JENNY RISHER
Alice Cooper will perform at The Tropicana Showroom in Atlantic City, Oct. 31.
Here is a roundup of major arts events taking place around New Jersey, through Nov. 5.
MUSIC
• The King of Shock Rock, Alice Cooper, will be in New Jersey for Halloween, with an 8 p.m. concert scheduled at The Tropicana Showroom in Atlantic City.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer has been busy lately. Earlier this month, he published a memoir, “Devil on My Shoulder,” and started a weekly SiriusXM satellite radio show, “Alice in Underland,” on Stevie Van Zandt’s Underground Garage channel (channel 21).
Last year, Cooper and original Alice Cooper band members Michael Bruce, Dennis Dunaway and Neal Smith reunited to release their first album of new material in more than 50 years, The Revenge of Alice Cooper.
EBRU YILDIZ
SUZANNE VEGA
• Singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega promises a “career-spanning” setlist, including songs from her 2025 album Flying With Angels, when she performs in the Outpost in the Burbs series at The First Congregational Church in Montclair, Oct. 30 at 8 p.m.; and The McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, Nov. 6 at 8 p.m. She will be backed by guitarist Gerry Leonard (who has worked with David Bowie, Rufus Wainwright and many others) and cellist Stephanie Winters (who has released albums as a solo artist and as a member of the duo The Nudes).
Click HERE for a new interview with Vega.
• The second EF4 (Everything Fab Four) Fest, taking place Nov. 5-8 at Monmouth University, will offer, among other things, a deep dive into The Beatles’ 1966 album Revolver — featuring songs such as “Eleanor Rigby,” “Got to Get You Into My Life” and “Taxman” and regarded by many as one of the band’s greatest achievements. It is, of course, the album’s 60th anniversary, this year.
Events are scheduled for The Woods Theatre, The Powell Soundstage at The Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music, and other locations on the West Long Branch campus. Documentary-maker and Beatles fan Ken Burns and filmmaker Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who worked with The Beatles on several projects, will make appearances via Zoom. Bands will include The Blue Tins (Nov. 5), Blac Rabbit (Nov. 6), The Cyrkle (Nov. 7) and The Magical Mystery Girls (Nov. 7). Other festival participants will include singer-songwriter Nellie McKay (Nov. 6), Jack Petruzzelli of the Beatles band The Fab Faux (Nov. 5), authors Rob Sheffield (Nov. 7) and Bruce Spizer (Nov. 6), and photographer Roger Farrington (Nov. 5).
Tours of the Springsteen Center will be offered, and there will be talks and discussions about many topics, ranging from “From Rubber Soul to Revolver: A Data-Driven Look at the Beatles’ Creative Explosion” to “Surrender to the Void: A Medical Perspective on the Beatles’ Drug Use and Its Effects on Their Music.”
LILLIAS WHITE
• Lillias White, who has two Tony nominations and one win (Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical for “The Life” in 1997), will co-star in a concert presentation of Timothy Ware-Hill’s “We Are” at The DMK Black Box Theater in Union, Nov. 2 at 7:30 p.m. The show is being presented by American Theater Group and is described in a press release as “a contemporary musical screenplay about identity, family, love, and America’s complicated Civil Rights legacy.”
Ware-Hill, who co-starred in American Theater Group’s excellent 2025 production of “Our Town,” is also directing the production, and will appear in it along with White, the Tony-nominated Christiani Pitts, and a dozen other actors.
• 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 in December.
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.”
WILLIE NILE
• Willie Nile will kick off the third season of the Split Level Concerts series at The Palaia Theater at The Jersey Shore Arts Center in Ocean Grove. He will perform at 8 p.m. Oct. 31, with Robinson Treacher opening.
Upcoming shows in the series will include John Gorka, Dec. 5; Dan Bern and Redbird, Jan. 9; Catie Curtis & Band and Mike Montrey, Feb. 13; Stephen Kellogg, March 13; Abbie Gardner and Sean Kiely, April 10; Heather Maloney & Band and Tiny Cities, May 8; and Kim Richey and Sharon Lasher, June 5.
Proceeds from the shows will benefit the Jersey Shore Arts Center, which offers an eclectic assortment of arts programming in addition to the concert series.
FILM
• The Nov. 5-15 Rutgers Jewish Film Festival, presented by Rutgers’ Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life, will open with a 7 p.m. Nov. 5 screening of “Dust Bowls and Jewish Souls: Another Side of Woody Guthrie” at The Regal Commerce Cinema Center in North Brunswick.
The film (see trailer below) — which will also screen at the same theater, Nov. 12 at 3 p.m. — looks at Guthrie’s embrace of Jewish culture via his second wife, Marjorie Greenblatt, a dancer and dance teacher who lived in New York, and was Jewish.
