July 24, 2024

Hopewell Valley Arts Council Celebrates 10th Anniversary

“HOPEWELL VALLEY STAMPEDE”: A valley-wide public art display of 69 life-size oxen decorated by artists and students in 2014 raised the initial funds for the Hopewell Valley Arts Council. Their initial arrival before decoration is pictured here.

The Hopewell Valley Arts Council is celebrating 10 years since its founding by a group of dedicated volunteers who envisioned a way to involve the community in the arts and support many local artists, a mission that continues to this day.

Over these past 10 years, the HV Arts Council has woven itself into the fabric of the community by being part of the area’s everyday community events and significant cultural celebrations, and creating many of their own public art displays.  more

Doylestown Arts Festival Returns This September

DOYLESTOWN ARTS FESTIVAL: The art and music festival in downtown Doylestown, Pa., returns for its 33rd year on September 7 and 8 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day.

The Doylestown Arts Festival will return for its 33rd anniversary this September 7 and 8 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day. The festival remains free to attend and is designed to illuminate the region’s ongoing commitment to arts and culture. For two days the historic downtown Doylestown, Pa., streets will be transformed into a lively outdoor marketplace full of art and music from local and regionally recognized creators. more

July 17, 2024

Arts Council’s ART OF Series Continues with Latest Roster of Fundraisers

MIXING IT UP: Last January’s “ART OF Mixology” at the Arts Council of Princeton was such a success that a second round has been scheduled for July 31, as part of the ART OF series of fundraising events.

By Anne Levin

When the Arts Council of Princeton (ACP) was planning its annual big fundraiser two years ago, staff members came up with an idea for something more affordable and inclusive. Instead of the standard gala party, they decided to try a series of participatory gatherings covering a range of topics — from the difference between French and Spanish wines to making perfect holiday wreaths.

That first series was a success. Since then, some 30 ART OF events have been held by the ACP. The latest batch begins July 31 with part two of “Mixology with 3BR Distillery,” a cocktail-crafting session back by popular demand. Following throughout the fall are “Matcha with Ooika,” “Vintage Jewelry with H1912,” “NJ Farming and the Future,” a trip to see the Broadway show Hell’s Kitchen, “Thriving in a Toxic World with Melissa Klepacki,” “Holiday Magic with Francisco Irala,” and “Thrifting, a Journey to the Golden Nugget Flea Market.”  more

Playing the Name Game with Freud, Biden, and Trump

By Stuart Mitchner

(…what interrupts our concentration as readers may be as telling as the book we are reading: Freud is always making the case for interruption). We make a Freudian slip when we thought we knew what we were saying. We dream beyond the bounds of intelligibility….

—From Becoming Freud

Why Freud and why now?” That is the question. After a lifetime of relative indifference to most things Freudian, it’s taken the attempted assassination of a former president plus the massive media freak-out inspired by the current president’s shabby debate performance and slip-of-the-tongue doubleheader to send me to Adam Phillips’s Becoming Freud: The Making Of a Psychoanalyst (Yale University Press) and the Gutenberg text of The Psychopathology of Everyday Life translated by A.A. Brill.

Meanwhile we have this week’s “telling” interruption in the form of the All-Star game and the Republican National Convention, held in the aftermath of Saturday’s game-changing event while I’m still gamely trying to find a place in the psychopathology of everyday baseball life for Biden’s Freudian slips. Talking heads on CNN and MSNBC have already begun portraying the president as a veteran pitcher whose late-inning moment has come as the manager walks out to the mound to take the ball and bring in the closer. Except by now everybody knows Biden intends to finish the game and there’s no manager and no closer. more

Princeton Summer Theater Succeeds with “The Last Five Years”; Musical Depicts a Couple’s Breakup Through Unique Viewpoints

“THE LAST FIVE YEARS”: Performances are underway for Princeton Summer Theater’s production of “The Last Five Years.” Written and composed by Jason Robert Brown and directed by Eliyana Abraham, the musical runs through July 21 at Princeton University’s Hamilton Murray Theater. Above: Events leading to the estrangement between Cathy Hiatt (Kate Short) and Jamie Wellerstein (Julien Alam) are told from dual perspectives — Jamie’s story is told in chronological order, while Cathy’s tale moves backward in time. (Photo by John Venegas Juarez)

By Donald H. Sanborn III

The Last Five Years is an intimate, poignant musical that depicts a married couple’s gradual estrangement.

