RED BANK: ‘PUPPY MILL’ LAW ON AGENDA
A proposed ordinance that Red Bank’s only puppy store claims will kill its business is up for adoption by the borough council Wednesday night. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
RED BANK: BASIE LANDS $100K NEA GRANT
Press release from Count Basie Theatre
National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Jane Chu has approved more than $25 million in grants as part of the NEA’s first major funding announcement for fiscal year 2018. Included in this announcement is an Art Works grant of $100,000 to the nonprofit Count Basie Theatre for its mindALIGNED collective impact initiative. Read More
RED BANK: ‘PUPPY MILL’ BILL DEBATED
Bark Avenue owner Gary Hager cuddles Winston, a puppy brought to the council meeting by one of Hager’s customers. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
An effort to limit the sale of dogs sourced from so-called puppy mills sparked extended debate at the Red Bank council’s first regular meeting of 2018 Wednesday night.
For nearly 90 minutes, supporters of the town’s only puppy retailer, Bark Avenue Puppies, argued that the proposed ordinance would kill the shop and reduce consumer choice while having no impact on the underside of the industry.
Proponents of the bill, however, said such concerns were overstated.
RED BANK: JENSEN ELECTED FIRE CHIEF
Chief-elect Stu Jensen arrives at the Navesink Hook & Ladder house on Mechanic Street following his election Tuesday night. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Amid flashing red lights and sounding horns, Red Bank’s volunteer firefighters marked the election of Stu Jensen as 2018 borough fire chief with a celebration Tuesday night.
RED BANK: HABCORE RAISES $55K
Past HABcore presidents Marilyn Pearlman, Rolf Marganeau and Sue Harbison with Board of Trustees President Kathleen Mullarkey and Executive Director Steve Heisman.
Press release from HABcore
On Friday, October 6, over 150 guests attended the HABcore Home Sweet Home Gala held at the beautiful Navesink Country Club in Middletown. HABcore is proud to announce they raised $55,000 at the gala for the services HABcore provides each day to residents in their expanding programs.
RED BANK: DANCING FOR KINDNESS
Flash mob dancers took over a portion of Broad Street in Red Bank for the worldwide ‘Dance for Kindness.’
Press release from Dance for Kindness
Over 200 dancers took to the streets of Red Bank on November 12th to promote kindness during World Kindness Week, uniting with over 120 cities, 50 countries and 15,000 participants.
RED BANK: CHARTER SCHOOL EYES THE WORLD
Red Bank Charter School S students with Principal Meredith Pennotti on International Day.
Classrooms at Red Bank Charter School were transformed into disaster zones as students immersed themselves in a learning experience that combined performance art with history, culture, science and cuisine as part of the school’s annual International Day.
LINCROFT: CURCHIN NUTTINESS NETS $22K
Held as always amid the cubicles of the CPA practice Curchin Group in Lincroft, the 12th annual Curchin Open indoor miniature golf tournament raised $22,000 for two charities earlier this month.
RED BANK: CONSIGNMENT SHOP APPROVED
After a vacancy of almost two years, the space last occupied by Brownstone Dry Cleaner at Monmouth and Pearl streets in Red Bank is about to get a new tenant, according to paperwork on file at borough hall.
RED BANK: FORTUNE HOUSE LAUDS VOLUNTEER
Red Bank resident Suubi Mondesir was honored earlier this month at a fundraiser for the T. Thomas Fortune House for significant contributions to save the historic home of the 19th-century journalist and civil rights activist.
RED BANK: ‘BUTTERFLY’ ALIGHTS AT BASIE
Lorraine Stone, left, as Sojourner Truth, is among the cast members in Dunbar Rep’s ‘Butterfly Confessions,’ a play by Yetta Young (right) that returning to the Count Basie Theatre.
It’s been described as “a love letter to women of color,” one that “reveals heartfelt emotions about intimacy, sexual responsibility and overcoming adversity.” Credited to author and producer Yetta Young — but acknowledged by her as a collaborative effort that features the input of some dozen different women — the intimate theatrical experience entitled Butterfly Confessions has spread its wings and its message to communities from coast to coast, including audiences right here in Red Bank who enjoyed it for the first time in the spring of 2016.
RED BANK: ENJOY THE SHOW, WEAR YOUR PJ’S
The smart theatergoers will be wearing pajamas, when Two River Theater hosts four family-friendly days’ worth of SKELETONS: A Day of the Dead Bedtime Story, beginning October 12.
