January 29, 2025

“NAUTICAL HARMONY”: This work by Richa Rashmi is featured in “Underwater Symphony,” an exhibit inspired by the underwater world, on view through March 15 at Princeton Public Library.

“Underwater Symphony,” an exhibit of paintings and drawings by artist Richa Rashmi, is on view at Princeton Public Library, 65 Witherspoon Street. Located in the Technology Center and the hallway on the library’s second floor, the works will be on view through March 15.

The exhibit reflects the intricate beauty of marine life, the mysteries of the deep, and the mesmerizing world beneath the ocean’s surface. It is intended to inspire a greater appreciation for the oceans and their inhabitants. more

January 22, 2025

By Anne Levin

On a snowy evening last week, the auditorium at Princeton University’s Friend Center was packed with a standing-room-only crowd for a talk about the new building of the Princeton University Art Museum. James Steward, the museum’s director, and Chris Newth, its senior associate director for collections and exhibitions, revealed some of the challenges and surprises — happy and otherwise — that have come up during the project.

“We are finally at a point where we can say we are opening this year,” said Steward at the beginning of the event titled “Conversation: Hidden Stories: Preparing a New Museum.” But he wasn’t ready to set a specific date.

The January 16 event was part of the museum’s “Late Thursdays” programming. The focus was, largely, on the materials and design of the building’s interior. The museum’s three floors are to have a total square footage of 144,000 square feet, almost double the size of its former building.  more

By Anne Levin

Princeton-based arts and humanities initiatives are among the recipients of grants in the most recent round of funding from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

Princeton University Concerts (PUC) has received $20,000 from the NEA for its Healing with Music series, while Morven Museum and Garden was granted $25,000 for a project addressing the history of slavery. In addition, Divya Cherian, associate professor of history at Princeton University, has been awarded $60,000 from the NEH for a book project titled Conjured States: Witchcraft and Politics in Western India, 1750-1900more

By Stuart Mitchner

There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us. But, as he would say, “Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole. It’s a beautiful day with golden sunshine and blue skies all the way.”

—from the announcement of David Lynch’s death

If David Lynch were still delivering daily weather reports on his YouTube channel, and if he’d lived to see Inauguration Day, his January 20 forecast would have ended with his usual cheery, heartfelt “golden sunshine and blue skies all the way” closing line, topped off with a smile and a vigorous salute, regardless of the actual weather in L.A. or D.C. Unfortunately, actual earthly weather in the form of the Santa Ana winds driving the wildfires devastating his city forced the mandatory evacuation of Lynch’s home on the night of Wednesday, January 8. The timing and the circumstances were, as some online bloggers have noted, “Lynchian.” Not only was the director of Mulholland Drive living adjacent to the street that gave his most celebrated film its title, he was homebound, seriously ill with emphysema, and in need of “supplemental oxygen for most activities.” Even though the evacuation order was rescinded the next morning, the damage had apparently been done. Less than a week later, Lynch’s family announced his January 15 death.

Smoking

David Lynch may not have been the master of his fate, but he clearly understood that the cause of his poor health had to do with something more personal than weather. “Smoking was something that I absolutely loved but, in the end, it bit me,” he told Sight and Sound magazine in September 2024. “It was part of the art life for me: the tobacco and the smell of it and lighting things and smoking and going back and sitting back and having a smoke and looking at your work, or thinking about things; nothing like it in this world is so beautiful…. Meanwhile, it’s killing me.” more

By Nancy Plum

Musical ensembles often observe the significant birthdays of composers of the past or anniversaries of their leaders. Princeton Symphony Orchestra took this idea one step further by celebrating the 60th birthday of Music Director Rossen Milanov earlier in January with presentations of two monumental orchestral works. The concert on the night of Saturday, January 11 at Richardson Auditorium (the program was repeated the following afternoon) brought together Orchestra musicians, conductor Milanov, one of his long-term collaborators, and two of his favorite pieces in the ensemble’s annual Edward T. Cone commemorative events.