The story, songs, and script for the mostly sung-through musical are by Jason Robert Brown. The story is inspired by Brown’s first marriage. Brown carefully describes the subject matter of The Last Five Years (2001) as “personal” (rather than “autobiographical”).

A unique narrative device is employed. For the husband, a successful author, events are seen in chronological order, starting just after the couple meets. For the wife, a struggling actress, the story begins after the breakup, moving backward in time.

This concept recalls Merrily We Roll Along, a musical (adapted from a play) that portrays three friends who grow apart, telling their story in reverse chronological order. The Last Five Years takes the idea a step further; by telling the story in both directions, the characters’ timelines are allowed to intersect once, in a central scene.

 more

Princeton University Summer Chamber Concerts Presents Chamber Ensemble of Established Soloists 

By Nancy Plum

Princeton University Summer Chamber Concerts continued its 2024 season this past week with a presentation by three instrumentalists who have put their collective talents together to create an exciting new experience for their audiences. Violinist Friedemann Eichorn, cellist Peter Hörr, and pianist Florian Uhlig each have had successful international solo careers and have joined forces in the past five years to explore chamber repertory as the Phaeton Piano Trio. Named for a mythological character but performing with solid down-to-earth musicianship, the Trio came to Richardson Auditorium last Monday night for an evening of Franz Joseph Haydn, Felix Mendelssohn, and Antonin Dvorák. The ensemble may be relatively new, but its playing style is rooted in centuries-old performance practice and interpretation of the classics. more

New Jersey Lyric Opera Returns to Kelsey Theatre

SUMMER OPERA: New Jersey Lyric Opera returns to Kelsey Theatre for the Summer Opera Festival July 26-28, opening with the Verdi classic “Rigoletto.”

New Jersey Lyric Opera (NJLO) performs at Mercer County Community College’s Kelsey Theatre for a second year with a weekend of opera favorites on MCCC’s West Windsor Campus, July 26-28, during the Summer Opera Festival. The weekend includes the presentation of three operas, plus the Gala Spectacular, a showcase of opera favorites.

The opera weekend kicks off with Rigoletto (Friday, July 26, 7:30 p.m.), the tragic story of the unprincipled Duke of Mantua, his hunch-backed court jester Rigoletto, and Rigoletto’s daughter Gilda. It’s a cautionary tale of love and jealousy, with famous melodies La donna è mobile and Caro Nome. The performance stars Christopher Connelly, Amanda Simms, and John Villemaire. more

Christmas in July

“Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical” at the State Theatre in New Brunswick is among the productions coming to area theaters during the winter holidays. Special offers are available for discounted tickets in advance to see “The Muppet Christmas Carol with New Jersey Symphony,” “The Nutcracker,” “An Evening with Chevy Chase” following a screening of “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” and “A Magical Cirque Christmas,” all at the State Theatre, as well as “A Christmas Carol” at McCarter Theatre. Visit Mccarter.org or STNJ.org.

Phillips’ Mill Presents Premiere Showcase “The Half of It”

Drama at Phillips’ Mill presents The Half of It, a new play written by Domenick Scudera and directed by Griffin Horn, as this year’s Premiere Showcase production. An original, fully developed, never-before-performed play, The Half of It runs July 18-20 at 7 p.m. with a 3 p.m. matinee on Sunday, July 21.

The Half of It is a new biographical drama based on the life of Bert Savoy, one of Broadway’s first major drag performers. The story is retold by his partner, Jay Brennan, years after Bert’s death. As Jay explores his memories of Bert, he pulls back the curtain on the dazzling life they lived together — traveling the Vaudeville circuit, advising would-be celebrities backstage, playing the press against itself, dodging their exes, discovering new ambitions as performers and falling in love along the way.

“The play highlights the groundbreaking and inspirational work of this artist while shining a light on the origins of contemporary drag performance and the LGBTQ+ community in the early part of the 20th century,” said Scudera. “I am a proud and vocal member of the LGBTQ+ community. I am hopeful that The Half of It will allow audiences to learn more about our community’s history and to learn from the lessons of our past.”  more

Winners Announced for 2024 LHT Photo Contest

“PRINCETON PIKE OAK”: This photograph by Samuel Vovsi of Princeton was tops in the Nature category in this year’s Lawrence Hopewell Trail Photo Contest.

The Lawrence Hopewell Trail (LHT) Corporation has announced the winners of its 2024 photo contest. Many photos were submitted in two categories, Nature and People.

