Category Archives: redbankoRBit

By TOM CHESEK On a weekend in which the Count Basie Theatre is scheduled to host a couple of local-kid dance recitals, the ever-eclectic auditorium also will be sounding a blue note or three, as a trio of standup guys...

For a while there Saturday, it looked like here-we-go-again time at the Red Bank Jazz & Blues Festival, which has wrung itself out from late spring downpours more than once in the past. But an early afternoon rain lasted less...

Red, at 3 Broad Street. Restaurant reviewer Karla Cook of the New York Times New Jersey section in found a lot to like, as well as some shortcomings, in a review of Red that ran in yesterday's edition. Getting right...

There's a fluidity in the photos of Stewart Halperin that's akin to the surface tension you see when water has ever-so-slightly overfilled a drinking glass: they seem about to pour forth out of their own skins. And what they threaten...

Members of the Monmouth Civic Chorus during a 2007 rehearsal. By TOM CHESEK "The idea came to me back in 1987, during the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge," says composer Richard Pearson Thomas on the...

The view from behind the drum kit as Big Bill Morganfield performs at the 2007 festival. By TOM CHESEK There was the year the heavens opened up and harpist Rod Piazza, faced with a potential washout of his headline set,...

Reflection #33, above, and #26, below, by Rande Johnson. Who is Rande Johnson, and is he an artist? The McKay Gallery, which is showing his photos in an exhibition that begins tonight, says that Johnson is a tradesman; that would...

Billy Van Zandt, left, and Jane Milmore (with someone else's hands). By TOM CHESEK Long before Kevin Smith turned a Bayshore bodega into a shrine rivaling the Lourdes Grotto, they were the original Hometown Kids Gone Hollywood. While half-brother Steve...

Awards host Joe Piscopo says he was saved by high school theater. It's the local high school equivalent of... well, just call them the Basies. The Count Basie Awards, to be precise, an annual set of honors recognizing outstanding achievement...

By TOM CHESEK Guy Gsell, who as managing director helped pilot the non-profit Two River Theater Company to financial success that matched its rising artistic achievements, has resigned to take another job, the Red Bank-based arts organization announced late Friday....

Vladislav Kovalsky By TOM CHESEK Beethoven? Perhaps you know him as the stony countenance that glowered from atop Schroeder's toy piano in a half century's worth of Peanuts comic strips. Even the most musically illiterate among us is familiar with...

Playwright and TRTC associate artistic director KJ Sanchez chats with jazzman Joe Muccioli in the theater lobby last night. By TOM CHESEK There are radical re-imaginings of two British stage classics. An erotically charged, aerially enhanced production inspired by a...

By TOM CHESEK The last time we caught up with Aaron Posner, the seemingly Energizer-driven artistic director at Two River Theater Company was in the middle of a boffo double-extended engagement on Macbeth, a tricked-out thrill ride that he co-directed...

Pat Guadagno will navigate the broad channels of Bob Dylan and Mark Twain this month in separate productions at the TRTC. By TOM CHESEK Even on a drab, drizzly Monday night, there's enough of a crowd at The Downtown to...

Springsteen signs autographs before last night's show. Bruce Springsteen gave fans something to gush about last night, according to the accounts we've seen so far. His show with the full E Street Band at the Count Basie Theatre included complete,...

Bruce Springsteen meets with fans late this afternoon before tonight's show at the Basie. Franco Figari came to Red Bank from his home in Milan, Italy this week solely to see Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band take the stage...

Ten-year-old Nick Piescor of Middletown trades licks with the Marshall Tucker Band on stage at the Count Basie in March. By TOM CHESEK As hard-touring, highway-tested veterans of the album-rock era, The Marshall Tucker Band has logged enough mileage in...

Mitchell Johnson's sun-drenched seashore village views are spotlighted at Laurel Tracey Gallery as nine Red Bank galleries team up to present Artwalk event this Saturday. By TOM CHESEK An "Art Walk" can be a tricky thing; a study in dueling...

E Rick Rinaldi By TOM CHESEK Who is E Rick Rinaldi? Regular followers of events at the Count Basie Theatre might be forgiven for asking precisely that question, given the fact that the Monmouth Street landmark generally showcases entertainers who've...

Colin Mochrie, left, and Brad Sherwood accessorized in mousetraps. By TOM CHESEK There's Standing, Sitting, Bending. Scenes from a Hat, always a favorite. There's Helping Hands — although you'll need at least three participants for that one — and, of...