March 19, 2025

Closing Reception for “When the Land Calls”

“WHEEL II”: This work by Mike Benevenia is part of “When the Land Calls,” now on view in the Johnson Education Center at D&R Greenway Land Trust. A closing reception is on Saturday, March 22 from 2 to 4 p.m.

D&R Greenway Land Trust will host a closing reception for its “When the Land Calls” exhibit on Saturday March 22 from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Johnson Education Center, 1 Preservation Place.

“When the Land Calls” is a celebration of an inspiring story about preserving art, land, and community. The exhibit, co-curated by David Scott Lawson and Yvonne DeCarolis, opened in December to a packed house of over 200 guests. Artists Ellen Rebarber and Mike Benevenia engaged the crowd and described their emotional journey of being brought together by area resident Yvonne DeCarolis and her vision to bring art and music to her land. more

Tickets Now on Sale for ACP’s Art People Party

ART PEOPLE PARTY: The Arts Council of Princeton’s signature spring fundraiser will be held on Friday, April 4 from 7 to 10 p.m. Shown are attendees at a previous event. Tickets are available now at artscouncilofprinceton.org.

Tickets are available for the Arts Council of Princeton’s (ACP) signature spring fundraiser, Art People Party, to be held on Friday, April 4 from 7-10 p.m. Known for transforming spaces with whimsy décor and artistic installations, the event will embody the theme of PROM, a kaleidoscope of youthful nostalgia and present day wisdom as imagined through a joyful, inclusive, and artistic lens.

Art People Party promises creative fashions, an open beer and wine bar, dinner, and DJ dance party, while the signature “Tombola” art experience sees that every ticket holder leaves with original artwork. Each Tombola ticket holder previews the available choices, all contributed by talented regional artists, and makes a quick decision when their number is drawn. Partygoers will enjoy creative photo opportunities, watch live art-making unfold, and dance the night away with friends old and new. more

Call for Signature Image: Phillips’ Mill Juried Art Show

“MARCH AFTERNOON”: This painting by Donna Ruane Rogers was selected as the 2024 signature image for Phillips’ Mill’s Annual Juried Art Show. Submissions for this year’s signature image must be received by April 15.

Phillips’ Mill’s 96th Annual Juried Art Show committee invites artists to participate in its search for the signature image for this year’s show. The signature image, an artistic representation of the historic Mill, is used on marketing and advertising materials including posters, ads, invitations, postcards, social media, banners, and on the Phillips’ Mill website.

Submissions are being accepted through April 15.

The artist will receive a $500 honorarium and the signature image will automatically be included in the juried art show. The artist may also submit additional entries to the show as outlined in the show’s prospectus. more

March 12, 2025

Contemporary Comedy at McCarter Theatre Explores Women in Science, Three Centuries Apart

CREATIVE TEAM: Preparing “Legacy of Light” at McCarter Theatre has been a happy collaboration for, from left: Karen Zacarias, Gina Fonseca, Allen Gilmore, Lenne Klingaman, Trey DeLuna, Kimberly Chatterjee, Zach Fine, and Sarah Rasmussen.

By Anne Levin

How does being a woman scientist in 18th century France compare to following a similar path in 21st century Princeton? That, along with other questions about career, family, love, and astrophysics form the basis of Legacy of Light, a comedy by Karen Zacarias opening at McCarter Theatre March 19 and running through April 6.

First produced in 2009 at Washington’s Arena Stage, where Zacarias is a playwright-in-residence, the play intertwines the stories of French scientist Emilie du Chatelet, who lived from 1706 to 1749, with that of a modern-day astrophysicist. The six characters in the ensemble include Chatelet and another historical figure, Voltaire.  more

The Human Story: Prokofiev, Chekhov, War, and a World of Books

By Stuart Mitchner

A few days ago I listened to Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra’s performance of Sergei Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony and have been buoyed by the joyous ambiance of this 13 minutes of music ever since. In the colorful image accompanying the piece on YouTube, Prokofiev is lounging on a cane chair surrounded by greenery, one leg casually balanced on the other, one arm slung over the back of the chair, holding a score he’s been working on, a pencil in his other hand. He’s dressed casually in a dark brown zippered jacket, and he’s looking good, touches of color in his cheeks, no glasses, in his thirties or forties, prime of life, and as in other photos from this period (see his wikipedia page), he looks more like a Russian David Bowie than the generic image of the severe, bespectacled composer.

