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  • Comedic Improv with Michael O’Keeffe

    Location: Pollak Gallery
    Comedic improvisation is the true playground of the theatre! Students gain confidence while acquiring skills that allow them to create scenes and stories using nothing but their imaginations and each other – all completely on-the-spot! 
    There are some fascinating opposites inherent in improvisation: 
    • • In order to look good you must make others look good. 
    • • In order to be safe you must take risks. 
    • • To be self reliant you must trust others. 
    • To be able to succeed you must be willing to fail good-naturedly.
    We will explore these concepts along with others, including teamwork, focus, concentration, mistakes as gifts, relaxation, being changed, listening/observing, re-incorporation, comedic timing, etc., etc., etc… 
    We will be doing structured exercises and games (just like “Whose Line is it Anyway?”)  as a whole group as well as in pairs and trios. We will work on going with our first idea while supporting our partner’s ideas. We will practice trusting our instincts and taking risks in a safe, fun and playful atmosphere. 

  • Tribute to Adele

    Fever Up’s Candlelight concert series was created with the intention of democratizing access to classical music, and the space and performers are illuminated by thousands of candles to create a truly magical experience.

    The String Quartet has a tentative program that includes songs such as Hello, Rumour Has It, Set Fire to the Rain, Rolling in the Deep, and many more!

  • Play On!

    This is the hilarious story of a theater group trying desperately to put on a play in spite of maddening interference from a haughty authoress who keeps revising the script. Act I is a rehearsal of the dreadful show, Act II is the near disastrous dress rehearsal, and the final act is the actual performance in which anything that can go wrong does. (source: concordtheatricals.com)

  • Heightened Scrutiny

    HEIGHTENED SCRUTINY follows Chase Strangio, ACLU attorney and the first out trans person to argue before the Supreme Court, as he fights a high-stakes legal battle to overturn Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth (United States v. Skrmetti).

    The film exposes the dangerous role of mainstream media in fueling anti-trans legislation, uncovering how biased coverage drives hate, endangers lives, and threatens democracy itself. With insights from journalists like Jelani Cobb, Lydia Polgreen, and Gina Chua, and activists like Laverne Cox, the story dismantles anti-trans disinformation and highlights its devastating real-world impact.

    With the dangerous SCOTUS decision upholding the ban on life-saving healthcare, HEIGHTENED SCRUTINY is an urgent call to action against bigotry and injustice.

    To learn more about the documentary, please visit: https://www.heightenedscrutinydoc.com/

    This event is sponsored by the Intercultural Center, Program on Gender & Intersectionality Studies (PGIS), ArtNOW: Performance, Art, and Technology & Department of Communication.

  • Pop Surrealism: From the James and Maureen Dorment Collection

    Please note: The Gallery Reception has been rescheduled to March 12 from 7–9pm.

    Pop Surrealism (or Lowbrow Art) is a contemporary art movement blending surrealism’s dreamlike, unconscious themes with pop art’s imagery from popular culture, cartoons, comics, and kitsch, characterized by high technical skill, satirical commentary, and roots in underground scenes like hot-rod culture and punk rock, often featuring fantastical characters and exploring social themes with dark humor and whimsy with magazines like Juxtapoz popularizing the style. The exhibition features key artists from this movement including Mark Ryden, Camille Rose Garcia, Ana Bagayan, Swoon, Neckface, Barnaby Whitfield, John John Jessie, Tim Biskup, Liz McGrath, Mark Ryden, Aaron Johnson, Camille Rose Garcia, R. Crumb, and many more.

  • Poetry & Image: Exploring how Image and Language Inspire and Transform One Another in Generative Ways

    Poetry & Image: Exploring how Image and Language Inspire and Transform One Another in Generative Ways
    February 12, 2025
    Hands-on Workshop: 11:40 AM – 2:35 PM, DiMattio Gallery
    Poetry Reading: 4:30 PM – 5:30 PM, Great Hall Auditorium

    Two visiting poets, Andrea Ballou and Mike McCarthy, will give a reading and lead a workshop that explores how poetry and image making can inspire, dialog, and transform the other in the creative process. Associate Professor Kimberly Callas collaborated with McCarthy on his recent poetry book Behold and will join the discussion and workshop.
     
