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4/16: …and Tell ‘Em “Joe Sent Me”
April 16, 2012
Jazz scholar/ WBGO disc jockey Gary Walker and guitarist Vic Juris are among the special guests TALKIN’ JAZZ with Joe Muccioli, in the series that returns to the Count Basie’s Carlton Lounge for three Mondays beginning tonight.
Start Joe Muccioli to talking and he’ll tell you that “Jazz…grew up with America. It symbolizes American democracy.”
“You put several people into a place, a situation, and you honor all of their abilities, but at the same time you have rules, an underlying structure…a Constitution.”
A Red Bank resident and the Artistic Director of the borough-based nonprofit Jazz Arts Project, the man they call “Mooche” has done a lot of talking, studying, teaching and listening on the topic of Jazz — and he’s walked the walk as well, having traveled the world conducting, arranging and working with everyone from Joe Piscopo to the London Philharmonic.
In the borough that birthed William “Count” Basie, they know Muccioli as the maestro behind the annual Sinatra Birthday Bash events at the Count Basie Theatre; as the co-founder of the Jazz Arts Academy program; as the host of the way-cool Summer Jazz series atTwo River Theater — and as leader of the Red Bank Jazz Orchestra, the 17-piece organization that issued its maiden recording Strike Up the Band in 2011.
Add to that the fact that each and every April — a little bend in the calendar they call National Jazz Appreciation Month — Mooche hauls out his formidable “little black book” of Who’s Who contacts, commandeers the Basie Theatre building’s street-level Carlton Lounge, and offers music lovers access to a treasure trove of history, performance, sight, sound and scintillating conversation that could only be called Talkin’ Jazz. It’s a sophisticated series so cool that you’d be tempted to tell them “Joe sent me” at the door, were it not for the fact that it’s entirely free of charge and open to the public. It’s also a Monday evening affair that returns tonight, April 16, with a visit from one of the New York metro area’s most sought-after authorities on all things Jazz.
4/13: Right Here in River City
April 13, 2012
Brett Colby IS Professor Harold Hill…and Father Alphonse Stephenson IS everyone’s favorite Pentagon-based Broadway conductor/ Catholic priest/ Jersey Shore legend…when THE MUSIC MAN takes over the stage of the Algonquin in Manasquan beginning April 20.
Hide the passed hors d’oeuvres; squirrel away the plastic tumblers of merlot — we’re back in First Nighting mode, for another freewheeling, freeloading round of adventures in local theatah, up and down this thing we called the Upper Wet Side.
We’ve already clued you in on the current engagement of Maureen McGovern and her show Carry It On at Two River Theater — and in days to come we’ll be posting interviews with ace director Mark Shanahan (who’s got not one but TWO fun projects opening imminently in Long Branch and New Brunswick), as well as original RENTmates Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp (coming on April 21 to the Pollak Theatre at Monmouth University). Beginning right NOW, however, we’re kicking things strictly COMMUNITY, where everybody knows your name, and the star of the show probably has to help strike the set…
Simonelli Sez, all over the place. A longtime Monmouth County resident and a prolific playwright whose more than one dozen comedies and dramas are seen regularly on regional stages, Joe Simonelli has been an especially busy guy in recent months, at The First Avenue Playhouse in Atlantic Highlands (where his best known play Men Are Dogs continues a special monthly engagement) , at The Grange Theater in Howell — and at the Traco Theater in Toms River, the newly established downtown movie revival house where his original script Old Ringers begins a two weekend stand on Friday, April 13. A semi-sequel to Dogs, the “adult bawdy comedy” brings back two of that earlier show’s characters for a stand-alone scenario involving a quartet of senior ladies and an entrepreneurial adventure in the phone sex industry. The show continues through April 22 with performances Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 3 p.m. Traco Theater, 16 Washington St., Toms River • April 13 at 8pm (through 4/22)
Simonelli returns to the Traco in May with a fresh production of his With This Ring — but before that he’ll be back home on the Grange with a new staging of Roommates, an odd coupling involving a swinging ladies’ man, his divorced friend who comes to crash (and becomes the Thing That Would Not Leave), various meddling neighbors and still more mirthmaking machinery. Roommates opens at 8pm on Friday, April 27 and continues for four more shows on April 28, May 4 and May 5 (plus a 3pm matinee on April 29); tickets ($15) can be reserved by calling (732)768-2709. The Grange Playhouse, 4860 Route 9 South, Howell • April 27 at 8pm/ $15 (through 5/5)
That’s what’s opening tonight; flip the paperless for more going up tomorrow (April 14) and in weeks to come…
4/1: Maureen McGovern Carries the Show
April 2, 2012
Chart-topping vocalist, stage actress, “Disaster Theme Queen” and “Stradivarius Voice” Maureen McGovern begins a three week stand in Red Bank, as her show CARRY IT ON takes the stage at Two River Theater. (Photo by Deborah Feingold)
Any performer who’s been in (and sometimes out of) the game for more than 40 years could be forgiven for treating some of those years like baggage best left at the dock. In the case of Maureen McGovern, however, not only does she bring it with her when she travels — she prefers to Carry It On.