Finding Out More

Hoping to find out more about this music, I drove over to Labyrinth Books and bought Claude Samuel’s Prokofiev (Calder and Boyars 1971). Next I plunged into my email archive and came up with a ten-year-old message from an old college friend telling me he’s been “on a Prokofiev kick” and thinks of him, fondly, as “Rachmaninoff Gone Mad.” After praising “his terrific and terrifically showy, piano music,” my friend says, point blank: “I hate the Classical Symphony.” more

Princeton Symphony Orchestra Presents Evening of Music, Dance Traditions, and Percussion

By Nancy Plum

Princeton Symphony Orchestra brought three diverse compositional styles together this past weekend with a program linking music of the early 19th and 21st centuries and featuring one of this country’s most innovative and adventurous instrumental ensembles. Conducted by Music Director Rossen Milanov, the Orchestra presented Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 in F Major, paired with works of American composers Carlos Simon and Viet Cuong. Joining the Orchestra in Saturday night’s concert (which was repeated Sunday afternoon) was So Percussion, a quartet of percussionists fresh off a Grammy award win and current Performers-in-Residence at Princeton University.

The four movements of Carlos Simon’s 2022 Four Black American Dances weaved dance and cultural identity into symphonic music, delving into significant and differing dance forms. The opening celebratory “Ring Shout” captured a religious ritual dating back centuries. Opening with spirited brass and wailing woodwinds, Princeton Symphony executed clean syncopation from strings and sliding effects from a trio of trumpets. Percussion played a key role in all four movements, with timpanist Jeremy Levine keeping rhythms precise.

Concertmaster Basia Danilow provided several quick-moving solo violin lines, especially contrasting a big band palette in the second movement “Waltz.” A quartet of trombones and tuba set a mysterious mood for the closing “Holy Dance,” as Milanov led the sound to a fervent clamor. Nimble cellos and double basses brought the work to a cinematic close, which the musicians drew out with effective drama.  more

“Oh, What a Beautiful” Evening Kelsey Theatre Offers with “Oklahoma!”; Colorful, Energetic Production Captures the Classic Musical’s Exuberance

“OKLAHOMA!”: Performances are underway for “Oklahoma!” Presented by Kelsey Theatre and Bear Tavern Project; and directed by Susan Galli, the musical runs through March 16 at Kelsey Theatre. Above: Ado Annie Carnes (Jessa Casner, center) must choose between itinerant peddler Ali Hakim (Pat Rounds, left) and cowboy Will Parker (Kevin Palardy, right). (Photo by Joe Cutalo Photography)

By Donald H. Sanborn III

Kelsey Theatre is continuing its “Season of Transformations” with Bear Tavern Project’s production of a classic show that transformed musical theater itself: Oklahoma!

Countless essays have been written about the 1943 show’s impacts on musicals as an art form, but perhaps the most immediately obvious and tangible one is that it launched one of the most successful and enduring collaborations in Broadway history: that of composer Richard Rodgers (1902-1979) and lyricist-librettist Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960). more

Black Oak Ensemble Performs Five Trios

CHAMBER CONCERT: As part of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra’s new chamber music series, the Black Oak Ensemble performs at Trinity Church on March 20. (Photo by Ayaka Sano)

The Black Oak Ensemble performs on Thursday, March 20 at 7 p.m. on the Princeton Symphony Orchestra (PSO)’s new chamber music series at Trinity Church, 33 Mercer Street. On the program are an arrangement of the aria from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, Vittorio Monti’s Csárdás, based on a Hungarian folk dance, and trios by Gideon Klein, Jean Cras, and Henri Tomasi.