The winner in the Nature category is Samuel Vovsi of Princeton for his photo of the sun shining behind the Brearley Oak on the Princeton Pike. The winner in the People category is Anthony Plisko of Lawrenceville for his photo of a person enjoying Rosedale Lake. All the submissions can be viewed on the LHT website at lhtrail.org/trail-pics-and-videos. more

HV Arts Council Awards Annual Student Scholarships

SCHOLARSHIP WINNERS: Hopewell Valley Central High School 2024 graduating seniors Rose Andreski and Jacob Brown were recently awarded scholarships by the Hopewell Valley Arts Council. (Photos courtesy of Hopewell Valley Arts Council)

The Hopewell Valley Arts Council has awarded its annual scholarships to two Hopewell Valley Central High School 2024 graduating seniors: Rose Andreski and Jacob Brown.

“This year is particularly special as we celebrate our 10th anniversary,” said HV Arts Council Board President Carol Lipson. “These scholarships are a critical part of our mission in encouraging creativity in the Hopewell Valley community and fostering a lifelong participation in the arts.”  more

“Lassen Volcanic National Park”

Travel photography by Jeffrey Edward Tryon, Town Topics art director, is featured in the Red Barn at Terhune Orchards, 330 Cold Soil Road, through August 31. A meet the artist event is on Saturday, June 20 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. The exhibit also features work by Kevin Frankenfield Photography and Joseph F. Hendrickson.

“The Delaware River At Prallsville”

This egg tempera work by Jeff Gola is featured in “Along the Delaware River & Crosswicks Creek,” a group art exhibition on view at D&R Greenway’s Johnson Education Center, 1 Preservation Place, through September 27. The exhibition is free and open to the public Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Zimmerli Chief Curator Donna Gustafson to Retire  

The Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University—New Brunswick has extended its gratitude and congratulations to Chief Curator Donna Gustafson, who will retire on September 1. During her nearly two decades of service to the museum and the university, Gustafson’s forward-thinking contributions to the Zimmerli reach far beyond the art and exhibitions that she put on display.

“I have enjoyed my work at the Zimmerli with my colleagues at the museum, the university, and especially the students at Rutgers who challenge us all to think differently and expansively,” said Gustafson, chief curator since 2022. “My departure is bittersweet, but I am looking forward to having time to work on projects that I have long put on hold.” more

John Shedd Designs at The Tomato Factory Offers a Display of His Ceramics Creations

ON DISPLAY: Artisan John Shedd is shown by his featured entry at the New Jersey State Museum in 2017. The exhibit, “Fifty of Fifty,” honored 50 leading New Jersey artists who had received state grants for their work during the past 50 years.

By Jean Stratton

Talent, imagination, skill, and experience all come together when artisan John Shedd works on his creations.

At his Hopewell studio, which he built in 2018, he starts the process: planning, designing, carefully taking it step by step, until ultimately bringing it to fruition as it is heated in the kiln.

Many of the finished items are then displayed at The Tomato Factory Antiques & Design Center, 2 Somerset Street in Hopewell, where he has had a gallery since 2017. Others have been commissioned and then presented to the recipient, whether an individual or organization.

As he comments, “While a great deal of my work now is commissioned, the bulk of the work is speculative or made for the trade. There is a little more freedom in making things that aren’t ordered.” more

July 10, 2024

Fireflies and Fireworks: Thoreau, Whitman, and D.H. Lawrence

By Stuart Mitchner

I do not propose to write an ode to dejection, but to brag as lustily as chanticleer in the morning, standing on his roost, if only to wake my neighbors up.

—Henry David Thoreau, from Walden

Late the other night, I saw an insect moving with difficulty across the damp white surface of the kitchen sink. A closer look revealed that it was a firefly, laboring, going nowhere, disoriented, too weak to blink its light, so I offered it a ride on a brand-new green scouring pad, opened the door to the deck, and watched it blink its light and take flight. Only when it met an answering light and the two were in orbit did I read the news of the day into the moment. And since this rendezvous occurred on the night of July 4, a week after the debacle of the debate and the subsequent media feeding frenzy, a pair of innocent fireflies became Biden and Harris.

