His BIG annual Bobfest celebration of Dylan’s birthday has grown to notch its first edition at the Count Basie Theatre…he’s performed the Nat’l Anthem at BIG League ballparks…and he counts among his BIG Scary Friends the Lt. Gov of NJ (aka his sister-in-law). That said, Pat Guadagno isn’t above scaling down his bigger ambitions to grace practically every bar up and down the Upper Wet Side with his presence all throughout the calendar year; rescuing the noble calling of “saloon singer” from Sinatra tux-’n-toupee stereotype and playing every room like it’s Camden Yards. This Wednesday, the veteran entertainer racks up another BIG credit…when he plays the Ed McMahon/ Doc Severinsen role to BIG Joe Henry, as the supersized DJ presents a live taping of a new radio variety show at the ONLY venue that’s round enough to contain him: McLoone’s Supper Club! 

Whatta weekend: rained upon torrentially while hustling home from the Clash Fest tribute at The Press Room on Fri-dur-day night; rained upon intermittently while trying to meet up with some friends at Sunday’s Pride Fest. Stayed on the Dry Side for First Saturday’s round of gallery opening events, and took in the afternoon Pride Parade from the corner of our (alternately Sesame and seedy) block, under skies the color of 1960s-vintage Blue Laws.

But enough about you: we’re wringing out the mildew from our fave bowling shirts, and with a seven-day slate of activity staring us into submission, we’re primed to milDEW it AGAIN, beginning with the first of our June 4-10 picks that pick up right around the cattywampus corner…

MONDAY! Make It Real Benefit in Keyport. Up to Keyport — the “Pearl of the Bayshore” and one of the outermost limits of our Wet Side jurisdiction — for a special event that unspools within one of the region’s most uniquely deconsecrated dinespots: Trinity Restaurant, that former church turned culinary cathedral in downtown Keepers. It’s a fundraiser show spotlighting some special guests — and, while the ultimate target will be the way-past-politics goal of caring for sick children, the more immediate beneficiary is as delightfully goofy as it is refreshingly direct: help Garden State Players to put on a production of Footloose!

The fledgling community theater troupe founded by Lauren Matthews Raad and Chuck “fuckedupchuck” Cataia is looking to mount their staging of the smash movie-to-musical beginning August 10; a run which in turn will raise funds for the new Pediatric (NOT Podiatric) Care Center at Holmdel’s Bayshore Community Hospital. To that end, they’re calling on the services of none other than Brian Gaskill, the celebrated soap opera actor (pictured) who’s also got a touch of the poet — and to prove it, he’ll be reading from some of his own writings at the event, for which two dinner seatings (6 and 6:30pm) are offered in advance of the 7:30 show. Opening will be our personal favorite curmudgeonly humanitarian, “Mr. Words and Music” himself  George Wirth — and a post-show meet ‘n greet is included in the ticket, with attendees welcome to bring their own original poetry and RSVPs accepted at 732.497.2998. Trinity Restaurant, 84 Broad St., Keyport • 6-9pm/ $55 dinner and show ($25 show only)

MONDAY! Nora Stevens at the Marimba in Asbury. The marimba never caught on much in the rock oeuvre beyond Ruth Underwood‘s tenure with Frank Zappa, or Ed Marimba in Captain Beefheart‘s band, or Brian Jones messing around on “Under My Thumb” or “Out of Time” — but the big, beautiful, hard-to-transport music machine has staked a comfortable niche in the realms of jazz, classical chamber repertory and that surprisingly diverse portfolio of new music written especially for the instrument — of which our own Leigh Howard Stevens has been tantamount to the Bach, the Hendrix, even the Zamfir of his chosen axe. And if it’s June, it must be time for the Leigh Howard Stevens Summer Marimba Festival, a generally below-the-radar event that gathers the nation’s premier classical marimbists in one seaside setting, with Ocean Grove and Asbury Park the host cities for music, master classes and mallets aforethought.

Registration for Stevens’s 33rd annual slate of Summer Marimba Seminar lectures and workshops has long since closed, but that’s only bad news if you’re a hammerin’ hopeful who was looking to spend a pleasant Jersey Shore late-spring studying with the best in the business. If you’d simply like to sit back and hear the best in the business at work, you’ve got several chances to intersect with the current slate of recitals going on at two musically mindful Asbury Park houses of worship — including Holy Spirit Church on Second Avenue, where Nora Stevens assumes the Musser-Stevens Grip in a concert tentatively slotted for 7pm. The recital series continues this Friday, June 8 when Greg Zuber comes to Trinity Episcopal Church on Asbury Avenue — scene of a followup concert on Tuesday, June 12 featuring Michael Burritt. Trinity is still the scene on June 15, when Tom Burritt performs in a 7pm showcase — and the series concludes on Monday, June 18, when Leigh Howard Stevens returns to Holy Spirit to show all these young upstarts how it’s done. A donation of at least $7 to $10 per person is accepted for the benefit of the host churches at each event. For more info, email seminar@mostlymarimba.com. Holy Spirit Church, 705 Second Ave., Asbury Park • 7pm/ $7-10 suggested donation

TUESDAY! Punk Rock Happy Hour at the Brighton. We’ve often bemoaned the fact that we’re but a step removed from the streets, the Hudson Trail hobo encampments or Ocean County’s Tent City at any given time — and then we think about the ongoing journey of our pal Russ “Puss” Bucci (of The Book Pit and Pink Frog fame); a man who’s made his home at various times in his old store, in a van, under the dance floor at Chubby’s and, quite literally, in Lousy Land. On Tuesday evenings, however, HOME is The Brighton, as Russ and his co-host, The Graveyard School‘s Kim Kaos, invite one and all to a low-impact night of “music videos, movies, pool table action and the cheapest drink specials this side of Gotham City,” whatever that means. Rumors abound as well of Tequila specials and hot dog baskets, and if you’re a punk of a certain age we do declare you’ll find some solace there, as you hoist a Frosted Mug ‘neath the reflected glory of the Brighton Wall O’ Fame. Contact lostoasis13@yahoo.com. Brighton Bar, 121 Brighton Ave., Long Branch • 7pm/ no cover

WEDNESDAY! Big Joe Henry Variety Show at McLoone’s Supper Club. Anyone who’s ever caught a personal appearance by radio’s Big Joe Henry could tell you that the weekend oldies man from the otherwise execrable Jersey 101.5 never does anything in a small and quiet manner — but with his latest move, the rotund host with the robust baritone is almost surreptitiously becoming some kind of contender for the crown of King of Most Media. Tonight, Big Joe climbs the stairs of Tim McLoone’s Supper Club on the Asbury Park boards, parking it at the fabled doo-wop “Howard Jetsons” for the taping of The Big Joe Henry Variety Show, a pilot for a prospective regional cable TV show that co-stars Pat Guadagno and The Big Band,  with musical guests including blonde bombchelle Lisa Bouchelle (herself hostess of local cable’s Rock Star Kitchen) and “rock and roll dollbaby”/ Man of a Thousand Personae Little Isidore, as well as “renowned accordion player Bruce Gassman, and magic acts” (Sullivan-style variety is BACK, baby). Take it here for tix. Tim McLoone’s Supper Club, 1200 Ocean Ave. (at Fifth Ave.), Asbury Park • 8pm/ $15

THURSDAY! Dr. Sketchy’s Crazy Sexy Cat Ladies at Asbury Lanes. While the occasional cat lady does continue to make headlines — and while it’s seldom anything that anyone would consider sexy — the folks at the local Dr. Sketchy franchise have come up with a way to reclaim the good name of Cat Ladies — by having fun drinking, drawing (for a cause), taking photos or “just hanging.” The retro rec room turned alterna-arts odditorium that is Asbury Lanes is once more the scene for a sketch session that boasts more than a dozen live ‘n lovely models, a “dedicated photo area” and a full 100% of the evening’s proceeds going the nonprofit spay/neuter endeavor Animal Birth Control Inc. Bring your own art supplies; don’t worry about your skill level and just have a blast being part of this savvy spin on an age-old hipster activity. Asbury Lanes, 209 Fourth Ave., Asbury Park • 7pm/ $15

THURSDAY! Rock the Dock in Sea Bright. To the Sea Bright strip we go, and for a blast of original music for a change, as the Red Bank-based Coastal NJ chapter of WGIRLS.org hosts its second annual Battle of the Bands fundraiser contest at The Dockside. We’re not really familiar with any of the bands on the lineup (see them here), but that’s kind of the beauty part, y’see, because the top three of these hungry and ambitious young combos will be in the running to “win a paid outdoor performance on the boardwalk and multiple four (4) hour recording sessions at Macro Sound Studio in Union, NJ.”

More to the point, the all and everything of proceeds will benefit the Lakewood nonprofit Women of Purpose Ministries, a non-profit organization in Lakewood, NJ that’s “committed to bring healing and purpose to disadvantaged women and girls…their programs provide women and the girls the skills, knowledge, and self-confidence, making them productive members in their community.” It’s a mission statement that jibes with that of WGIRLS, which “provides underprivileged women and children across Monmouth, Ocean, Atlantic and Cape May counties with the support and resources necessary to achieve health, happiness, and the ability to lead productive and successful adult lives.” Tix ($40 in advance and buyable right here) include open bar with beer, wine and sangria plus a dinner buffet; for more info call 732.682.6584 or email Brittany Levendusky at wgirlsrockthedock@gmail.com. The Dockside, Ocean Ave., Sea Bright • 6-9pm/ $45

FRIDAY, SATURDAY and SUNDAY! NJ Seafood Festival in Belmar. Calling all fishy ‘ficionados, mollusk mavens and diggers of shellfish pursuits: this is The Big One as far as well-entrenched local foodfests go; a genuine homegrown alternative to the usual itinerant carny fare and cherished tradition that comes equipped as well with crafters, live music and other picture postcards. Worth parking the car where you will and hoofing it up or down the boards.  Silver Lake Park, Ocean and Fifth Aves., Belmar • 12-8pm Friday; 11am – 7pm Saturday and Sunday 

FRIDAY! Robert Gordon at The Wonder Bar. In a conversation we had a while back, Robert Gordon told us, “I’ve seen a lot of my friends pass away, and I could have been one of the lost ones…but I’m still around; I put a lot of crazy stuff behind me, and I can honestly say I’m out here singin’ my ass off!” Once a sharp-dressed badass who helped usher in the 1970s-80s rockabilly revival; now Social Security years old and a good deal heavier than that circa-1977 skinny guy with the impossible coiff; the man who introduced both Springsteen’s “Fire” (the song the Boss originally penned with hopes that Elvis would sing it) and Marshall Crenshaw’s “Someday Someway” has lost none of the power in his “smooth fine bourbon” of a baritone; a rare voice that put forth a catalog of crazy-cat rockers and romantic crooners chosen with the eye and ear of the true connoisseur. Having made quite a few retrun trips to Asbury town in recent months, he returns to the snackbar, stage and sidewalkside windows of der Vunderbar, with The Unknowns as “who-dat” openers and a special late nite set by Dr. Phil and the Heartattacks. Wonder Bar, Ocean and Fifth Aves., Asbury Park • 8pm/ $18 advance, $20 door

SATURDAY! Jersey Shore Roller Girls DERBY WARS at Convention Hall. Not sure which one represents the Empire and which is the Rebel Alliance, but when the Jersey Shore Roller Girls take it back to Asbury’s Convention Hall, they’re all pretty much skating delightfully on the dark side. The fast-track, flat-track rollerderby action returns to the space above the briny surf, when the Murder Beach Militia meet the Right Coast Rollers, in a DERBY WARS benefit for the Army FRG (Family Readiness Group), with special guests “Vader’s 501st Legion.” The whistle blows at 8pm inside ConHall for the big match that’s all ages (21 to drink, natch), with discounts or kids 12 and under or active military, and tix available here or from your favorite local Roller. Keep your wristband for entry to an After Party across the street at the Wonder Bar, following the match. Convention Hall, Ocean and Fifth Aves., Asbury Park • 8pm / $20 ($15 military; $10 kids under 10)

SATURDAY! NJ Gay Mens Chorus in AP. Director Steven Russell and the Princeton-based NJGMC visit Asbury’s Trinity Church for a concert centered around the theme “Our Quest for the West” — a musical journey that “will regale audiences with American classics” emanating “from the Jersey Shore, across great rivers and fruited plains.” Take it here for advance tix. Trinity Church, 503 Asbury Ave., Asbury Park • 8 – 9:30pm/ $15 advance, $20 door

SUNDAY! Pay It Forward benefit at The Press Room. You’ve heard of the concept of Paying It Forward — maybe you’ve spotted the “signature trademarked white and purple bracelets” in your travels and wondered, Hey, What Gives? Well, tonight at downtown Asbury’s breakout rockbar The Press Room, a pretty incredible lineup of affable Avengers assembles to entertain AND enlighten as to the nonprofit Pay it Forward Experience and its humanitarian efforts on the global stage.

