Summertime in New Brunswick and the Livin' Is Easy, and So Is the Music

By Bruce Chadwick
originally published: 08/03/2023

The annual New Brunswick Heart Festival, a popular summer time arts gathering, has survived just about everything. It even survived the Pandemic!

Last year, the third Heart Festival attracted over 1,100 music and arts fans in the city in central New Jersey and could attract 2,000 or more next summer. It is on its way to earning a spot on the New Jersey arts calendar.

Pandemic? What Pandemic?

“Getting through the festival in the Pandemic was difficult, but we made it. Last year, sort of post pandemic, the Heart Festival did even better. People wanted to be entertained and nothing, apparently, was going to stop them,” said Kelly Blithe, an official of the festival.

The fourth Heart Festival is Saturday, August 12 and it promises to be the biggest and the best ever.

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The main part of the Festival will be held on Monument Square, in the heart of the city in front of the State Theatre and the New Brunswick Arts Center. Some of the festival activities are held on nearby Morris Street. The Festival opens at 3:00pm on August 12 and continues until 6:00pm.

“Last year’s Heart Festival pleased everybody. Our goal was an arts festival that would entertain whole familiy, kids as well as parents, It was a success from every point of view. Families loved it, couples loved it... everybody,” said Kelly Blithe.

“People asked me after the festival what we achieved, what we got done and I told them all one word - awareness. All those 1,100 people who came here last year learned a great deal about the arts groups in New Brunswick and Middlesex County. They learned a lot about our theaters, dance organizations and music groups. Lots of theater things, too,”  said Ms. Blithe.

There will be several new groups at the Festival this year including LMNOP, a rhythm and blues band,  the Inspira Dance Company and Omar Edwards, a tap dancer. There will also be Queena and a live poetry reading exposition. In addition there will be storytelling about New Brunswick’s Livingston Avenue.

“One street, right? Yet the stories are so different,” said Ms. Blithe.

“We try to bring in different kinds of talent each year. These three are all entertaining and yet very different from each other. The State Theatre is very interesting, too,” said Ms. Blithe.

They will be joined by numeous other performing grouos and there will be places for visual art, too. Vendors will serve food and drinks.

Tickets are free.

In addition to learning a great deal about theaters in the area, visitors can take a backstage tour of the State Theatre (three during the day, all led by the state theater’s CEO Sarah Chaplin).

“People love to see how a professional theater operates,” said Ms. Blithe. “We all sit out there in the audience and watch the shows, but never get behind the scenes.  These tours do that for you.  You get a chance to see how a theater works from behind the curtain. People are amazed to see how it is all accomplished.”

Blithe is always impressed about how people get to the festival in New Brunswick.

“One of the things that amazes me about the festival is that we get people here from pretty far away and they all tell us that because New Brunswick is so centrally located in the state, the trip here is just a half hour or so,” said Blithe.

The festival’s goal? Permanence.

“We’d like to present it each summer and see it grow each summer. It involves a lot of arts groups and they all work on it all year. Right now, as an example, at our meetings we are talking about the festival next year,” said Ms. Blithe.

She pauses for a moment.

“I think that over the years, the festival can grow. Teenagers from this year will come back next year, the year after that and the year after that,” she said. “Years from now, they’ll bring their own kids.”

About the author:

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Bruce Chadwick worked for 23 years as an entertainment writer/critic for the New York Daily News. Later, he served as the arts and entertainment critic for the History News Network, a national online weekly magazine. Chadwick holds a Ph. D in History and Cultural Studies from Rutgers University. He has written 31 books on U.S. history and has lectured on history and culture around the world. He is a history professor at New Jersey City University.

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