Leave the first-nighting formalwear at home — and feel free to attend in your finest PJs, footed onesies and “sleeping pants” — when Two River Theater presents six public performances of Skeletons: A Day of the Dead Bedtime Story beginning this Thursday, October 12. A production of New York’s Teatro SEA company, it’s the latest in a series of family-friendly events imported to Red Bank from some of North America’s finest purveyors of theater experiences for young audiences — and despite the name, it’s a show that’s far more fanciful than frightening.
RED BANK: GARMANY & TEAM RAISE $90K
Former NFL quarterbacks Boomer Esiason (second from left) and Phil Simms (right) teamed up with Garmany owner Johnell Garmany (left) and comedian Joe Piscopo to raise nearly $90,000 for cystic fibrosis research at a fundraiser held at Garmany’s Red Bank clothing store September 8.
The cocktail event was the second organized at the store on behalf of the Boomer Esiason Foundation. Additional photos may be view on the Garmany Facebook page.
RED BANK: A CUP OF TEA AND SYMPHONY
Erika Sayar (left) and Oksana Sorochan are joined by Jessica Kortenhaus in a “Three for Tea at the Piano” classical recital, Sunday afternoon at St. Anthony’s.
As the calendar strikes October — and those unmistakable breaths of sweater-weather air creep beneath your front door — a spot of tea seems a jolly good idea. This Sunday, the Music Ministry of Red Bank’s St. Anthony of Padua Church brews up a pot of seasonal warmth, as the Bridge Avenue house of worship hosts “Three for Tea at the Piano.”
RED BANK: ‘LIVING LEGENDS’ HONORED AT PBC
Sister Bernice Williams, Sister Ann Wheeler and Deaconess Pauline Smith (pictured left to right in above left photo) were honored for their years of service, integrity and wisdom, as Pilgrim Baptist Church hosted its Women’s Ministry Weekend on September 23 and 24. The celebration began with a Women’s Fellowship Breakfast on Saturday, and highlights of the Sunday service included The Women’s Day Choir and sermonic messages by Minister Cheron Whittaker and Minister Diane Watson-Kendal, after which the Men’s Ministry at PBC provided a full course dinner for all Women and Girls in attendance.
RED BANK: ‘MARK FELT’ SCREENING AT BOW TIE
Follow the Movie: Liam Neeson stars in “Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House,” which gets a sneak preview screening in Red Bank Thursday.
“Follow the money,” said the shadowy figure known as Deep Throat to reporter Bob Woodward (Robert Redford), in the fact-based thriller All the President’s Men.
Many years later, the informant who helped break open the Watergate investigation was revealed to be former FBI associate director W. Mark Felt,subject of a new bio-drama that stars Liam Neeson and screens in a special sneak-preview showing this Thursday at Red Bank’s Bow Tie Cinemas.
RED BANK: OYSTERFEST IS PARTY TIME
The soulful vocals of Remember Jones, below, add to to the vibe when Guinness Oysterfest returns for an eighth annual stand Sunday.
While efforts are underway to restore oyster populations in the local waterways that once boasted them in abundance, Red Bank celebrates the opening of oyster season by, well, opening a few thousand oysters — not to mention a beverage or two.
RED BANK: A HOT MIC AT WOMAN’S CLUB
For years, music lovers here in the borough that birthed Basie have enjoyed something of a best kept secret exclusive to Red Bank: the “Reckless Steamy Nights” series of house party concerts, hosted on the last Friday of the month at the Woman’s Club of Red Bank (aka the old Anthony Reckless Estate). While those presentations by the Jersey Shore Jazz and Blues Foundation have become the stuff of legend, the third Friday of the month has been gathering its share of buzz in recent times — and on September 22, the JSJBF offers up another next-gen look to the future of roots music, with the latest in a slate of Youth Open Mic events.
ON THE GREEN: TWO TICKETS ON THE AISLE
Joseph York (The Prince), Alison Levier (Cinderella) and Gina Teschke (Little Red) are among the storybook characters going “Into the Woods,” when Phoenix Productions stages the Sondheim musical at Red Bank’s Count Basie Theatre. (Photos courtesy Tom Martini)
On a weekend that marks the official curtain-up for Two River Theater’s season-opening production of A Raisin in the Sun, two of the area’s longest established community stage companies are offering up something for those who get a thrill from first-nighting — with fresh local looks at a couple of Broadway favorites from the 1980s and 1990s.
When last we looked in on Red Bank’s own Phoenix Productions, the resident theatrical troupe of the Count Basie Theatre was marking its turf with a revisit to West Side Story — an early success for the young lyricist Stephen Sondheim, and an indicator of great things to come. When the company’s 2017 season resumes this Friday, September 15, it will once again look to the Sondheim playbook — and to the storybook realm of the Brothers Grimm — with a musical journey Into the Woods.
