Princeton Festival, Jersey City Comedy Festival, ‘& Sons,’ more

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From June 5 to June 21, The Princeton Symphony Orchestra’s Princeton Festival will offer a variety of pop, classical, dance and family events in a tented pavilion at Morven Museum & Garden, and other venues.

Here is a the festival’s schedule, though June 11. Everything is at Morven Museum & Garden, unless otherwise noted.

June 5, 7 p.m.: “A Cabaret Evening” featuring Broadway star Sierra Boggess (“The Little Mermaid,” “The Phantom of the Opera,” “School of Rock”) with pianist Zina Goldrich.
June 6, 5 p.m.: “Opening Weekend Celebration” featuring cocktails and dinner
June 6, 8 p.m.: Princeton Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Rossen Milanov, with soprano Sondra Radvanovsky and tenor Victor Starsky. Program includes arias by Verdi, Puccini, Pietro Mascagni, Umberto Giordano and Ruggero Leoncavallo.
June 7, 9 a.m.: “Yoga in the Garden” with live music. FREE
June 7, noon-3 p.m.: “Community Day.” Family event with an instrument petting zoo, a performance and presentation by American Repertory Ballet, storytelling (accompanied by a PSO musician) and more. FREE
June 7, noon-3 p.m.: Quilting exhibition featuring works by Princeton Sankofa Stitchers. FREE
June 7, 7 p.m.: American Repertory Ballet with Princeton Symphony Orchestra. Music by Tchaikovsky, Caroline Shaw, Samuel Barber and Jean Françaix; choreography by Marius Petipa, Michelle Quiner and Charles Askegard.
June 9, 7 p.m. at Trinity Church: The Sebastians, baroque ensemble. Program includes music by Bach.
June 11, 7 p.m. at Trinity Church: Twelfth Night Ensemble, performing Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons and other works by Vivaldi, Pietro Locatelli, Ancangelo Corelli and Francesco Durante.
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Here is a roundup of other major arts events taking place around New Jersey, through June 11.

MUSIC

• Four celebratory concerts at Monmouth University venues were scheduled to lead up to the June 13 opening of The Springsteen Center for American Music at the West Long Branch university. One took place on May 29 (NJArts.net’s review is HERE). The next three are:

“The Native American Music Experience” — at The Pollak Theatre, June 3 at 7:30 p.m. — will be a free event celebrating Indigenous American music, and featuring Gary Farmer & the Dish and Spoon Band, Pura Fé, The Osceola Brothers, The Julia Keefe Indigenous Big Band, and poet Joy Harjo.

Springsteen himself will participate in “Music America: The Songs That Shaped Us” — June 4 at 7:30 p.m. at The OceanFirst Bank Center — along with Kenny Chesney, Dropkick Murphys, Rosanne Cash, Trombone Shorty, Shemekia Copeland, Brian Fallon, Keb’ Mo’, Tony Trischka & Sister Sadie, Valerie June, house band The Disciples of Soul, and others.

Springsteen and The Disciples of Soul will be back for Night Two of “Music America: The Songs That Shaped Us,” June 5 at 7:30 p.m., along with Jon Bon Jovi, Jackson Browne, Darlene Love, Stevie Van Zandt, Gary Clark Jr., Dion, Mavis Staples, Public Enemy, Nils Lofgren, David Sancious and Jimmie Vaughan.

• Also of interest to E Street Band fans: Drummer Max Weinberg will present one of his Max Weinberg’s Jukebox shows in the Twilight Concert Series at Jack Curtis Stadium at Cooper River Park in Pennsauken, June 11 at 8 p.m. In these shows, Weinberg and other musicians play classic rock songs — by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who and others, including, possibly, Bruce Springsteen — that are requested by audience members.

• New Jersey Symphony will present its “Season Finale” concerts, featuring renowned pianist Emanuel Ax, June 4 at 7 p.m. at The State Theatre in New Brunswick, June 5 at 7:30 p.m. at The Richardson Auditorium at Princeton University, June 6 at 7:30 p.m. at The Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, and June 7 at 2 p.m. at Prudential Hall at NJPAC in Newark.

The program will include Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22; Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique; and the world premiere of Allison Loggins-Hull’s Doublespeak. Gregory McDaniel will conduct Doublespeak, while the orchestra’s music director, Xian Zhang, will conduct the works by Mozart and Berlioz.