The pop singer and stage actress, who hit the ground running in 1973 with the Number One hit “The Morning After,” will be unpacking her bags for an extended stay in Red Bank, where she brings her solo show to the stage of Two River Theater beginning with a first preview on Tuesday, April 3.
If you remember the “disaster film” craze of the 1970s, you’ll know McGovern as the crisp and clear voice of the aforementioned theme song from The Poseidon Adventure — a record that went gold, topped the Billboards, won an Academy Award and garnered a Best New Artist Grammy nomination for the hitherto unknown singer.
It’s an opening act that she followed up with “We May Never Love Like This Again” from 1974′s The Towering Inferno — and thus was branded the Disaster Theme Queen, a status she spoofed with her memorable role in 1980′s genre-killer Airplane!
There’ve been many more acts to Maureen McGovern’s career, of course — including a Broadway career that began when she was picked to succeed Linda Ronstadt in the smash 1980 production of The Pirates of Penzance. The neophyte actress would go on to co-star with Raul Julia (Nine) and Sting (in The Threepenny Opera) in addition to originating the role of Marmee in the musical adaptation of Little Women.
A run of acclaimed albums interpreting signature tunes from the likes of George Gershwin and Harold Arlen gained Maureen McGovern a couple more Grammy nods, and a landmark salute to Gershwin at Carnegie Hall gained her a whole new career as a sought-after concert performer. It was her most recent release, the 2008 Sixties songbook A Long and Winding Road, that led to the development of Carry It On — a musical exploration (co-authored with director Philip Himberg) that “brings her story to life with extraordinary interpretations of the songs of her generation.” That means everything from a very singerly take on Bob Dylan, to Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Lennon-McCartney, Stephen Sondheim and the title tune, a Civil Rights anthem from folk artist Gil Turner.
Of course, you can’t have multiple acts without a few intermissions — including, in McGovern’s case, a curious stretch in which the financially strapped headliner took a secretarial job under the name Glenda Schwartz. The whole story of Maureen McGovern and her times is all in a night’s work for the singer that composer David Shire dubbed “The Stradivarius Voice” — a story told through words, music and vivd images in Carry It On.
UpperWETside spoke to this representative of the Top 100 Irish Americans back in March, as the green cardboard shamrocks of the Muscular Dystrophy Association‘s Shamrocks Against Dystrophy (a campaign that McGovern chaired for many years) bloomed at supermarkets and convenience stores coast to coast.
3/21: It’s Where Movies Live Too, Y’know
March 21, 2012 — 1 Comment
Rapper’s Delight — the new group featuring original Sugar Hill Gang oldschool professors Wonder Mike and Master Gee — performs its first full concert at Asbury Park’s Paramount Theatre on Saturday night as part of the tenth annual Garden State Film Festival; an event (with special guest rappers) tied in to a screening of the documentary I WANT MY NAME BACK.
We’ve hinted at it before, but in between all the welcome hoopla to the effect that Asbury Park is Where Music Lives, we’d make the case that the city that once served as home base for legendary theatre mogul Walter Reade; the historic home of movie palaces like the late lamented Mayfair, the still-standing Paramount and the back-soon Savoy is furthermore a place Where Movies Live.