Band and solo performers include some of the most awesomely gifted on the Wet Side soundscape — among them Americana ace Kevin John Allen, sonic adventurer Colie Brice, jamband funkster Poppa John Bug, rockological Ph.D. Jon Caspi, seductive songstress Jerzy Jung, old soul Quincy Mumford, country kingpin Michael Patrick and many more too numerous to mention (tho’ we don’t mind mentioning you can find a full roster right here). Also on the agenda are a “silent auction, special door prize, and other surprises throughout the day,” with all proceeds dedicated to the Pay It Forward message — and all musicians in general remaining, as Eric Clapton has said, “a soft touch for a charitable cause.” The Press Room, 610 Bangs Ave., Asbury Park • 2-10pm/ $10

SUNDAY! Peter Biedermann at Middletown Main Library. From the most neglected corners of the Upper Wet Side comes this under-the-radar event that those who are passionate for truly masterful instrumental music might not want to miss. The community room of the Middletown Township Public Library  — one of our fave bibliotecques in the area, to be sure — is the setting for a free performance by guitarist Peter Biedermann that stands as a followup to his well-received previous concert at MTPL. Performing a program of originals on “6, 8, and 12 string guitars in unique tunings combined with various electronic processing devices,” the veteran composer — a man who’s been likened to Bert Jansch, John Martyn, Ralph Towner, Leo Kottke and Michael Hedges (we’ll throw in the California Guitar Trio too for good measure) will “demystify the mystery” of his complex yet crowdpleasing technique in an interactive discussion. Seating is limited and reservations are recommended; free tickets are available in person at the Library Reference Desk or by calling 732.671.3700 ext. 320. Middletown Township Public Library, 55 New Monmouth Rd., Middletown • 2:30pm/ FREE

Douglas Ferrari, curator of the Shore Institute of Contemporary Arts, welcomes one and all to the 2012 edition of SculpToure in Asbury Park and Long Branch — and whether you’re driving an obscenely expensive Italian sports car or taking the shuttle, you’ll not want to miss this annual installation of three-dimensional visions, on view now through September 16.

We are BACK on the blog — and look out, we’re armed with CARTOONS, which we decided we’ll be messing around with on a trial basis as a way of paying tribute to some of our fave people on the local arts scene.

That said, we were never really “away” from our beat; just busying ourself with other work and sitting out both the  (which unspooled just about a block and a half from our front door in Asbury town) in particular and Memorial Day weekend in general. Without bothering to get a press pass to the FlimFlamFest — and definitely without any desire to pay hundreds of bucks to see a bunch of 80s/ 90s oldie acts supported by bands who regularly play Starland Ballroom for cheap — we spent the weekend strolling about town; trolling for stories and listening to the featured acts loud ‘n clear through our living room window.

Stories of course were actually few (and then again, too few to mention) during what turned out to be one ruthlessly efficient exercise in crowd containment, corporate branding and controlled “chaos.” Having lived in Red Bank through many of those tense, claustrophobic Fireworks extravaganzas and music fests, we’d never seen such a well orchestrated movement of people and resources — to the point where, as reported elsewhere, the city’s streets remained eerily quiet. with parking spots staying vacant during what should have been one of the busiest weekends of the year, and many downtown merchants throwing in the towel early all three nights of the fest.

We weren’t immune to irrational Bamboozle Paranoia ourselves — in fact, in our gig as theater critic we passed on attending a May 19 opening night at Two River Theater in Red Bank (reckoning we’d have a better shot at battling the traffic Sunday afternoon), only to discover afterward that we’d missed an opportunity to meet ‘n greet one of our heroes and personal saviors — Robert Osborne of Turner Classic Movies!

Ah well, live and learn — or just be doomed to repeat, as Hornswoggle Fest recurs in AP next May. Molly Mulshine of the new online news site Asbury Park Sun (who did an ace job monitoring the real-time outlook around town that weekend) summed it up best in a feature article that appears in the current issue of TriCity News; for us it’s Excelsior and onward, into a newly summerized week of amusement and diversion — a few highly anticipated items from which we share with the flip of a paperless page…

MONDAY! SurfAPalooza at the Press Room. Ask anyone who knows us, and they’ll sigh and tell you that we remain a rabid fan of Surf music — not the gleeclub harmonies of the Beach Boys and ilk (tho’ that does have its place) but the mostly-instro, breakneck paced, dripping-wet-with-reverb sounds that crashed in off the coastline back when Jimi Hendrix was still dressing in dinner jackets and gassin’ his hair. We call it The Nexus of All Musics — a metaphysically musicological crossroads from which one can trace a vector to everything from Easy Listening to Speedcore to the most sand-blasted of ethereally ethnic styles. Here on Memorial Day proper, The Press Room — the Bruce-blessed destination rockbar co-owned by Alecia Brooks — hosts an afternoon of local Right Coast Surf spearheaded by two of our favorite young combos in what we hope is something of a nascent revival round these parts — the piledriving power trio Los Pocos Locos (check their covers of “Besame Mucho” and “Paint It Black”) and The Brigantines, whose whose other upcoming gis include some very high profile openers for Southside Johnny and (King of the Surf Guitar, don’t'cha know) Dick Dale! The Press Room, 610 Bangs Ave., Asbury Park • 4pm/ $5

TUESDAY! Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion at The Saint. There’s Brooklynized boutique Americana, and then there’s AMERI-fucking-CANNA — the latter characterized by an unshakably awesome pedigree and a Rushmoresque sense of stature that booms into your consciousness with the authority of a thousand animatronic Abe Lincolns. In downtown’s groovy grotto The Saint, a “Rock Acoustic” night unfolds with a co-headiner act that traces a dynastic path from millennial mellow to the founding father Woody Guthrie himself, courtesy Woody’s granddaughter (and Arlo’s daughter) Sarah Lee Guthrie. Not that you’d need more to go on, but if you need more to go on, her husband Johnny Irion is the grand-nephew of — wait for it — John Steinbeck, for chrissakes, making Scott Stamper’s big-beat boxcar a place to bask in the residual glow and inherent goodness of “This Land Is Your Land” and “The Grapes of Wrath;” those touchstones to which we can’t help but return when we feel like we’re losing sight of America. The Saint, 601 Main St., Asbury Park • 7pm/ $13 advance, $15 door

WEDNESDAY! Ladies Vs. Gentlemen Slam at Green Planet. This revolution comes equipped with rules of decorum — and in this arena of competition it’s the “loser” that walks away victorious. After countless Thursday nights spent supercharging the creakiest corners of Long Branch landmark The Inkwell, the performance poetry collective known as Loser Slam recently relo’d to the renaissance roadhouse that is Ocean Township’s Green Planet. Every Wednesday beginning at 6pm, the Slamsters hold court at the highwayside haven that’s fast becoming an adjunct of the Asbury words-and-music artscape — having presented such events as a May 9 “Finals” assembling the 2012 tournament team, and a May 23 “PajammyJam” that likely bears no further elaboration. This Wednesday, the Losers host their first Writing Workshop at the new venue, followed at 7pm by a Ladies Vs. Gentlemen Slam — a “funtastical” fracas in which the female Slams join forces to ostensibly avenge their being shut out of the Loser Slam Team this year. Let no Banana Mocha Muffin go un-overturned! Green Planet Coffee Company, 731 Route 35 (on the Asbury Circle), Ocean Twp. • 6pm

THURSDAY! ReVision presents Richard Skipper at Chico’s. While ReVision Theatre continues to regroup and reinvent itself (following the resignation of all three producing partners after the 2011 season), interim Artistic Director Bob Angelini continues to lay the groundwork for future ReVision seasons here in the Asbury-based company’s fifth year. The veteran director, actor and award-winning school drama teacher has been busy keeping the troupe’s name in circulation and raising funds through a series of one-nighter cabaret offerings down at Chico’s House, and as a Thursday night keynote to Pride Weekend the ReVisionaries welcome back a favorite performer on the regional club circuit — Richard Skipper, the entertainer best known for his uncanny channeling of Carol Channing (a tribute he’s performed Off Broadway, on both coasts and in a 2008 fundraiser staging of Hello Dolly! at the Asbury Paramount). The program entitled Richard Skipper: At Last finds the star “appearing and performing as many people have not seen him — himself,” with Rich Siegel accompanying and tix available online or by calling 732.455.3059. Chico’s House of Jazz, 631 Lake Ave. (Shoppes at the Arcade building), Asbury Park • 7:30pm/ $15

FRIDAY! The Clash Fest at The Press Room. it’s become the stuff of rockshow legend — the sort of show that, many years after the fact, seemingly everybody “was at.” When The Clash toured America in 1982 behind the (then-forthcoming) Combat Rock album, they came to Asbury’s Convention Hall (minus the newly fired drummer Topper Headon) for a three-night stand (documented by ace photog Bob Gruen among others) and a still talked-about Boardwalk Bash afterparty that — although nobody would realize it at the time — would not only serve as a valedictory for the classic Joe Strummer/ Mick Jones lineup, but for a genuine golden age of Boardwalk rock concerts. Over at The Press Room, Tim, Alecia and company celebrate the 30th anniversary of The Clash Asbury Park, with live bands, spun sounds and memorabilia marking this milestone moment in Asbury music history. The Press Room, 610 Bangs Ave., Asbury Park • 9pm/ $5

FRIDAY! Kate Clinton at The Pony. Once a year or thereabouts, The Stone Pony turns Comedy Club for the quasi-official kickoff to Pride Weekend in Asbury Park — and for the 2012 edition of this recently minted tradition, the famous stage welcomes queer-centric political commentator and self-styled “fumerist” (feminist humorist, that ’tis) Kate Clinton for an event presented by WomenTwoWomen. It’s followed post-10pm by WomenTwoWomen’s Pride Dance, with admission free to bearers of Clinton tix. Stone Pony, Ocean and Second Aves., Asbury Park • 8pm/ $20 – $50

FRIDAY, SATURDAY and SUNDAY! RiverFest in Red Bank. Reborn, rejuvenated and returning to Marine Park for 2012, the three day smorgasbord of savory tastes, savvy sounds and sensational activities opens (beginning Friday at 5pm) with food from some 20 local favorite restaurants and vendors; music (by  Quincy Mumford, Kirk & The Jirks, Chuck Lambert and more) hosted by Musicians on a Mission, plus Navesink River cruises, beer garden, kiddie rides, crafts, an Open Mic and more. Click for link to the festival’s nicely done website for deepdish details! Marine Park, foot of Wharf Ave. (off West Front St.), Red Bank • 5-9pm Friday; 11am – 9pm Saturday; 11am – 5pm Sunday/ FREE

