JOYCE YANG
Here is a roundup of major arts events taking place around New Jersey, through Oct. 16.
MUSIC
• New Jersey Symphony will kick off its 2025-26 season with concerts at Prudential Hall at NJPAC in Newark, Oct. 10 at 7:30 p.m. and Oct. 12 at 2 p.m.; and The Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, Oct. 11 at 7:30 p.m.
Xian Zhang, now in her 10th year as the Symphony’s music director, will conduct. Grammy nominee Joyce Yang will be featured on Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1. And the program will also include Jessie Montgomery’s Hymn for Everyone and Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8.
This will be the Symphony’s 103rd season.
• Fifty-five years ago — on Oct. 11, 1970 — The Grateful Dead performed at The Marion Shea Auditorium at Paterson State College in Wayne. This Oct. 11 at 8 p.m., the venue — now known as The Shea Center for Performing Arts at William Paterson University — will host the cover band Dead On Live, who will reproduce that show in its entirety, including songs such as “Casey Jones,” “Morning Dew,” “St. Stephen” and “Dark Star.”
• “Echoes of the Isles” will be the theme of The Adelphi Orchestra‘s 7:30 p.m. Oct. 10 concert at the River Dell Middle School Auditorium in River Edge. Jason Tramm will conduct, and the program will include Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy (featuring violinist Blues Zhang); Edward Elgar’s Sea Pictures (featuring mezzo-soprano Laura Zahn); and Felix Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture (Fingal’s Cave).
JASON ALDEAN
• Sports Illustrated Stadium (formerly known as Red Bull Arena) in Harrison, home to Major League Soccer’s Red Bulls team and The National Women’s Soccer League team Gotham FC, will present a concert by country star Jason Aldean, Oct. 10 at 6 p.m., with Warren Zeiders, Chase McDaniel and Lauren Gottshall opening and Dee Jay Silver serving as DJ.
“This is just the beginning,” said David Lane, CEO of Sports Illustrated Tickets, in a press release, when the show was announced. Lane also said the series “highlights our vision of making this venue a premier destination for world-class sports, concerts and cultural experiences in the New York metropolitan area.”
• To celebrate the opening of its Peter Bodge & Seed Artists Jazz Library — featuring books donated by the late jazz teacher, musician and historian Peter Bodge — the Montclair Public Library will present an opening celebration, Oct. 12 at 4 p.m., that will include an outdoor performance by tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis, drummer Pheeroan akLaff and bassist Jeong Lim Yang.
• The Jersey-based internet radio station BlowUpRadio.com will celebrate its 25th anniversary with its 18th annual Banding Together Webathon to benefit the Spondylitis Association Of America, Oct. 16 to Oct. 22. Ninety singer-songwriters and bands — Bobby Mahoney, The Cucumbers, The Porchistas, Sad About Girls, James Dalton, Jon Caspi & the First Gun, The dT’s, Particle Zoo, Foggy Otis and more than 80 others — will perform for a half-hour each.
The Webathon lineup is not usually this large. “It is both humbling and overwhelming, that this year when I reached out to people for this benefit and said it would also celebrate our 25th anniversary, that so many wanted to be involved,” said BlowUpRadio.com founder Lazlo in a press release. “What would normally be a three-day webathon just was not going to fit the number of acts that wanted to be involved, so Banding Together is going to be a full week this year!”
Those donating $20 or more online will receive a download of a compilation, titled “Big Box of Music,” featuring 233 songs played on BlowUpRadio.com over the last quarter-century.
COLD WEATHER COMPANY
• The band Cold Weather Company will present an audio-visual concert as part of New Jersey International Film Festival, Oct. 10 at 7 p.m. at Voorhees Hall at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. This is the latest in a series of audio-visual concerts that began being presented as a component of the festival in 2023.
Band members Steve Shimchick, Jeff Petescia, and Brian Curry began performing together while attending Rutgers. (Check out their recent video for their song, “Levitate,” below.)
