Negro Arts.
Ins Choi in “Kim’s Convenience.”
THEATER
• The McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton will present “Kim’s Convenience” from Jan. 23 to Feb. 15 at its Berlind Theatre. The 2011 play, set in a Toronto convenience store, was written by and stars Ins Choi, who describes it as a “love letter to his parents and to all first-generation immigrants who call Canada their home.” It inspired a sitcom that ran on Canada’s CBC Television network for five seasons and was later distributed internationally by Netflix.
Choi played the shop owner’s son in the original production, but will star as the owner in this production.
• The Passage Theatre Company will present the world premiere of David Robson’s “Muleheaded, or Zora and Langston Write a Play,” Jan. 29 to Feb. 15 at The Mill Hill Playhouse in Trenton. In this “based on a true story” work, writers Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes clash while teaming up to write the 1930 play “Mule Bone.”
DANCE
• Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, the all-male New York-based ensemble that is also known as The Trocks, will performs its parodies of classic ballets such as “Swan Lake” at The McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, Jan. 24 at 7:30 p.m. The ensemble celebrated its 50th anniversary last year.
Paul Deery’s “Variation #14.”
VISUAL ARTS
• Among the three exhibitions opening at The Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, Jan. 21, is Paul Deery’s “Bach in Color: The Goldberg Variations.” According to the museum, Deery “spent years constructing a visual language to translate Bach’s Goldberg Variations into a beautiful symphony of constructed color. This exhibition features the entire series as well as supplemental materials and notes from Deery’s deep inquiry of these storied compositions.”
“Bach in Color” will run through April 26.
FILM
• The West Orange Classic Film Festival — which will present classic movies followed by talks about them, Sundays at 2 p.m. through March 15 (except for Super Bowl Sunday) at The AMC Dine-In Theater — will start on Jan. 25 with the 1988 Italian film, “Cinema Paradiso.” Film historian, filmmaker and painter Gerard Amsellem will lead the discussion.
Future films in the series include “The Brother From Another Planet,” Feb. 1; “Annie Hall,” Feb. 15; “The Secret of Roan Inish,” Feb. 22; “Three Days of the Condor,” March 1; “It Happened One Night,” March 8; and “Politics Schmolitics” (featuring politically themed cartoons and shorts from the ’30s and ’40s), March 15.
REVIEWS
“Morven Revealed: Untold Stories From New Jersey’s Most Historic Home” at Morven Museum & Garden, Princeton. (Through March 1)
“Salvador Jiménez-Flores: Raíces & Resistencias” at Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton. (Through Aug. 1, 2027)
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