Not bad for a town that doesn’t have a multiplex within city limits — although the coming months promise the appearance of not one but two multi-screen arthouses (including the newly expanded downtown landmark The ShowRoom). Still, even as old-neighborhood nickelodeons like The Baronet have bitten the briny dust in recent years, the town that gave us Bud Abbott, Danny DeVito and, uh, Rick Salomon has found a way — whether it’s a free beach movie on an inflatable screen, or a cinematic singalong session at the Supper Club. A music/film series at a downtown coffeehouse, or a backdrop of vintage stags at the Lanes. Any of the screenings that accompany major events like ZombieFest and All Tomorrow’s Parties, or the intimate movie-club house parties that happen right here at the historic Stephen Crane House.
Pre-dating ALL of the above is an event that’s existed on the leading edge of the city’s slow reclamation of the region’s cultural spotlight — the Garden State Film Festival, the 10th annual edition of which takes place in and around Asbury town this weekend, March 23-25. A filmfreak fiesta of short subjects and features; comedies, dramas, documentaries and otherwise unclassifiable endeavor; the GSFF employs the town as its canvas, offering dozens of events at venues that range from iconic landmarks like the Paramount and the Berkeley Hotel, to some new fave restaurants and even the surprisingly comfy screening space of the City Council chambers. It’s all the brainchild of founder Diane Raver, herself the first female president of a commercial production company and an industry veteran whose many contacts include TV star daughter Kim Raver (Grey’s Anatomy, 24). As legend has it, it was a supermarket encounter between Diane and the late actor Robert Pastorelli, (best recalled as Eldin the painter on Murphy Brown) that led to the establishment of the GSFF in 2003 — and the legacy of Pastorelli, who died of an apparent heroin overdose in 2004, lives on in the festival’s annual Robert Pastorelli Rising Star Award, presented to NJ residents who “have made inroads to the industry through hard work and determination.”
There’s also a Lifetime Achievement Award to be presented to a very special guest — and this year’s recipient is a performer, activist and Screen Actors Guild president who’s lived a lifetime and then some on the big and small screen — Ed Asner, the TV powerhouse (Mary Tyler Moore, Lou Grant, Roots and tons of memorable movies) whose natural versatility and big-hearted-tough-guy persona continue to gain him new fans through recent projects like Up, Elf and Too Big to Fail. Also coming to town for the festival will be a couple of genuine founding fathers of OldSchoolHipHop — Wonder Mike and Master Gee, the MCs who summoned it all into being with Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight,” and whose rise, fall and rise again will be celebrated on screen and in live concert. There’s even a bit of tangential involvement by the UpperWETside (for which we are happy to accept a VIP badge and conduct an audence Q&A with an official questionnaire) — and while we urge you to design your own GSFF experience by consulting the festival website and schedule, we’d be remiss if we didn’t offer up our own select picks from the coming days and nights, all of which unspool on the next reel…
3/16: Decisions, Decisions…
March 16, 2012
Polly, Unsaturated: Poet, painter, priestess of (re)purpose Kathy “Polly” Polenberg — taking a brief breather from creating the scenery and the awesome “Audrey II” for the Forrestdale School production of LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS — is among the artists represented in AWAKENINGS, the new installation at Gallery U in Red Bank.
“Freedom of Choice is what you got/ Freedom FROM Choice is what you want” sang the sage men in the flowerpot hats back around 1980-’bouts. It’s a bluesy lament we can simp-athize with, if for no other reason than the fact that our nights generally present such a senses-shattering range of options, invites and tentative commitments. The situation practically guarantees that somebody, somewhere who was kind enough to invite us to their event will be stood up in favor of some equally nice person (or, as happened all too many times this winter, a “Dirty Stay-at-Home” night of cartoon reruns).
Beggars, they say, can’t be choosers — but for experienced freeloaders, the world’s an erster. See if you can help us choose between competing options over the next seven days, March 16 through March 22..
