Jersey Arts Podcast

"Proof" is a father/daughter drama, a love story, and a mystery. Who wrote the groundbreaking mathematical proof discovered after an eccentric professor's death? Winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play, "Proof" opens the 2013/14 season at the McCarter Theatre in a new production directed by Emily Mann. Mann describes her fascination wit...

Producer Eric Schultz talks with "Boardwalk Empire" author, historian and attorney Nelson Johnson. The Hammonton, NJ native published his history of Atlantic City and crime boss "Nucky" Johnson in 2002. It became a New York Times Best Seller when HBO launched the hit television series based on Johnson's book. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Podcast in yo...

Aaron & The Spell are the opening act at this year’s XPoNential Music Festival – kicking things off at Wiggins Park along the Camden Waterfront next Friday, July 26. There are lots of big bands playing this three-day summer festival – Bob Dylan, Wilco, My Morning Jacket, The Lumineers, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, and many, many more. But it all starts with Aaron Brown and his band....

The New York Times calls Frank Ferrante “the greatest living interpreter of Groucho Marx’s material.” From 1986-87, Ferrante starred in the off-Broadway hit, "Groucho: A Life in Revue," written by Groucho's son, Arthur Marx. Ferrante’s own one-man show, “An Evening with Groucho” includes improvisation and audience interaction as he brings Groucho’s subversive, outrageous humor to li...

This weekend is GlassWeekend at WheatonArts & Cultural Center in Millville. The Creative Glass Center of America at WheatonArts is opening its doors to the public for a weekend full of exhibits, hands-on glassmaking, demonstrations by artists from around the world, and much more. Christopher Benincasa talks with Pamela Weichmann of WheatonArts about this international celebration of contempora...

He first grabbed the world's attention as the lead vocalist for "Men at Work," the Australian band that was a worldwide hit in the early 1980s. The band broke up quickly, and Colin Hay has been a solo act ever since. In fact, a new generation knows him more because of the "Garden State" soundtrack than from "Men at Work!" Hay talks to producer Susan Wallner about...

"Venus In Fur" - a play about a play that’s based on an 1870 classic erotic novel by Austrian author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch - opens this week at George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick. Christopher Benincasa met up with director Kip Fagan to talk about the play, and its complicated relationship with the cultural legacy of the novel. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts...

Two-time Tony winner Christine Ebersole (Grey Gardens, 42nd Street) “is in a class by herself,” says The New York Times. Her career spans from Broadway to Hollywood where she's currently in production with the second season of “Sullivan & Son,” a TBS sit-com, and starring in two movies out later this year. She also sings cabaret, and on May 11th, Christine Ebersole returns to NJPAC with h...

Continuing to spotlight home-grown filmmakers with "Jersey Fresh" programFor over three decades, the New Jersey Film Festival has been a film laboratory of sorts, presenting work by independent and experimental filmmakers from around the world – and keeping a spotlight on home-grown filmmakers from the Garden State with their Jersey Fresh program. Festival Director and Rutgers University...

Podcast producer Eric Schultz talks with American Repertory Ballet's artistic director Douglas Martin. Martin has choreographed a new, soon-to-debut version of Stravinsky's ballet "The Rite of Spring." A hundred years ago, the first performances of the ballet caused a riot in Paris! Martin has a special connection to the music and ballet. He danced in the Joffrey Ballet's...

August Wilson wrote a ten-play cycle set in a black Pittsburgh neighborhood, one for each decade of the 20th century. Last year, Two River Theater in Red Bank mounted an acclaimed production of "Jitney," the 1970s play, directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson and starring Chuck Cooper. The two are both back this season for "Two Trains Running," set in the 1960s. Tony Award-winning ac...

Ai Weiwei disappeared for 81 days in April 2011 while trying to board a plane from Beijing to Hong Kong, and has not been able to leave China since. Yet his voice grows ever stronger around the world. He communicates through his art, through video, and, ever since his blog was shut down by Chinese censors, through Twitter. A new book by Princeton University Press collects some of his most evocativ...

This holiday season, Andrew Megill, one of the leading choral conductors of his generation, will conduct the 100-voice Masterwork Chorus, with orchestra and soloists, in their signature interpretation of Handel’s Messiah. The Masterwork Chorus has been performing Messiah in New York and New Jersey since 1957, and this year marks their 250th full performance. On Saturday, December 22nd, Messiah wil...

