CDC Theatre to Open Season with "Head Over Heels"

(CRANFORD, NJ) -- CDC Theatre in Cranford will open their 105th season with Head Over Heels from October 13-28, 2023. This is the bold new musical comedy from the visionaries that rocked Broadway with Avenue Q and Spring Awakening. This laugh-out-loud love story is set to the music of the iconic 1980's all-female rock band The Go-Go's, including the hit songs, "We Got the Beat," "Our Lips Are Sealed," "Vacation," Belinda Carlisle's "Heaven is a Place on Earth" and "Mad About You."

Pianist Lafayette Harris, Jr., Embracing 'Everything' from Eubie Blake to Max Roach

by Sanford Josephson - published 2023-09-01
In 1975 when Lafayette Harris, Jr., was 12 years old, growing up in Baltimore, he saw a television commercial advertising a "hometown hero who is coming back to Baltimore to play." Harris was just starting to learn to play the piano, and the "hometown hero" was Eubie Blake. "I had no idea who Eubie Blake was,” he recalled. "They showed him playing this piece, 'The Maple Leaf Rag'. I'd never heard of that, and I just had to learn how to play that music.

​​​​​​​Makin Waves Song of the Week: "Look It Here" by Colossal Street Jam

by Bob Makin - published 2023-09-01
​​​​​​​Jersey Shore veterans Colossal Street Jam, who recently signed to Nashville-based Fretbar Records, is the Makin Waves Song of the Week with "Look It Here," a scorching R&B track from their latest album, "No Way to Leave," featuring Asbury great Des Spinks of the Swagmatics, as well as The Madmen Horns of The Netherlands.

New Jersey Stage: Daily Edition 09-01-23

Here is the morning update from New Jersey's arts newswire. We regularly publish between 8-15 new articles and news reports each day. Nobody covers the Arts throughout the Garden State like New Jersey Stage!

Experimental dance film Breaking The Surface Premieres at the Fall 2023 New Jersey Film Festival on Friday, September 8!

by Al Nigrin - published 2023-09-01
Breaking the Surface is an experimental dance film about climate change, specifically, about the rise of sea level and the issues that are caused by that rise, currently and projected into the future. The film focuses on communities in New Jersey and the region that are being, and will be, most affected by the changes. Here is my interview with the Breaking the Surface co-directors John Evans and Ani Javian:

Rock On! This Week's Sound Bites...8/31/23

by Danny Coleman - published 2023-08-31
"Greener Pastures," we wrote the title track while we were in Dallas, Texas," began Kira Annalise, one half of the duo The Waymores. "We actually started on the drive to Dallas and it just kept noodling through everything we were doing whether we were unloading the van or walking, our little conversations about it started working its way out until one day Kira put it all together," adds her partner, Willie Heath Neal. 

Pulitzer Prize Finalist Play "Bulrusher" Hits the Stage at McCarter Theatre

by Gina Marie Rodriguez & Dave Tavani, JerseyArts.com - published 2023-08-31
Music, humor and clairvoyance are soon to thrill audiences at McCarter Theatre Center in the form of Eisa Davis' Pulitzer Prize finalist play, "Bulrusher." A period piece set in 1950s California, "Bulrusher" is the coming-of-age tale of a multiracial young woman bestowed with the gift of clairvoyance as she navigates life in her mostly white town. More than a fish out of water story, Bulrusher highlights the beauty, complexity and compassion that make life the nuanced ride that it is.

"A Tailor Near Me" at New Jersey Repertory Company

by Mary Ann Bourbeau - published 2023-08-31
(LONG BRANCH, NJ) -- Small regional theaters have always struggled to stay afloat, and that struggle became even greater when the Covid pandemic shuttered them, often for a year or more. Many nonprofit theaters are running at a loss, with audiences dwindling and government aid slashed, forcing some venues to reduce the number of shows produced each season, shorten the length of a show's run or lay off staff members. In the most drastic cases, theaters have shut down completely.

"Effervescent!" Lillias White LIVE! at Axelrod PAC

by Spotlight Central - published 2023-08-31
Cheers ensue as Broadway actress, Lillias White, takes the Axelrod Performing Arts Center stage this Sunday, August 20, 2023 evening along with her accompanist, pianist Mathis Picard. Recently featured on Jane Pauley's CBS Sunday Morning TV show, White, 72, is a veteran of nearly a dozen Broadway productions including How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and the winner of a 1997 Tony Award for her performance in The Life. She currently can be seen appearing in the hit Broadway musical, Hadestown.