FRIDAY 3/16: AWAKENINGS in Red Bank… Since they hit the Red Bank ground running with the opening of their second gallery space (a hiptown homestead of the original Montclair location), the folks at GALLERY U have brought a “freath o’ bresh air” back to the borough’s largely dormant artscape — and beginning this evening, the busy Broad Street hive hosts a new “mixed medium group show;” an assembly of more than 20 “established and emerging artists” spearheaded by Laura Brunetti (of Caring Canvas Project fame). There’s live music by The Aster Pheonyx Project — and among the many other creative folk represented will be one of our fave locals, Kathy Polenberg, a seemingly tireless creator of indoor/outdoor art, poetry, prose, theatrical scenery (including an awesome made-from-scratch killer plant for a school staging of Little Shop) and home accents that’ll make YOUR expensive decorator take a long walk off a very short Pier One. Gallery U and Boutique, 80 Broad St., Red Bank • 6-9pm/ FREE
…or Colin & Brad at the Basie? In an interview we did several years back with rubberfaced improv action figure Colin Mochrie, the star of TV’s long-(re)running Whose Line Is It Anyway? opined that “We have more of a communal, collaborative relationship with the audience than an adversarial one…you’re laughing from a different part of your brain.” For the better part of the past decade, Mochrie and his fellow Whose Line veteran Brad Sherwood have made an entirely planned and non-spontaneous point of performing an annual show at the Count Basie Theatre — and on March 16, The Two Man Group returns to Red Bank for another evening of impishly improv’d interactions including, but not limited to, “Standing, Sitting, Bending,” “Helping Hands” and the dreaded Blindfold Mousetrap Alphabet Game. Count Basie Theatre, 99 Monmouth St., Red Bank • 8pm/ $19.50 – $49.50
…but that ain’t the 1/7 of it; flip the pixelated page for enough pulse-pounding choices to knock you clear into next Thursday…
3/8: The THRILL of First Nighting!
March 8, 2012
The cast of GOD OF CARNAGE — Laurie Devino, Samantha Ambler, Carl J. Nolan and James Walsh — is helping to make little old First Avenue Playhouse a very interesting place here in March.
Ah, the Theatah…”the thrill of first nighting,” as they say in “Autumn in New York;” only this ain’t autumn, New York, or even opening weekend for much of what we’re about to describe. Still, it IS worth our while to do the occasional Footlight Parade Roundup, especially given that it remains the primary beat of this correspondent (who admittedly doesn’t follow the music thing like he used to). To those who believe we’ve been dwelling upon stage stuff pretty heavily in recent days (see our home page for timely stories on the latest offerings from New Jersey Repertory Company, Two River Theater, and the all new L!VE Asbury Park), you’re absolutely right…but as we “spring ahead” clockwise and leave the Winter That Wasn’t in our periscope, we find much randomness of interest to call your attention to, here on the Upper Wet Side of NJ…
DOGS and CARNAGE on First Avenue. We’ve always been fond of the scrappy little storefront “dessert theatre” known as First Avenue Playhouse, but all those who think of the year-round Atlantic Highlands institution as purely the province of Neil Simon and Nunsense might want to take a closer look as March 2012 transitions quickly from Lion-esque to Lamb-y. On stage NOW and continuing through March 24 is a very recent international comic favorite that’s being seen ’round these parts for the first time — God of Carnage, adapted by Christopher Hampton from the French script by Yasmina Reza (Art).
Reset for American audiences to the gentrified precincts of millennial Brooklyn, the four-character comedy centers around a very civilized discussion between two sets of parents, one of whom have a son that injured the son of the others. To say that the level of discourse doesn’t stay civil for too long would be an understatement of course, and things devolve to a point that makes the playground seem like the Oxford Union by comparison. This is the play that netted a Tony for Marcia Gay Harden (who shared the Broadway stage with Jeff Daniels and James Gandolfini), and was filmed last year by Roman Polanski with an Oscar-lauded cast (Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, John C. Reilly). Samantha Ambler, one of our fave players on the local community stage scene (and one of the people who’ve brought you the offbeat entertainments of Thirst-E Productions), joins Laurie Devino, Carl J. Nolan and James Walsh for a show that gets served up with dessert TONIGHT, Fridays, Saturdays (plus March 22) at 8:30pm, with a Sunday matinee on March 18.
But that’s not all: Atlantic Highlands-based playwright Joe Simonelli — a prolific creator of original comedies AND dramas who’s premiered many of his works right there on First Avenue — returns to First Ave this Sunday, March 11, for the first in an “every second Sunday” stand of Men Are Dogs, his most popular play and an ensemble piece that’s been published and produced Off Broadway. This exclusive NJ engagement of the comedy (in which a therapist who runs a support group for single and divorced women has issues of her own with Mom and that new delivery guy) has Roberta Davis directing a show that’s been a proven crowdpleaser AND a hit with area actresses. First Avenue Playhouse, 123 First Ave., Atlantic Highlands • all tickets $20 (check website for info on dinner theater packages)
…and there’s more where that came from, theater fans…
3/5: Seeking SANCTUARY at NJ Rep
March 5, 2012
NPR radio host, performance poet and playwright Al Letson recaptures a SUMMER IN SANCTUARY, in his solo show going up this week in Long Branch.