Joining Princeton Symphony in Igor Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major was guest soloist Leila Josefowicz, who has played with the Orchestra numerous times in past seasons. A violinist with a solid international reputation, Josefowicz clearly demonstrated a strong connection to both Milanov and the players while showing her own brand of performance fire.  more

“THE CLEAN HOUSE”: Performances are underway for “The Clean House.” Presented by Shakespeare 70 and Kelsey Theatre, and directed by Janet Quartarone with the assistance of Maggie Gronenthal, the play runs through January 26 at Kelsey Theatre. Above, from left: Lane (Laura McWater), a physician, faces a devastating revelation brought about by the actions of her sister Virginia (Laurie Hardy); her husband Charles (Stan Cahill); the mysterious Ana (Jaqueline Booth); and her cleaning lady, Matilde (Lisbeth Burgos), who wants to invent the funniest joke in the world. (Photo by Jake Burbage)

By Donald H. Sanborn III

Kelsey Theatre is continuing its “Season of Transformations” with The Clean House. Sarah Ruhl’s quirky, bittersweet comedy depicts a married couple — both of whom are physicians — whose Brazilian housekeeper hates to clean house, and dreams of inventing “the funniest joke in the world.”

An arrangement is made whereby the sister of one of the doctors will do the housekeeper’s job of cleaning the couple’s home. This leads to a discovery that upends the couple’s marriage, and necessitates complicated choices and self-examination.  more

ALL MOZART: Pianist Orli Shaham is the soloist at the Princeton Symphony Orchestra’s program of works by the composer on February 8 and 9 at Richardson Auditorium. (Photo by Christian Steiner)

Pianist Orli Shaham is the soloist with the Princeton Symphony Orchestra (PSO) on February 8 at 8 p.m. and February 9 at 4 p.m. in an all-Mozart program at Richardson Auditorium.

Ballet music from Idomeneo (excerpts), the Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, K. 466, and Mozart’s Symphony No. 39 in E-flat Major, K. 453 Will be performed. Gérard Korsten, conductor and Mozart specialist, will make his debut with the PSO.

Locals may recall Ms. Shaham from her Baby Got Bach program for children which made its Princeton debut in 2016 with So Percussion. She also recorded a piano concerto, Stumble to Grace, by Princeton-based composer Steve Mackey.  more

Guitarist Bill O’Neal will perform at the Fanny Parnell Poetry Project’s “Poetry, Politics, and Ms. Parnell,” on Saturday, February 1 at 3 p.m. at Bordentown’s Old City Hall, 11 Crosswicks Street. Known for his monthly sessions at Tir na Nog in Trenton, O’Neal will be joined with George Zienowicz, a pipe player and fiddler as well as a neon artist. Admission is free to the program, which will be followed by “Poets and Pints” poetry reading at Bordentown Square Tap and Grill at 4 p.m. Visit oldcityhallprograms@gmail.com for more information.

Bimpé Fageyinbo
(Photo courtesy of Yuri Alves)

On February 6 at 7:30 p.m., the Thomas A. Edison Media Arts Consortium, in collaboration with the Lewis Center for the Arts, presents a film screening and panel on top award-winning filmmakers and poets living and working in New Jersey. The event is at the James Stewart Film Theater, 185 Nassau Street. Admission is free.

“Themes and Journeys of Artists and Filmmakers in New Jersey” includes a premiere screening of three award-winning short films from the Thomas Edison Film Festival (TEFF) collection produced, directed and/or performed by the five panelists: writer/director Seyi Peter-Thomas, poet Cortney Lamar Charleston, filmmaker Moon Molson, filmmaker Yuri Alves, and artist Bimpé Fageyinbo, moderated by TEFF director Jane Steuerwald.

The films to be screened are How Do you Raise a Black Child? by Peter-Thomas in collaboration with Charleston; The Bravest, the Boldest by Molson; and Freedom for Freedom by Alves featuring Fageyinbo. The films are recent additions to the Thomas Edison Film Festival collection. TEFF is an international juried competition celebrating all genres and independent filmmakers across the globe.  more

The Garden Theatre has announced the spring lineup of the $5 Family Matinee series for spring.

Included in the lineup of family-friendly and nostalgic films are American animation along with two live-action tales. All screenings are $5 and are free for members of the nonprofit community.

The screenings begin on January 25 with Adventures of Milo & Otis. Disney’s modern ode to old-school animation, The Princess and the Frog, follows up on February 22. Next the Garden takes audiences back to the silent era on March 22 as Charlie Chaplin entertains at The Circus. Next on April 12 is The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, and on May 17 the big screen becomes a time machine to prehistoric Earth in Don Bluth’s The Land Before Time.

