With backgrounds in journalism and fine art, Sheryl Oring began her ongoing project I Wish to Say in 2004 from a concern that many people’s voices were not being heard. She started to take dictation from the public about what they wanted to say to the (next) President. Dressed as a 1960s secretary with a typewriter, she records whatever participants say onto a postcard, making copies with carbon paper. During larger events, a secretarial bank takes dictation. Oring mails the postcards to the White House and exhibits copies. To date she has mailed over 4100 postcards.
Michael Anthony Donato, a School of Visual Arts graduate, is an award-winning children’s book illustrator. His work on Squanto and the First Thanksgiving aired on Showtime and earned honors from the American Library Association. His illustrations for Tales Alive, a collection of global folktales, received a Parents’ Choice Award. Donato also collaborated with Simon & Schuster and the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Voyage Up the Nile. He currently teaches drawing and advanced painting at Monmouth University.
Mike Richison’s Election Collection: 2004-2020 showcases 20 years of design and video art inspired by the presidential election cycle. Richison began working with this topic in 2004 when he created a short video loop of George W. Bush drinking water during the debates. This evolved into performances and interactive video projects that break down language into musical and abstract elements.
Fifty years after his passing, we embark on a journey through Pablo Picasso’s Paris, amidst sunshine and shadow, convictions and contradictions, from a young, impoverished foreigner to one of the most important icons of the 20th-century. The film moves continuously in and out of the Musée Picasso in Paris which has the largest existing collection dedicated to the painter with 6,000 masterpieces and 200,000 pieces of archive material, and follows Picasso through the Parisian neighborhoods where he lived, from the early days in ateliers with no heating to the large middle-class apartments where his success began: a physical and intellectual journey to gain a deeper understanding of his work and spirit.
A talk by Kristin Bluemel, Ph.D. Join us! 8th Annual Ink & Electricity: Advancing Liberal Learning in the Digital Age lecture . The enchanting black and white pictures featured in this talk tell a forgotten feminist tale of personal freedom and commercial success achieved by women artists whose creations of wood, ink, and paper brought joy and beauty into the dark days of the Great Depression and World War I.
It’s just like book club but with albums! With new advances in technology, the way we consume music through our devices, apps and on demand streaming services like Pandora, Spotify and iTunes is making the idea of the “album” as an art form extinct. Get together with other music enthusiasts on Tuesday nights to discuss some of the greatest records of all-time! Listen to the album beforehand and then come prepared to discuss. This event will feature Cat Stevens, Tea for the Tillerman.
Free and open to the public, but registration is required.
Monmouth University’s Prof. Mike Richison (Graphic Design) will perform his Electo Electro 2024, updated for the 2024 election cycle. This interactive installation combines audience participation, music, news footage, and politics. The project allows participants to remix videos from political rallies, debates, and news in a structured sixteen beat loop. The touchscreen design is a parody of the system employed by the Accuvote, a voting system that is difficult to audit and susceptible to hacking. The parody continues into the format of the installation itself which will resemble a polling station.
On October 5, an ensemble of leading lights take the stage for Offenbach’s fantastical final work, headlined by tenor Benjamin Bernheim in the title role of the tormented poet. Hoffmann’s trio of lovers are sung by soprano Erin Morley as the mechanical doll Olympia, soprano Pretty Yende as the plagued diva Antonia, and mezzo-soprano Clémentine Margaine as the Venetian seductress Giulietta. Marco Armiliato conducts Bartlett Sher’s evocative production, which also features bass-baritone Christian Van Horn as the Four Villains and mezzo-soprano Vasilisa Berzhanskaya in an important company debut as Hoffmann’s friend Nicklausse. This live cinema transmission is part of the Met’s award-winning Live in HD series, bringing opera to movie theaters across the globe.
$23 (general public); $21 (seniors), $10 (child) and $5 (Monmouth U. Students)
Distinguished NJ Songwriters Joe Rapolla and Joe D’Urso are back this year hosting the celebrated Songwriters by the Sea series at the Lauren K. Woods Theatre. What once started in a small coffee shop as an area for local songwriters has now grown into a series that features some of the top songwriters in the country. This year, the show features special guests Willie Nile and Emily Grove, as well as an opening set by student/artist Amani Lillian and Prof. George Wurzbach.
Join us for Tuesday Night Book Club! Hosted by Monmouth University’s Ken Womack. This month’s novel is Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 100 Years of Solitude. One of the most influential literary works of our time, One Hundred Years of Solitude remains a dazzling and original achievement by the masterful Gabriel Garcia Marquez, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendiá family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad and alive with unforgettable men and women—brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul—this novel is a masterpiece in the art of fiction.
Free and open to the public, registration required.