The trio includes violinist Desirée Ruhstrat and cellist David Cunliffe, members of the Grammy-nominated Lincoln Trio, and violist Aurélien Fort Pederzoli, a founding member of the Grammy-nominated Spektral Quartet.  more

Groundhog Day At PHS

The Princeton High School (PHS) Spectacle Theatre will be presenting “Groundhog Day the Musical” March 13 through March 15, with shows at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday and Friday and at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. on Saturday in the PHS Performing Arts Center. Tickets are available at princetondrama.ludus.com. (Photo by Julianna Krawiecki)

Piano Students Accompany Silent Film Classics

On March 29, 150 piano students from throughout central New Jersey will recreate the silent film experience at the Bridgewater AMC in Bridgewater. The event is sponsored by the New School for Music Study in Kingston.

One of the important features of the silent-film era was the organ and piano music that brought movies to life. At the upcoming event, students of all ages and levels will provide the soundtrack to classic films starring Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin.  more

Garden Theatre to Welcome Oscar-Nominated Director

The Garden Theatre is welcoming filmmaker Emily Kassie to Princeton on March 19 at 7 p.m. for an in-person discussion following a screening of her Oscar-nominated documentary, Sugarcane. The event is in partnership with Princeton Humanities Initiative, Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative at Princeton, and the Department of Religion at Princeton University.

Sugarcane, which was co-directed by Kassie and Julian Brave NoiseCat, follows an investigation into abuse and missing children at the Indian residential school NoiseCat’s family was sent to near Williams Lake, British Columbia. The film is a display of communal processing and perseverance in breaking down cycles of intergenerational trauma. It is Kassie’s and NoiseCat’s first feature documentary. more

Wine and Comedy at Old York Road Cellars

Wine and Comedy Nights at Old York Cellars in Ringoes is back for the 10th season, hosted by local comic Helene Angley. Comics Buddy Fitzpatrick and Chris Monty will headline the first two shows on April 5 and 19, in the heated tent in the vineyard.

Fitzpatrick performs around the country and has appeared on Comedy Central, ABC and A&E. He was most recently featured in Steven King’s horror-romance best-seller adaptation of “Lisey’s Story” on Apple TV+.  Monty’s recent projects include an Amazon Prime comedy special “What’s the Worst That Could Happen,” and appearances in HBO’s “Vinyl” and Amazon Prime’s “Red Oaks.” Host Angley is featured in comedy clubs around the country and on cruise ships around the world. more

Lutist Thomas Dunford Does “Up Close” Concerts

On Sunday, March 23, at 3 and 6 p.m., lutist Thomas Dunford will return to Princeton University Concerts (PUC) in a set of hour-long appearances for the Performances Up Close series in Richardson Auditorium. The audience is seated on stage in these informal events.

Following his appearance with the Jupiter Ensemble as part of PUC’s 2022-23 season, Dunford returns with a solo program of works by J. S. Bach, Joan Ambrosio Dalza, John Dowland, Girolame Kapsberger, Marin Marais, and Erik Satie.

“We are thrilled to have Thomas Dunford back,” said PUC Director Marna Seltzer. “He is a rock star in the world of early music, and one of many musicians on our series who is not only a fierce ambassador for their instrument but also a consummate musician. We look forward to hearing his sensitive and exciting playing in our Up Close format.” more

Blending East and West at Upcoming Concert

BLENDING CULTURES: Chinese pipa master Jin Yang is the guest soloist with the Bravura Philharmonic Orchestra at the Princeton Alliance Church on Sunday, March 16.

The Bravura Philharmonic Orchestra, under its conductor Chiu-Tze Lin, will present a concert, “Bending of the East and West,” on March 16, at 7 p.m. at the Princeton Alliance Church, 20 Schalks Crossing Road, Plainsboro.