SATURDAY! Rockout Knockout feat. FUEL at Convention Hall. Just when you thought you seen it all on the local concert stage comes this “day into evening event combining Mixed Martial Arts fights with the rock concert experience — One Venue, One Stage and One Cage!” Just to clarify, the MMA matches and the music acts are NOT mixing it up inside the cage at the same time, but with a fight card highlighted by a quartet of featured matches (Ryan Vaccaro/ Brian Kelleher; Mike Wade/ Justin Haskins; Anthony Craparo/ Graeme Prue; Michael Peterson/ Michael Robinson) AND a dance card toplined by Fuel, the adrenochrome level and the pace are hardly expected to let up. Also on hand: supporting acts Scarlet Carson and Carpet Ride; special appearances by Ultimate Fighting pioneers Renzo Gracie and Kurt Pellegrino — and “a feature match with one of the sport’s rising stars, and a member of the Gracie family!” Take it here for tickets. Convention Hall, Ocean and Fifth Aves., Asbury Park • 3pm/ $49 – $91.50

SATURDAY! Christine Martucci at The Pony. She’s served in Desert Storm, written a stage show on the life and music of Janis Joplin, co-created a kickass tequila, and skippered the Sand Blast Weekend Siren of the Sea pool party into some raucously rocky waters. When Christine Martucci returns to The Stone Pony this Saturnight, it’ll be a Pride Weekend “Concert for the Cause” benefitting The Center in Asbury Park and its range of counseling and educational programs in the community. Jerzy Girls, Hunter Valentine, Christine Havrilla and those always amazing warrior women of Virago set the scene, with a late set by Bonnie Boland to boot. Stone Pony, Ocean and Second Aves., Asbury Park • 7:30pm/ $20 advance, $25 door

SATURDAY! First Saturday in Asbury Park. The monthly Art Walk continues apace in downtown’s Cookman corridor — beginning Friday, actually, with a sneak preview of Hans and Hans: Dutch Invasion at Art629 Gallery, where the photography of Hans Withoos and the sculpture of Hans Van Bentem will be spotlighted beginning with a reception on June 8. Over at John Vigg’s Gallery 13 (inside the downtown Shoppes at the Arcade), guest curator Tim Horn presents Queer Gaze, a group show that invites “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other sexual and gender minorities to showcase their professional or amateur photography” representing “our intimate and personal views of each other, our supporters and detractors and the worlds we inhabit.”

Up the street at Pop Art paradise Parlor Gallery, JillJennMichaelSarah are trotting out the third annual edition of something that’s as sure a signifier of summer as Cap’n Flash — The Erotic Art Exhibition (paired with Ladies, Ladies, Ladies). It’s a must-see installation (previewable online but so much, you know, bigger in person) that often raises hackles even in erotically enlightened Asbury town, and it’s opening with one of those everybody-who’s-anybody receptions during which the Parlor becomes one positively alluring bugzapper. And make it a point to stop in at Doug Ferrari‘s relocated/ reborn Shore Institute Of The Contemporary Arts, for guided-tour info on the annual SculpToure Urban Sculpture Park, visible now through September 16 at outdoor sites around Asbury town as well as SICA’s former home base of Long Branch.  Locations around Asbury Park • 6-10pm

SUNDAY! Jersey Pride in Asbury Park. Long before there was a Bamboozle Fest, a Zombie Fest or even a Sand Blast/ Road Trip Weekend in Asbury Park, there was Jersey Pride, the weekend-long LGBTI Festival (with attendant Rally and “more fabulous by the year” Parade) that brought crowds of revelers and rally-ers to a city that many had given up for dead in the water — a place that’s slowly but surely been terraformed into terrific-ness thanks in no small measure to the event organizers and the true believers who got their first glimpse of the city’s possibilities from the vantage point of the passing parade.

Though there’s plenty to do within city limits all weekend, the 21st annual edition of Jersey Pride centers around the designated “festival area” at Ocean and Fifth Aves, across from Convention Hall (and, once upon a Bamboozle, home to such bracingly branded pavilions as The Marlboro Experience). The rain-or-shine shindig boasts some 100 artisans, merchants and nonprofit org displays, with 25 food vendors, a Family Zone of rides ‘n such, and a festival stage presided over by Suzanne Westenhoefer, pioneering openly-gay standup comic and a performer who returns to the emcee gig after having done the honors during the very first Jersey Pride event way back when.

Featured on the stage that’s hosted everyone from Jon Corzine to Evelyn “Champage” King will be Deborah Cox (pictured above), Grammy-nommed R&B chart-topper (Nobody’s Supposed to Be Here”) and Broadway diva (Aida and the upcoming revival of Jekyll & Hyde). She’ll be headlining a variety menu that ranges from hip-pop (God-Des & She, Nasty Nick), rock (Never the Bride, Yellow #5) and singer-songwriters (Trina Hamlin, Joanna Burns) to drag champ Sir Honey Davenport and famed doppel-Gaga Athena Reich. And of course there’s that parade, a “flurry of sights and sounds” that takes shape at City Hall (Main Street and Cookman Avenue), heads down the transformed Cookman corridor, passes by our corner at Grand and Fourth (where we plan to be welcoming some dear outta-town friends) and penetrates the festival grounds right around 12:45pm. Take it here for more on the weekend’s activities, both officially sanctioned and satellite. Bradley Park area, Ocean & Fifth Aves., Asbury Park • 12-7pm

SUNDAY! Unsteady Freddie’s Surfin’ Safari at The Saint. Back to The Nexus of All Musics, which is only fitting as a way to close the circle for the week and see us into the June moon croonswoon. Hailing from Bethlehem, PA — the city where we had our first Yuengling Lager, perched on a party-lantern rooftop lawnchair and watching the steel-mill slag trains swoosh by like waves on the ocean — Great White Caps top a bill-a-bong that further features another new local fave, Bongo Surf, as well as those aforementioned Pocos Locos boys. It all happens several blocks inland at The Saint, where we ride a Street Wave back to you. The Saint, 601 Main St., Asbury Park • 6:30pm/ $10 advance,$12 door

Pow! Zam! Comics Conventions Aren’t for Shitty Highway Hotels Anymore… Focused upon Saturday’s Asbury Park ComicCon is CLIFF GALBRAITH, who joins with Pope of Popculturizm ROBERT BRUCE as promoters of  the city’s firstest-ever scholarly seminar/ swapmeet for the uplift of the sweetly sequential science.

One’s a satanic-bearded solid citizen who birthed unto the world a rodent named Roscoe, and a slew of instantly iconic screenprint ‘Sauruses. The other’s an all-seeing, all-knowing pontiff of Popculturizm; he who is invoked by name when conflicts must be resolved, and spot appraisals rendered.

Together they’re teaming up to fight crime — if by “crime” we mean the near-criminal lack of homegrown Comix Conventions here in the big-tent neighborhood that’s been home to so many comics creatives, not to mention some of the most influential collectors and connoisseurs the artform has ever known.

On this day, May 12, all will be put into perspective, as the first annual Asbury Park Comic Con at the Jersey Shore sets up its folding tables and longboxes inside the only venue that’s surreal enough to contain it — the atom-age retro rec room, tenpins taphouse (and alterna-arts odditorium) that IS Asbury Lanes.

Pencilled in between the hours of 10am and 6pm, the Con is the brainchild of two guys who’ve more than logged their share of hours on the frontlines of our nation’s flea markets, convention centers and drab Days Inn event rooms: Cliff Galbraith, the artist and writer behind RAT BASTARD — and Robert Bruce, the capo di tutti collectibles (and proprietor of the much-missed Groove Spot) who’s parlayed his mastery of the arcane and eldritch into a featured berth on Kevin Smith’s Comic Book Men teevee program.

That Red Bank connection — both Rob and Cliff are residents of the Basie-birthing borough that recently scored third on Smithsonian Magazine’s list of top American small towns for culture (right behind Relocated Bayway and Centralia, PA) — extends as well to the internationally renowned and bracingly branded Jay & Silent Bob’s Secret Stash, Lourdes-like grotto for all who make the Askewniverse pilgrimage and base of operations for Mike Zapcic and Ming Chen (who are slated to conduct a live podcast session from the Lanes on Sat afternoon). As for why this event isn’t set to take place in its spiritual homeland of Red Bank, well, more on that in a moment.

Like any Con worth its acid-free backing boards, the Asbury Park affair boasts some amazing guests — among them the dynamically married duo of Evan Dorkin and Sarah Dyer (creators, both together and solo, of Milk & Cheese, Action Girl, and Supergirl Adventures). The Girl of Steel’s formidable presence extends to the participation of DC superspecialist Jamal Igle, and there’s a welcome injection of beyond-Bizarro World madness from uncategorizable comicker Michael Kupperman. There are also some 35 vendors on board — and as of late last night Galbraith was putting out the BatSignal for more, in the wake of the new Lanes owners having reconfigured/expanded the available floor space.

In one of the most eleventh-hour interview scenarios we’ve ever entered into, we caught up with Cliff Galbraith at the recently relo’d Zebu Forno in RB, even as the earlybird bargainhounds were doubtless suiting up for the trip to our favorite Fellini-esque Fourth Avenue funnarama. More, at the flip of the pulse-poundingly pixelated page…

Guest creators at the first annual Asbury Park Comic Con include (clockwise from top left) Evan Dorkin, Jamal Igle, Michael Kupperman and Sarah Dyer. Also on tap: PBR, plus Steve Mannion, Danny Hellman, COMIC BOOK MEN’s Mike ‘n Ming ‘n more.

upperWETside: Well, the Red Bank comics contingent is certainly present and accounted for at the Comic Con, and you and Robert have really helped to put the town on the map as a regional capital of comics culture…but that kind of begs the question, why aren’t we talking about a Red Bank Comic Con?

CLIFF GALBRAITH: Because there just isn’t an appropriate venue anywhere in town…and because Asbury Park is such a great place to have an event like this.

I’ve been doing conventions for a long time…and I used to be in the clothing business, so I did a lot of clothing shows too…and I’ve seen too many shows that were well run by good people, but they’re in Nowheresville and nobody shows up. The problem with inland shows is you can wind up getting a bunch of vendors, and crickets.

To me the best shows are the coastal ones, the ones in destination towns, where you have places to go and see other than a hotel or convention center. And Asbury Park is a destination town…you’ve got the boardwalk and the beach a block away from the Lanes; all the other shops and restaurants. On Saturday it’s gonna be 80 degrees, the sun will be shining…spring has sprung, right? And they’re gonna line up at the door. We’ve sold out the online admissions, the ones that get to come in when the doors open.

We’ll have more tickets at the door at 11am. Mike and Ming from Secret Stash will be there, doing the podcast from the show, but I should mention that Walt Flanagan won’t be there like we originally announced. He’ll actually be in Red Bank…somebody’s got to run the store!

So how did you settle on the Lanes as your venue of choice?

It was accidental at first…I walked in there when they were doing one of their record fairs; I was watching people go through the boxes of records and I got to thinking, what else do people spend hours looking through boxes for? Comics of course. Rob and I got a price from the Lanes that was very reasonable…and so the journey begins. We started promoting this thing just about a year ago.

And this represents, for both of you, your maiden voyage as a, what, show mogul? Impresario?

Promoter. Like I said, I’ve spent many hours working the shows…I did the San Diego show before it moved to the big convention center; when it was in the old crummy husk of a building. It was really fun; no celebrities, no movie people or anything like that.

I’ve done some of the bigger shows in various cities…it’s how I got to meet people like Evan and Sarah in the first place. They always work these events together, and when they came on board and agreed to do the Asbury Park show, things really started to come together for us at that point.

I saw Stan Lee once, at Hotel Sofitel when the Chicago show was going on…he was in his late seventies then; he’s almost 91 now. He comes out of this restaurant and he’s like…I can only describe it as power walking; just the speed at which he moves…and now, whenever he goes anywhere at all people surround him; they just want to be near him, touch the hem of his garment or whatever.