The $5 Family Matinee series is underwritten by jaZams, McCarter Theatre Center, Color Me Mine Princeton, and the Princeton Public Library. Tickets can be purchased at the box office at 160 Nassau Street, or at princetongardentheatre.org/family.

PLEIN AIR PLUS: Among several plein air works that will be auctioned to benefit the Lambertville Historical Society and the James Marshall House Museum on February 1 is “Running Dog” by Annelies van Dommelen, shown here.

Plein Air Plus, artistic interpretations of historic Lambertville and neighboring river towns, is an annual fundraiser by the Lambertville Historical Society (LHS). This year, it will take place at Rago Arts and Auction Center on Saturday, February 1 from 4:30 to 7 p.m. More than 55 pieces will be featured during the event, held as a silent auction to benefit LHS and the James Marshall House Museum.

All works will be on display and minimum bids will be set. Bidding will close at 6:30 p.m., sharp, with winners announced by 7 p.m. Plein Air Plus will also feature live music by the local band The Lifters, hors d’oeuvres, and beverages. There is a $25 suggested donation, $15 donation for LHS members. more

“WISDOM”: This work by Pat McLean-Smith is featured in “Manifesting Beloved Community,” on view through March 1 at West Windsor Arts in West Windsor Township.

For the fourth consecutive year, West Windsor Arts, in partnership with Art Against Racism, invited artists to present their vision of an equitable and caring world, one not tainted by the misjustices of structural racism. Their artworks are now on display at the arts center in an exhibition called “Manifesting Beloved Community,” inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.’s global vision of a nonviolent, love-centered world without poverty, hunger and social injustice. Throughout his lifetime, King spoke of a healed planet.

“We are honoring Dr. King’s legacy with this exhibition, which will be on display through March 1,” says Aylin Green, executive director of West Windsor Arts. “Each year, we also sponsor a day of service on the MLK holiday so that volunteers are surrounded by the impactful work of this show as they package donations to be given to local service organizations.”  more

TRASHED ART CONTEST: Artists and artwork from the TrashedArt 2024 Contest are shown at the Lawrence Headquarters Branch of the Mercer County Library System. Art in this year’s contest will be on display in March and April.

In March and April, art will be displayed for the 16th Annual TrashedArt Contest at the Lawrence Headquarters Branch of the Mercer County Library System (MCLS). Patrons will have a chance to view photographs of the artwork and vote for the “People’s Choice” awards in-person at each of the nine branches and virtually on the MCLS’ website. Winners will be announced at the TrashedArt Contest Reception at the Lawrence Headquarters Branch on Tuesday, April 22 at 6:30 p.m.

“The TrashedArt Contest celebrates Earth Day by encouraging our residents to turn ordinary trash into extraordinary art,” said County Executive Dan Benson. “I’m thrilled that Mercer County Libraries can continue to host this contest, and I can’t wait to see what creative works our contestants produce.” more

January 15, 2025

By Stuart Mitchner

Blowing through the buttons of our coats / Blowing through the letters that we wrote / Idiot wind / Blowing through the dust upon our shelves….” The next lines, and the last, of Bob Dylan’s song are “We’re idiots, babe / It’s a wonder we can even feed ourselves.”

If the Dylan of Rough and Rowdy Ways truly contains multitudes, “we’re idiots” means everybody. In his 2004 memoir, Chronicles: Volume One, Dylan claims that his 1975 album Blood On The Tracks was “based on Chekhov short stories,” a reference that resonates in the Chekhovian sensibility behind that line. It’s said that Dylan’s revised the lyric over the years, but however you read it, the wording covers a lot of beautiful and unbeautiful universal ground, not just the relationship between the singer and his wife.

Meanwhile the idiot writing this column has been busy for days on an article about the new film A Complete Unknown. Besides being fixated on New York in January 1961 when the city was buried in snow and you could ski on lower Fifth Avenue, I’ve been staring over my shoulder at the devastation the idiot winds of Santa Ana have inflicted on my wife’s Pacific Palisades homeland. more

GUEST FLUTIST: Patrick Williams, associate principal flutist of The Philadelphia Orchestra, will perform with the Youth Orchestra of Central Jersey on January 19 at Kendall Hall, The College of New Jersey, Ewing.