The program will feature the Chinese Pipa Master Jin Yang. This collaboration of a Chinese folk instrument soloing with a western classical symphony orchestra is a one-of-a-kind event designed to bring a unique experience in sound. more

“The Marvelous Mr. Meusel” By the Dryden Ensemble

EARLY MUSIC: Lutenist Daniel Swenberg, new artistic director of the Dryden Ensemble, is among the musicians on the program Sunday, March 16 at Princeton Theological Seminary.

The Dryden Ensemble returns with its new artistic director, Daniel Swenberg, in a program entitled “En Concert: The Marvelous Mr. Meusel “ on Sunday, March 16 at 4 p.m. at the Princeton Theological Seminary Chapel, 64 Mercer Street. Admission is free, though donations will be accepted.

In the early 18th century, lute and harpsichord players would often arrange and expand their solo repertoire for an ensemble.  This genre or approach to repertoire is known as playing “En Concert.”  The melody lines of a plucked-instrument solo piece would be doubled by a violin, oboe, or flute and the bass line would be reinforced by a cello or viola da gamba. more

Orchestra Announces Lineup For Season at Richardson

CONCERTOS AND MORE: Grammy-winning pianist Michelle Cann is among the guest artists on schedule for the Princeton Symphony Orchestra’s 2025-26 season, which opens October 25-26. (Photo by Titilayo Ayangade)

The Princeton Symphony Orchestra (PSO) has announced its 2025-26 Season with a line-up of guest artists assembled by Edward T. Cone Music Director Rossen Milanov. Violinist Aubree Oliverson returns to the PSO stage along with violinist Bella Hristova, who last performed with the orchestra in 2014. Pianists Maxim Lando and Michelle Cann, harpsichordist Mahan Esfanhani, and Serbian-French cellist Maja Bogdanovic will each be appearing with the PSO for the first time at Richardson Auditorium.

On the program are concertos by Antonín Dvorák, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Edvard Grieg, and Camille Saint-Saëns, as well as the world premiere of a new work for harpsichord and small orchestra by Princeton-based composer Julian Grant. Additional contemporary compositions include Dobrinka Tabakova’s Orpheus’ Comet, Andreia Pinto Correia’s Ciprés, Jessie Montgomery’s Records from a Vanishing City, and Viet Cuong’s Extra(ordinarily) Fancy. more

Artist Victor E. Bell Celebrates Rescue Dogs

CELEBRATING RESCUE DOGS: The Arts Council of Princeton’s Spring 2025 Anne Reeves Artist-in-Residence Victor E. Bell celebrates his love for rescue dogs through ceramic “dogoyles,” to be on view throughout the community this spring.

The Arts Council of Princeton (ACP) has announced Victor E. Bell as their Spring 2025 Anne Reeves Artist-in-Residence.

Bell loves dogs — especially rescue dogs — and the unconditional love we receive from them. He also loves his Princeton community, and so the idea for “dogoyles” — a magical mix of dog, dragon, and gargoyle — was born. Bell crafts these whimsical ceramic sculptures specifically for locations throughout town that have special meaning to him and many in our community. His finished sculptures will be on view beginning in late May. more

Regreening Through Art

Works by Spriha Gupta are on view in the Solley Lobby at the Arts Council of Princeton, 102 Witherspoon Street, through March 29. Gupta will be part of a Women’s History Month Artist Talk being hosted by Judith K. Brodsky in the Taplin Gallery on March 15 from 1 to 2 p.m. For more information, visit artscouncilofprinceton.org.