I know you’ve had some choice observations to make about Stan Lee, especially as regards his relationship with Jack Kirby…maybe someday you and I can make time for a robust debate on this, but I absolutely credit Stan the Man with supercharging interest in comics to what it’s become today. More than anybody, I think he made us all cognizant of the people who made the comic books, and the evolution of something like “Bullpen Bulletins” was every bit as crucial as the introduction of an iconic character…

Sure! And there have been times when he couldn’t even bring himself to mention Kirby; like he couldn’t remember Kirby’s name. But seeing him in action was great, and seeing the way people gravitate toward him…you want to BE him!

Well, it’s probably not a bad time to be Cliff either…between you and Robert, it’s obvious that you guys live and breathe this stuff, and I’m looking forward to seeing what you have in store Saturday. 

We’re looking forward to seeing what’s in store ourselves. Who knows? For me, a comics show is a way for people to get together; to get a gang going and talk about the things that they love. It’s a celebration of the whole culture of comics…the people who go to these shows want it to be Halloween as often as possible.

It’s ‘the Circus comes to town!’ You have COSTUMES, you have FREAKS…and you have your death-defying acts of starting up a business; risking everything you’ve ever had!

Getting back to the San Diego event and what it’s become, it’s a freakshow of a different stripe anymore…it’s like Cannes for the movie business that makes movies people actually pay to see. Now that Hollywood and comics are so inextricably intertwined, do you think we’re fast approaching a saturation point with the comic book blockbusters? Is this like an Ultimate version of the housing bubble?

I don’t know, maybe it’ll all go away as fast as it came along…but for the most part we’re getting what we asked for. We wanted to see it on the screen, and right now. Sometimes it works out, like with Iron Man, and other times like with Green Lantern it doesn’t work so well.

People who don’t read comics, but who go to see these movies, think that comic books are the genre — but superheroes are a genre. Comics are literature. So many other movies have come from comics that people aren’t even aware of the source…Road to Perdition, American Splendor, the Daniel Clowes stuff like Art School Confidential, Ghost World.

One of the problems with the superhero movies is like whenever they do a Superman movie, they feel the need to explain all over again who Superman is, where he came from, who his parents are and all that. Same with Batman. You’d think by now that everyone in the audience is up to date on this stuff. Another problem is that when you deviate the slightest bit from the comic book, you catch shit from the fans — and when you make it as faithful as possible to the comic book, like they did with Watchmen, you get people telling you that it was too much the same as the comic; that there was no reason to pay to see it. So you can’t win a lot of times.

What I don’t get is why they insist on bringing back these outdated characters like The Green Hornet, The Shadow…characters from old radio or pulps, that don’t have any current sort of support or following. The Phantom, especially…what are we supposed to do about this guy, a white guy in the African jungle who wears a little black mask and a purple suit with a zebra stripe belt. Doesn’t he get hot running around like that?

I see a panel discussion on the topic, so hold that thought. And good luck with the one-day event at the Lanes, which I understand is a warmup to a possibly even bigger event in Asbury Park down the road… 

You can never be too far ahead…we’re definitely thinking of expanding the Comic Con to Convention Hall; we want to have 135 vendor tables someday, and we’ve already had two meetings with Madison Marquette. We got a good vibe from them, although they can’t commit right now to a date around this time next year, because of any future Bamboozle Festival. But it’s on to Convention Hall!

Admission to the Asbury Park Comic Con (additional tickets available at the door from 11am) are priced at $4.95, with kids under 12 admitted free of charge when accompanied by an adult. One dollar of each admission will be donated to the Hero Initiative — the nonprofit established to help comic book creators and their families (read up on the subject and you’ll find that many of the folks who created lucrative and long-running properties were “work for hire” freelancers who never shared in the cash-cow royalties and licensing) facing medical expenses and other financial difficulties.

Susan Heyward stars as Winnie, the “nearly nine year old” central character in MY WONDERFUL DAY, the Alan Ayckbourn comedy going up May 15 as the final show of the mainstage season at Two River Theater.

As the author of nearly 80 produced plays, he’s been a magnet for gleaming trophies, plaques and medallions that include the Tony, the Olivier and the Moliere Award, not to mention five honorary doctorates and — what was that other one? Oh yeah, a knighthood.

You’d think then with all of that precious metal clanking about, Sir Alan Ayckbourn would make a healthy amount of noise on this side of the Atlantic — but regrettably, the works of the dramatist best known for theNorman Conquests trilogy and Absurd Person Singular are apparently in no danger of challenging the likes of Nunsense for dominance outside of America’s biggest cities and universities.

Beginning this Tuesday, May 15, Two River Theater Company endeavors to change all that — as indeed they’ve worked to change the standard set of expectations for a “suburban” stage operation — when the professional troupe caps its 2011-2012 mainstage season with a new production of the 2009 comedy My Wonderful Day.

The works of prolific playwright and director Sir Alan Ayckbourn (above) will be the subject of “BeforePlay” lectures prior to each performance of MY WONDERFUL DAY, presented by Ayckbourn expert Michael T. Mooney.

Set in the home of TV personality Kevin Tate (Marc Vietor), Ayckbourn’s farcical look at “the foibles, failed hopes and dreams of the British middle class” unfolds as a series of keenly observed events as experienced through the eyes and ears of “nearly nine year old” Winnie (Susan Heyward), daughter of the Tate household’s Anglo-Caribbean cleaning woman Laverne (Kimberly Hébert Gregory).

It’s young Winnie’s school assignment to take in and record the things that occur around her throughout the day — and take it all in she does, much to the eventual  dismay of the vindictive Mrs. Tate (Danielle Skraastad), Tate’s mistress Tiffany (Alison Cimmet) and Tate’s mate Josh (Kevin Isola).

When My Wonderful Day made its world premiere at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, North Yorkshire (where Ayckbourn served as Artistic Director for nearly 40 years), it featured a quirky bit of casting, in that the vigilant child Winnie was played by then 28 year old Ayesha Antoine. The actress reprised her role when the show jumped the puddle for its Off Broadway run — and, with the casting of the grownup Heyward, TRTC and director Nicholas Martin maintain the recently minted (and entirely unofficial) tradition.

“It’s a fun challenge to play someone that young,” says Heyward of the character who’s onstage throughout the show; a character who gets to read portions of the classic book The Secret Garden, and who delivers some of her dialogue in French (giving some of the other characters the mistaken belief that the child doesn’t understand English).

“You have to let go of your adult opinions, and get rid of all your life experience.”

Describing the nonjudgmental, apparently innocent Winnie as “a bit of a fish out of water” in a household full of liars, philanderers, backstabbers and the just generally clueless, the actress observes that “people tend to talk over her head as if she’s not there…they let down their guard, divulge their secrets, thinking that she won’t really understand. They think they have a Get Out of Jail Free card.”

This is the first Ayckbourn project for Heyward, as well as for most of the young cast, the director AND the Two River team itself — although the company has called in some pretty serious reinforcement for its “BeforePlay” series of presentations in the lobby of TRTC’s branded Bridge Avenue arts center.

Author, playwright, director (and member of the administrative staff at NJ landmark Paper Mill Playhouse), Michael T. Mooney brings a level of Ayckbourn expertise to the table that includes his having founded the 4A’s (Alan Ayckbourn Aficionados of America), and his staging the American premieres of no less than four Ayckbourn plays. Last year, he very nearly presented a local production of the master’s somewhat daunting diptych House and Garden — a pair of full length plays designed to play simultaneously on two neighboring stages, with both the audience and the characters shuttling from one to the other.

“I don’t want to suggest that Ayckbourn’s plays are Too British,” says the Asbury Park resident who traveled overseas to study with Ayckbourn for several summers (and who’s been so bold as to perform in front of the playwright, in a role that Ayckbourn had written for himself).

“The characters in his plays are often well read, cosmopolitan…and the best of his plays are character driven,” says Mooney. “The least of his plays are better than most of other people’s best.”

The sought-after authority on all things Ayckbourn calls the relatively recent and lesser known Day a good choice for TRTC’s maiden voyage; pointing out that the show boasts “a multicultural cast, easy scenery, and it has a very young character at its center…she’s our eyes, our point of view.”

My Wonderful Day previews May 15 through 18; opens on Saturday, May 19 (SOLD OUT), and continues with a schedule of evening and matinee performances, Wednesdays through Sundays until June 3.Tickets are $37 – $57 (with a discounted price of $24 for anyone 30 years and younger) and are available by calling the TRTC Box Office at732.345.1400, or visiting the TRTC website for schedule details and availability — as well as info on dinner/show packages and other special-event performances.

Veterans of Broadway, major awards AND the Two River Theater, Michael Cumpsty (MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING) and Chuck Cooper (IN THIS HOUSE, JITNEY) return to the Red Bank stage in 2013.

“I feel like I’m having a dream,” said the playwright and performance artist Lisa Kron as she faced a capacity crowd at Two River Theater on Monday night.

“In high school, we, the theater people, were like the outcasts…this is the pep rally we never had.”

The occasion for the spirited assembly was the annual new season announcement  by Two River Theater Company — one of the most highly anticipated such events in New Jersey stage circles, and one presided over by John Dias, now in his second season as TRTC’s artistic director.

As introduced by the nationally renowned producer and some celebrated associates, the 2012-2013 schedule builds upon the successful template established in the current 2011-2012 season — a season that climaxes with the production of Sir Alan Ayckbourn’s My Wonderful Day, going up in previews on May 15.

Utilizing both the mainstage Rechnitz auditorium and the “black box” Marion Huber space at TRTC’s branded Bridge Avenue arts center, the new slate of eight shows mixes classics of the English language with new American voices; intimate solos with exquisite ensembles, and new faces with a whole lot of returning favorites — with words from the likes of Noel Coward, August Wilson and a guy by the name of Shakespeare.

Joining Dias on stage were a couple of people new to Two River — Kron (whose Broadway production Well was developed with Dias and director Leigh Silverman), and composer-bandleader Ethan Lipton — as well as a pair of Tony-lauded talents who should be familiar not just to Broadway habitues, but to regular observers of the Red Bank scene.

Presently appearing in End of the Rainbow on Broadway (a show for which he’s received a Tony nomination as Best Featured Actor), Michael Cumpsty previewed his involvement with next year’s Present Laughteras a project that “will bring me back to Red Bank, which is where I want to be…I fell in love with this theater, and with the family at the theater.”

An Obie winner for Hamlet and, with Dias, a resident of Middletown, Cumpsty (who starred for TRTC in 2011′s Much Ado About Nothing, and shared the stage with Alec Baldwin for a fundraiser last November) got laughs for suggesting that his role in the Coward comedy — “an aging matinee idol, who throws everyone around him into a vortex of neurosis” — was brought to him as being “kind of like (my) life.”

Making a big splash with Monday night’s audience was Chuck Cooper, the actor and singer who starred this year in both the “chamber musical”In This House and the Red Bank run of August Wilson’s Jitney. The winner of the 1997 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical (as Memphis, in The Life) will be portraying a different character by the name of Memphis, when he reunites with noted director Ruben Santiago-Hudson and the words of August Wilson for Two Trains Running. Referring to the late African American playwright as “the American Bard” — and calling up the concept of the “blood memory” that unites people of diverse backgrounds — the actor observed that “just like Shakespeare, it takes about a minute to get Wilson’s poetry…you lean into it and you get it. Come to this play and you will remember.”

A high point of the evening was Cooper’s performance of a song from next season’s “family show” presentation, A Wind in the Willows Christmas. The “Americanized” adaptation of Kenneth Grahame’s beloved animal characters was composed by the In This Housesongwriting partnership of Mike Reid and Sarah Schlesinger, although  there are, unfortunately, no plans to suit up Cooper as Mr. Toad when the show makes its bow in December.

The 2012-2013 season, for which subscriptions will soon be made available, is as follows:

TOP DOG/ UNDERDOG (September 8-30, 2012). In 2002, Suzan-Lori Parks became the first African American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, for this tale of two brothers, a game of Three Card Monte, and the shared past that can’t be escaped. On the tenth anniversary of this theatrical milestone, Dias and TRTC managing director Michael Hurst return to the play that they helped develop in its premiere at NYC’s Public Theater, with the playwright herself as director.