The Youth Orchestra of Central Jersey (YOCJ) will hold its Winter Large Ensemble Concert on Sunday, January 19 at 8 p.m. with YOCJ’s Symphonic Orchestra featuring soloist Patrick Williams, associate principal flutist of The Philadelphia Orchestra, at Kendall Hall, the College of New Jersey, Ewing.

The YOCJ’s Saxophone Choir will also perform at that concert. Earlier in the day, at 3 p.m., the Wind Symphony, Sinfonietta String Orchestra, and Pro Arte Orchestra will play. more

David Lang
(Photo by Peter Serling)

On Tuesday, February 4 at 7:30 p.m., The Crossing, a three-time Grammy Award-winning chamber choir, performs David Lang’s poor hymnal at Richardson Auditorium. The concert is presented by McCarter Theatre.

In poor hymnal, Lang wonders “if the hymns of a community that did not want to forget our responsibilities to each other, and that wanted to make our responsibilities to each other the central tenet of our coming together, might be different from the hymns that we are singing now.”

Premiered in December 2023 in Philadelphia, the concert-length work immediately entered The Crossing’s canon. Lang is a winner of the Pulitzer, Grammy, Bessie, and Obie awards, and an Academy Award nominee. A co-founder of the Bang on a Can collective, his work has been performed at concert halls and theaters around the world, including numerous times at Lincoln Center.

Tickets are $43-$68. Visit Mccarter.org.

With his friend violinist Leila Josefowicz by his side, Princeton Symphony Orchestra Music Director Rossen Milanov was surprised by a birthday cake rolled on stage at the start of his 60th birthday concert at Richardson Auditorium on Saturday, January 11. Before starting the program of music by Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky, the orchestra and Josefowicz also performed “Happy Birthday” with the audience joining in.

ART MAKING AT ACP: The Arts Council of Princeton will honor Martin Luther King Jr. Day with an art-making workshop led by artist Tamara Torres on Monday, January 20 from 1 to 3 p.m. The event is free and open to all ages.

The Arts Council of Princeton (ACP) will honor Martin Luther King Jr. Day with an art-making workshop, food drive, and community gathering, free and open to all ages.

In this workshop, artist Tamara Torres will lead participants to explore color’s varying effects on emotions and, together, discuss ways to express feelings through abstract art. Participants will spend 10 minutes to create freely on a sheet of paper, allowing themselves to express their feelings without the constraints of perfection, rules, or judgment. Afterward, they’ll be challenged to tear up their paper and use the pieces to create a new collage that represents a different perspective, transforming it into something new. This exercise encourages conversations about changing perspectives and looking at things in a fresh way.  more

“ON A SHORT LEASH”: This acrylic painting is featured in “Charles David Viera: Selected Works 2006-2025,” on view January 24 to March 30 at the Trenton City Museum at Ellarslie. An opening reception is on January 25 from 4 to 6 p.m.

The Trenton City Museum at the Ellarslie will present “Charles David Viera: Selected Works 2006-2025,” on view January 24 to March 30. The exhibition will feature works selected by Joan Perkes and Janis Purcell from Viera’s paintings and drawings created from 2006 to the present. The public is invited to an opening reception on Saturday, January 25 from 4 to 6 p.m.

The artworks chosen include a variety of paintings and pastel drawings from this versatile artist,  some of which have never been exhibited locally before and several acquired from personal collections.  more

“YOUTH ART EXHIBITION” Anagha Kannurpatti of Council Rock High School North in Newtown, Pa., took First Place in the Works on Paper category for “Illumination” in last year’s student exhibition at the Phillips’ Mill Community Association.

Twelve years after its debut, the “Youth Art Exhibition” at Phillips’ Mill Community Association continues to showcase the artwork of area high school students. It will be on view at the historic mill on weekends January 26 through February 16, from 12 to 4 p.m. The show can also be viewed online at www.phillipsmill.org/art/youth-art-exhibition.