GFS Receives More Than $100K in Grants

“THE NINE MUSES”: This work by Carlos Dorrien can be found at Grounds For Sculpture in Hamilton, which was recently awarded more than $100,000 to support three key initiatives. (Photo by David Michael Howarth Photography)

Grounds For Sculpture (GFS) in Hamilton has been awarded significant grants from The Bunbury Fund at the Princeton Area Community Foundation, The Horizon Foundation of New Jersey (The Horizon Foundation), and M & T Charitable Foundation (M &T). As a result of this funding, GFS will continue its capacity building work; pilot a social prescribing program through a partnership with Penn Medicine Princeton Health (PMPH); and bolster its participation in the Families First Discovery Pass Program (FFDP), which underwrites tickets to GFS for low-income families and individuals in New Jersey. Together, these three initiatives will contribute to the sculpture park’s strategic vision by sustaining and enriching its commitment to building communities and growing connectivity with its visitors.

“We’re delighted these three foundations are generously supporting Grounds For Sculpture,” said Gary Garrido Schneider, GFS executive director. “While we continue to build our organizational capacity, we’ll also be able to provide more visitors with the opportunity to experience the joy and restorative power of our art-filled gardens.”  more

March 5, 2025

Between the Oscars and Bryn Mawr: Casting a Book Sale Treasure

By Stuart Mitchner

Now what is love, I pray thee tell?
It is that fountain and that well
Where pleasure and repentance dwell.

—Sir Walter Raleigh

(may i touch said he how much said she a lot said he)

—e.e. cummings

Raleigh’s poem “A Description of Love” begins and ends Pleasure and Repentance (Pergamon 1976), the Royal Shakespeare Company’s “Lighthearted Look at Love” created and compiled by former RSC Director Terry Hands. The subject of acting and actors, love and lovers brings to mind Sunday night’s Academy Awards, where Morgan Freeman delivered a memorial tribute to Gene Hackman (“Our community lost a giant, I lost a dear friend”) and four Oscars went to Sean Baker’s Anora, a zany throwback to the screwball comedy romances of Hollywood’s Golden Age.

My favorite Hackman film is Arthur Penn’s extraordinary neo-noir Night Moves (1975), which features one of his strongest performances as the driven, benighted, very human private eye Harry Moseley. At the moment, however, I’m remembering him as Harry Caul sitting alone in the wreckage of his room playing tenor sax at the end of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (1974). more

Bullied High School Senior Takes Deadly Revenge at Her Prom in “Carrie”; Theatre Intime, PUP Offer a Strong Staging of a Flawed but Worthy Musical

“CARRIE”: Theatre Intime and the Princeton University Players have staged “Carrie.” Directed by Chloe Webster; and music directed by Jenia Marquez, the musical was presented February 27-March 1 at the Hamilton Murray Theater. Above: Carrie (Christie Davis, center right), who is used to being an outsider, enjoys attending her prom with Tommy (David Getz, center left) — unaware that she is about to be the victim of a cruel prank (as evidenced by the bucket above her head) and humiliated in front of her onlooking classmates. (Photo by Elena Milliken)

By Donald H. Sanborn III

Stephen King’s novel Carrie (1974) portrays Carrie White, a bullied high school senior who is secluded and abused by her religiously overzealous, puritanical mother. Carrie discovers that she has telekinetic powers, with which she exacts vengeance on her classmates (and others) when she is humiliated by a cruel prank at her prom.

The plot is a dark and bitter inversion of the Cinderella story, with the archetypes easy to spot. Carrie obviously is a variation on Cinderella. Margaret, her mother, becomes the wicked stepmother, and the taunting classmates are the stepsisters. A sympathetic gym teacher becomes the fairy godmother, while another student, Tommy, reluctantly fills the role of the prince (despite being in love with Sue, another classmate).

