NJPAC’s Sounds of the City is a summer tradition in Newark – a free Thursday night concert series attracting thousands of people held outside in Theater Square. It features the hottest new artists around, playing everything from jazz and pop to hip-hop and world music to the ever popular salsa night. This season ends on September 1st with a tribute to Michael Jackson. Susan Wallner talks to the producer, Verushka Wray-Spirito, about the phenomenon of Sounds of the City. Thanks for listening! Sub...
Jul 28, 2011•15 min
The Smithereens have just released their first album of new material in twelve years - Smithereens 2011 - and now the band of New Jersey natives is back on tour and enjoying a warm welcome from critics and fans alike. They'll be performing at WXPN's XPoNential Music Festival in Camden on Friday, July 22. Christopher Benincasa spoke with Smithereens drummer Dennis Diken about the legacy - and future - of a homegrown rock band that's still going strong in its 31st year. Thanks for listening! Subsc...
Jul 11, 2011•16 min
Producer Eric Schultz chats with Richard Russell, General Director of Opera New Jersey, about the company’s 2011 summer season at McCarter Theatre in Princeton. Menotti’s The Consul, Rossini’s Barber of Seville and Pasatieri’s new opera The Family Room are all on the bill. 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 videos also cov...
Jun 20, 2011•11 min
Josh Ritter’s career began to take shape in college when he decided that playing music was more important to him than neuroscience – and, after years of bouncing around the music scene, he’s emerged as one the most respected singer/songwriters of his generation. He’s playing the Appel Farm Arts & Music Festival with Ani Difranco on June 4th. Christopher Benincasa speaks with Josh Ritter about not being a neuroscientist, writing songs, greatness and weirdness, and his debut novel Bright’s Pas...
May 26, 2011•12 min
The Two River Theater Company in Red Bank is hot. New artistic director John Dias has moved quickly to bring new artists and new plays to the stage. His 2011-2012 season was just announced, including everything from “Much Ado About Nothing” to the new academic sex comedy “Seven Homeless Mammoths Wander New England” (developed at Two River). Dias talks to Susan Wallner about his almost mystical passion for the theater, and why he thinks New Jersey is on the cutting edge. Thanks for listening! Sub...
May 10, 2011•12 min
Artist Joan Snyder has been widely celebrated for her vibrant expressionist prints and paintings and her leading role in feminist art. Producer Eric Schultz spoke with the 2007 recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “genius award,” as the Zimmerli Art Museum mounts the first major retrospective of her prints: “Dancing with the Dark: Joan Snyder Prints 1963-2010.” Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your favorite podcast player. The Jersey Arts Podcast is one medium of Feat...
Apr 25, 2011•11 min
The TromaDance Film Festival is returning to Asbury Park – April 22nd and 23rd at the Showroom Theater. In this podcast, Christopher Benincasa talks with the man behind the festival, Lloyd Kaufman. Kaufman is perhaps best known for introducing us to The Toxic Avenger – a mutant super-hero character he created that has come to symbolize independent, do-it-yourself filmmaking – just the right mascot for a festival like TromaDance. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your ...
Apr 05, 2011•10 min
Producer Eric Schultz talks with renowned New Jersey-based choreographer Carolyn Dorfman. She founded her modern dance group, the 28 years ago. Dorfman discusses her latest work and collaborative approaches to creating dance. She also talks about growing up with parents who were Holocaust survivors. Her parents, she says, told her everything, and that has profoundly shaped her entire being and artistic life. She talks about how motherhood later transformed her understanding of the horrors she ha...
Mar 23, 2011•14 min
“Black is Beautiful” - Deborah Willis, artist, historian, and curator, explores the history of this idea, from early slave images to an iconic 1970s photo of model Suzanne Taylor. “Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present,” will be at the Newark Museum through April 28th. Willis, a MacArthur “Genius,” has a new book out as well: “Michelle Obama: The First Lady in Photographs.” Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your favorite podcast player. ...
Mar 13, 2011•13 min
Christopher Benincasa interviews curator Angela Sergonis about a new show at the -- 50 photos of acclaimed African American artists -- from Lena Horne to Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston to Dizzy Gillespie. In the 1920s, Carl Van Vechten, critic, novelist, and chronicler of the Harlem Renaissance, began photographing black writers, musicians, and artists -- the result is the vivid portrait archive now on display at the museum. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your...
