JOHN CAVANAUGH
STEVIE VAN ZANDT
Here is a roundup of major arts events taking place around New Jersey, through July 23.
MUSIC
• “This show could be the only Disciples gig, maybe, ever again,” says Stevie Van Zandt about his appearance with his band The Disciples of Soul at ParkStage in Freehold. The 4 p.m. July 17 show, titled “250//The Concert” and postponed from July 3 due to a forecast of extreme heat, will also feature The Jake Clemons Band, Joe Grushecky & the Houserockers (with special guest Gary U.S. Bonds) and The Weeklings.
Click HERE to read a new NJArts.net interview with Van Zandt about this concert, and more.
Doors will open at 3 p.m. and the band schedule will be:
4:30 p.m.: The Weeklings
5:25 p.m.: Grushecky/Bonds
6:25 p.m.: Clemons
7:40 p.m.: Van Zandt
• As usual, there are quite a few surprising — in the sense of acts that don’t seem to have much to do with each other, musically — classic-rock double bills and multi-band tours on the amphitheater circuit this summer. A few of those coming up include Toto, Christopher Cross and The Romantics at The PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, July 18 at 6:45 p.m.; Chicago and Styx at The Freedom Mortgage Pavilion in Camden, July 21 at 7 p.m.; and Lynyrd Skynyrd, Foreigner and Six Gun Sally at The PNC Bank Arts Center, July 26 at 6:30 p.m.
PATRICK DONOVAN
JUDY COLLINS
• Judy Collins will bring her Sweet Judy Blues Eyes Farewell Tour to The Ocean City Music Pier, July 20 at 7 p.m., in a double bill with Richard Thompson.
“Touring has been the great thread of my life — city to city, song to song, face to face,” said Collins, 87, in a press release. “The audiences have carried me for decades, and I’ve never stopped being moved by what can happen in a room when we truly listen to one another. This tour is my way of saying thank you — out loud, together.”
“From back in the ’60s, she always found the best material, and championed young writers like Leonard Cohen,” Thompson has said about Collins. “She started out a folk singer, but can sing anything from ‘Marat/Sade’ to Sondheim.”
Collins will also perform, with Oakland Rain opening, at The Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown, Nov. 22.
• Trumpeter Jon-Erik Kellso and his Quintet will kick off the Summer Jazz Room Series at The Shea Center for Performing Arts at William Paterson University in Wayne, July 20. Also booked for the series are The Summer Camargo Quintet, July 21; The Joe Farnsworth Big Room Quartet featuring pianist Emmet Cohen, July 22; The Duduka Da Fonseca Quartet featuring singer Maucha Adnet, July 23; and The Dennis Mackrel Jazz Orchestra, July 24.
All the shows will take place at 7:30 p.m.
WES ORSHOSKI
“Weird Al” Yankovic at The PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, July 12.
• “Weird Al” Yankovic — the biggest-selling comedy recording artist, ever, and the subject of the 2022 film “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” — performed at The PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, July 12, and will be back in New Jersey for a show at The Event Center at Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa in Atlantic City, July 17 at 8 p.m.
Click HERE to see a photo gallery, videos and the setlist from the Holmdel show.
• Original E Street Band drummer Vini Lopez and his band the Wonderful Winos will kick off the free, outdoor Summer Concert Series at The Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music, July 16 at 6 p.m. The series will run through Aug. 20, and will take place at the Klose Amphitheater outside the museum, which is on the campus of Monmouth University in West Long Branch.
Williams Honor will perform next in the series, July 23 at 6 p.m. The rest of the series’ schedule is not yet available.
Lawn chairs or blankets are recommended for the shows. Also, since they will take place on Thursdays and the Center is open until 8 p.m. on Thursdays, you can see the museum beforehand. (While the shows are free, regular museum admission will be required for those who are interested.)
PHOEBE POTTS
THEATER
• The Theater Project will present comedian and cartoonist Phoebe Potts in her one-woman show, “Too Fat for China,” July 17-18 at 7:30 p.m. and July 19 at 2 p.m. at The DMK Black Box Theater at The Union Arts Center. (see video below)
Potts has described the story as “a comic look at the agony of adoption” and “one woman’s heartbreaking and hilarious journey to acquire a tiny little baby, by any means necessary.”
• The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey will present veteran actors John Ahlin and Christopher Patrick Mullen in “Chip and Gus, a Comedy With Balls,” July 20 at 7:30 p.m. at its Thomas H. Kean Theatre Factory in Florham Park. Ahlin and Mullen co-wrote and co-direct the two-man comedy, which is about a music composer and a philosophy professor who get together for a game of ping-pong and a wide-ranging talk. Ahlin and Mullen have presented the work at the New York City Fringe Festival and will bring it to the Edinburgh Fringe festival next month.
DANCE
• Derek Hough — best known as a dancer and judge on the TV competition show “Dancing With the Stars,” though he also has lots of other credits as a dancer and choreographer — will bring his “Symphony of Dance: Encore” tour to Caesars in Atlantic City, July 18 at 8 p.m.; and The Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown, July 21-22 at 7:30 p.m. The show will feature his wife Hayley Hough, who appeared (under her maiden name, Hayley Erbert) on “Dancing With the Stars” as well as “So You Think You Can Dance” in the years before she married Derek.
In a press release, “Symphony of Dance: Encore” was described as a “fusion of dance and music — from ballroom and tap to salsa, hip-hop, and beyond.”
Ozzy Osbourne, left, with Mark Weiss in 1981.
PHOTOGRAPHY
• The Art Spot gallery in Asbury Park will present “Back to the Beginning: Remembering Ozzy Osbourne,” featuring photos by veteran rock photographer Mark “Weissguy” Weiss, from July 23 to Aug. 17, with opening receptions that Weiss will attend, July 23-24 from 3 to 8 p.m.
Locations for the photos range from Convention Hall in Asbury Park in 1981 to Osbourne’s all-star farewell “Back to the Beginning” concert at Villa Park in Birmingham, England, in July 2025. Osbourne died 17 days later, at the age of 76.
Osbourne once said that Weiss “is like a member of our family … He must have more photographs of me than any other photographer I’ve ever worked with.”
OTHER
• Stewart Copeland, a Rock and Roll Hall and Famer as the drummer in the band The Police, will give a talk titled “Have I Said Too Much?,” July 16 at 7:30 p.m. at The South Orange Performing Arts Center. He will talk about both his years with The Police and his other musical experiences, which have included composing music for film, TV, operas, ballets and more.
JOY REID
• The New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark will present a festival titled ViewerCon, July 18 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at its Victoria Theater. The event will include a wide range of attractions, including discussions featuring actor Taye Diggs, former MS Now host Joy Reid, singer and actress Naturi Naughton, Newark mayor Ras J. Baraka, Bevy Smith (co-host of TV’s “Fashion Queens”) and others; a panel discussion about the Starz series “Power Book III: Raising Kanan”: and a preview of the Starz series “Fightland.”
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REVIEWS
“Willem de Kooning: The Breakthrough Years, 1945–50” at Princeton University Art Museum. (Through July 26)
“Allan Rohan Crite: Neighborhood” at Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick. (Through July 31)
“Faig Ahmed: Textiles of Consciousness,” presented by Princeton University Art Museum at Art @ Bainbridge. (Through Aug. 2)
“Henri Matisse: Beyond Color” at Morris Museum, Morris Township. (Through Aug. 9)
“In Conversation: Will Wilson” at Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Summit. (Through Aug. 23)
“Salvador Jiménez-Flores: Raíces & Resistencias” at Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton. (Through Aug. 1, 2027)
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