Blink-182 (from left, Travis Barker, Tom DeLonge and Mark Hoppus).
Here is a roundup of major arts events taking place around New Jersey, through Sept. 18.
FESTIVALS
• The Sept. 13-14 Sea.Hear.Now festival, taking place on the beach and at Bradley Park in Asbury Park on Sept. 13-14, will be co-headlined by Hozier (Sept. 13) and Blink-182 (Sept. 14), with other performers including Lenny Kravitz, LCD Soundsystem, Sublime, Public Enemy, Alabama Shakes, ZZ Top, TV on the Radio, Spoon, De La Soul, UB40, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, Royel Otis, Phantogram and 4 Non Blondes.
Doors will open at noon each day, and the nighttime curfew will be 10:30.
There will also be a free “Kickoff on Cookman” concert on Cookman Avenue in downtown Asbury Park, Sept. 12 at 4 p.m., with Bumpin Uglies, Brick + Mortar, Küf Knotz and others; late-night shows at The Stone Pony (Sept. 12-13), The Wonder Bar (Sept. 12-13) and Asbury Lanes (Sept. 14); plus a surfing contest, yoga sessions, art displays and food vendors.
• Willie Nelson, still performing at 92 (!), will bring his 10th annual Outlaw Music Festival — also featuring Bob Dylan, Sheryl Crow, Waxahatchee and Madeline Edwards — to The Freedom Mortgage Pavilion in Camden, Sept. 12; and The PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, Sept. 13.
For both shows, the schedule will be:
4 p.m. Madeline Edwards
4:55 p.m.: Waxahatchee
6:20 p.m.: Sheryl Crow
8:05 p.m.: Bob Dylan
9:50 p.m.: Willie Nelson & Family
LAKECIA BENJAMIN
• Lakecia Benjamin & Phoenix, José James, Luisito Quintero & 3rd Element and The Jazz House Collective (playing the music of James Moody) will be among the performers at the Montclair Jazz Festival‘s 2025 Downtown Jamboree, which will take place on Sept. 13 from noon to 10 p.m.
As is always the case for this festival — which is organized by the Montclair-based educational organization, Jazz House Kids — there will be no admission charge.
The day will begin with a New Orleans-style second line parade, led by Alphonso Horne’s Gotham Kings, from Church Street and Park Avenue to the new main-stage location at Lackawanna Plaza.
Main-stage performances will take place from noon to 8 p.m., with DJ music from Christian McBride (as his DJ Brother Mister alter ego) and DJ Prince Hakim following. McBride, who is Jazz House Kids’ artistic director and the husband of its founder and president, Melissa Walker, will also perform earlier in the day with his Ursa Major ensemble, featuring four younger performers: guitarist Ely Perlman, saxophonist Nicole Glover, keyboardist Mike King drummer and Savannah Harris.
Also, Jazz House Kids students and alumni will perform on a second stage from noon to 8 p.m.
AMYTHYST KIAH
• The Nimbus Arts Center in Jersey City will host the free Hudson West Music Fest, Sept. 13 from 1 to 10 p.m., with Amythyst Kiah, Quadrature, Dori Freeman, Maidin, Christina Courtin, Alice Howe & Freebo and Matthew Gronert performing on the main stage; a question-and-answer session with Kiah; a songwriting workshop with Howe and Freebo; a presentation on raga music; and, on an outdoor stage, more sets of music plus a jam session, a song swap and a family square dance.
MUSIC
• The Who, who performed at The Prudential Center in Newark on Aug. 19, will return to the state for what may be their last show here (they say this tour will be their last), Sept. 12 at 7:30 p.m. at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. Leslie Mendelson will open.
This show was originally scheduled for Aug. 23, with a different opening act, but was postponed because of illness. Tickets for the original show will be honored.
• The Bay Atlantic Symphony‘s “Roaring ’20s Reprise Gala” — taking place Sept. 18 at 6 p.m. at The Noyes Arts Garage at Stockton University in Atlantic City — will feature a silent auction, a cocktail hour and hors d’oeuvres, in addition to a performance by members of the Symphony. Roaring ’20s-style attire is encouraged.
• The Outpost in the Burbs will kick off its 2025-26 season, Sept. 12 at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church in Montclair, with a show featuring the veteran Canadian singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith, plus an opening set by New Jersey’s own Ed Seifert.
In August, Sexsmith released a new album, Hangover Terrace.