RED BANK: RAISIN’ A FAMILY @ TWO RIVER
Crystal A. Dickinson and Brandon J. Dirden share the stage in the season opening production of ‘A Raisin in the Sun.’ (Photo by Lisa Campbell)
While it doesn’t claim anything resembling a formal “stock company” of actors and other creative types, Red Bank’s professional Two River Theater Company has been more than happy to foster some mutually beneficial relationships with a number of recurring players — perhaps none more so than Brandon J. Dirden, the Tony-nominated, Obie-winning stage-screen talent who’s made himself quite comfortable on Bridge Avenue, even as his star ascended on television (The Americans) and Broadway (All the Way, in which he appeared as no less iconic a presence than Martin Luther King Jr.).
RED BANK: GODDESSES FROM BABYLON
The breathtaking paintings of Iraqi artist Saadi Babely go on display at the Oyster Point Hotel starting with a reception Thursday.
He hails from no less storied a place than Babylon — and we’re not talking Long Island. As a professor at Baghdad University and a member of the Iraq Freedom Art Movement, Saadi Babely escaped the regime of Saddam Hussein and its program of persecution of citizens involved in the arts, and would lose two of his siblings to Saddam’s troops. Educated in the United States, he made his way to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and eventually back to America, where the mythological figure of the Babylonian goddess Ishtar would once again take flight in his paintings.
Inspired by the deep history of his homeland while remaining contemporary in style and theme, Babely’s paintings are the subject of the latest art installation at Red Bank’s Oyster Point Hotel — Goddesses: An Art Collector Shares His Bounty. The exhibit — one of two debuting in town during the coming evenings — opens with a public-welcome reception this Thursday.
ON THE GREEN: ONE ‘ANGRY HOUSE PAINTER’
The Guild of Creative Art mounts a solo show spotlighting works by Paul Hansen this weekend.
Even taking into consideration the generally angry tone of public discourse these days, it’s curiously refreshing to read an artist’s statement that centers around the claim, “art is dead.” And while Paul Hansen goes on to clarify that “art form is everywhere” — including a painted door, a well-swept floor, a rocking chair, and sanding with the grain — he’s not shy about professing that “the combination of years of breathing paint fumes and Viking DNA has brought us to my next show, the ‘Angry House Painter.'”
The solo-show installation of that name takes to the walls of Shrewsbury’s Guild of Creative Art beginning tonight, ushering in an artful interlude that also boasts the continuation of some fascinating featured shows at Detour Gallery and the Monmouth Museum.
RED BANK: BASIE EXPANSION BEGINS
The Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank kicked off a $20 million expansion project Friday morning with the demolition of an adjoining building that in recent months housed its Performing Arts Academy, at the corner of Momnmouth and Pearl streets.
AN RBR SR. GOES TO HARVARD AND RUTGERS
Brad Chavero of Red Bank, a student at RBR’s Academy of Engineering, stands in front of Harvard University, where he was able to attend a very competitive camp for advanced math students this summer. He also spent a month at the Rutgers’ campus for the Governor’s School of Engineering and Technology.
Press release from Red Bank Regional High School
While the American Dream may seem a futile quest for some today, first generation American Brad Chavero, a top student and member of the Academy of Engineering at Red Bank Regional High School, is determined to take advantage of every opportunity presented to him to succeed.
This summer, Brad was able to attend not just one, but two very prestigious programs to further his educational experiences. In July, Brad was selected as one of only 72 students in New Jersey to attend the Governor’s School of Engineering and Technology at Rutgers at B.E.S.T. (Busch, Engineering, Science and Technology) Hall. No sooner had Brad returned home from his Rutgers’ camp than he and his father set out the next day to attend a second two-week camp for advanced math students — this one on the Cambridge, MA campus of Harvard University.
RED BANK: A CURTAIN-RAISIN’ FREE BBQ
Red Bank’s own blues specialist Gary Wright takes it to the Two River Theater on Thursday for a “block party” previewing the upcoming production of ‘A Raisin in the Sun.’ (Photo by Terri Walliczek.)
When the folks at Two River Theater Company launch a new slate of mainstage shows next month, they’ll be bringing in the 2017-2018 season with a fresh look at a genuine American classic — A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 drama of a black Chicago family’s struggle to achieve their dreams.
Before the “raisin” of the curtain, however, the Red Bank institution will be raisin’ the roof this Thursday evening with a community “block party,” a public-welcome affair that boasts live music, dancing, food and a a meet-and-greet opportunity with cast members from the show that opens officially on September 15.