By DANIELLE TEPPER

As Olivia Mullen knows, the works of William Shakespeare are a fundamental component of any acting student’s growth as a performer. The Red Bank Catholic junior has shared passions for drama and music, and to her ear, Shakespeare embodies both.

“Shakespeare’s work is beautiful,” she told redbankgreen this week. “It comes to me almost like a song. I’m not nervous performing it.”

Mullen’s heartfelt appreciation of the Bard of Avon won her a spot in the 29th annual English-Speaking Union‘s National Shakespeare Competition held in New York last month.

Each year, high school teachers across the country select two students from their theater classes to audition. In Monmouth County, 15 schools were represented at the regional branch competition at Brookdale Community College, where Mullen took first place.

“I didn’t even expect to be chosen to compete,” said Mullen, 17, of Middletown. “And then I wound up going to New York.”

All the competitors were put up in the International Student Center for a one-night stay, during which they were treated to an acting workshop at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

“That night, everyone just wanted to talk,” said Mullen. “We were sleeping nine to a room with bunk beds, and everyone was so interested because we were all from different places, but we had a 5 a.m. wake-up call. It was exhausting, but amazing.”

At the semi-finals, held at Lincoln Center on April 23, each student performed a monologue and a sonnet of their choosing. Mullen went with Sonnet 36.

“I picked a sonnet that wasn’t recommended because it’s a bit tricky and complex,” said Mullen. “But I’m glad I chose 36 because no one else did it, and there were a lot of repeats.”

While she may not have won the grand prize (a full scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art’s Young Actors Summer School in London), Mullen said the entire experience had a significant impact on her future plans.

“I’m definitely going to pursue acting, and most schools want some background in Shakespeare,” she said. “It’s a hard skill to acquire, but it’s important to appreciate it.”

Mullen has been researching Carnegie Mellon’s musical theater program as well as the drama program at Juilliard, and said she’s open to either.

“I have a passion for both, so I’d be happy either way,” she said.

By JOHN T. WARD

Can a Jersey Girl whose work as a 22-year-old prostitute helped derail a political career in spectacular fashion return home and remake herself as a small-town retailer?

Four years after her high-priced hotel romps with Eliot Spitzer dynamited his tenure as governor of New York and made her infamous, Ashley Dupré says she turned a page Monday with the opening of Femme by Ashley, a lingerie and swimwear boutique on the choicest block in downtown Red Bank.

The shop, Dupré told redbankgreen in an exclusive interview, “is almost like the beginning of the rest of my life.

“I made a bunch of mistakes when I was younger, and I feel like, for the first time in my life, I’m growing into an adult, and I’m really excited about that,” she said.

The Broad Street boutique features lingerie, swimsuits and Victoria  Beckham sunglasses. (Click to enlarge)

Petite and wearing eyeglasses that made her appear somewhat more studious than she did in Girls Gone Wild videos made a decade ago, 27-year-old Dupré said she agreed to redbankgreen‘s request for a sit-down only at the urging of her boyfriend, TJ Earle, who thought it was important in establishing community roots. She said it would likely be her only interview on the topic.

Off-limits were questions about the events that made her a household name. Dupré also refused to allow redbankgreen to videotape the interview or even take her photo, saying she’d been “burned” in the past by the unauthorized release of images. Instead, she supplied a commissioned portrait.

“I’m just done with it,” Dupré said of her scandal-based persona. “I’m very private. People don’t believe that, but I’m a very private person. I don’t want that life. I’m not looking to be in the press. I’m just looking to get on with my life.”

Her focus, she said, is on becoming a business owner and “me doing what I enjoy for the first time, and not caring what anyone else has to say about it.”

Dupré’s image rehab effort might be traced to her hire two years ago as a sex -and-relationship advice columnist for the New York Post, which had previously reveled in labeling her a “ho” and “trollop” at every opportunity. In bringing her on board, the newspaper wrote:

She didn’t ask for fame, but, “Now that I have it, it’s up to me to take advantage,” she said.

Under the tag “Ask Ashley,” Dupré fielded questions that at first overtly traded on her notoriety. “How do I know if my daughter may be getting into trouble?” asked “Meredith, 40, Queens,” in the debut.

But the column later morphed into questions about keeping relationships fresh and exciting, Dupré said. “I think I have moved away from how I’m viewed to ‘how do I save my relationship?’ and ‘how do I make this work?’” she said.

The Broad Street store represents a continuation of that evolution, she said – and the likely end of the column, which she said has “run it’s course.”