Seifert, who has been a member of bands such as Speed the Plough and The Campfire Flies, released, in May, a single, “Great Big World,” which features a large cast of supporting musicians, including Syd Straw, Glenn Mercer of The Feelies, James Mastro of The Bongos, and Dennis Diken of The Smithereens. Click HERE to ready Cindy Stagoff’s NJArts.net interview with Seifert about this project.
KEN BURNS
FILM
• In “An Afternoon With Ken Burns” — taking place at Prudential Hall at NJPAC, Sept. 17 at 1:30 p.m. — the documentary filmmaker will preview his six-part, 12-hour “The American Revolution,” which will air on PBS in November. Following the film preview, Brian Williams will moderate a conversation with Burns, co-director Sarah Botstein and historian and project advisor Christopher Brown.
MUSIC/FILM
• The music of two-time Oscar-winning film composer Hans Zimmer will be played by a symphony orchestra, Sept. 14 at 7 p.m. at The Prudential Center in Newark, in a show titled “The World of Hans Zimmer: A New Direction.” The musical pieces will be played in sync with excerpts from the films in which they are heard.
Zimmer will not be appearing as part of the show, though he curated it and created the musical arrangements. Matt Dunkley, a longtime associate of his, will conduct the orchestra.
Zimmer’s film credits include the “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “Dark Knight” and “Dune” series, “The Lion King,” “Gladiator,” “Inception,” “Intersteller” and “No Time to Die.”
• A screening of the “La Bamba” (the 1987 biopic about Latin-rock pioneer Ritchie Valens) that will take place at The Union County Performing Arts Center in Rahway, Sept. 18 at 7 p.m., will be followed by dance party on the theater stage that, according to the theater’s website, will feature “Valens’ music and other Latin rock and pop hits by the artists he inspired.”
Samantha Bee will present her “How to Survive Menopause” in Red Bank, Sept. 12.
THEATER
• Samantha Bee will present a show titled “How to Survive Menopause,” Sept. 12 at 7:30 p.m. at The Vogel at The Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank. Bee, whose talk and news satire show “Full Frontal With Samantha Bee” ran on TBS from 2016 to 2022, wrote and stars in this one-woman show, which has been promoted as “a bold and brutally honest one-woman show about the greatest joke to ever be played on women’s bodies: menopause. This hilarious and cathartic experience is for anyone who is going through it, has gone through it, will be going through it, or knows someone about to.”
• Darko Tresnjak, who won a Tony in 2014 for directing “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder,” will premiere his adaptation of Agatha Christie’s 1923 mystery novel “The Murder on the Links” (re-titled “Murder on the Links”) at Two River Theater in Red Bank, with previews starting on Sept. 13, the official opening night on Sept. 19, and the last show on Oct. 5.
Cast members will include Campbell Scott as the eccentric-but-formidable detective Hercule Poirot, and Tony nominees Kate Baldwin and Lauren Worsham.
• Lauren Gunderson’s “I and You,” a drama about two high school students, has been produced many times, at many different theaters, since it premiered in 2014. And now a new rock musical version of it, featuring songs by Ari Afsar, will debut at The Berlind Theatre at The McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, with the first preview on Sept. 13, the official opening on Sept. 19, and the last show on Oct. 12.
Gunderson and Afsar previously collaborated on the musical “Jeannette.”
BOOKS
• Rob Reiner, who wrote and directed the 1984 comedy “This Is Spinal Tap” as well as its new sequel, “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues,” has written a book, “A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever: The Story of Spinal Tap,” and will make an appearance to promote it at Bookends in Ridgewood, Sept. 12 at 6 p.m.
(UPDATE: This event has been cancelled.)
“Spinal Tap II: The End Continues” will be released on Sept. 12.
VISUAL ARTS
• Elizabeth Shoumatoff’s 1943 portrait of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, painted at The White House, will be part of an exhibition, “The Patience to Pose: Elizabeth Shoumatoff, the Rutherfurds, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt,” that can be seen at Rutherfurd Hall in Allamuchy Township, Sept. 18-20.
An opening reception, taking place Sept. 18 at 4 p.m., will feature a talk by historian Joan Leckie Salvas.
REVIEWS
“Walden,” presented by Premiere Stages at The Bauer Boucher Theatre Center at Kean University, Union. (Through Sept. 21)
“Léni Paquet-Morante: Extract/Abstract,” presented by Princeton University Art Museum at Art@Bainbridge. (Through Nov. 2)
“Indigenous Identities: Here, Now & Always” at Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick. (Through Dec. 21)
“Morven Revealed: Untold Stories From New Jersey’s Most Historic Home” at Morven Museum & Garden, Princeton. (Through March 1)
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