Carrie was adapted into a 1976 film, with a screenplay by Lawrence D. Cohen. Subsequently the novel and film were adapted into a musical, for which Cohen wrote the libretto. Dean Pitchford (the screenwriter of Footloose, and the co-writer of several songs for Fame) wrote the lyrics, with Michael Gore (Pitchford’s Fame collaborator) composing the music.

 more

Princeton University Presents Annual Competition Winners Concert

By Nancy Plum

The stage at Richardson Auditorium looked a bit like an instrument warehouse last Friday night, jam-packed with chairs, percussion, two harps, and several keyboard instruments in anticipation of Princeton University Orchestra’s winter concert. With all these possible players, there might have been a potential for sound cacophony, but the University Orchestra performed its annual “Concerto Concert” with clarity and melodic refinement while showing off the immense talents of two students. Conducted by Michael Pratt, Friday night’s performance (which was repeated Saturday night) showed freshman violist Jisang Kymm and sophomore pianist Sarah Yuan to be experienced well beyond their years in the Orchestra’s presentation of Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto for Viola and Orchestra and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor.

Schnittke’s 1985 three-movement Concerto for Viola and Orchestra diverged from the traditional concerto structure of alternating fast-slow-fast sections and reversed this order, with outer “Largo” movements bracketing a central “Allegro.” Like many of his Soviet contemporaries, Schnittke collaborated with the finest performers of his day, and the virtuosity and intensity of the Concerto reflected its tribute to a leading violist of the time. Viola soloist Jisang Kymm opened Schnittke’s work with introspection and attention to detail. Taking his time in the reflective texture, Kymm effortlessly executed the numerous double stops and insisted on the score’s dissonance against an unsettled orchestral accompaniment.  more

Sesame Workshop Brings Show to New Brunswick

ELMO AND FRIENDS: “Sesame Street Live! Say Hello” comes to State Theatre New Jersey on Sunday, March 16 at 2 p.m.

State Theatre New Jersey presents “Sesame Street Live! Say Hello” on Sunday, March 16 at 2 p.m. The live show will bring the beloved characters from the show Sesame Street to life in a brand-new interactive production.

Elmo, Abby Cadabby, Cookie Monster, and their friends sing, dance, and play alongside furry friends, all while the audience follows Elmo’s puppy, Tango, in a game of hide and seek.

“We are overjoyed and honored to be collaborating with Sesame Workshop to bring a brand-new tour of ‘Sesame Street Live’ to stages across the U.S. and Canada,” said Round Room Live Founder and Co-President Stephen Shaw. “Round Room Live has a long history of exciting, innovative, and engaging productions, and we’re thrilled to combine our dedication to premium, unforgettable entertainment with the beloved characters of Sesame Street in an interactive musical adventure that will create memorable experiences for families of all ages.” more

Folk Music Society Presents Poor Man’s Gambit Trio

PHILLY AND IRISH: Poor Man’s Gambit is all about the traditional Irish culture of the Philadelphia area. The group comes to Christ Congregation Church on March 21.

On Friday, March 21 at 8 p.m., the Princeton Folk Music Society brings Poor Man’s Gambit, a Philadelphia-based Irish music band, to Christ Congregation Church, 50 Walnut Lane.

The multi-instrumentalist group includes Deirdre Lockman (fiddle and vocals), Corey Purcell (button accordion, cittern, bodhran, vocals, and dance), and Joseph Carmichael (guitar, whistle, flute, and vocals).

Lockman and Purcell are steeped in the traditional Irish culture of the Philadelphia area. Both started as step dancers in childhood. Lockman studied at the DeNogla Academy of Irish Dance in New Jersey, and both went on to dance competitively at national and international levels. In time, however, they found their true calling in Irish music. more

Irish Music Ensemble Celebrates Heritage

DIRECT FROM BELFAST: The Shamrock Tenors Come to State Theatre New Jersey in New Brunswick on March 15.

On Saturday, March 15 at 8 p.m., State Theatre New Jersey presents Shamrock Tenors as part of the group’s North American tour. Tickets range from $39-$99.

Based in Belfast, Shamrock Tenors features performers from both sides of the community across Northern Ireland, with vocalists and multi-instrumentalists from London’s West End and beyond. The show features some of Ireland’s most beloved classic songs in five-part harmony, including “Danny Boy,” “Whiskey in the Jar,” “The Parting Glass,” and “Wild Rover.” more