MICHAEL WEINTROB
Jerry Harrison, right, with Adrian Belew.
Here is a roundup of arts events taking place around the state, through March 8.
MUSIC
• Talking Heads member Jerry Harrison and Adrian Belew, who played with the band in 1980 and 1981, will bring their Remain in Light Tour — named after the great 1980 Talking Heads album — to the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, March 5 at 8 p.m. The song will feature songs from the album — such as “Once in a Lifetime,” “Born Under Punches,” “Crosseyed and Painless,” “The Great Curve” and “Houses in Motion” — and more. Cool Cool Cool, featuring former members of Turkuaz, will open.
“When we were doing those tours,” said Harrison, in an NJArts.net interview, of the Talking Heads tours that followed Remain in Light, “it was hard for people to compete with us because there was such joy and excitement coming off the stage.”
• New Jersey Symphony music director Xian Zhang will conduct the orchestra in performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 at Prudential Hall at NJPAC in Newark, March 3 at 8 p.m. and March 5 at 3 p.m. Mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Conner will be featured, as will Montclair State University’s Prima Voce group (directed by Heather J. Buchanan) and the Starry Arts Group Children’s Chorus (directed by Rebecca Shen).
QUINN SULLIVAN
• Since last summer, The Homestead Bar & Kitchen in Morristown has been booking a steady stream of rock and blues bands. March 7 at 8 p.m., it has a great double bill: Quinn Sullivan, 23, and Veronica Lewis, 19, who has both proven themselves as nationally touring blues-rock artists with phenomenal chops, at a very young age (and who both, coincidentally, have introduced themselves to local audiences via recent appearances at the Morristown Jazz and Blues Festival).
• The Barrymore Film Center in Fort Lee is a movie theater, but it will try something different, March 4 at 8 p.m., with “Broadway to Hollywood” a concert of Broadway songs that were featured in Hollywood movies (including “Funny Girl,” “Chicago,” “Carousel” and “Les Misérables”). Scott Siegel will host, and performers will include Lianne Marie Dobbs, Brian Charles Rooney, Kendrick Jones, Ben Jones, John Easterlin, Farah Alvin, Ryan Knowles, Michael Winther and Jenny Lee Stern.
• The Richard Lloyd Group will perform March 8 at 7 p.m. at Randy Now’s Man Cave in Hightstown. Singer-guitarist Lloyd is best known as a member of the influential alternative-rock band Television, though he has also been releasing albums under his own name since the late ’70s.
Lloyd has a number of other New Jersey dates scheduled as well, including Crossroads in Garwood, March 10; Asbury Lanes, April 5; and the Outpost in the Burbs in Montclair, April 22.
American Repertory Ballet presents “Giselle,” March 3-4, in New Brunswick.
DANCE
• American Repertory Ballet will present “Giselle” at the New Brunswick Performing Arts Center, March 3-4 at 7 p.m. and March 4-5 at 2 p.m. This version of the classic ballet was co-choreographed by ARB artistic director Ethan Stiefel and Johan Kobborg, formerly of the Royal Ballet in London and the Royal Danish Ballet. It premiered at the Royal New Zealand Ballet in 2012 and toured after that; it is being be restaged and partially redesigned specifically for American Repertory Ballet.
FILM
• SModcastle Cinemas in Atlantic Highlands will screen the 1993 animated film “Batman: Mask of the Phantasm,” March 5 at 6 p.m., with a post-screening question-and-answer session with director, actor, writer and SModcastle Cinemas owner Kevin Smith.
• Director Chantal Akerman’s 1975 film “Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles” received new interest recently when it was named the greatest film of all time in a critics poll in Sight & Sound magazine. As a result, it will receive a rare theatrical screening at Princeton Garden Theatre, March 8 at 7 p.m.
FAMILY
• The Prudential Center in Newark presents the Jurassic World Live Tour, March 3-5 at 7 p.m. as well as March 4-5 at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. The show features actors and animatronic dinosaurs based on the “Jurassic Park/Jurassic World” film series, with an original story.
GABRIEL BARRETO
AMY IRVING
MULTI-MEDIA
• Actress Amy Irving has sung, occasionally, in her movies, but will soon release her first album, Born in a Trunk, featuring songs that relate to her career, relationships and family. She’ll perform material from it, interspersed with autobiographical stories, at the Outpost in the Burbs at the First Congregational Church in Montclair, March 4 at 8 p.m. (Click here for an in-depth interview on Irving’s life and career, and this album.)
• The works of French filmmaker Georges Méliès — whose movies, from the 1890s to the 1910s, featured important innovations in the field of special effects — will be explored in “Right in the Eye,” a movie/concert taking place at the Margaret Williams Theatre at New Jersey City University, March 3 at 7:30 p.m. A trio of musicians, playing traditional instruments such as piano and guitar as well as more exotic ones such as theremin, aquaphone and household objects, will perform. (see video below)
According to a press release, the show combines “music and sound compositions, lighting, still images and moving pictures” and “is the musical brainchild of composer-scenographer Jean-François Alcoléa, who has created a magical show where a multi-layered, evocative and intricate score, complements and enhances Méliès silent films.”
ALLISON BROWN
LEONIEKE SCHEUBLE
• “Women in Jazz,” taking place March 5 at 3 p.m. at the Madison Community Arts Center, will feature a presentation by author and record producer Charles L. Granata and filmmaker Jim Burns (who will show excerpts from his documentary on young female jazz stars, “She’s Got Jazz”) as well as live music by pianist Leonieke Scheuble, featuring songs associated with female jazz artists.
The event is sponsored by the New Jersey Jazz Society and will feature a half-hour “Rising Stars” opening set by Raritan Valley Community College Jazz Ensemble, featuring alto saxophonist Ian Dalida, bassist Nicolas Gallegos, singer Victoria Mango, pianist Felipe Primero and drummer Payton Teague.
REVIEWS
“Passing Strange,” presented by Vanguard Theater Company at Vanguard Theater, Montclair (Through March 5)
“The Ladykillers” at Sitnik Theatre at Lackland Performing Arts Center, Hackettstown. (Through March 5)
“Wuthering Heights” at McCarter Theatre Center, Princeton. (Through March 12)
“Raisin” at Axelrod Performing Arts Center, Deal. (Through March 12)
“Hercules” at Paper Mill Playhouse, Millburn. (Through March 19)
“Quarter Rican” at Mile Square Theatre, Hoboken. (Through March 26)
“New Jersey Arts Annual: Reemergence” at State Museum, Trenton. (Through April 30)
“Ladies and Gentlemen … The Beatles!” at Grammy Museum Experience Prudential Center, Newark. (Through June 25)
“Komar and Melamid: A Lesson in History” at Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick. (Through July 16)
“George Inness: Visionary Landscapes” at Montclair Art Museum. (Through June 30, 2024)
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