Mar 01, 2011•11 min
Christopher Benincasa talks with Dr. Rafey Habib, Professor of English at Rutgers University, author of many books on literary criticism – and a poet. His book Shades of Islam: Poems for a New Century has just been published. One of his passions is cultivating mutual understanding between the Islamic world and Western cultures – which includes working with colleagues at Rutgers University to establish a cultural diversity of courses, including Islamic literature in English translation. In this p...
Jan 10, 2011•18 min
"Black Nativity," by the great poet Langston Hughes, premiered in 1961 on Broadway. Since then, the gospel-inspired musical play has become a holiday favorite. This year, see it December 30th at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, in a production directed by Darrell Lawrence Willis of the Dunbar Repertory Company. Willis describes the production to Susan Wallner, and reflects on why it has become such a beloved tradition. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your favori...
Dec 20, 2010•12 min
[Title of Show] is about two guys writing a show – Hunter Bell and Jeff Bowen – who really did write and star (as themselves) in the show, which ended up on Broadway with 3 Obies! It’s a show about four friends taking risks, creating art, killing Vampires (the dream-destroying kind, not the Dracula kind) — and how relationships change when life happens. Now, [Title of Show] is at the George Street Playhouse from 11/16-12/12/2010. Susan Wallner talks to director Matt Lenz and to actor Tyler Mayna...
Oct 27, 2010•14 min
Christopher Benincasa speaks with poet Amiri Baraka on his birthday. Which also happened to be the kick-off date of this year's Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. Which just happened to be taking place in his hometown - Newark. At the age of 76, Baraka has a long history of activism and controversy coupled with a vast catalogue of artistic output, and many awards to show for it. Being the first poet to hit the stage at the biggest poetry event in the country, just several blocks from his home, ...
Oct 27, 2010•18 min
Playwright Joe Paprzycki runs a theatre where his grandfather's bar used to be in Camden, New Jersey. In his play Last Rites, he engineered some clever time-traveling by staging the production on the same location the story is set in -- his grandfather's bar, circa 1967. The play harmonized with Paprzycki's mission -- renewing a neighborhood in a struggling city. Next, he's mounting a production of The Old Settler, a drama set in 1940s Harlem, opening October 22nd. Thanks for listening! Subscrib...
Oct 12, 2010•11 min
n a special back to school edition, producer Susan Wallner talks to Bob Morrison, founder of Music for All, VH1's Save the Music Foundation, and Quadrant Arts Education Research. He's one of the nation's foremost movers and shakers in the field of arts education, and he has the data to show why the arts are so important to students in the 21st century. Morrison also describes the "Glee" effect. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your favorite podcast player. The Jersey...
Oct 12, 2010•18 min
MacArthur Genius Dave Isay started StoryCorps in 2003 -- it's an oral history project that has everyday people interview each other about their lives. NPR listeners often say they start crying every time they hear one of the stories drawn from these interviews. NJN is partnering with Storycorps to bring a MobileBooth to Trenton in September, giving New Jerseyans a chance to tell their stories. In anticipation, State of the Arts producer Susan Wallner talks with Dave Isay about the meaning and pu...
Aug 19, 2010•16 min
Artist Keith Haring, who died in 1990 at the age of 31, is famous for his iconic, graffiti-inspired art -- starting in the subways of NYC, then taking the international art world by storm. In Keith Haring: A New Dimension, Grounds for Sculpture has presented a selection of Haring's lesser-known sculptural work. State of the Arts producer Christopher Benincasa talks with curator Ellen Landis about the exhibit and the legacy of the one-man phenomenon that was Haring. Thanks for listening! Subscrib...
Aug 01, 2010•12 min
Fortune smiles as the Passage Play Lab returns with another collection of original one-act plays by Trenton area writers (June 25-27). This year, five writers cracked open fortune cookies in search of inspiration. Producer Susan Wallner spoke with playwright and associate artistic director David White about this popular annual production. White also discusses Passage Theatre's increasing use of area talent, and its surprising increase in ticket sales. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jerse...
Jul 14, 2010•16 min
Singer-songwriter Nicole Atkins is performing at the XPoNential Music Festival on the Camden Waterfront this weekend. State of the Arts producer Christopher Benincasa chats with the Jersey shore native about sharks, couch surfing, touring in mini-vans, and, of course, making music. 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 videos...