Actor, writer, producer, “multi-disciplinary artist,” dyslexic, son of a preacher man — Al Letson is all those things and then some; a real one man show who made his mark as a nationally competing Poetry Slam champion on stages as big as the 2004 Final Four Pre-Game to Def Poetry Jam.
To a burgeoning body of listeners, he’s a familiar presence on the radio dial; not as a shoot-from-the-lip talker with three daily hours to fill, but as the host of NPR’s State of the Re:Union, a series of exquisitely produced and provocative hourlong documentaries that took shape when the native of Plainfield won the nationwide Public Radio Talent Quest in 2008.
The 39 year old Letson is also a prolific playwright — an author whose “poetical” blends of song and story include Griot (a “three centuries of culture in 90 minutes” exploration of storytelling, from precolonial Africa to hiphop America) and Julius X (a “mash-up” of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar with the life of Malcolm X). Beginning with previews this Thursday and opening on Saturday, March 10, Letson comes to Long Branch for an extended stay, when he brings his solo stage piece Summer in Sanctuary to New Jersey Repertory Company for an engagement that continues through March 25.
Sanctuary, it turns out, is not just a concept but a very real place — The Sanctuary on 8th Street community center in Jacksonville, FL to be precise. It was there, in the midst of the poverty-ravaged Springfield section, that Letson wore yet another hat over those trademark dreadlocks — that of educator, during a 2006 interlude in which the once-shy kid who never went to college endeavored to teach Creative Writing to a classroom of inner city teenagers. The extent to which he succeeded or failed sits at the heart of Sanctuary, a work about which the author says, “This is a play in which the bad guy is me…the person named ‘Al’ is the anti-hero.”
For his stint on LB’s lower Broadway, Letson teams with director Rob Urbinati, whose Minstrel Show caused something of a stir at NJ Rep back in 2007. Performances will take place in the playhouse’s intimately scaled Second Stage space, and tickets are being offered at a substantial discount to full time students age 25 and under.
UpperWETside caught up with the continent-crossing creator of compelling content, somewhere in America…
3/3: L!VE’s List: Dusty, Tommy, an Angry “
March 4, 2012
The creative cabal behind L!VE Asbury Park — Carlos Armesto, Alecia Brooks and Michael Thomas Murray — have announced their inaugural season, and it kicks off later this month with a special one-night show at The Press Room.
“We’re the Dream Team!” enthused Carlos Armesto from the stage of The Press Room, the Bruce-blessed, downtown AP destination rockbar co-owned by Alecia Brooks. “We know we’re gonna do this…we’re confident that we have the support and know-how to get it all done!”
That’s the sort of supercharged, uber-the-top language that begs backing up under most any circumstances — but when the speaker is the founder of NYC’s theatre C and the guy who’s directed several of the most dynamite professional stage productions ever seen round these parts, well, we’re listening; we’re listening.
The occasion was a little thing called IGNITION!, the official launch party for L!VE Asbury Park — the newly formed, not-for-profit theater and entertainment concern which, as reported back in January on upperWETside, is gearing up to present its inaugural slate of musically-minded stage shows here in various corners of the city Where Music Lives. Armesto (the troupe’s Artistic Director) and Brooks (Creative Producer) were joined last week at the Bangs Ave watering hole by fellow members of the L!VE Board of Directors (including board prexy Robert Weiner), as well as resident music impresario Michael Thomas Murray and a roomful of invited guests, dignitaries and wellwishers. When the fuse was lit, the crowd got a luminous look at the first of the events to sail under the L!VE banner.
2/29: TRTC Plays the HOUSE Advantage
February 28, 2012
Tony winning actor Chuck Cooper is in the house for IN THIS HOUSE, the musical that kicks off its world premiere engagement this week at Two River Theater. (Click to enlarge)
When last we looked in on Two River Theater Company, the folks over at Red Bank’s regional professional stage were keeping the motor (and the meter) running on an acclaimed production of August Wilson’s Jitney, a modern American classic set in the heart of a scarred but scrappy urban neighborhood.