What can I say? Such things happen when nature intrudes on an Independence Day column about two heroes of the holiday, Henry David Thoreau, who began his two-year-long stay at Walden Pond on July 4, 1845, and Walt Whitman, who published Leaves of Grass on July 4, 1855. more

Princeton Summer Chamber Concerts Presents Imaginative Saxophone Quartet

By Nancy Plum

Audiences usually identify the saxophone with such jazz and blues superstars as Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, but New Century Saxophone Quartet has shattered that image. For more than 30 years, this ensemble has shown that four saxophones can well match the pitch and dynamic range of a string quartet, amassing an impressive repertory for this combination of instruments along the way. The four members of New Century Saxophone Quartet brought their combination of “skillful artistry and down-home fun” to Richardson Auditorium last Tuesday night as part of the 57th season of the Princeton University Summer Chamber Concerts series. Performing music spanning more than 270 years, the Quartet well demonstrated the saxophone’s abilities to emerge from smoky jazz clubs to the forefront of the classical concert stage.  more

Blue Curtain Concert Series Returns with Two Concerts

FROM THE IVORY COAST: Grammy award-winner Dobet Gnahoré performs on July 13 at 8 p.m. at the Princeton High School Performing Arts Center in the first of two Blue Curtain concerts this summer. (Photo by Lumar Studio 3)

Blue Curtain, a Princeton summer tradition, returns to Pettoranello Gardens Amphitheater with two free concerts in July. The first concert has been moved from Pettoranello Gardens to the Princeton High School Performing Arts Center at Franklin Avenue and Walnut Lane in anticipation of extreme heat.

Grammy Award-winner Dobet Gnahoré appears on Saturday, July 13 at 8 p.m. Hailing from Coté d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Gnahoré is known for her vocal and dance talents as well as her color style sense. She appeals to fans of Angelique Kidjo, Rokia Traoré, Fatoumata Diawara, Oumou Sangaré and other divas of African music. She is currently on tour with concert stops in New York City, Berkeley, Ca.; Vancouver, Canada; and Princeton to support her newest album Zouzou.   more

“The Last Five Years” at Princeton Summer Theater

Princeton Summer Theater’s season continues this summer with Jason Robert Brown’s musical The Last Five Years. The show runs through July 21 at Princeton University’s Hamilton Murray Theater.

The musical tells the story of a five-year relationship between Jamie, a rising novelist, and Cathy, a struggling actress. With a storytelling twist — his tale moves forward, hers backward — the show explores love and ambition. The actors Julien Alam and Kate Short are both graduates of Princeton’s Class of 2023. Alam, an actor based in New York, has worked on both stage and screen, including everything from Shakespeare to sitcoms. He earned a B.A. at Princeton, where he studied English, theater, classics, and humanistic studies, and is currently pursuing an MFA at NYU. He recently appeared at the Brooklyn Comedy Collective, Under St. Marks, and will be performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival later this summer.  more

Final Chamber Concert of Summer Season

STRING SESSION: Members of the Balourdet Quartet will perform a free concert at Richardson Auditorium on July 15 at 7:30 p.m.

The Balourdet Quartet will be the final concert of Princeton University Summer Chamber Concerts’ 57th Season in Richardson Auditorium on the Princeton University campus on Monday, July 15 at 7:30 p.m. They will offer works by Mozart, Al-Zand, and Beethoven. Princeton University’s own Ruth Ochs will once again provide commentary.

The Balourdet Quartet earned the 2024 Avery Fisher Career Grant, as well as Chamber Music America’s 2024 Cleveland Quartet Award. With more than 70 concerts per season, they are currently the Graduate Quartet in Residence at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, and are recent graduates of the New England Conservatory’s Professional String Quartet Program. more

Arts Council Unveils New Mural on Spring Street

“NJ FRESH”: The Arts Council of Princeton recently unveiled a new Spring Street mural by Sofia Schreiber in collaboration with LiLLiPiES Bakery. It is the Arts Council’s 13th mural at that location. (Photo Courtesy of Arts Council of Princeton)

Arts Council of Princeton (ACP) recently unveiled a new community mural in downtown Princeton titled NJ Fresh. Designed and painted by artist Sofia Schreiber, the illustration-style public art piece can be found on Spring Street on the side of Village Silver.

For her mural, Schreiber was inspired by the vibrancy and variety of fresh fruit abundant in New Jersey in the summertime. She said she was also thinking about Wayne Thiebaud’s delicious looking paintings and Eric Carle’s equally scrumptious illustrations in one of her favorite children’s books, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. more

GFS Exhibition Features Artists from TASK, A-Team

“INNER CITY”: This work by Emery Williams is part of “Philotechnic Transformation,” on view in the Education Gallery at Grounds For Sculpture in Hamilton through August 25. An opening reception is on Friday, July 12 beginning at 6:30 p.m.