Two River Theater presents an original production for the holidays – A Wind in the Willows Christmas. This new musical follows the adventures of the story’s beloved characters – Mole, the Water Rat, Dr. Badger, and Mr. Toad – as they discover that home is where your friends are. We spoke with Grammy Award-winning composer – and ex-NFL player – Mike Reid about writing new music for a beloved childr...

The Black Cat and The Cask of Amontillado , for a double bill of short one-man plays. Poe, Times Two runs through November 16th. Bodine received a 2012 NYIT Award nomination for his chilling performance. 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) , wher...

Emari DiGiorgio’s poems range from the political to the personal. She’s a featured poet at this year’s Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival in Newark (Oct. 11-14), and she teaches poetry at the Richard Stockton College of NJ. Christopher Benincasa talks to DiGiorgio about poetry and split-boarding the Tasman Glacier while on her recent honeymoon. Thanks for listening! Subscribe to The Jersey Arts Po...

The McCarter Theatre has a hit on its hands with, of all things, a comic take on the melancholy Russian plays of Chekhov. "Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike" stars Sigourney Weaver, Kristine Nielsen, and David Hyde Pierce as siblings whose literary parents named them after Chekhov characters. Masha (played by Sigourney Weaver) is a glamorous actress who descends upon her stay-at-home b...

Seward Johnson is an artist known for his whimsy, and his popular appeal – and for founding Grounds for Sculpture 20 years ago. The park is now 42 acres of art in beautifully landscaped settings. With galleries, restaurants and performance areas, this Hamilton, New Jersey sculpture park has become one of America’s unique destinations. Susan Wallner talks to Seward Johnson about the beginnings of t...

Ocean City Pops concerts at the historic Ocean City Music Pier, built in 1929, are a much loved summer tradition at the the Jersey Shore. Producer Eric Schultz talks with the Pops veteran conductor William Scheible, now in his 26th season as Artistic Director. The orchestra performs 3 evenings a week all summer long, with music as varied as Mozart, Sinatra, Broadway tunes, and much more. Thanks fo...

The musician John Wesley Harding is also the novelist Wesley Stace. As host of the new NPR variety show "The Cabinet of Wonders," he calls on his friends from both worlds to perform. Rosanne Cash, Josh Ritter, and the Decemberists have all been on the show, as well as Audrey Niffenegger, author of "The Time Traveler's Wife," and Pulitzer Prize winning writer Paul Harding....

Christopher Benincasa talks to Father Michael Doyle, of Camden's Sacred Heart Church, about the up-and-coming Waterfront South neighborhood - and the legacy of American Haiku poet, and Camden native, Nick Virgilio. Father Doyle and the church have been instrumental in helping to establish the South Camden Theatre Company - the first theatre to be built in Camden in 100 years - a thriving comm...

The American Boy Choir, celebrating its 75th anniversary, has performed at the Oscars, with pop diva Beyoncé and with major orchestras around the world. Producer Eric Schultz recently visited the bucolic campus of the American Boy Choir School in Princeton, NJ to chat with President and CEO Dean Orton and Assistant Music Director Kerry Heimann about the choir's extraordinary history. Thanks f...

Susan Wallner talks to one of the luminaries of the English speaking theater world, playwright John Guare. He’s won Tonys, Obies, and NY Drama Critics Circle Awards, as well as an Oscar nomination for the screenplay of Louis Malle’s “Atlantic City.” Guare’s newest play, “Are You There, McPhee?” has its world premiere at the McCarter Theatre in May. It’s his fourth play to be set on the island of N...

Christopher Benincasa speaks with Eran Egozy and Gary Marcus at The Music, Mind & Invention Workshop at The College of New Jersey. Egozy is co-founder of Harmonix Music Systems, and one of the creators of the phenomenally popular games Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Gary Marcus is Professor of Psychology and Director of the NYU Center for Language & Music, and he recently wrote the book Guitar...

Chris interviews veteran television writer Winnie Holzman - creator of the series My So-called Life, and librettist for the hit Broadway musical Wicked. Holzman recently kicked off a series of talks at the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University. The series concludes with a Musical Theatre Symposium, "Making Broadway Musicals: Artists and Scholars in Conversation". Thanks for l...