Art teachers at 24 area high schools curate the artwork, submitting paintings, works on paper, photography, digital art, and 3-dimensional work. The schools participating this year are Central Bucks High School East, Central Bucks High School West, Central Bucks High School South, Council Rock High School North, Council Rock High School South, Ewing High School, George School, Hillsborough High School, Holy Ghost Preparatory School, Hopewell Valley Central High School, Hunterdon Central Regional High School, Neshaminy High School, New Hope-Solebury High School, Notre Dame High School, Pennsbury High School, Princeton Day School, Solebury School, Stuart Country Day School, The Hun School, The Pennington School, Upper Dublin High School, West Windsor-Plainsboro North, West Windsor-Plainsboro South, and Villa Victoria. more

This oil painting by Mike Mann is featured in “Trio,” his joint exhibition with Judith Marchand and David Horowitz, on view through March 3 at the Green Building Center, 67 Bridge Street, Lambertville.

January 8, 2025

By Stuart Mitchner

I was crazy about The Great Gatsby, Old Gatsby. Old sport. That killed me.

—from The Catcher in the Rye

I woke up from a nap five minutes before midnight, turned on the TV, and there was Times Square packed with Happy 2025-top-hatted, rainwear-cloaked revelers under a delirium of color that swarmed into futuristic formations every time I blinked my eyes. At first the signs were meaningless, nameless, wordless, New Year’s Eve on Mars, like a vision of the place I loved as a 14-year-old seen through the eyes of old Rip Van Winkle emerging from a showing of A Star Is Born on a rainy night in 1954. What does it mean, all this dazzling stuff? Where’s a familiar face? Where’s Judy Garland? Where’s any legible meaningful remnant of lost New York? Then, wonder of wonders, a floodlit sign for The Great Gatsby comes into view on the first day of the novel’s 100th year, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece is in lights, and Broadway makes 20th-century sense again….

Now it’s as if Times Square is being submerged in Francis Cugat’s hallucinatory cover art for the first edition of Gatsby, that deep all-consuming blueness descending on the rainy chaos of celebration, two narrow witchy eyes with golden neon pupils peering above an emerald teardrop and the red lips of a siren, luring us between the covers to one of Gatsby’s epic parties where “men and girls” are coming and going “like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars” while “the cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors and hair bobbed in strange new ways, and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile.”  more

TRIPLE THREAT: Actress, singer, and dancer Sutton Foster comes to the State Theatre New Jersey on January 31. The Tony Award-winning artist will perform from her extensive Broadway catalog. (Photo by Jenny Anderson)

State Theatre New Jersey presents “An Evening with Sutton Foster” on Friday, January 31 at 8 p.m. Foster will perform songs from her Broadway hits including The Music Man, Anything Goes, and Sweeney Todd. Tickets range from $39-$69.

Foster most recently starred in the Broadway revival of Once Upon a Mattress, reprising the role after leading the New York City Center Encores! adaptation. Prior, Foster starred as Mrs. Lovett in the Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street opposite Aaron Tveit.

Foster starred as Marian Paroo in the 2022 Broadway Revival of The Music Man, earning her seventh Tony Award nomination and the 2022 Drama League Distinguished Performance Award. more

BACK IN TOWN: Laurie Berkner brings her band to her hometown of Princeton for a special “Greatest Hits” concert on Saturday, March 1 at McCarter Theatre.

The Laurie Berkner Band will return to Berkner’s hometown with a “Greatest Hits” concert for families at 3 p.m. on Saturday, March 1 at McCarter Theatre. Prior to the event, Berkner will give a special solo, sensory-friendly, “relaxed performance” at 11 a.m., joined by dancer Michelle Esch.

“I can’t wait to come back to the McCarter Theatre,” said Berkner. “It’s such a thrill to have made playing at my neighborhood theater from childhood into a yearly tradition. And I’m so grateful that my partnership with the theater allows me to present both a sensory-friendly show (for those who prefer less stimulation) and a full-band show. Both experiences are uniquely special and being able to share them with my fans brings me so much joy.”

 more

CREEPY AND KOOKY: “The Addams Family” musical brings Gomez, Morticia, and the rest of the clan to State Theatre New Jersey January 24-26. (Pamela Raith Photography)

State Theatre New Jersey presents the musical comedy The Addams Family for four performances on Friday, January 24 at 8 p.m.; Saturday, January 25 at 2 and 8 p.m.; and Sunday, January 26 at 2 p.m.

Following the show on January 24, there is a cast party with food, music, and giveaways in the STNJ Studio. Tickets for the cast party are $10. Show tickets range from $40-$105. more