Other than a confessional interview with Diane Sawyer on 20/20, a raunchy one with Howard Stern and a nude spread in Playboy, what else has Dupré been up to since the Spitzer scandal broke in March, 2008?

“I’ve been in a relationship,” she said. “I’ve just started my life over.” She and Earle, a paving industry exec, have lived in the Navesink section of Middletown for the past two months. She said she considers him her best friend, and his young daughters her family.

Growing up in Wall Township, Dupré said she was a frequent visitor to Red Bank. Moving back to the Shore after seven years in Manhattan and again visiting the town, “I just fell in love with the community as a whole,” she said. “It is like a little mini SoHo, and the people here are great.”

In creating Femme by Ashley, Dupré hired Amy Manor of West Front Street to design the space. Borough-based Frame to Please supplied oversized mirror frames and Solari Creative, also of Red Bank, did the website.

“We really kept it in the community. It’s like our own little networking circle here,” Dupré said. “It’s very important to me to have that.”

The resulting shop features white walls, ceilings and flooring. Long, silver velvet drapes form a pair of dressing rooms, each equipped with a plush purple chair so shoppers and their significant others can have some intimate time during a bikini or teddy try-on.

Dupré said the boutique’s merchandise, including labels Agua Bandita, Pily Q and Jenna Leigh, reflects her own evolving fashion sense.

“I’m  a girl, and I think every girl likes to shop and explore their tastes,” she said. “Getting into this business, I kind of explored all of these designers and fell in love with them.”

The shop offers swimsuits in the $180 to $200 range as well as some “special” underthings, Dupré said.

“I really wanted this to be a place where anybody could come in and get something and be able to afford it, but also to have the luxurious items, too,” she said.

Dupré said she plans to be in the store daily, and is braced for curiosity seekers.

“Well, I’m sure I’m going to see everybody,” she says with a laugh. “I’m sure a lot of interesting people are going to walk through those doors.”

Red Bank Mayor Pasquale Menna met recently with Dupré and Earle at their request, and said he came away impressed by their vision for the store and their enthusiasm about the town. Only one person, the wife of a retailer, had complained to him about Dupré’s arrival, he said. “I reminded her that none of us are exemplary in every aspect of our lives.” he said.

“We are a very diverse town,” Menna said. “We welcome everyone.”

Dupré, though, doesn’t expect everyone to be welcoming. She says she’s learned to shrug off whispers, which she finds prevalent “whether you’ve been involved in a scandal or not. People always talk about other people. And it’s sad that you don’t have anything more important to talk about in your life, but that’s just the way of life. Not everybody can like you, and it’s OK. I’m OK with that.

“What am I going to do, live in the past, regretting every mistake I’ve ever made?” she said. “That’s the sign of a weak person. You need to get over it and move on.”

Susan Heyward stars as Winnie, the “nearly nine year old” central character in the comedy MY WONDERFUL DAY, by Alan Ayckbourn, below.

By TOM CHESEK

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 might make a healthy amount of noise on this side of the Atlantic. But regrettably, the works of the dramatist best known for the Norman 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 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.

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 seen through the eyes 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 the 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, 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,” says Heyward.

Describing the nonjudgmental, apparently innocent Winnie as “a bit of a fish out of water” in a houseful 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 Heyward’s first Ayckbourn project, which is also the case 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 New Jersey 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 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, snd 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 My Wonderful Day a good choice for TRTC’s maiden voyage, noting 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 at 732.345.1400, or visiting the TRTC website for schedule details and availability — as well as info on dinner/show packages and other special-event performances.

By JOHN T. WARD

A prominent space on White Street in Red Bank is available for rent with the planned departure of a furniture and design store.

And stay tuned for some possible changes just down the block at Clearview Cinemas, which is up for sale with the rest of the arthouse chain, according to reports.

Cablevision has put its Clearview chain of arthouse theaters on the block. (Click to enlarge)

Both properties are under the ownership umbrella of Philip J. Bowers & Company, based in Tinton Falls.

At 24 White, Space Interiors is planning to relocate to Deal, having been the sole tenant of the refurbished corner of English Plaza for 14 years, owner Briggi Brandner tells redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn.

“We’re not going out of business, we’re just moving,” Brandner said. She’s already shut down a second store at Pier Village in Long Branch for consolidation at the Deal location, which she said is three times as large as the Red Bank one.

Landlord John Bowers said there’s 2,000 square feet of space with display frontage on two sides. He says Space still has a lease and will remain until he finds a new tenant or the lease runs out. Brandner said that could mean Space sticks around for months more.