• Actors Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard and Michael C. Williams will take part in question-and-answer sessions following screenings of the innovative 1999 horror film “The Blair Witch Project,” Oct. 30 at 7 p.m. at BergenPAC in Englewood, and Oct. 31 at 8 p.m. at The Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank.
• 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.”
PHOEBE POTTS
THEATER
• Centenary Stage Company will present comedian and cartoonist Phoebe Potts in her one-woman show, “Too Fat for China,” Nov. 5 at 7 p.m., Nov. 6-7 at 7:30 p.m., and Nov. 8 at 2 p.m. at The Kutz Theatre at The Lackland Performing Arts Center in Hackettstown. The shows are part of CSC’s Fringe Festival.
Potts has described the show 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.”
WORDS
• Comedian and former Conan O’Brien sidekick Andy Richter has written a book about the 2003 movie “Elf” — “Elf Unwrapped: Behind the Scenes of a Modern Christmas Classic” — and will sign copies of it at the Books and Greetings bookstore in Northvale, Nov. 5 at 6 p.m. According to promotional material, the book is an oral history in which Richter “unwraps the story of how a quirky holiday film about a human raised by elves became such an enduring cultural phenomenon.”
• Allan Pepper, who co-owned the famed nightclub The Bottom Line, will talk about his 2025 book “Positively Fourth and Mercer: The Inside Story of New York’s Iconic Music Club, The Bottom Line,” Nov. 5 at 7 p.m. at Little City Books in Hoboken. Co-author Billy Altman will also participate in the event, veteran radio DJ Jerry Treacy will moderate, and photos taken at the nightclub will be shown.
The Bottom Line was a staple of the Downtown New York music scene from 1974 to 2004, and hosted legendary shows by Bruce Springsteen, Lou Reed, Laura Nyro, David Johansen, Harry Chapin, Flo & Eddie and others.
MICHAEL DOUGLAS
• The Drew Forum will present a talk by actor and producer Michael Douglas at The Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown, Nov. 2 at 7:30 p.m., with Ben Mankiewicz (primetime host of Turner Classic Movies) moderating. According to the venue’s website, the talk will “blend fascinating anecdotes from his career, insights into acting and producing, and a commitment to making a difference in the world. He also touches on his battle with stage IV cancer, reconnecting with his Jewish identity, and his family legacy in Hollywood.”
Douglas published a memoir, “One Helluva Ride,” earlier this month.
OTHER
• George Clinton, the ground-breaking leader of funk group Parliament-Funkadelic, will receive the Lifetime Achievement in Music Award, and James Brown impersonator C.P. Lacey will perform at Monmouth Arts’ “Bring on the Funk: Where the Arts Get Down” fundraiser in Asbury Park, Oct. 29.
The event will combine a cocktail party at hotel, The Asbury, at 5:30 p.m. with a dinner celebration at Asbury Lanes at 7 p.m.
Other awardees will include:
Outstanding Community Service: Dorothea Bongiovi (of the JBJ Soul Foundation and the JBJ Soul Kitchen)
Outstanding Literary Achievement: Harlan Coben
Outstanding Musical Achievement: Nicole Atkins
Distinguished Cultural Landmark: PNC Bank Arts Center
Monmouth Arts supports the arts through grants, workshops, marketing assistance and programs such as the Monmouth County Senior Art Show, the Teen Arts Festival, and the Creative Expressions Arts & Wellness Program.
• The Chiller Theatre Toy, Model & Film Expo, taking place at Dolce by Wyndham Parsippany from Oct. 30 to Nov. 1, has a huge list of celebrities who will be available for photo ops, including Denise Richards, Bootsy Collins (Oct. 30-31 only), Lou Gramm of Foreigner, Judd Hirsch, Nancy Kerrigan (Oct. 30-31 only), Joyce DeWitt, Butch Patrick, Randy Quaid, Stephen Pearcy of Ratt, Stephen Baldwin, Billy Baldwin, Chynna Phillips of Wilson Phillips, Bijou Phillips, Mackenzie Phillips, Griffin Dunne (Oct. 31-Nov. 1 only), Nicole Eggert, Tia Carrere, Kristy McNichol, Patti D’Arbanville, Joe Pantoliano, Andrew McCarthy, Chuck Zito and David Naughton.
Other attractions will include vendors, film screenings, live music by The Dead Elvi and others, and a Halloween costume contest.
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REVIEWS
“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)
“Joyce J. Scott: Declarations,” presented by Princeton University Art Museum at Bainbridge House. (Through Jan. 10)
“Salvador Jiménez-Flores: Raíces & Resistencias” at Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton. (Through Aug. 1)
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