LISA-MARIE MAZZUCCO

The Telegraph Quartet (from left, Jeremiah Shaw, Eric Chin, Pei-Ling Lin and Joseph Maile).

• The San Francisco-based Telegraph Quartet (violinists Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violist Pei-Ling Lin and cellist Jeremiah Shaw) is known for performing both standard chamber music material and more contemporary works, and will do just that in their concert in the Back Deck series at The Morris Museum in Morris Township, June 11 at 7:30 p.m.

The concert will feature Claude Debussy’s 1893 String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10, as well as Eleanor Alberga’s 2001 String Quartet No. 3, and a string quartet arrangement of Jerome Kern’s Great American Songbook standard, “The Way You Look Tonight,” famously crooned by Fred Astaire and others.

• In the ’80s, guitarist Glenn Alexander (later of Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes), bassist Dave LaRue (of The Dixie Dregs and The Steve Morse Band) and drummer Bill Elder toured and recorded as the progressive-rock band Stretch. Later, Alexander, LaRue and drummer Van Romaine (also of The Steve Morse Band, among other groups) went in more of a blues and Southern-rock direction with the band L.A.X.

June 6 at 7:30 p.m., NJ Proghouse will co-present Alexander, LaRue and Romaine, playing music by both bands, at The Dunellen Theatre.

STEPHANIE GAMBA

Carlos Andrickson in the April and May production of “& Sons.”

THEATER

• Luna Stage will bring a free outdoor production of “& Sons” to The Kelli Copeland Arts Center Courtyard in Orange, June 5-6 at 8 p.m. and June 7 at 7 p.m. Luna presented this tense drama indoors at its West Orange theater — in its world premiere — in April and May. Read NJArts.net’s review HERE.

These shows will feature the same actors and director as the earlier shows.

Jack Angelo Cummings’ play is largely about the interpersonal conflicts of three construction workers, two of whom are brothers. They face a number of obstacles while trying to keep their small company going following the death of the brothers’ father, who founded the company.

• The Theater Project will kick off its first season in its new summer home, The DMK Black Box Theatre at The Union Arts Center, with a production of “Having Our Say,” June 11-14 and 18-21.

Emily Mann’s 1995 play — adapted from the 1993 bestseller “Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years,” an oral history compiled by Amy Hill Hearth — is about 100-plus-year-old sisters Sadie and Bessie Delany, who grew up in North Carolina in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and later moved to New York and became active in the civil rights movement. The play ran on Broadway in 1995 and earned a Tony nomination for Best Play.

• Mile Square Theatre in Hoboken presents an annual show, “7th Inning Stretch,” which features seven original 10-minute plays about baseball. In honor of the World Cup coming to New Jersey, though, this year’s show, scheduled for June 6 at 7 p.m., will be made up of 10-minute plays about soccer and be named “7th Inning Stretch: FIFA Edition.”

LEARNMORE JONASI

COMEDY

• The Jersey City Comedy Festival will take place from June 9 to June 13, with co-headlining performances by Learnmore Jonasi and Isabel Hagen at Art House Productions at 7:30 p.m. June 9 and June 10, respectively; and stand-up competition shows at The Laugh Tour Comedy Club at Dorrian’s Red Hand, June 11 at 7 and 8:30 p.m., and at Art House Productions, June 12 at 7 and 8:30 p.m.

There will be 10 comedians at each of the competition shows, and a “Best of the Fest Final Stand-Up Competition” at Art House Productions, June 13 at 8 p.m.
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REVIEWS

“Private Lives,” presented by Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey at F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theatre at Drew University, Madison. (Through June 7)

“Things I Remember,” works by Leandro Comrie at Guttenberg Arts. (Through June 20)

“Alexandra Schoenberg: Shifting Perspectives” at Hillside Square Gallery, Montclair. (Through June 26)

“Willem de Kooning: The Breakthrough Years, 1945–50” at Princeton University Art Museum. (Through July 26)

“Allan Rohan Crite: Neighborhood” at Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick. (Through July 31)

“Henri Matisse: Beyond Color” at Morris Museum, Morris Township. (Through Aug. 9)

“Salvador Jiménez-Flores: Raíces & Resistencias” at Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton. (Through Aug. 1, 2027)

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