FESTIVALS
• The Williams Center in Rutherford will host the ninth annual edition of ProgStock, which bills itself as “The American Northeast’s Only International Progressive Rock Festival,” Oct 9-12, with participating artists including h Natural (featuring Steve Hogarth of Marillion), Pattern-Seeking Animals, IO Earth & the Orchestra of Sound & Emotion, Mike Keneally & Beer for Dolphins, Discipline, The Cyberiam, Rachel Flowers, Funhouse Mirrors, Peter Jones, Points North, Dave Bainbridge & Sally Minnear, Melanie Mau & Martin Schella, others, at Williams Center, Rutherford.
There will also be question-and-answer sessions hosted by the legendary synthesizer player Larry Fast with writer-photographer Armando Gallo and Gentle Giant frontman Derek Shulman; jam sessions; a music industry workshop; meet-and-greets; pumpkin carving classes; and a silent auction. Shulman writes about his experiences in Gentle Giant and as a successful record company executive in a new book, “Giant Steps: My Improbable Journey from Stage Lights to Executive Heights.”
Live streaming will be available for all of the festival’s main-stage performances. Visit progstock.com/2025/tickets for information.
SALLY STRUTHERS
THEATER
• Sally Struthers will co-star in George Street Playhouse‘s Oct. 14-Nov. 2 production of “An Old-Fashioned Family Murder” at The New Brunswick Performing Arts Center. The comedic murder mystery by Joe DiPietro (“Memphis,” “Clever Little Lies,” “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change,” “The Toxic Avenger”) premiered last year at New Theatre & Restaurant in Overland Park, Kansas.
Struthers — best known for co-starring in the groundbreaking ’70s sitcom “All in the Family,” and recently seen in the Netflix series “A Man on the Inside” — also appeared in this play, in Overland Park.
This is the seventh work by DiPietro (a Bergen County native and Rutgers University graduate) that George Street Playhouse has produced. DiPietro has won two Tonys (for “Memphis”) and also has been nominated for “Nice Work If You Can Get It.”
• Mile Square Theatre in Hoboken will present Don X. Nguyen’s “The Supreme Leader” from Oct. 9 to Oct. 26. The theater describes the play as a Switzerland-set “coming-of-age comedy” about North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un that imagines his “throes of youth before his fateful return to North Korea.”
FAMILY
• The Growing Stage in Netcong will kick off its 2025-26 season with “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Musical” — based on Jeff Kinney’s popular “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” book series about middle school student Greg Heffley — Oct. 10-12, 17-19 and 24-26.
MAY PANG
A photo of John Lennon, by May Pang.
VISUAL ARTS
• May Pang will show some of her photos of John Lennon — taken during the 18 months from 1973 to 1975 during which he was separated from Yoko Ono, and was in a relationship with Pang — in an exhibition titled “The Lost Weekend: The Photography of May Pang” at Main Street Gallery in Manasquan. Pang will be there, Oct. 10 from 4 to 8 p.m., Oct. 11 from noon to 5 p.m. and Oct. 12, noon to 4 p.m., and there will be no admission charge. Prints will be available for sale.
According to a press release, highlights of the exhibition “include the only photograph that exists of John Lennon signing the contract to dissolve the Beatles as well as one of the last known photographs of John Lennon and Paul McCartney together from March 29, 1974. Both photographs have never been available to the public until now.”
DANCE
• The Five Birds Farm event space in Ringoes will host a benefit for moe-tion dance theater, Oct. 12 at 4 p.m. According to a press release, the event will include “immersive, site-specific performances where the natural landscape becomes part of the stage.”
Attendees will have the chance to meet artistic director Maureen Glennon Clayton and members of the company to “exchange ideas, and learn more about their vision for the future of dance in Hunterdon County and beyond.”
(UPDATE: This event has been postponed to Nov. 2 because of the threat of inclement weather.)
Illeana Douglas and Matt Dillon co-starred in “Grace of My Heart.”
FILM
• Illeana Douglas, who played the main character in the 1996 film “Grace of My Heart” (loosely based the songwriting career of Carole King), will make a live appearance after a screening of it, Oct. 16 at 7:30 p.m. at The Barrymore Film Center in Fort Lee. She will participate in a conversation with Barrymore Film Center film programmer David Schwartz.
• Also at The Barrymore Film Center … Lee Grant won an Academy Award for her acting in the 1975 film “Shampoo” as well as a directing Oscar for her 1986 documentary about poverty, “Down and Out in America”; now in her 90s, she will make an live appearance after a screening of the latter film, Oct. 12 at 2 p.m., and participate in a conversation with David Schwartz.