    Andrea Ballou is the author of Other Times, Midnight, winner of the Lexi Rudnitsky Poetry Prize (Persea Books, 2025). A Pushcart Prize nominee, Andrea has received fellowships and residencies from Civitella Ranieri, the National Resource Council, the Tinker Foundation, and others. She earned her PhD from the University of Chicago in Romance Languages & Literatures and her MFA from Lesley University. Currently she is the Director of the Poetry Lab for Elders at the VNA in Somerville, where she has taught poetry and creative writing since 2018. She divides her time between Massachusetts and mid-coast Maine.  https://andreaballou.com/
     
    Michael McCarthy is a national bestselling author whose nonfiction books include The Hidden Hindenburg, Ashes Under Water and The Sun Farmer. His latest book, a poetry collection titled Behold, was published in late 2024. His poems have appeared previously in Poetry East and The Southern Review. https://www.mccarthywriter.com/
     
    This is a con-sponsored event with partners Poetry in the Classrooms and Monmouth Review.

  • Artist Talk: Jake Yuzna

    Jake Yuzna (Filmmaker and Monmouth University Assistant Professor)
    Artist Talk
    March 11, 2026, 4:30pm – 5:30pm
    Pozycki Hall, Lecture Hall 115

    Join us as we welcome the Department of Communication’s newest faculty member to campus, Assistant Professor Jake Yuzna, who will share an artist talk and selects from their creative practice. Yuzna is a filmmaker, artist, and curator whose work often explores evolving identities, subculture, and genre. Their films have been presented at the Cannes Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, London Film Festival, New Museum of Contemporary Art, Walker Art Center, and the British Film Institute, among others. In addition, their work has been distributed by NetFlix, Hulu, PBS, and Arté Television, among others. Yuzna is the first American feature director to win the Teddy Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival and has received additional grants and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Capital Foundation, Frameline Foundation, McKnight Foundation, IFP MN, FilmNorth, as well as a Richard P. Rogers Spirit of Excellence Award in Directing from the American Film Institute. Yuzna has also curated projects and exhibitions for the Walker Art Center, Performa: The NYC Biennial of Performance Art, the Moscow Biennial of Contemporary Art, the City of Los Angeles, and SCCA-Center for Contemporary Art–Ljubljana. Their scholarship has been collected by Yale and New York Universities and they have been a contributor to Artforum Magazine since 2020.
     
    If you have any questions, feel free to contact ArtNOW’s chair, Prof. Dickie Cox.

  • Visiting Writers Series with Joseph Earl Thomas

    Joseph Earl Thomas is the author of Sink, a memoir (Grand Central Publishing, 2023), longlisted for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, and shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Writing Prize; the novel God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer (Grand Central Publishing, 2024), longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Literary Excellence, finalist for the LA Times Art Seidenbaum Award, winner of the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize; and the forthcoming story collection Leviathan Beach (Penguin Random House, 2027). His prose and poetry has been published or is forthcoming in The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review, The Verge, Harper’s, Virginia Quarterly Review, Vanity Fair, The Yale Review, The Massachusetts Review, and Dilettante Army. His honors include the 2020 Chautauqua Janus Prize, The Anisfield-Wolf Fellowship in Writing and Publishing, and fellowships from Kimbilio, VONA, Tin House and Bread Loaf. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame’s MFA program in prose, he earned his  PhD in English from The University of Pennsylvania. He is a member of the writing faculty at Sarah Lawrence College as well as low residency MFA programs at Holy Family and Randolph Colleges, and teaches courses in Black Studies, Poetics, Video Games, Queer Theory and more at The Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.

     
    Of his debut novel, the New York Times Books Review stated: “Like the work of Jackson Pollock, the novel reveals itself the longer one spends time with it. Keep looking, the chaos will start to show its pattern, its rhythm, its dimension and its awe-inspiring color,” while NPR said: “It’s hard to list all the themes Thomas tackles with aplomb in this book – just know it’s smart, fast moving and funny as hell.”
     
     
    Copies of Dr. Thomas’s books will be for sale at the event. In addition, he’ll lead a craft discussion in my fiction seminar from 3-4pm in the Student Center, Room 202C. If you’d like to attend, let me know ASAP as space is limited. 
     

    If you plan to attend the reading, please RSVP to Michele McBride, mmcbride@monmouth.edu.

  • Classic for a Reason: Steely Dan’s Aja

    Join music historians Ken Womack & Kit O’Toole as they revisit classic record albums. With Classic for a Reason, Ken & Kit will take listeners on a guided tour of our history’s most enduring popular musical accomplishments.

  • Tribute to Queen and The Beatles

    Candlelight concerts bring the magic of a live, multi-sensory musical experience to awe-inspiring locations like never seen before in Long Branch. Get your tickets now to discover the music of Queen and The Beatles at Pollak Theatre under the gentle glow of candlelight.

    Fever Up’s concert series was created with the intention of democratizing access to classical music, and the space and performers are illuminated by thousands of candles to create a truly magical experience.

    The String Quartet has a tentative program that includes songs such as Here Comes the Sun, Yesterday, I Want to Break Free, Bohemian Rhapsody, and more!