Bowers wasn’t aware until we told him that the 49-theater Clearview chain was on the block, as reported recently by Variety and other publications. But he’s not worried about losing the theater as a tenant.

“It’s one of the most successful in the chain, and I would imagine whoever bought it would keep the most successful ones,” he said.

The Trailer Park Boys, the Canadian cult cable sensations performing a bit of “community service” this Friday night at the Count Basie Theatre.

By TOM CHESEK

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.

John Paul Tremblay (“Julian”), Mike Smith (“Bubbles”) and Robb Wells (“Ricky”) are The Trailer Park Boys.

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.

redbankgreen spoke to Julian and Ricky — yes, in character, and while they rode 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.

redbankgreen: 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 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 all 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, here 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.

By MARY ANN BOURBEAU

Looking to form a pickup hoops or softball game, but don’t have enough friends? Try Joinagame, a new social network for pickup sports based right here on the Green.

Launching today, Joinagame was built by Corey Wagner of Rumson and Patrick Finan of Fair Haven to handle all the pesky details, such as finding and reserving an available field or court.

But it also addresses a bigger hurdle: not knowing enough people who might be game for a game.

“Once you leave college, you lose your sports network,” said Wagner.

Wagner and Finan work with the recreation directors in Fair Haven, Little Silver, Red Bank, Rumson, Sea Bright and Shrewsbury, as well as Atlantic Highlands and Oceanport, to monitor availability of facilities. Once a person registers at Joinagame, he or she can sign up to play a game already formed online or start their own.

Sports offered are basketball, flag football, kickball, soccer, softball, tennis, Ultimate Frisbee and volleyball.

Joinagame is free, though some towns offer players the option of reserving a field for $40, which all the players would split via online payments. Joinagame takes care of all the paperwork, insurance and payments, making it a win-win for the players and the municipalities. The site will soon offer referees for hire, too.

“It’s free to register and we hope to keep it that way, covering our costs with advertising from sports merchandise stores or bars,” said Wagner.

Finan, 22, earned a finance degree from Providence College in Rhode Island, where he played intramural tennis, soccer, hockey and softball.

“Sports are a huge passion of mine,” he said.

But Joinagame isn’t just for the freshly minted grads. “I’ve seen a lot of parents who bring their kids to practice and say they miss being out there themselves,” he said.

Wagner, a 25-year-old construction worker, and Finan, who is currently waiting tables, met four years ago when Wagner began dating Finan’s sister Jennifer. They’ve spent the last five months creating the site.

Wagner says Joinagame works as well for avid players as it does for those who can only squeeze in a game or two a season.

“A pickup game is nice, because you can show up once,” he said. “You don’t have to commit to a league, and if you don’t mesh with the guys, you can get a whole different group next time.”

The key challenge to their roll-out, they said, is getting enough players on board from the outset so that games have enough players to commence. They spent a full day last week putting up fliers in area coffee shops, salons and other high-traffic businesses, and were pleased to find a lot of interest.

“I was surprised how quickly people picked up on the concept,” said Wagner. “We’re starting local to see how it goes, but we would like to do it for every town in the area.”

A slew of classic characters from the pens of Shakespeare, Coward and Wilson and more will tread the boards of the Red Bank stage this season. 

By TOM CHESEK

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

“In high school, we, the theater people, were like the outcasts,” she said. “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.

Veterans of Broadway and the Two River Theater, Michael Cumpsty and Chuck Cooper return to the Red Bank stage in 2013.

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 Laughter as 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 House songwriting 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 Artist Leigh 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 annual Crossing 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 redbankgreen.

As the headline suggests, the weekend that awaits is jammed with the potential for good times.

We’ve got the fifth Red Bank Townwide Yard Sale, this one making a migration from fall to spring.

We’ve got one of the inaugural events of this year’s weeklong Paint the Town Pink festivities to raise awareness about breast cancer and the importance of early detection.

And capping it all off, rain or shine, is the first-ever Red Bank International Flavour Fest, an outdoor celebration of the wide variety of cuisines available year-round at Red Bank restaurants.

And Mother Nature appears to be in a mood to cooperate.

Details, as they used to say when that was still a two-syllable word, are just below.

SATURDAY: Red Bank Townwide Yard Sale
Location: all over town. Maps available at the Red Bank Public Library and at many of the participating homes.
Time: Officially, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., but sellers can set their own hours.