• David Arquette, one of the stars of the 1996 film “Scream,” will make a live appearance after a screening of it at Ovation Hall at Ocean Casino Resort in Atlantic City, Oct. 10 at 8 p.m.
• Disney’s 2016 animated film “Moana” will be screened with musicians performing the score live, Oct. 9 at 6:30 p.m. at The McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, and Oct. 11 at 7:30 p.m. at Montclair State University’s outdoor amphitheater, as part of MSU’s Peak Performances series. Since the score blends elements of Polynesian and Western music, a combination of master Polynesian and Western musicians will be on hand to re-create it.
ANNIE LENNOX
OTHER
• Annie Lennox of the pop duo Eurythmics will talk about her life, her music and more at The URSB Carteret Performing Arts Center, Oct. 11 at 7 p.m., in conjunction with the release of her new book, “Annie Lennox: Retrospective.” The evening will feature her “in conversation” with V (formerly known as Eve Ensler), the writer, performer and activist best known as the playwright of “The Vagina Monologues.”
A book will be included in the ticket price, but Lennox will not sign them at this event.
According to promotional material, the book “collates more than two hundred images to create an illustrated memoir of a creative’s life, both in and out of the spotlight (and) moves chronologically through the entirety of Lennox’s life and career — from the early 1970s when she first met Dave Stewart following through with Eurythmics in the ’80s, and then as a solo artist starting in the ’90s and onwards.”
• “Joy Lives Here” is the theme of The Newark Arts Festival, which began on Oct. 8 and will continue through Oct. 12, with offerings including gallery exhibitions and studio tours; an Art Block Party on Halsey Street with music, vendors, food trucks and more, Oct. 9 from 4 to 7 p.m.; a performance by jazz artists Adegoke Steve Colson and Iqua Colson at Clement’s Place, Oct. 9 at 7:30 p.m.; a Comedy Revue at Newark Local Beer, Oct. 10 at 8 p.m.; a performance by singer Avery Wilson at The Newark Museum of Art, Oct. 11 at 7 p.m.; and more.
• Presentations by Jackson Galaxy (host of the 2011-2020 Animal Planet series “My Cat From Hell”) and animal welfare advocate Hannah “Kitten Lady” Shaw, cat photography and fine art workshops, and a cat tattoo contest will be among the offerings at the Catsbury Park Cat Convention, taking place Oct. 11 at 11 a.m. and Oct. 12 at 10 a.m. at Bell Works in Holmdel. There will also be more than 70 vendors, on-site cat adoptions, cat health seminars and more.
Proceeds will benefit Catsbury Park in Asbury Park and other animal rescue shelters.
T. CHARLES ERICKSON
Benji Santiago and Jasmine Forsberg in “I & You: The Musical.”
REVIEWS
“I & You: The Musical” at Berlind Theatre at McCarter Theatre Center, Princeton. (Through Oct. 12)
“The Mighty Four,” presented by Vivid Stage at Oakes Center, Summit. (Through Oct. 12)
“Hamlet” at Art House Productions, Jersey City. (Through Oct. 26)
“The Supreme Leader” at Mile Square Theatre, Hoboken. (Through Oct. 26)
“Troy Jones: Echoes of the Diaspora — A Study in Style, Culture and the African Mask” at Morris Museum, Morris Township. (Through Oct. 26)
“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)
“Tom Nussbaum: But Wait, There’s More!” at Montclair Art Museum. (Through Jan. 4)
“Morven Revealed: Untold Stories From New Jersey’s Most Historic Home” at Morven Museum & Garden, Princeton. (Through March 1)
“Salvador Jiménez-Flores: Raíces & Resistencias” at Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton. (Through Aug. 1, 2027)
_____________________________
CONTRIBUTE TO NJARTS.NET
Since launching in September 2014, NJArts.net, a 501(c)(3) organization, has become one of the most important media outlets for the Garden State arts scene. And it has always offered its content without a subscription fee, or a paywall. Its continued existence depends on support from members of that scene, and the state’s arts lovers. Please consider making a contribution of any amount to NJArts.net via PayPal, or by sending a check made out to NJArts.net to 11 Skytop Terrace, Montclair, NJ 07043.
