AUTUMN DE WILDE
Florence Welch will bring her band Florence + the Machine to Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, April 25.
Here is a roundup of major arts events taking place around New Jersey, through April 30.
MUSIC
• The British rock band Florence + the Machine had been scheduled to perform at The Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia on April 25, but due to a Flyers hockey playoff game, the show was moved to Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, the same day at 7 p.m., with Sofia Isella opening.
The show is part of the band’s Everybody Scream Tour, named after its 2025 album. Reviewing one of the tour’s shows for The Chicago Sun-Times, earlier this month, Selena Fragassi write that it “wasn’t exactly a concert but more of a ritual where collective trauma and suffering were exorcised in a type of release that normally would have cost a lot more money in therapy than the price of admission. … If it all sounds witchy and mystical and new agey, it was — and it was beautiful.
“For two hours, Welch summoned something deep inside the human psyche as she was joined in sound and fury by her incredible backing band, the Machine, that added violins and harp to the baroque score in addition to saxophone, drums and keys. Not to mention a devoted coven of Lizzie Borden-looking backing dancers/actors who performed like they were possessed as they contorted their bodies and succumbed to Welch’s whims when she beckoned them.”
• Gram Parsons did not have a long career: He died in 1973, at the age of 26. But he made enough great music, and had enough of an impact on the development of country-rock — as a solo artist, the frontman of The Flying Burrito Brothers, and a member of The Byrds — that he will enter The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in November, in the Early Influence category. Pat Guadagno, James Maddock, Lisa Bouchelle and other musicians will pay tribute to him in a show titled “20,000 Roads: The Music of Gram Parsons,” April 29 at 7:30 p.m. at The Avenel Performing Arts Center.
LISA BATISASHVILI
• Princeton University Concerts will present violinist Lisa Batisahvili, who was born in the country of Georgia and grew up there and in Germany, with pianist Giorgi Gigashvili, who is also from Georgia, at The Richardson Auditorium at Princeton, April 30 at 7:30 p.m. The program will include music by Beethoven, Prokofiev and Franck, as well as a new work by Josef Bardanashvili.
Batiashvili and Gigashvili will also participate in an event titled “Sounding Defiance: Georgia & Ukraine,” which is part of Princeton University’s Music & Healing series, April 29 at 7:30 p.m. at The Richardson Auditorium. This event will combine music with a conversation moderated by Ara Guzelimian, artistic and executive director of the Ojai Music Festival and former dean and provost of The Juilliard School.
• To celebrate its 25th anniversary, singer-songwriter Jeffrey Gaines will perform his 2001 album Always Be in its entirety as part of his 5 p.m. April 25 show in the GabeGate series at The Spanish Pavillion restaurant in Harrison. Gaines’ intense cover of Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes,” from that album, received a lot of airplay, at the time. Dylan Doyle will open.
• Rhett Miller, frontman of the Americana band Old 97s, has also been touring and recording as a solo artist for many years. He wrapped up an Old 97s tour on April 11, and will set off on a solo tour this weekend that will bring him to The Outpost in the Burbs at The First Congregational Church in Montclair, April 25 at 8 p.m. The Brooklyn-based band Buga will open.
Miller’s most recent solo album, A lifetime of riding by night — featuring songs co-written with Evan Felker of Turnpike Troubadours, Jesse Valenzuela of Gin Blossoms, Nicole Atkins and others — came out last year. You can listen to its “All Over Again,” co-written with Atkins, below.
ALEXIS ROTTER
Sunny Jain of Red Baraat.
• Red Baraat — led by percussionist Sunny Jain — is based in Brooklyn but plays a distinctive, high-energy type of music that is influenced both by North Indian wedding march music and jazz. Peak Performances will present them at the outdoor Montclair State University amphitheater, April 24 at noon. There is no admission charge; tickets can be reserved through the Peak Performances website.
• Live Dead & Brothers — performing at White Eagle Hall in Jersey City, April 30 at 8 p.m. — will present a joint (no pun intended) tribute to The Grateful Dead and The Allman Brothers Band at White Eagle Hall in Jersey City. Musicians will include bassist Berry Duane Oakley (son of original Allman Brothers Band bassist Berry Oakley, and a member of The Allman Betts Band), guitarist Les Dudek (who played on The Allman Brothers Band’s classic Brothers and Sisters album), guitarist and singer Mark Karan (who has been in Dead-affiliated bands RatDog, The Other Ones, Planet Drum and Phil Lesh & Friends), keyboardist Scott Guberman (of Phil Lesh & Friends) and others.
DANCE
• New Jersey Ballet will present a program titled “New Voices. Bold Visions,” April 24 at 7:30 p.m. and April 25 at 3 p.m. at The Victoria Theater at NJPAC in Newark. The program was conceived by NJ Ballet artistic director Maria Kowroski as “a celebration of the artists shaping the future of ballet” and features Ulysses Dove’s “Red Angels,” Penny Saunders’ “Sur le Fil” and a world premiere by Roderick George.
FILM
• The Screen Alliance of New Jersey will present its second annual NJ Film Expo at The Meadowlands Arena in Rutherford, April 30, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., with “several panels, hundreds of vendors, live music and food trucks to showcase New Jersey’s expanding role in film and television,” according to a press release.
Gov. Mikie Sherrill will present the Keynote Address.
There are vendor fees, but no admission charge for those who are just attended. More than 3,000 people came to the first Expo, last year.
The George Street Playhouse will present “My Lord, What a Night,” from May 6 to May 17.
THEATER
• Deborah Brevoort’s “My Lord, What a Night,” which is based on true events, takes place in Princeton on April 16, 1937. The great African-American singer Marian Anderson gave a concert at the McCarter Theatre on that day, and was denied a hotel room at the town’s Nassau Inn. Albert Einstein, who was then teaching at Princeton’s Institute for Advance Study, attended the concert, and gallantly offered Anderson the guest room in his home. Anderson accepted.
In her play, Brevoort imagines what might have happened that night, in that house.
The George Street Playhouse will present “My Lord, What a Night” at The New Brunswick Performing Arts Center, from April 28 to May 17, with six “Choose Your Price” events from May 6 to May 13.
FAMILY ENTERTAINMENT
• The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey will present shortened, family-friendly versions of Shakespeare’s comedy “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and tragedy“Macbeth,” April 25 at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., respectively, at The F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theatre at Drew University in Madison.
OTHER
• The Chiller Theatre Toy, Model & Film Expo takes place at at Hilton Parsippany, April 24-26, with autograph sessions featuring Christopher Lambert, Sally Struthers, Heather Locklear, Lorenzo Lamas, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, Peter Noone, Jamie Farr, Linda Blair, Dyan Cannon, Chris Noth, Bowzer and many others, plus vendors, contests and other attractions.
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REVIEWS
“Fiber Politic” at Hanover Creative, Trenton. Works by Patricia Dahlman, Kwesi Kwarteng, Tamara Torres, Krystle Lemonias and Woolpunk. (Through April 25)
“1776” at Paper Mill Playhouse, Millburn. (Through May 2)
“The Mountaintop” at Mile Square Theatre, Hoboken. (Through May 3)
“Ann Vollum: Sharp Teeth, Long Tongues!” at BrassWorks Gallery, Montclair. (Through May 22)
“Alexandra Schoenberg: Shifting Perspectives” at Hillside Square Gallery, Montclair. (Through June 26)
“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)
“Salvador Jiménez-Flores: Raíces & Resistencias” at Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton. (Through Aug. 1, 2027)
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