From an email update from Beth Hanratty, president of the Friends of the Red Bank Public Library, which has hosted the event since 2010:

lots of records, books and air conditioners

SATURDAY: Pink Hat Tea Party
Pilgrim Baptist Church
172 Shrewsbury Avenue
Doors open 10:30 a.m., Event 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Don’t miss this important Paint the Town Pink event, presented by Riverview Medical Center. Gather all the special women in your life to join us for an educational and entertaining Pink Hat Tea, with a hat and apparel fashion show courtesy Geneva’s Boutique of Neptune, a speacial presentation from Adi Smolinsky, M.D., a Riverview Medical Center OB/GYN, education about Paint the Town Pink’s mission of the importance of annual mammography, and more! Refreshments will be provided by Jameson’s Ultimate Southern Cooking Restaurant in Neptune. Don’t forget to wear your pink hat!

*Pink Sale Event. Deck your pink all year long with our exclusive Paint the Town Pink gear and goodies for sale at this signature event.

This event is FREE but registration is required. RSVP: 1-800-DOCTORS

SUNDAY: Paint Everything Pink Community Day
Riverview Medical Center parking lot
1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Pink your town, pink your house, pink your family. Everything is pink at our family-centered, free Community Day! Featuring many of the same pink “zones” families have come to expect as well as exciting new ones, this year’s event will feature:

Kids’ Fun & Games: Rides, arts and crafts, face painting – all the things your kids have come to love! And don’t miss photos with Dr. Bernard from the Pawsitive Action Team at
K. Hovnanian Children’s Hospital.

Pink it Yourself Man Cave: In line with this year’s theme of Men in Pink, our “man cave” will offer the men in your life an area just for them. Activities will include DYI demonstrations from the Home Depot, interactive games, and of course our exclusive Real Men Wear Pink t-shirts.

Rockin’ Country Thunder 106.3: Bring out the country in you! With live music from a local country artist, this local-favorite station will have you dancin’ in your boots. Your kids will love our pony rides and everyone can enjoy some good old fashioned root beer!

And that’s not all! Enjoy some snack-food favorites and other sweet treats, and beverages from a number of local pink partners, and don’t forget to stop by our educational tables to pick-up important information about Paint the Town Pink’s mission of raising awareness of the importance of annual mammography.

Special Pink Cotton Candy and Snow Cones presented by Arrow Limousine.

SUNDAY: Red Bank International Flavour Festival
White Street Parking Lot
12 p.m. to 7 p.m., rain or shine

Here’s the National Weather Service forecast:

Saturday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 68. Northeast wind between 10 and 13 mph.

Sunday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 68. Northeast wind around 9 mph.

It started six years ago, in a place called Pink Bank.

It quickly caught on in the nearby communities of Pink Haven (Fair Haven, that is) and Pink (Monmouth) Beach. And in 2012, you’ll find it happening everywhere from Pinkbury (Shrewsbury), Pinkson (Rumson) and Little Pink (Little Silver), to Pinkdel (Holmdel), Atlantic Pinklands (Atlantic Highlands) and possibly other coordinates on your G-Pink-S.

Beginning Friday, May 4, and continuing through May 12, Riverview Medical Center invites residents of the greater Green to participate in a campaign that’s designed to encourage women aged 40 and older to schedule an annual mammogram — as well as to fund mammography services to our uninsured and underserved neighbors — with a pledge to Paint the Town Pink.

If, as it’s been said, it takes a village to turn a town pink, then this year’s nine-day campaign promises to be “bigger and pinker than ever,” with a gala reception, celebrity appearances, large-scale public events, and the centerpiece of the schedulE: the mass “pinking” of homes all over this side of the Garden State Pinkway.

‘Apprentice’ winner and motivational speaker Bill Rancic (seen with wife and breast cancer survivor Giuliana) makes a May 7 appearance at the Count Basie. Below, line painter Mark Arnone laying down Broad Street’s pink strip in 2009. (Click to enlarge)

Having received their Paint the Town Pink Starter Kits from the event organizers, entrants in the house decorating contest have been busily planting lawn signs, raising flags, hanging up bows and ribbons, and using their imaginations to transform their domiciles into displays that range from respectful breast cancer survivor tributes, to playfully pink’d examples of creative energy. A panel of judges will visit all decorated homes on the first weekend of May, awarding honors in three categories (Most Creative, In Honor of a Survivor, Pinkest House) to registered entrants in each of the eight participating towns.

Meanwhile, hundreds of area business are expected to offer in-store specials and other special events keyed to the campaign, while scores of individual volunteers, community organizations, medical professionals and local officials will be working side by side in what’s being called “a grassroots initiative that is changing lives in very tangible and meaningful ways” — with the common goal of raising awareness of the importance of annual mammography.