Now through August 25, Grounds For Sculpture (GFS) is featuring an indoor art exhibition curated by the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen (TASK) and the Trenton Community A-Team (TCAT).

Entitled “Philotechnic Transformation,” the exhibition at GFS spotlights the positive effect that creating art can have on people’s lives. Each piece represents a broad palette of concepts, emotions and inspirations and offers the viewer a glimpse into the individual artist’s life and creative process.  more

“Harmonies” Exhibit Now at David Scott Gallery

“HARMONIES”: Paintings by Aida Birritteri are on view at David Scott Gallery, in the offices of Berkshire Hathaway at 253 Nassau Street, through August 18. An artist reception is on Thursday, July 11 from 5 to 7 p.m.

David Scott Gallery, in the offices of Berkshire Hathaway at 253 Nassau Street, presents “Harmonies,” a solo exhibition of paintings by Aida Birritteri, through August 18. An artist reception will be held on Thursday, July 11 from 5 to 7 p.m.

“This exhibition showcases Birritteri’s exquisite use of color, as well as her ability to move seamlessly between representation and abstraction in a variety of mediums, said curator David Scott. “Her skilled hand is evident in the gesture of her brushstrokes, boldly and intuitively marking her textured surfaces.” more

July 3, 2024

On Franz Kafka’s Birthday: “The Tremendous World I Have In My Head”

By Stuart Mitchner

The Culture page of the Bloomsday edition of the New York Times features a photoshopped image of the insect hero of Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” complete with feelers and a smartphone shell. The June 16 dateline of the article by Amanda Hess (“The Very Online Afterlife of Franz Kafka”) inadvertently suggests a comradely connection between Leopold Bloom and Gregor Samsa, whose creator actually happened to be in Trieste in September 1913 when Joyce was working on the “Proteus,” “Lotus Eaters,” and “Hades” chapters of Ulysses.

In Kafka: The Decisive Years (Princeton University Press paperback 2013), Reiner Stach supposes that “if Kafka had met Joyce, there is no telling what direction world literature might have taken.” You never know. As Charlie Chan says in the epigraph heading Chapter 14, (“The Lives of Metaphors: “The Metamorphosis”) — “Strange events permit themselves the luxury of occuring.”

The only other strange event occurring on this Kafkacentric Culture page is the cluster of movie listings in the bottom righthand corner, with titles that ring all the appropriate bells: Film Forum showing Robot Dreams and Evil Does Not Exist, the IFC Center, Ghostlight and Handling the Undead, Film at Lincoln Center Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara. And at the Paris Theatre, it’s “Bleak Week New York: Cinema of Despair.”

And Bleak Week was well before the debacle of the debate and the existential panic that followed, even before the Supremes sang “Where Did Our Law Go?” more

Yardley Players Stage “The Sound of Music” at Kelsey Theatre; Appealing Production Proves Why the Beloved Musical is a Classic

“THE SOUND OF MUSIC”: Performances are underway for “The Sound of Music.” Presented by Kelsey Theatre and The Yardley Players; and directed by Kristy Davis, the musical runs through July 7 at Kelsey Theatre. Above: Watched suspiciously by the (offstage) Nazis, the Von Trapp Family Singers give a performance on which their lives literally depend. From left are Aurora Quinn (Louisa), Emma Poppell (Brigitta), Gabi Oliano (Gretl), David Nikolas (Captain Von Trapp), Laney Kenwood (Liesl), Lauren Wolensky (Maria), Scarlet Hillman (Marta), Trevin Davis (Kurt), and Joseph Wilson (Friedrich). (Photo by John M. Maurer)

By Donald H. Sanborn III

Yardley Players Theatre Company is presenting The Sound of Music at Kelsey Theatre. Kristy Davis directs and choreographs an appealing production that honors the 1965 film adaptation, while accentuating the benefits that a live production can offer the story.

The Sound of Music marks the final collaboration between composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II. The book by Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse is suggested by Maria Augusta Trapp’s memoir The Trapp Family Singers. The show follows Maria’s journey from novice at Nonnberg Abbey to governess for the seven children of the stern widower Captain Von Trapp; and the threat posed to the family by the Anschluss (the Nazi takeover of Austria) in 1938.  more