The Boxmasters make a triumphant return to Pollak Theatre, bringing their latest album, “Love & Hate In Desperate Places,” and their electrifying North American tour to the stage. With J.D. Andrew and Bud Thornton leading the charge, the album introduces Kirk McKim and Raymond Hardy to the lineup, adding new dimensions to their sound. Kirk, a seasoned guitarist, and Raymond, a powerhouse on bass, bring fresh energy to the band’s recordings.
Based on his acclaimed podcast, Producing the Beatles, Jason Kruppa explores the music of the Fab Four from the perspective of the one person whose point of view has never been properly and thoroughly examined: their producer, George Martin. Using innovative techniques to break down their recordings, we’ll discover how the Beatles went from learning their way around the studio to becoming masters of the art of recording, with their producer working side by side with them each step of the way. And finally, with re-recordings and detailed recreations of Martin’s orchestral scores that allow us to hear individual instrument parts,, we’ll learn how his arrangements enhanced and shaped the Beatles’ music.
Two-time Tony Award–winning composer Jeanine Tesori’s powerful new opera Grounded, commissioned by the Met and based on librettist George Brant’s acclaimed play, wrestles with the ethical quandaries and psychological toll of 21st-century warfare. Mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo, one of opera’s most compelling young stars, portrays Jess, a hot-shot fighter pilot whose unplanned pregnancy takes her out of the cockpit and lands her in Las Vegas, operating a Reaper drone halfway around the world. As she struggles to adjust to this new way of doing battle, she fights to maintain her sanity, and her soul, as she is called to rain down death by remote control. Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin oversees the Met premiere of Tesori’s kaleidoscopic score and a cast that also features tenor Ben Bliss as the Wyoming rancher who becomes Jess’s husband. Michael Mayer’s high-tech staging, using a vast array of LED screens, presents a variety of perspectives on the action, including the drone’s predatory view from high above. This live cinema transmission is part of the Met’s award-winning Live in HD series, bringing opera to movie theaters across the globe.
$23 (general public); $21 (seniors), $10 (child) and $5 (Monmouth U. Students)
The Department of Music & Theatre Arts welcomes everyone to attend our Faculty Recital on October 20th, at 3:30pm in Woods Theatre. The concert will feature our faculty members performing a varied program of works for voice, piano, and guitar.
Nader (Payman Maadi) and Simin (Leila Hatami) argue about living abroad. Simin prefers to live abroad to provide better opportunities for their only daughter, Termeh. However, Nader refuses to go because he thinks he must stay in Iran and take care of his father (Ali-Asghar Shahbazi), who suffers from Alzheimers. However, Simin is determined to get a divorce and leave the country with her daughter.
Munch: Love, Ghosts and Lady Vampires strives to shed new light on Edvard Munch, a profoundly mysterious, fascinating man, a trailblazer and a master for everyone who came after him. Now marks a turning point in our knowledge of the artist: the new MUNCH museum which opened in October 2021 in Oslo houses the immense legacy the artist left to his city: 28,000 works of art including paintings, prints, drawings, notebooks, sketches, photographs and his experiments with film. This extraordinary legacy gives us an exceptional insight into the mind, the passions and the art of this genius.
Jean Valentine was born in Chicago, earned her B.A. from Radcliffe College, and lived most of her life in New York City. She won the Yale Younger Poets Award for her first book, Dream Barker and Other Poems, in 1965. Valentine authored over a dozen collections of poetry including, The River at Wolf (1992); Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965-2003 (2007); Break the Glass (2010); and Shirt in Heaven (2015). All of her full-length works, including an unpublished manuscript, have been compiled in the posthumous collection, Light Me Down: The New & Collected Poems of Jean Valentine (2024).
ALICIA OSTRIKER has published 19 collections of poetry, been twice nominated for the National Book Award, and has twice received the National Jewish Book Award for Poetry, among other honors. JOAN LARKIN is the author of five previous collections of poetry, including Blue Hanuman (2014); My Body: New and Selected Poems (2007), which received the Audre Lorde Award from the Publishing Triangle; Lambda Literary Award winner Cold River (1997); and Housework (1975). With Jaime Manrique, Larkin translated Sor Juana’ s Love Poems, a bilingual edition of Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz’ s poetry (1997).
Free and open to the public but registration is required.
The 2022 Dobbs decision, which led to the loss of national abortion access, has ushered in a new era for women’s health, one marked by worsening health outcomes, maternal health deserts, uncertainty and fear. This 4-woman performance of a new verbatim play is based on oral history interviews and shares the stories of women across the country most impacted by state abortion restrictions in order to inspire social action and compassion.
Free and open to the public. Registration is preferred but not required.
The 2022 Dobbs decision, which led to the loss of national abortion access, has ushered in a new era for women’s health, one marked by worsening health outcomes, maternal health deserts, uncertainty and fear. This 4-woman performance of a new verbatim play by coLAB is based on oral history interviews and shares the stories of real […]