NO PLACE TO GO (October 6 – November 4, 2012). The quirky, retro-rocketing music of Ethan Lipton & His Orchestra is front and center for this “irreverent, deeply compassionate musical ode to America’s work force,” a lament for a longtime employee whose company has announced that it’s moving to another planet. TRTC Associate ArtistLeigh Silverman (who directed Lisa Kron in Well) takes the helm for this premiere inside the Marion Huber Theater.

HENRY V (October 20 – November 11, 2012). William Shakespeare’s supercharged history of a gung-ho young king and the costs of living in a perpetual state of war — the play that gave us the rousing exhortation “Once more unto the breach” — is staged by Michael Sexton of The Shakespeare Society, with a cast featuring “some of New York’s most accomplished young Shakespearean actors.”

A WIND IN THE WILLOWS CHRISTMAS (December 8-30, 2012). In TRTC’s annual holiday presentation for family audiences, Grammy winning Nashville songsmith and recording artist (plus ex-NFL defensive tackle) Mike Reid reteams with Sarah Schlesinger for a new take on the adventures of Mr. Toad, Mr. Badger, Mole and company, while director Amanda Dehnert makes a long-awaited Red Bank debut.

PRESENT LAUGHTER (February 16 – March 10, 2013). Two River Theater Company visits the works of Noel Coward for the third time (following Blithe Spirit and Private Lives) with this witty and sophisticated “valentine to the theater,” in which Cumpsty stars as the debonair leading man Gary Essendine. A director will be announced later this year.

THE ELECTRIC BABY (April 6 – May 5, 2013). For their next world premiere project inside the Marion Huber space, the TRTC team welcomes playwright Stephanie Zadravec for this adult drama about the way we form families — a story in which “a group of lost souls are brought together by accident, and form unlikely connections that will change all of their lives.” May Adrales (In This House) directs.

2.5 MINUTE RIDE (April 20 – May 12, 2013). Performing this monologue piece for the first time in about ten years, author and storyteller Lisa Kron spins a moving and funny autobiographical story that centers on her relationship with her Holocaust survivor father — an Obie-nominated whirlwind tour that careens from concentration camp to amusement park rollercoaster ride. Mark Brokaw (Broadway’s The Lyons) directs.

August Wilson’s TWO TRAINS RUNNING (June 1-23, 2013). Continuing their exploration of Wilson’s epic “Pittsburgh Cycle” that began with this season’s Jitney (and bringing back Chuck Cooper as well as Tony winning actor, director and “first generation Wilsonian” Ruben Santiago-Hudson), TRTC advances into Summer’s heat with this ensemble drama set in the riot-scarred urban landscape of the 1960s; a crucial component of a project that Dias calls “one of the greatest chronicles of a people and a time…one of the greatest works of art ever.”

Take it here for individual tickets to the upcoming production of My Wonderful Day, as well as an “Intimate Evening With…” series of star-quality music concerts at Two River Theater. Check in for updates on other summertime events at Bridge Ave, including the second annualCrossing Borders festival, Joe Muccioli’s Summer Jazz Series and the BOLERO Red Bank dance project — about all of which more to come in the paperless pages of upperWETside.

John Paul Tremblay (“Julian”), Mike Smith (“Bubbles”) and Robb Wells (“Ricky”) are The Trailer Park Boys, the Canadian cult cable sensations performing a bit of “community service” this Friday night at the Count Basie Theatre.

The last time the world heard from the Trailer Park Boys, the trio of petty criminals, backsliding lowlifes and substance abusers was more or less secured within their natural habitat — behind bars, and lashing out against the media attention that helped make their mugshots a household brand in dozens of countries.

It was a fitting valedictory for “Julian” (John Paul Tremblay), “Ricky” (Robb Wells) and “Bubbles” (Mike Smith), the characters who evolved (so to speak) from several low-budget film projects by Canadian writer and director Mike Clattenburg.

Dedicated to the mantra “get rich, get high, and stay out of jail;” navigating life at Nova Scotia’s Sunnyvale Trailer Park with a work ethic, a moral code and an F-bombed vocabulary that made our own Jay and Silent Bob look like Frasier and Niles, the Boys spent seven seasons as the stars of their own “mockumentary” TV series — an international cult hit seen Stateside by DirecTV subscribers.

The series that ended in 2008 — think COPS times Sunny divided by The Office — gave noisy birth to two theatrically released feature films, an all new TV vehicle for the three actors (The Drunk and On Drugs Happy Fun Hour), and several live appearance tours, the latest of which rolls into Red Bank’s Count Basie Theatre this Friday night, May 11.

Subtitled The Ricky, Julian and Bubbles’ Community Service Variety Show, the stage presentation ostensibly springs the three recidivist jailbirds for an evening of court-ordered lecturing on the evils of drinking and drug abuse — an edu-taining interlude in which Bubbles gets to perform his ventriloquism act (and sing his signature anthem “Liquor and Whores”) while the other guys do their best to involve the audience and send the whole thing careening off the rails.

UpperWETside spoke to Julian and Ricky — yes, in character, and while riding in a luxuriously appointed tour bus that’s a far cry from the various trailers, sheds, beater Chryslers and jail cells they’ve inhabited over the years.

upperWETside: So how sweet is it playing these fancy theaters, riding on a rockstar tour bus, and attaching all sorts of contract riders about your dressing room accommodations?

RICKY: Oh, we’re lovin’ it. Just livin’ the dream. But the only riders we have are like clean socks and underwear…Julian really screwed up our contracts.

JULIAN: Ricky’s the one who screwed up…that’s how we went back to jail. Bubbles started cryin’ on the stand, begging the judge for mercy, and that’s how this whole Community Service thing came about.

This is probably your biggest American jaunt yet, you’re hitting a lot of places like Boston and other cities in the northeast, and since you’re seeing so much of the country in style I wonder if you have any thoughts as to what you love and hate the most about the US of A…

JULIAN: Hate the toll booths! We’ve been shellin’ out of our own pocket for all these tolls and gassin’ up the bus…

RICKY: I love the food though…especially Bar-B-Q.

I’m sure it sucks being forced into this tour, having to lecture on the evils of drugs and alcohol…but still, it’s got to be better than prison by this point.

JULIAN: Yeah, but it’s kind of a drag. We sometimes don’t feel like entertaining…fortunately, everybody in the audience likes to get drunk and get high.

Well, at the end of the COUNTDOWN TO LIQUOR DAY movie in 2009, you guys were getting really pissed off with the camera crews; knocking the camera out of their hands and everything. It’s as if you were tired of being public figures, and preferred to retire to a life of quiet dignity and contemplation…

RICKY: Julian likes being famous, but I never liked having the cameras follow me around. Those camera dicks were always makin’ me look bad. The clips they show make me look fuckin’ stupid.

But it also made you an international star. And you gotta admit it was funny.

JULIAN: It wasn’t that funny for us, all the things we had to go through. Our lives were not really like what you saw on TV. We always wound up payin’ the price, and we signed off on a lot of rights too. The worst part is that they would use the camera footage as evidence against us.

That does kind of beg the question, how could you guys ever expect to get away with most of the shit that you were involved with, knowing that it was all going to wind up on national TV?

JULIAN: When we started, we thought we were really gonna be able to tell our own story…y’know, COPS from the criminal’s point of view.

Even so, that fame and recognition has to carry some sort of advantages…

RICKY: Well, yeah, we get extra desserts from people and everything…and I wouldn’t be gettin’ banged as much. But I’d still be happy.

Alright, so assuming that someday you guys are able to get a new contract, work off all that community service, take control of your careers for the first time, what would you do differently? How would you merchandise your brand?

RICKY: We’d probably make our own rolling papers, bobbleheads…I’d have my own line of cigarettes.

JULIAN: I think we’d do our own Western movie. Like a Clint Eastwood picture. And Bubbles would want to do sci fi.

Tell us about the Variety Show that we’ll be seeing at the Count Basie Theatre. What kind of enlightening, positive message will you be exploring?

JULIAN: It’s a good way to knock two hours off our community service…where we kind of go off the rails, get to be drunk and high onstage. We make sure the crowd has a good time…we have a lot of games and contests where we get the audience involved, bring ‘em up and make ‘em do the work.

So you’d say it was an educational sort of presentation. But why is it being performed to a bunch of drunk adults in a theater instead of in front of kids at a school? Are you trusting the adults to kind of “trickle down” the message to the kids when they get home? 

JULIAN: They probably wouldn’t remember anything that happened after it’s over. We hypnotize them so they don’t remember any of it the next day.

Well, around here we have our own pockets of trailer park culture to be sure…those of us who grew up in a Sunnyvale kind of environment know that there’s a deep and abiding truth behind the comedy. But do you really mean to tell us that you wouldn’t change a thing if you had half a chance?

RICKY: Living in a trailer park is like goin’ campin’ every day. We would never buy fancy houses; that’d be stupid…even if we had money, we would still live in a trailer.

Tickets ($24.50 – $35) for Friday’s 8 pm performance of The Ricky, Julian and Bubbles’ Community Service Variety Show can be purchased from the Basie box office right here.

Hello, Lloyd: One of the biggest events of the Whole Kid Year returns to Asbury town this weekend, when madcap mogul Lloyd Kaufman brings the TROMADANCE Festival back to the center Lanes for TWO big nights, May 4 and 5!

The MayDay claxon’s already sounded; things are getting tensely tight around Asbury Parque (and by extension, the Upper Wet Side) in anticipation of the blizzardlike blitzkrieg that is the Bamboozle Fest — a wristband Woodstock that not only corrals “the kids” for three days and nights within a space where people actually sorta/kinda live, but THIS year invites their fiftysomething parents to stay and do something other than idle in queue at the designated pickup/dropoff areas. More on THAT as it happens midmonth — for now the pace picks up considerably in and around the place Where Music Lollygags, and if you dare to stray from the clearly demarcated Festival Area you’re SURE to find something weirdly wonderful…

FRIDAY and SATURDAY! 13th Annual TromaDance Festival at Asbury Lanes. You don’t have to be a conventioneering connoisseur of the Troma Films brand to have a blast at this yearly freewheeling filmfest, but it helps to enter into the bargain with some working knowledge of the MegaLoBudget sleaze cinema “studio” that gave the world The Toxic Avenger (plus associated kid cartoons, sequels and Off Broadway musicals) — a brand that continues to survive, maybe thrive, in a climate where the Drive Ins, the home video market, and even FILM as we know it have effectively joined the body count of motion picture arts and sciences.

Originally kickstarted in Park City, Utah as a freebie flip-off to the corporate-indie Sundance suckfest, TromaDance returns in its 13th annual edition to the atom-age Asbury Lanes this Friday and Saturday (May 4-5), with that most Fellini-esque of neighborhood rockbars playing host for the fourth(?) time to a no-charge, “No VIP” event in which “celebrities and fans are treated equally.” Lording over the affair once more is that Disney of Disturbia, that David O. Sleazenik, that Louis B. Mayhem mogul of madness — Troma chief, producer, director and sometime actor Lloyd Kaufman.

Some three dozen shorts from filmmakers all over the world (none of whom need to pay an entry fee) will be screening over the course of the weekend, with each night also spotlighting a new feature-length fracas. Friday’s full-lengther will be Manborg, a “cult-tastic throwback to 80s sci-fi action films like ROBOCOP and THE TERMINATOR” from Steven Kostanski and the Astron-6 Video collective — in which “a soldier, brought back to life as a cyborg, fights alongside a band of adventurers against demon hordes in a dystopian future.”