When the lights come up this Sunday inside Two River Theater’s intimate “black box” performance space, they’ll beam down upon a now-vacant home in a quiet bit of country; a setting in which two sets of strangers — a troubled young couple who’ve lost their way, and an older pair who’ve returned to this place to find something they’ve been missing — are brought together by chance on a frosty New Year’s Eve, In This House.
At first glance, the two shows would appear to have little in common — but a closer look reveals the presence in both casts of Chuck Cooper, the Tony winning actor and singer (1996 Best Featured Actor in the musical The Life) who topped the cast of Jitney as Becker, dour and disillusioned boss of the play’s gypsy cab depot.
In the “chamber musical” that’s being staged for the first time anywhere in Red Bank — one of two world premieres in TRTC artistic director John Dias‘s 2011-2012 season (the other was last October’s Seven Homeless Mammoths…) — Cooper co-stars with Brenda Pressley (Broadway’s original cast of Dreamgirls) as the older couple Henry and Luisa. Jeff Kready (Broadway’s Billy Elliott) and Margo Seibert (TRTC’s Orestes) appear as younger couple Johnny and Annie under the direction of May Adrales.
And, as if the production didn’t already have enough to distinguish it, it may just be the only musical you’ll see this season that boasts a score by a former NFL defensive tackle.
2/23: Cowboys, Cukes, Bachelors ‘n Blues
February 23, 2012
Upstairs, Downstairs: In a career that presaged the whole Ameri-cousticana thing, Cowboy Junkies have had their share of…well, you know…but when they hit Monmouth U on Friday night, they’ll be bringing some delightful stylistic swerves from just this side of No-Mad’s Land…
It’s no exaggeration to suggest that it took an obscure band from Canada, recording with a single microphone in an old church, to chart a new course for American music in the new millennium. That the band was rather casually named Cowboy Junkies should never detract from the seriousness of the accomplishment.
Arriving as it did in the thick of a decade defined by synth drums, moussed hair and video playlists, 1988’s double platinum album The Trinity Session came as a breath of cool and refreshing air, from a place where “roots” didn’t necessarily refer to a problem for one’s stylist to address.
On Trinity, the Ontario-based Junkies — siblings Margo, Michael and Peter Timmins on vocals, guitar and drums respectively, plus Alan Anton on bass — brought a deceptively simple, quiet power to a set of originals and covers that ranged from Hank Williams and Patsy Cline to the Velvet Underground; propelling their next four albums to gold or platinum status, and helping to blaze a trail for the back-to-basics Americana musical movement of the 21st century.
Still together in its original lineup, the band has logged many miles on the road and issued many more releases on its own Latent Records label — including 2007’s Trinity Revisited, a new version of the breakthrough album recorded with guests that included Ryan Adams and Natalie Merchant. In 2010, the members of Cowboy Junkies embarked on an ambitious, four-album project entitled The Nomad Series — a cycle of self-released works that includes an entire set of songs by the late Vic Chesnutt (Demons) and the surprisingly hard-edged, electric Sing in My Meadow. Really, at a time when a new hypie generation trips over itself to come off Rootsier Than Thou, the folks who pretty much started this whole thing have taken a turn for the Sonic Youth side of the street.
Just days before the scheduled release of The Wilderness, the fourth and final entry in the series — the musical nomads from Toronto journey to the West Long Branch campus of Monmouth University, for an 8pm performance on the stage of the Pollak Theatre this Friday night, Feb the 24.
Presented by the Center for the Arts at Monmouth as part of the 2011-2012 Performing Arts series, the concert will showcase numbers from the new, all original set of songs; many of which have been part of the band’s live sets in recent years (and several of which are said to have been inspired by Marilynne Robinson’s novel Gilead).
With the core quartet joined by multi-instrumentalist Jeff Bird, audience members can expect an evening that runs the gamut from the folky intimacy of the band’s earliest efforts, to an always surprising selection of covers (Springsteen, Stones, Talking Heads, The Cure) to the “acid blues” and sonic experiments of recent seasons — although to be sure, delivering “the expected” has never been part of the Cowboy Junkies playbook. Pollak Theatre at Monmouth University, Cedar and Norwood Aves., West Long Branch • Friday 2/24 at 8pm/ $35 – $55
But why stop there? Flip the rekkid over for MORE picks toward the weekend ahead…