Jul 05, 2010•16 min
The 2010 New Jersey International Film Festival’s 15th anniversary season takes place on the Rutgers New Brunswick campus June 4-20. Producer Eric Schultz spoke with the creators of three featured films: "The Hand of Fatima," Augusta Palmer's documentary about her father, rock critic Robert Palmer; "Sneakers & Soul," a romantic feature set in NJ, and "Muskrat John: Urban Trapper," a documentary about a Meadow Lands hunter from the '30s. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podc...
Jul 01, 2010•10 min
Amelia Earhart, Charles Lindbergh, and the Wright Brothers are the characters in a new musical, "Take Flight," opening at the McCarter Theatre on April 30th. Producer Susan Wallner talks to the writers, a musical theatre dream team of Academy & Tony award winners, composer David Shire ("Saturday Night Fever"), lyricist Richard Maltby ("Ain't Misbehavin'"), and librettist John Weidman ("Assassins"). Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your favorite podcast player. Th...
May 26, 2010•29 min
Volunteer DJ Marvin Rosen, host of two shows on Princeton's university station WPRB, joins interviewer Susan Wallner for a podcast about the reinvention of new, accessible music from classically inspired traditions. His show "Classical Discoveries" aims to show people "the beauty of contemporary music" and to "illustrate that music brings us close." The show runs on Wednesdays. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your favorite podcast player. The Jersey Arts Podcast is ...
Apr 01, 2010•13 min
New Jersey is holding its fifth annual Poetry Out Loud! recitation contest at Drumthwacket, the governor's mansion in Princeton, on Thursday, March 18. The winner of the State Finals goes on to represent the Garden State at the national competition in Washington, DC. Producer Christopher Benincasa speaks with Poetry Out Loud's MC Alysia Souder about the impact this program is having on the lives of high school students -- some of whom are discovering poetry for the first time because of it. Than...
Mar 11, 2010•21 min
Rossen Milanov has been appointed the new Music Director of the Princeton Symphony. Producer Eric Schultz chatted with him at a rehearsal before his debut. Milanov explains how he juggles a whirlwind career as Associate Conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Music Director of the Symphony in C, Principal Conductor of the Bulgarian National Radio Orchestra, and as a guest conductor around the world. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your favorite podcast player. The ...
Feb 11, 2010•12 min
Sia Nyorkor talks with writer/performer, Daniel Beaty, about his newest production, Through the Night, at Crossroads Theatre Company. The play takes us through the minds of six males as they deal with the different stereotypes of being black in America. Beaty shares his creative process and what brought him to this place. 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 (je...
Jan 09, 2010•17 min
Susan Wallner talks with filmmaker John Waters ("Pink Flamingos," "Hairspray") about his one-man paean to Christmas. Although some call him anti-Christmas, Waters himself says he loves the holiday, and describes his show as a self-help session for the neurotic during what can be a stressful time of year. 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) , wh...
Nov 23, 2009•11 min
Christopher Benincasa talks with author Louis P. Masur about his book "Runaway Dream: Born to Run and Bruce Springsteen's American Vision." The book chronicles the creation of the now-classic 1975 album "Born To Run"” – a record that Springsteen himself has called "my shot at the title" A 24 year old kid aimin' at the greatest rock and roll record ever." The rest is rock and roll history. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your favorite podcast player. The Jersey Arts ...
Nov 04, 2009•23 min
Producer Eric Schultz talks with organist Joanne K. Owen, the first performer in a new pipe organ series in Salem County New Jersey. Owen plays a Halloween concert of scary music at historic St. John's Episcopal Church in Salem, NJ on October 23rd. The free concert starts at 6:00 PM right before Salem's annual "Ghost Walking Tour of Historic Market Street." Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your favorite podcast player. The Jersey Arts Podcast is one medium of Feature...
Oct 18, 2009•10 min
In this podcast Christopher Benincasa interviews Jersey City Museum’s Rocio Aranda-Alvarado about the museum’s new show I Love Jersey City: Everybody Counts. This exhibition, running through December, includes 4 x 6 inch images sent in by the public of people they know who live, work, or play in Jersey City. I Love Jersey City: Everybody Counts is in honor of the 2010 National Census. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in your favorite podcast player. The Jersey Arts Podc...
Sep 02, 2009•9 min