That latest from the director of Father’s Day will show at 8pm on May 4 (program starts at 7pm) — and at that same hour on Saturday, it’s a free screening of The FP, a grindhouse gangbang co-directed by the sibling tagteam of Jason and Brandon Trost, the amped-up cinematographers behind the likes of Crank: High Voltage and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. Brother Jason stars in this story of “two gangs locked in a turf war in rural wasteland Frasier Park, in the deadly arena of competitive dance-fight video game” — a “fury of fierce footwork, triumphant montages and neon street wear” that features as narrator none other than James Remar of The Warriors (and, lately, Dexter). Take it here for Dorothy Creamer’s interview with Yale alumnus (and former GWB classmate) Kaufman, conducted for our old Red Bank oRBit site and archived for your enlightenment here on the upperWETside. Asbury Lanes, Fourth Ave., Asbury Park • 7pm/ FREE!                                                                                                                                                                                                

That ain’t even the one-sixth of it; flip the record over for more…

Anarchy in the BK: Some of the most instantly familiar images captured by ace rock photographer Bob Gruen (including this shot of The Sex Pistols on their fateful American tour) are on display — with the man himself in person — with Friday’s opening of a new show at Art629 in Asbury Park.

FRIDAY! Bob Gruen ROCK SEEN at Art629. Nineteen Ninety Nine. Has it really been that long since the Upper Wet Side saw a solo-show exhibit dedicated to the wowsome work of Bob Gruen? Back on the cusp of the hopeful new millennium,  this rock photographer’s rock photographer — a man of whom it can be said has captured many of THE most iconic, most viewed images of Led Zep, John/ Yoko, The Sex Pistols and countless others — gave local crowds an up-close gawk at a largely bygone world in which the Rock Star strutted tall, during an installation at the long-gone ArtForms gallery in Red Bank.

Beginning with an opening reception this Friday night — an event for which the lensman promises to be present, as he was during a private event at The Showroom this past Tuesday — an array of Gruen’s most instantly recognizable (and infinitely resonating) images will adorn the walls of Art629 Gallery, the downtown Asbury Park artspace established by painter, promoter (and former booking guy at the late lamented Club Bene!) Patrick Schiavino. It’s a smorgasbord of snaps that include such Gruen milestones as “Sid Vicious with Hot Dog” (now in London’s National Portrait Gallery), scenes of The Clash @ Convention Hall in 1982, Jon Bon Jovi at the boundary-busting 1989 Moscow Music Peace Festival — and still more from the man behind John and Yoko’s volume Sometime in New York City, and not one but two seminal documentaries on the New York Dolls.

For us, though, Gruen’s rep was staked on his long tenure as a staff or stringer photographer for vintage magazines like the amazing Creem or the much-missed Rock Scene — alternatives to the eternally stodgy and clueless Rolling Stone that telegraphed tomorrow’s trends (and chronicled a golden age of epic excess) largely through the candid, unorchestrated, often way out of control portraits by this man who preferred to stay out of the limelight himself.

None of which is to suggest that there’s not a great book in all of this — and last year’s publication of the Gruen collection Rock Seen led directly to the installation at Art629, an exhibit that remains on display, most all this merry month of Bamboozle, during normal gallery hours through May 27. Art629 Gallery, 629 Cookman Ave., Asbury Park • 8-10pm 

Help Yourself: Asbury Park hip hop hope Solo For Dolo takes the Press Room stage for the first time on First Saturday, in a record release party for his new SELF TITLED, that’s also part of a three-way Bangs Ave block party benefit for the nonprofit Mad vs Cancer. 

SATURDAY! MAD VS. CANCER benefit on Bangs Avenue. Corpspeak types would brand it “synergy,” but when the monthly First Saturday slate of activities returns to downtown AP this Cinco de Mayo, it’ll feature a subset event in which a threesome of relative recent arrivals on a banging stretch of Bangs Avenue band together in cahoots for a tri-pronged fundraising effort to benefit MAD vs. CANCER.

It’s an endeavor that’s keyed to the big Two Year Anniversary at ReBearth Artist Boutique, a genuine pioneer/ pacesetter on the fast-transforming easternmost blocks of Bangs, and a center of city life in which 10% of all sales this Saturday will be dedicated to the ongoing battle against what the Vegas hipsters used to call The Big Casino. Down the street at the new Bangs Art Gallery, proprietor (and proponent of Spraypaint SurrealiZm) Doug Z presents Ocean Spray, an International Graffiti Exhibition that showcases the work of such Rustoleum Rembrandts (and Krylon Klimts) as KAVES, NASTY, ENUE, MARS, KR ONE, SAMP, VERS, DEALYT, DEZO, AIR 3, MONOVISUA, SKOPE, YES 2, CES, and SLICE. The reception runs from 6pm all the way to midnight, with art sale proceeds to MAD and live painting demos (“prepare to have your mind blown”) for the duration.

“Rest in peace to the Moon Rock and the places we’d skate,” declares hip hop artiste (and Asbury Park original) Solo for Dolo on “Asbury Rising,” one of the tracks on his brand new longplayer Self Titled. “Shout to the ReBearth for the cans I spray.” The word-dense lament for a transitioning hometown that’s sold off pieces of its soul (“Way back when Kingsley was strip clubs and bars, before it got revamped and they censored out every part”) is one of several standouts on the new release, an effort that shows a still-defiant but increasingly reflective S4D shaking off some of his residual teenpunk angst as both he and the city enter into a new evolutionary phase.

The Self Titled (not self-titled) album is the center of attention during a Saturday night record release event at yet another welcome new arrival on Bangs Ave — The Press Room, the Bruce-blessed destination rockbar co-owned by Alecia Brooks. Shoreshot and Fresh Vets join Solo for Dolo in the live show that kicks off at 10pm, with proceeds from the recession-busting Press Room cover charge of $5 going once again to the evening’s MAD vs CANCER fund drive. The Press Room, 610 Bangs Ave., Asbury Park • 10pm/ $5

Elsewhere on and around the Cookman Avenue corridor on First Saturday, the sporty and luxurious Doug Ferrari‘s relocated/ reborn Shore Institute Of The Contemporary Arts hosts an opening reception for the sixth annual edition of SICA’s High Relief event, a group show highlighting the best high school sculptors in NJ — “those who demonstrate not only technical achievement in the handling of their material but that essential creativity which demonstrates the spirit of contemporary art today.” Winners of the competition will be announced during the reception running between 6 and 10pm, with the exhibit continuing through May 25 and selected entries considered for inclusion in SICA’s annual SculpToure Urban Sculpture Park (about which more to come in these pixelated pages).

Over at The Paint Place, designer and fashion expert Brittany Guba  shows off “her new creation Beautiful Havoc, the most wonderful watch ever” — while the characteristically amazing group show Strange Matter continues at Pop Art paradise Parlor Gallery, with eye-popping “wearable art and art created with unusual materials” by Morris Jurgensen, Ray Geary, Joe Iurato, Betsy van Langen, Miss Ellie, Tina Kerekes, Mike Leavitt, Hey Sailor, Blood Milk, Matthew Cox, Roxie Darling, Kim Alsbrooks, C. Pazia Mannella, Hannah Fink, Ben Conrad & Vahge. And at John Vigg’s Gallery 13 (inside the downtown Shoppes at the Arcade), you’ve got another chance to view a Ring-A-Ding-Ding collection of 1950s-60s images featuring Frank Sinatra and the people in his swaggering Rat Pack orbit, from the Kennedys to Dino and Sammy. It’s a pretty astounding assemblage of shots, many of them completely unfamiliar and at least one of them showing a toupee-less Ol’ Blue Eyes in an unguarded moment.

Don Dazzo and The Whirling Dervishes — pictured here in their 1980s heyday, forever on the threshold of breakthrough greatness — reunite for a salute to the long-gone rockbar The Green Parrot, this Saturday at the (still alive and kicking) Brighton Bar.

SATURDAY! Green Parrot Reunion at The Brighton Bar. As put-upon readers of this blog surely guessed by now, we’ve been around this scene for some time longer than the one year or so that upperWETside has been live — in fact, we can trace our pathetic pedigree to a rag called Pipeline, a bi-weekly newsprint music/ entertainment zine (covering South Amboy down to Seaside) that we published in the early to mid 1980s. So humor us as we spin a tale of a classic Shore nightspot of yore — no, not the Upstage, Student Prince or any of those can’t-go-home-again SOAPboxes from a bronzed era of skinny Springsteens and fat facial hair.

No, we’re referring to The Green Parrot, which for a relatively brief time in the 1980s served as a real-world annex to the Modern Rock airwave action put forth by the old WHTG-FM. Located a short world away from Asbury out on Route 33 in Neptune (the building was razed in the early 1990s for additional parking space at Jersey Shore Medical Center), the bar served as the scene of some memorable sets by alt-rock faves like Nine Inch Nails, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lenny Kravitz, Living Colour, Faith No More, The Fleshtones, The Feelies — and a whole lot of local alterna-bands, a fistful of whom re-assemble like Earth’s Mightiest Heroes (with the ostensible blessings of the Yaccarino family) for a Reunion Party this Saturday night, Mayo the Cinco.

With the Parrot having squawked its last more than 20 years ago, the action moves to another landmark latespot of the 1980s — West End’s Brighton Bar, a crucial crossroads in the history of the Shore underground and a place that if anything is still vitally hallowed ground to this day. Saturday’s bill is a thrilling one for geezers like us who covered the waterfront back in the day when we Wanted Our MTV — a bill that boasts The X-Men (fronted by Brighton co-owner Greg Macolino), Westfield sensations The Whirling Dervishes (of “Mr. Grinch,” some fantastic EPs and the jaw-dropping movie Thin Mints), the underrated Well of Souls, and The Wallbangers, a very groovy band that we never thought we’d see again.

All of these combos are coincidentally represented on the Brighton’s must-see Wall of Fame (making this a circa-1985 Brighton reunion as much as a Parrot bash); doors open at 8pm and below-radar history continues to be made at the Home of the Frosted Mug. Brighton Bar, 121 Brighton Ave., Long Branch • doors 8pm/ $7  

Laying down some tracks: to state THE OBVIOUS, one of the better bands on the fractured and fragmented Wetside scene is having a Record Release Party tonight; just one of many goings-on we can pretty much experience from our front porch this weekend.

3pm Wednesday April 25, and we’re getting a whiff of nostalgia in and around Asbury’s Convention Hall — if you call circa 1990 your idea of nostalgia. Not a blamed or blessed soul in sight within the Grand Arcade; no shops open; a clear cannonball shot both north AND south of here on the boards. Even the gulls and pigeons have gone off to scout other fastfood pastures.

This momentary snapshot was well out of date by the weekend, of course, and we offer it up only as a final echo of the Off Season That Wuz (within the Winter That Wun’t) here on the cuspidor of the summer-season corridor. It’s a season that was more or less heralded by the beauty-sleep-disturbing blare of a marching band on the morning of April 27; a neighborhood drumline blast that assembled to welcome the flyby of the retired Space Shuttle with a somehow appropriate quote from Gary Glitter’s “Rock and Roll Part 2.”

From here on in around these blocks by the beach and boards, it’s time to batten down the hatches for Bamboozle’s burb-oid blizzard; to convert front lawns into parking lots and psych ourselves into a sleepless, senses-working-overtime parsing of the passing parade. It all starts NOW, with…

SATURDAY! Record release party for THE OBVIOUS at Asbury Lanes. Only those who are downright oblivious could develop an immunity to the charms of The Obvious, the greater Asbury punkpop combo that’s been helping to keep the electric garage door open in a landscape of acoustica Americana “authentica” and songer/singwriter narcissimo. Fronted by the ravishing Surojanie “Angie” Sugrim, the four-piece 2012 edition of the band that was last seen backing original Sugar Hill Gang old-schooler Wonder Mike at last month’s Garden State Film Festival has a new EP to peddle (Maybe She’s Bored With It) and a place to peddle it, tonight at the everlovin’ Asbury Lanes.