With that in mind, the event organizers have called in the “Men in Pink,” the theme of this year’s campaign, and an acknowledgment of the guys who have played an integral part in Paint the Town Pink since its inception; from Mark Arnone (the man who’s painted that famous pink line down the middle of Broad Street every year since 2009) to Bob McKay, co-founder of Red Bank-based McKay Imaging and the “man behind the Pink Lens.”

On Monday night, May 7, the Count Basie Theatre will be the venue for a visit for another well-known Man in Pink, when Meridian Cancer Care presents An Unplanned Plan: An Evening with Bill Rancic.

Famous as the Season One winner of Donald Trump’s The Apprentice — as well as a motivational speaker, best-selling author, and the entrepeneur behind Cigars Around the World — Rancic is also familiar from the Style Network series Giuliana and Bill, the reality show that he shares with his wife, herself the co-host of E! News and Fashion Police. Having shared the details of their fertility issues with a nationwide audience (the couple is expecting a baby via a surrogate this summer), the Rancics announced in the fall of 2011 that Giuliana, who had been diagnosed with early stage breast cancer, had undergone a double mastectomy.

Tickets for the 7:30 pm presentation — in which “Bill will candidly share his story of his marriage and family, his career, and his wife’s recent breast cancer diagnosis and all the unplanned things in life that happen when you are busy making other plans” — are priced at $39 general admission, with a limited number of VIP premium tickets (including a post-show cocktail reception with the guest) available for $100; take it here to reserve.

There’s much more to be found on the Pink slate, of course, beginning with a “Party for Pink” fundraiser gala at Middletown’s Navesink Country Club on Friday, May 4, and a “Pink Community Day” of activities and awareness at Riverview on the afternoon of Sunday, May 6. Meridian’s Bayshore Community Hospital in Holmdel will host the inaugural “Pink Zumbathon” on Saturday, May 12, and Red Bank nightspot The Downtown will get into the act with a special edition of “Girls Night Out” on Thursday, May 10. Full details and updates on each of these events (as well as about Paint the Town Pink in general) can be found right here, or on the organization’s Facebook page.

Cases of new books await distribution at River Road Books, above. Soul Kitchen, below, will serve as a giver site. (Click to enlarge)

By DANIELLE TEPPER

Book fans know that when they fall in love with a story, their immediate reaction is to tell someone so they, too, can fall in love with it. Remember how you first heard about The Hunger Games or Fifty Shades of Grey? Word of mouth is the spark that starts the fire and, sometimes has the ability to ignite a full force blaze that’s pretty hard to ignore.

That’s this concept that inspired World Book Night, a campaign designed to introduce the joy of reading to those who can’t afford or are perhaps even a little intimidated to pick up a new novel.

Launched in the United Kingdom a year ago, World Book Night is now coming to the United States, with some 5,000 towns and cities expected to give away almost half a million free books. Among those bibliophilic volunteers are River Road Books in Fair Haven and Red Bank’s own pay-what-you-can JBJ Soul Kitchen. Here’s how it works: publishers of 30 specially-produced paperback titles have agreed to make up to 20 copies of each available to stores, individuals and organizations that wish to give them away. For free. All the books are to be handed out Monday night.

When she and her partners heard about the event, “we laughed about it at first,” said Laurie Potter of River Road Books. “We thought, ‘how are they going to accomplish this?’ But it’s been so well organized.”

And when Potter reached out to get Soul Kitchen involved, manager Ryan Timmons knew it would be right in tune with the overall community mission of the restaurant, he tells redbankgreen.

“We’ll hopefully be able to stock a couple of our cubbies and run it as a book exchange for our in-need guests,” he said, referring to a large, bookcase-like shelving structure that dominates one wall of the Monmouth Street restaurant. “I’m not looking to just take 300 books and give them out, I want 50 people to come in, take a book, return it and take another one,” he said.

“This restaurant gives us an opportunity to talk and meet people; that’s all it’s here for, ultimately. The goal is to put people together.”

Potter says the titles were carefully chosen to allow some variety, and include provocative books that the volunteers are passionate about and would be excited to give out. “Books that could really impact your life, that could maybe turn you into a reader,” she explained.

The list of page-turners includes H.D. Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights, Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. All the authors have waived their royalties to help make it happen.

While River Road Books is the designated pick-up location for local distributors, anyone in the community had the opportunity to go online and register to become a giver. These givers will then be able to bring their books to nursing homes, prisons, VA hospitals, etc.

“They’re not meant for resale; they’re only for this occasion,” Potter said.