John Hoomes travels throughout the world directing opera. He has staged more than 75 productions. Producer Eric Schultz chatted with the veteran director in Princeton after the dress rehearsal of his Opera New Jersey 2009 summer production of "Lucia di Lammermoor." Hoomes worked with an incredible young cast, including Metropolitan Opera star Lisette Oropesa. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your favorite podcast player. The Jersey Arts Podcast is one medium of Featu...
Jul 12, 2009•15 min
The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey’s popular outdoor offering this summer is “The Tempest.” From June 24-August 2, Shakespeare’s magical play is being staged in a stone amphitheater based on the Dionysus Theater in Greece. As artistic director Bonnie Monte tells Susan Wallner, it’s a perfect play and a perfect setting for the whole family – and picnics are encouraged. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your favorite podcast player. The Jersey Arts Podcast is one med...
Jul 06, 2009•11 min
Christopher Benincasa talks with New Jersey International Film Festival curator Al Nigrin and four of the festival's featured filmmakers - Paul Marcus (Sounds Good To Me), Beth Toni Krunant (Heart of Stone), Neil and Lee Selden (Final Gift) - all from New Jersey. This summer's festival runs from June 5th through the 21st. The full schedule can be foud at njfilmfest.com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your favorite podcast player. The Jersey Arts Podcast is one medi...
May 26, 2009•22 min
Christopher Benincasa talks with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon and poet/author Susan Wheeler about the inaugural Princeton Poetry Festival, which was presented by the Lewis Center for the Arts in April of 2009 at Princeton University. The festival featured world-renowned poets John Ashbery, Seamus Heaney, Galway Kinnell, Gerald Stern, and many others. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your favorite podcast player. The Jersey Arts Podcast is one medium of Fe...
May 10, 2009•39 min
Susan Wallner talks to Playwright Tarell McCrane. The 28 year old is playwright in residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and he’s opening a trilogy, “The Brother/Sister Plays,” at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton. The plays deal with poverty, jail, sex, and drugs – the same issues Tarell dealt with growing up in Miami. The first of “The Brother/Sister Plays” opens on Apl 24th and runs through June. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your favorite podcast player....
Apr 19, 2009•21 min
The New Jersey Ballet 50th anniversary features a season of works choreographed by some of the greatest names in dance. Producer Eric Schultz speaks with the company’s founding director, Carolyn Clarke, and Paul Hilliard McRae, New Jersey Ballet’s Assistant Artistic Director. There will be an NJ Ballet Gala Performance at NJPAC on April 18th. www.njballet.org Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your favorite podcast player. The Jersey Arts Podcast is one medium of Featu...
Apr 02, 2009•14 min
Michael Rees creates sculptures that are products of the intersection of art and technology. State of the Arts producer Christopher Benincasa meets up with the 2007 NJSCA Fellowship recipient at Matrix Art Collective in Guttenberg, New Jersey where he designs and fabricates his pieces. Rees teaches classes in sculpture and digital media at William Paterson University, and shows his work internationally. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your favorite podcast player. T...
Dec 10, 2008•13 min
At McCarter’s Berlind Theatre, two ancient Greek plays explore a bloody story tying family values to international politics. In “Iphigenia at Aulis” by Euripides, Iphigenia is sacrificed by her father for the cause of war; in “Agamemnon” by Aeschylus, his life is taken in turn. Susan Wallner talks to Princeton University director Tim Vasen about the production and its relevance to today’s headlines. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your favorite podcast player. The J...
Nov 13, 2008•13 min
State of the Arts producer Christopher Benincasa follows poet Joe Weil around his home town of Elizabeth, New Jersey, stopping along the way to read work from his two recent collections – What Remains and Painting the Christmas Trees. Weil was born and raised in Elizabeth and has been described by The New York Times as personifying that town. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your favorite podcast player. The Jersey Arts Podcast is one medium of Feature Stories on Dis...
Nov 05, 2008•12 min
Celebrated realist painter Mel Leipzig, from Trenton, NJ, is as prolific at 73 as he has ever been. State of the Arts producer Eric Schultz chatted with Leipzig recently as he was working on his new show, a retrospective of paintings from 2006 through 2009, which opens at the Villanova University Art Gallery January 9, 2009. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your favorite podcast player. The Jersey Arts Podcast is one medium of Feature Stories on Discover Jersey Arts ...
Oct 08, 2008•14 min
NJN producer Christopher Benincasa meets up with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa at a Trenton bookstore. Komunyakaa has a new book of poetry coming out this fall called Warhorses, which delves into an age of war and conflict, both global and internal, racial and sexual. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your favorite podcast player. The Jersey Arts Podcast is one medium of Feature Stories on Discover Jersey Arts (jerseyarts.com) , where articles and video...
Aug 27, 2008•10 min
The New Jersey State Museum has reopened with an exhibit celebrating New Jersey folk life, “Culture in Context: A Tapestry of Expression” One of the Featured artists is Forked River basketmaker Mary May. Mary May is not only a master basketmaker but an historian of South Jersey baskets. NJN Producer Susan Wallner finds out more about this traditional craft. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your favorite podcast player. The Jersey Arts Podcast is one medium of Feature...
Jul 31, 2008•10 min
Organ virtuoso Joan Lippincott recently performed J. S. Bach’s monumental "Art of the Fugue" at the Princeton Theological Seminary as part of the Westminster Choir College 2008 Bach Festival. Lippincott spoke with NJN producer Eric Schultz shortly after the concert and explained some of the intricacies of writing a fugue and why she thinks Bach’s "Art of the Fugue" is such a masterpiece. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your favorite podcast player. The Jersey Arts P...
Jul 06, 2008•10 min
"Cecilia's Last Tea Party" is a new play at Trenton's Mill Hill Playhouse that the New York Times called "a modest but ravishing new piece of theater well served by the Passage Theater Company's production". NJN producer Christopher Benincasa recently spoke with the play's star Nitya Vidyasagar, who plays Cecilia, a young girl whose parents have disappeared in the midst of 1940s political upheaval on an unnamed island in the Pacific Rim. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast...
May 28, 2008•7 min
NJN producer Amber Edwards talks with actress Marlo Thomas -- who's currently at the George Street Playhouse in a world premiere play by Elaine May titled "Roger is Dead"-- about her theater work and her groundbreaking 1960s TV series "That Girl", which altered the television landscape. "Roger is Dead" runs through May 11th at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your favorite podcast player. The Jersey Arts Podcast is one me...
Apr 27, 2008•11 min
This time on Jersey Arts: The Podcast, NJN producer Amber Edwards talks with Nell Irvin Painter, the eminent historian and author--recently retired from Princeton--who has gone back to school as an undergraduate at Rutgers Mason Gross School of the Arts, in order to pursue a career as a professional artist. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your favorite podcast player. The Jersey Arts Podcast is one medium of Feature Stories on Discover Jersey Arts (jerseyarts.com) ,...
Apr 16, 2008•9 min
Welcome to the very first edition of Jersey Arts: The Podcast. On NJN's recent "Stage & Screen" episode of State of the Arts, Christopher Benincasa produced a story about Edward Albee's new play, "Me, Myself, and "', directed by Emily Mann at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton. In this podcast, you'll hear the extended interview with Albee, much of which didn't make it into the story! Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your favorite podcast player. The Jersey Arts P...
Mar 06, 2008•12 min