Produced by Bouncing Souls guitarist Pete “The Pete” Steinkopf at the Bouncing boys’ secret clubhouse recording studio in Asbury Park (on the same street as the groovy grotto where we peck out this blogfest), the record will be the centerpiece of an evening in which Angie and company are joined by a most solid lineup that further boasts Chemtrail, Lost in Society and Give Me Static — with admission a measly five bucks, there in the retro rec room and alterna-arts odditorium that hosted another high-artistic-value session by Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School on that selfsame afternoon. Asbury Lanes, Fourth Ave., Asbury Park • 8pm/ $5

There’s more in store within upperWETside’s home neighborhood this weekend, and “It’s All Within Reach” (one of many failed promo campaigns from the much-maligned Gannett media octopus) with the flip of a pixelated page…

SATURDAY! Asbury Park Musical Memories at the Berkeley. A collaboration between filmmaker Susan Pellegrini‘s synergy productions with Monmouth University and Asbury Park High School, the documentary feature Asbury Park Musical Memories is screened as the centerpiece of an official launch event for the new nonprofit org Asbury Park Musical Heritage Foundation. We had occasion to see part of this ambitious oral-history project during the aforementioned Garden State Film Festival, and it’s an engaging chronicle of several decades in the life of the city Where Music Lives (and laughs, and loves) — from the expected Springsteen-Pony-Upstage yadda, to an edu-taining exploration of the Springwood Ave R&B scene that had been all but swept under the rug for a generation.

A project that pretty much assumed a life of its own in the wake of 2011′s Where Music Lives campaign (itself spurred into being by Asbury’s selection as host city for a touring Smithsonian exhibit), the doc shows at 8pm inside the Berkeley Oceanfront Hotel (following a brief ceremony with Pellegrini and Asbury’s Minister of Good Times Tom Gilmour), with a “Meet & Greet with the musicians” after-party at 9:30 inside the hotel’s own Dauphin Grill restaurant. Berkeley Oceanfront Hotel, 1401 Ocean Ave. at Sixth Ave., Asbury Park • 7:45pm/ FREE with ticket

SATURDAY! Jersey Shore Roller Girls at Convention Hall. The fast-track, flat-track rollerderby action returns to the space above the briny surf, as the Jersey Shore Roller Girls AllStars meet the PRG Block Party (the exhibition unit of the phar-phamed Philly Roller Girls) in a high profile milestone for the fast-growing JSRG brand. It’s all ages (21 to drink, natch), with discounts for kids 10 and under or active military, and tix available here or from your favorite local Roller. A portion of proceeds benefit the Animal Welfare Committee of Point Pleasant Borough— and don’t forget to keep your wristband for entry to an After Party across the street at the Wonder Bar, following the match. Convention Hall, Ocean and Fifth Aves., Asbury Park • 8pm/ $20 ($15 military; $10 kids under 11)

SUNDAY! Asbury Park Restaurant Tour. Hard to believe this is the first-ever such culinary tour event here in what’s fast become a destination town for dining, but the best part is that you never forget your first time — and for four hours this April 29, the Asbury Park Chamber of Commerce offers up a strolling smorgasbord made up of some 25 bistros, boites, bakeries, beaneries and (juice/coffee) bars within city limits. They’ll be serving up “small bites and one-of-a-kind sampling experiences” to the epicurious, with a $30 wristband (limited quantity still available day of event from the C of C Visitor Trailer at Press Plaza) allowing access as well as free shuttle transport to and fro and thereabouts. The Chamber will also furnish “a tasting guide and map of participating sites as well as offers from local merchants,” and will be awarding prize packages that include an Asbury Park Seasonal beach badge “and other fun surprises to ‘Top Tasters’.” Take it here for a full rundown of participating parties. Locations around Asbury Park Boardwalk, Cookman Avenue and Main Street • 12-4pm/ $30 wristband

SUNDAY! Bettina May Pin Up Class at Asbury Lanes. Back down the street to everyone’s favorite Alternative to the Alternative, as Asbury Lanes welcomes a return visit from Burlesque babe, blogger and boudoir-art bombshell Bettina May. An authority in the art ad science of the vintage “pin-up” photography of the Bettie Page/ Irving Klaw era, the Canadian coquette will be once again conducting an afternoon seminar in hair, makeup and posing techniques, with a CD of your professional quality va-va-voom sitting session ready to take home for more fun and adventure. Take it here to register online, or sign up for encore sessions on May 27 and June 10. Asbury Lanes, Fourth Ave., Asbury Park • 12:30 – 6:30pm/ $195 to participate in full session; $50 to observe hair/makeup demos

SUNDAY! The 2012 JAM Awards at Atonement Church. It’s just the second annual edition for the Jersey Acoustic Music Awards, but within a remarkably short timeframe this loose and lively consortium of unplugged songpluggers has managed to put a significant stamp upon the live music scene within Asbury town and assorted points up and down the Upper Wet Side of NJ. This Sunday evening, the auditorium of Atonement Lutheran Church is the red-carpet setting for a night of performance and applause that caps off an ambitious online voting campaign. Many of this site’s favorite local performers — including George Wirth, Mike Patrick, The Wag and Jon Caspi (pictured above in a shot by Brenda Wirth) himself nominated for Male Performer, Male Vocalist, Top Pop AND Best Song — will be on hand entertaining, presenting and keeping their best game poker faces as they rip open the envelope puh-leez. All guests are encouraged to bring nonperishable food items, which will be donated to the Church’s food bank as well as to the charities of Musicians on a Mission. Atonement Lutheran Church, 308 First Ave. (at Heck St.), Asbury Park • 4pm doors/ $10 (includes drinks and dinner)

Original Broadway cast members of RENT, Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp perform both solo and in tandem in a Saturday night concert event at Monmouth University. 

We spoke of many things — of baseball (esp. the Cubs and the Mets) and Spider-Man; of a band named XTC, and what it’s like to have a father in law who won the Nobel Prize. We even found a few moments to speak of a little phenom called Rent.

Illinois native Anthony Rapp was already a seasoned veteran of the stage (at age ten, he played the title role in the ill-fated musical The Little Prince) and screen (Adventures in Babysitting, Dazed and Confused) — and Adam Pascal was a native New Yorker whose only stage experience was in fronting a band called Mute — when the two became castmates (and their characters became roommates) in a show that did nothing less than change the face of latter-day Broadway.

Set in the once-forgotten but fast-transitioning landscape of Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the AIDS-ravaged 1980s, Jonathan Larson’s magnum opus borrowed the framework of Puccini’s La Boheme for a production that would win a fistful of Tonys AND a Pulitzer (not to mention a whole new generation of diehard Rentheads), fueled by real grass-roots buzz and the mind-bogglingly sudden death of its creator on the eve of the show’s first preview.

In the original cast of the 1996 Off Broadway premiere and its Broadway incarnation later that same year — a cast that also boasted Idina Menzel, Taye Diggs and Law & Order‘s Jesse L. Martin — Pascal played Roger Davis, the HIV-positive musician, with Rapp as Mark Cohen, Roger’s filmmaker friend and roomie (the two roles were riffs on Boheme‘s Rodolfo and Marcello).

The actors would eventually go their own ways — Anthony would come out and advocate tirelessly for LGBT rights, while Adam would “marry up” and form a partnership with playwright and superstar cookbook author Cybele Pascal (prominent in the food allergy community, and daughter to the Nobel-winning Eric Chivian). And, while the show would launch the Broadway careers of the two young stars in earnest (Pascal would play lead roles in the Elton John-Tim Rice Aida, in David (Bon Jovi) Bryan’s Memphis, and in the 1998 revival of Kander & Ebb’s Cabaret; Rapp would essay the title role in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown), it would also draw the Adam & Anthony team back together for the 2005 film version, and a 2009 tour.

On Saturday night, April 21, the colleagues reunite once more, in a concert presented under the name Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp: Original Stars of Broadway’s RENT — a touring production that comes to Monmouth University‘s Pollak Theatre for one 8pm show.

The three-part program is set to kick off with Pascal performing with his three-piece combo “Me & Larry,” a project that finds the singer adding his powerhouse vocals (as well as his underrated guitar and bass skills) to pianist Larry Edoff’s bold sound in a set that draws from their album Blinding Light, with some eye-opening new takes on some familiar showtune standards, to boot.

Rapp, who documented his own voyage through life and Rent in his memoir Without You, will be performing a mix of savvy originals and surprising covers with his own five piece band — and the two co-headliners team up again for the concert’s climactic segment, an interlude in which the stars share stories and signature songs from that most game-changing (and career-defining) of shows.

UpperWETside spoke to Adam and Anthony separately, and in that order. What follows is a merry mashup of those back-to-back phone conversations.

upperWETside: So what kind of a format can we expect to see at the Monmouth show? Do you guys perform separate sets and duet at the end, or are you both onstage throughout?

ADAM PASCAL: My set comes first, then Anthony does a song with me, which leads into his set…then I come out again for the last segment. We were toying around with this sort of set-up after the 2009 tour; I asked him to combine forces.

ANTHONY RAPP: Adam goes on first because his set-up’s simpler…my sound’s bigger, so it made more sense for me to go on second. I do a song with him between our sets, so we have that tag-team thing going.

Adam, I gotta say that your Me & Larry project really has a sound all its own…it’s a pretty refreshing alternative to the way other people continue to approach Songbook-type material; you know, So-and-So Sings Gershwin, with the Hi-Fructose Corn Syrup Orchestra. Since I’m pretty unfamiliar with Larry’s work, clue us in on how your collaboration came together…

ADAM: Well, Larry’s an amazing writer and producer and musician, who’s got a successful music teaching business in Westchester County. We met when I lived there; at the Equinox gym in Scarsdale. We exchanged albums, and got to talking!

I grew up as the singer of a five piece rock group, and I guess I grew out of it, or at least wanted to explore something a little bit different.

Well, I was very impressed by what you guys did with “Maria” from WEST SIDE STORY. Especially since I have to admit that I would not have put another version of “Maria” on the short list of things that the world needs more of…

ADAM: Neither would I, believe me! No, with a song like that you either have to find something new inside of it or just move on to something else. I’m really excited about the way it came out for us…we’re thinking of recording the song, but not to sell; we would just give it away. I’m not pretending to charge for it…the entire world of the recording industry has changed so dramatically in just a few short years.

Anthony, your set is performed with you fronting a full rock band…is this more or less the ALBINO KID band project that I’ve read mention of?

ANTHONY: That was just a fun name we used for what we do, but it’s actually not something in circulation. Dan Weiss, who was a member of the original Rent band, is the music director and plays keyboards.

We’re doing a mix of songs from my album; songs from this show that I did where I’m a character who’s obsessed with Queen, who sings in the style of Queen…and we do things like “Losing My Religion,” and a song from Hedwig. We’re adding another cover or two…Talking Heads, Crowded House.

Anything by XTC, my personal fave ‘New Wave” band? I was particularly interested to find out you were a big fan of Colin Moulding and Andy Partridge.

ANTHONY: Those guys were a huge influence to me melodically, but I’m not sure of any one song I’d put out there above all the rest!

And Adam, correct me me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t your name attached to a project where you were trying to bring the music of Queensrÿche to the stage?

ADAM: It’s true! I’m a huge fan of the Operation: Mindcrime album, and Geoff Tate has been a huge influence. I know there’s a way to do this!

Now, it’s probably not considered hyperbole to suggest that you both played a real part in shaping modern-day Broadway…and yet both of you have sort of expressed the same opinion; that there aren’t really any shows out there for you right now…

ADAM: Because of the financial aspects of the business, it’s tured to jukebox musicals and movie adaptation…recognizable commodities. To me, it’s antithetical to what the artistic process should be.

I’m 41 years old…I like to think I have a youthful appearance…but I don’t live in New York, so I can’t just pop in and out of shows. When I did Memphis I thought that I could bring something to the table…to me, there’s almost something sacred about Broadway, and I’d rather wait to do something great.

ANTHONY: I don’t know if there’s anything that feels like a great fit out there…I haven’t seen The Book of Mormon yet, though. I sympathize with anyone who’s involved with that show…I know what it’s like to get asked for tickets all the time!

I’m not interested in doing a show just to do a show. Any time you take on a role, you have to bring a lot to it. Right now I’m working on the stage adaptation of my book. It’s a one man show, with a band…I was just in Korea developing it there.

You’ve never been shy about your personal connection to your RENT role, and how the stuff you had been going through…living in the East Village, dealing with your mom’s cancer and friends with HIV…kind of informed your work in the show. Did it continue to help you as an actor in your later projects to have connected so deeply with that signature role…or is such an experience not something you’d recommend for just anyone?

ANTHONY: I’m not saying that the material you perform has to have THAT degree of resonance, but…something has to resonate. Rent just reflects so much of my life, coming when it did…my mom had just passed away, so I felt very close to the world that my character lived in.

Adam had never done a Broadway show, and he was also encouraged to get close to the character of Roger…the distance between us and our roles was tissue-paper thin. The degree of openness, honesty, truth that Adam brought to his work is amazing.

ADAM: Everybody approaches it differently. Roger is very similar to me, but I never felt comfortable calling myself an actor until Cabaret. It took me to another level, other than being ‘that rocker guy on Broadway.’ I like to look into other sides of myself; roles that are completely different from myself. I love immersing myself in a character; I love the costumes, the makeup. To disappear into a character is the biggest compliment.

You guys also made your mark at the beginning of a transitional era in the theater, in the greater culture, when the online component, the social media element really changed the way shows are made and marketed and even experienced by the audience. What are some of the ways in which you think the Broadway world has been impacted?

ADAM: Unfortunately, people need to Tweet and Facebook every detail of a show while it’s going on.  Regardless of what you think of that, it’s put critical control back into the hands of the audience, and removed a lot of the influence from the old circle of critics. Ben Brantley and the others have a right to their opinion, but to have three or four guys with the power to make or break a show was never a good thing.

ANTHONY: In the early years of Rent the presence of online chat forums started really having an impact. It was really cool, as an artist, to see what people were saying about the show, and to engage with them directly. I would think that a really savvy producer might take people’s responses into consideration to a degree; use that sort of response and interest for the betterment of a show.

I did Feeling Electric in 2005, which became Next to Normal, and everyone made good use of Twitter by that time. I felt like I did brilliant work in that one…it was extraordinary to be a part of it.

Well, you were in on the ground floor of that show, just like you were with RENT. There’s probably no substitute for that kind of perspective on a project…just as, I’m sure you’ll both agree, no subbing for the live-on-stage experience in a perpetually uncertain business.

ADAM: I come from the age when ‘live’ was LIVE; a time before singers enhanced their concerts with AutoTune and pre-recordings. At the end of the day, the ‘live’ thing keeps the business from going under…it’s part of our cultural lexicon. People have a hunger to see the actors in front of them…you HAVE to come out and see this.

Tickets for Saturday’s 8pm concert ($37 – $47) are available right here.

Wynn Harmon, Rich Silverstein and Gary Marachek look at THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES from a frantically farcical new angle, in the comedy going up April 19 at NJ Rep in Long Branch. (photo by SuzAnne Barabas)

You know the story: the creepy old mansion adrift on the ruddy, mist-shrouded moors of the West Country. The bloodline curse, the Great Grimpen Mire and the glowy-eyed hound from Hell. The celebrated sleuth, his easily flummoxed sidekick and the supernaturally-tinged suspenser that launched a thousand parodies, pastiches and pale imitations.

When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle brought back his famous creation Sherlock Holmes in 1901 (by what could diplomatically be called Popular Demand), he resurrected the iconic detective in grand style, with The Hound of the Baskervilles. The third Holmes novel — the author’s first Holmes tale of any sort since controversially killing off the character eight years earlier — was a jolly-good ripping yarn that immediately caught the public’s fancy; an instant classic that served to reinforce the fact that the brilliant deductive brain from Baker Street was bigger (and, for many, more real) than his walrus-mustached creator.

The basis for several straightforward screen adaptations (including some good ‘uns with Basil Rathbone and Peter Cushing) and a slew of romps, The Hound of the Baskervilles hits the stage of New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch as a rollicking show-within-a-show — one that goes up in previews on Thursday, April 19 and opens on Saturday, April 21.

In the script by Steven Canny and John Nicholson, a ragtag troupe of small-time actors barnstorms their way around the countryside with their own production of The Hound — an endeavor that’s complicated by the fact that the three thespians (Wynn Harmon, Gary Marachek, Rich Silverstein) are forced to take on all of the parts in the show — male, female, canine and force of supernature.

The show that continues through May 27 marks the play’s New Jersey premiere, as well as the NJ Rep debut of director Mark Shanahan — an actor, playwright, voice artist and educator who’s intimately familiar with the concept of multitasking.

You wouldn’t be out of line to think that Hound would certainly fulfill one’s minimum daily requirement for farcical, fast-change thrills drawn from some of the most time-honored conventions of the “veddy British” mystery tale — but you would be wrong, my dear Inspector. There’s another Shanahan-helmed play in “town;” one that raises its first curtain some 72 hours after opening night at NJ Rep — and one that, incredible as it may seem, could even outpace Hound in the chaos department.

That other play is The 39 Steps, the Tony winning 2007 tour-de-farce adapted by Patrick Barlow from a vintage spy thriller by John Buchan — or, cutting to the chase, the 1935 screen version directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The show goes up on Tuesday, April 24 as the final production of the season at George Street Playhouse, continuing at the venerable New Brunswick venue through May 20.

A tale of mistaken manhunts, stolen secrets and confounding conspiracies comes equipped with wink-wing/nudge-nudge allusions to other works from the Master’s canon, along with a devilishly crowdpleasing device in which the supporting players in the four-person cast take on dozens of parts (including inanimate objects) in a breathless series of lightning-quick changes.

Shanahan, who understudied the lead in the show’s 2008 Broadway run AND directed two previous productions (when he wasn’t teaching a course in Hitchcock’s films at Fordham University), wrangles a cast that stars Tony nominee Howard McGillin as harried hero Richard Hannay. Stacie Morgan Lewis costars as all of the play’s female characters, with Michael Thomas Holmes and Mark Price as pretty much everybody and everything else.

UpperWETside managed to flag down the beyond-busy director as he galloped between Long Branch and New Brunswick on Route 18, like a man with a hellhound on his tail…

Director Mark Shanahan takes a whirlwind theater tour of New Jersey, with new productions at New Jersey Repertory Company (THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES) and George Street Playhouse (THE 39 STEPS).

upperWETside: Thanks for finding the time to talk! Just contemplating what your schedule must be like, running back and forth between these two shows, leaves me winded…you probably feel like one of the actors in THE 39 STEPS, not knowing which suit of clothes you’re supposed to be wearing at any given point… 

MARK SHANAHAN: It’s been a mammoth month. I’m happy as a pig in shit…I go to work each day with a bunch of really funny people, and an incredible staff at each theater.

And are things proceeding apace? Everything humming along on your way to a week of two premieres?

You know, I don’t even pay attention to these things! My attitude is, as soon as a paying audience shows up, we’re on! The train has left the station.

So let’s talk about this HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES…I understand you go way back with your affinity for Sherlock Holmes; a regular Baker Street Irregular…

In America, we call them “Sherlockians.” When I was 13, my uncle gave me an annotated copy of The Hound of the Baskervilles and I just fell in love with that world…I love that there are people out there who treat Holmes and Watson as actual historical figures; who take it all so seriously. All these experts who can figure out that a certain story takes place on a Tuesday, because of the train schedules…

I get a kick out of the fact that Arthur Conan Doyle, who was the inventor of the most rational character in literature, was so interested in the spirit world, in trying to contact the other side…whereas Harry Houdini, the illusionist, spent his time trying to debunk all that. You get a taste of that in the movie FairyTale.

Doyle had gotten pretty sick of Sherlock Holmes after a while; he wanted to be known for other things, like the Professor Challenger stories, so he famously killed off Holmes…of course the public outcry forced him to bring the character back, and The Hound of the Baskervilles was written after that time, although it was set before the story in which Holmes was supposedly killed.

It’s a story that really gives the readers what they want. You see a spooky castle in the middle of the country; a ghostly spectral dog that turns out to be a regular dog dressed up.

So yeah, I’m a big fan of the Holmes books…I’ve seen every version of the Hound films.

Even the one with William Shatner?

Right, the TV movie from the 1970s…the one with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore also; those guys did some great funny things with the Holmes characters.

Since then you’ve had Holmes being played by everybody from Charlton Heston, Roger Moore, Michael Caine, John Cleese, Rupert Everett…and now Robert Downey Jr.

It does prove once again that this character of Sherlock Holmes is so malleable…in the new films he’s a boxer, an action hero; he can be a drug addict or a comedian or any one of a number of things. Holmes is just this unbelievably brilliant character who survives any attempt at changing him.

And we keep flashing back to Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as the default conception of Holmes and Watson, even though most of the films they did together took place in the 1940s — with Rathbone sporting an incredibly bizarre haircut. 

I’m glad you mentioned that! Yes, a very strange haircut in a couple of those pictures. Just the first two movies with Rathbone and Nigel Bruce were period pieces, and that whole iconic image of Holmes, with the Inverness, the deerstalker cap, comes more or less from the magazine illustrations by Sidney Paget. A stage actor named William Gillette was the first to portray Holmes — in a play that he wrote and performed many times over the years — and that whole look of the character, with the pipe and everything, was kind of locked into place through him.

You mentioned the drug addict thing, which was really explored in detail by Nicholas Meyer with THE SEVEN PER CENT SOLUTION. What did you think of his books; that one and THE WEST END HORROR?

I did the premiere of Sherlock Holmes and The West End Horror, which was adapted by my friend Tony Dodge and his wife Marcia. I met my own wife, Jennifer Waldman — of Jen Waldman Studio — on that production ten years ago! She’s working on The 39 Steps as our movement choreographer, which is an important job in a show with all those quick changes and exits and entrances.

The West End Horror is a fun story because it takes place in the theater; it’s got people like Bram Stoker, George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde in it…all those people who were there in London in those years. You have to wonder what was in the water in that little patch of London back then.

It sounds like you and Mr. Holmes have levels of connection beyond anything I’ve imagined!

In fact, I asked the actor who played Shaw in that show to play Holmes at New Jersey Rep. This show is actually a pretty good, full rendition of The Hound…a pretty expert telling of the story that covers all the points.

Essentially, it’s about theater people…you have the sense that you’re seeing a traveling troupe who are here in Long Branch to put on a show tonight.

These actors somehow become a company, come together and make a show…there’s this feeling of ‘Hey, I love doing this!’ And it’s all done with a three man cast.

That’s something the show definitely shares in common with THE 39 STEPS.

The two plays are kissing cousins. In rehearsal, we’re asking what’s the LEAST we need to tell the MOST story…and the answer is, let the actors do it!

Sounds like a good approach for the oddly configured space they’ve got there at New Jersey Rep…a little shadowbox diorama of a stage that they’ve done all kinds of wonders with. Did they approach you with this project, or did you bring it to them?

I got a copy of the script and sent it to Gabe and SuzAnne (Barabas, founders of NJ Rep). They decided to go with it, and Gabe told me ‘I want my audience to come and have a wonderful time.’

You know, I’ve worked at fancy theaters, and I’ve worked at places that have no resources, no wing space…what Gabe and Sue have created here is something special. They’ve got a lot of graciousness and courage to choose things that they believe in. There’s a real community feeling to the space…you’re appreciated and treated well.

The Hound of the Baskervilles presents matinee and evening previews on April 19 and 20; opens April 21 at 8pm, and continues until May 27 with performances Thursdays through Sundays. Ticket reservations, showtimes and additional information can be obtained here. The 39 Steps goes up in New Brunswick April 24 and continues through May 20; take it right here to reserve tickets.