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State Theatre New Jersey presents Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band on October 2nd

(NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ) -- State Theatre New Jersey presents Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band as part of the Ledbetter Heights 30th Anniversary Tour on Friday, October 2, 2026 at 7:30pm. Tickets start at $52.



SOPAC's Herb + Milly Iris Gallery Presents unveiled26, Celebrating the Artists of the 23rd Annual Studio Tour SOMA

(SOUTH ORANGE, NJ) -- South Orange Performing Arts Center (SOPAC) presents unveiled26, an exhibition featuring works by artists from South Orange and Maplewood, opening Thursday, September 17, at the Herb + Milly Iris Gallery. The exhibition will remain on view through November 8, 2026.



Daily Edition 09-02-26

Here is the morning update from New Jersey's arts newswire. We regularly publish between 8-15 new articles and news reports each day. Nobody covers the Arts throughout the Garden State like New Jersey Stage!



Princeton Folk Music Society presents Rakish on September 18th

(PRINCETON, NJ) -- The Princeton Folk Music Society presents Rakish on Friday, September 18, 2026 at Christ Congregation Church in Princeton. Rakish is a duo comprising violinist Maura Shawn Scanlin and guitarist Conor Hearn. Showtime is 8:00pm.










FEATURED EVENTS


NYC Musical Marathon & Jack Dallas presents H. B. W. B.
Humor, Babes, Wisdom, Brevity

Wednesday, September 02, 2026 @ 7:00pm
Divinity Hall @ Centennial AME Zion Church
Closter, NJ

H. B. W. B. -  Humor, Babes, Wisdom, Brevity

 

Sun Ra Arkestra

Thursday, September 03, 2026 @ 7:30pm
McCarter Theatre Center (Berlind Theatre)
Princeton, NJ

The legendary Sun Ra Arkestra returns with exuberant cosmic jazz — a stirring blend of big‑band swing, free jazz, bebop, spiritual jazz and Afrofuturist spectacle. Formed in Chicago in the mid‑1950s as the vehicle for the visionary composer Sun Ra, the Arkestra has spanned seven decades, touring the globe and inspiring generations with its bold, otherworldly sound.



A pioneer of early synthesizer use and the free‑jazz movement of the 1960s, Sun Ra combined musical innovation with a spiritual mission—using positive vibrations and music to uplift the universe. The Arkestra’s theatrical live shows fuse space‑age improvisation, singing, dancing, chanting and Afro‑pageantry, and helped define Afrofuturism in music and performance.



 

Flawless

Thursday, September 03, 2026 @ 7:30pm
Premiere Stages - Bauer Boucher Theatre Center
Union, NJ

A writer and an AI software designer battle to create the next great play in this cautionary tale about the impending intersection of technology and creativity.

 

Mei Semones

Friday, September 04, 2026 @ 7:30pm
McCarter Theatre Center (Berlind Theatre)
Princeton, NJ

Mei Semones is a Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter and guitarist crafting jazz-inflected indie pop in both Japanese and English. Drawing on her background in jazz guitar and her Japanese heritage, she blends inventive harmonies, intricate rhythms, and bilingual lyricism into a sound that is both intimate and exploratory. 



 

Your Lips Never Left Mine – Online for 24 Hours and In-Person at 7PM

Friday, September 04, 2026 @ 7:00pm
NJ Film Festival
New Brunswick, NJ

A young woman is hired by a finance couple to tutor their son at their summer lake house, and finds herself increasingly enmeshed in the undisclosed darkness of their past.

 

Flawless

Friday, September 04, 2026 @ 7:30pm
Premiere Stages - Bauer Boucher Theatre Center
Union, NJ

A writer and an AI software designer battle to create the next great play in this cautionary tale about the impending intersection of technology and creativity.

 

Flawless

Saturday, September 05, 2026 @ 3:00pm
Premiere Stages - Bauer Boucher Theatre Center
Union, NJ

A writer and an AI software designer battle to create the next great play in this cautionary tale about the impending intersection of technology and creativity.

 

Flawless

Saturday, September 05, 2026 @ 7:30pm
Premiere Stages - Bauer Boucher Theatre Center
Union, NJ

A writer and an AI software designer battle to create the next great play in this cautionary tale about the impending intersection of technology and creativity.

 

Mike Zito

Saturday, September 05, 2026 @ 7:30pm
Lizzie Rose Music Room
Tuckerton, NJ

From his childhood in St. Louis to the global blues-rock circuit, Mike Zito has always kept it real. He began playing guitar at age five and by his late teens was a fixture on the St. Louis music scene. For Zito, honesty, authenticity, and integrity aren’t just part of the brand, they’re the foundation. “I have nothing to hide; it seems my honesty is what people relate to most,” he once told Vintage Guitar.

 

Clan of the Painted Lady - Online for 24 Hours!

Saturday, September 05, 2026 @ 12:00am
NJ Film Festival
New Brunswick, NJ

The 45th Bi-Annual New Jersey Film Festival will be taking place between September 4-October 4, 2026. The Festival will be a hybrid as we will be presenting it online as well as doing select in-person screenings at Rutgers University. Almost all the films will be available virtually via Video on Demand for 24 hours on their show date. VOD start times are at 12 Midnight Eastern USA. Each General Admission Ticket or Festival Pass purchased is good for both the virtual and the in-person shows when both are offered. This program is only available Online for 24 hours on this show date!

 





EVENT PREVIEWS

ART | COMEDY | DANCE | FILM | MUSIC | THEATRE | COMMUNITY | KIDS

To narrow results by date, categories,
or region of New Jersey click here.
(RIVERSIDE, NJ) -- Masquerade Theatre presents The Long Story Short Play Festival on Thursday, September 3, 2026 at 7:30pm.  Come celebrate the birthday of local playwright Amber Kusching and watch a collection of new plays written by the local theatre community.

(PITMAN, NJ) -- Broadway Theatre of Pitman presents The Bodyguard, The Musical from September 4-27, 2026. This is a thrilling, romantic musical that combines high-stakes suspense with unforgettable music based on the Warner Bros. film screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan.

(LAMBERTVILLE, NJ) -- Music Mountain Theatre presents The Cher Show weekends from September 4-27, 2026. This powerhouse musical celebrates the legend that is Cher, from her humble childhood to her teen pop stardom, to her celebrated film career and her evolution as a rock goddess.

(HADDON TOWNSHIP, NJ) -- Ritz Theatre Company presents La Gringa by Carmen Rivera weekends from September 4-20, 2026 in their intimate black box space. Directed by Edwin “Rico” Santiago, the play is about María Elena Garcia, a young Puerto Rican woman born and raised in New York City, travels to Puerto Rico for the first time during Christmas, hoping to connect with her roots and find a sense of belonging.

(MADISON, NJ) -- The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey (STNJ) presents Edward Albee's landmark American masterpiece Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? from September 5–27, 2026 at the F. M. Kirby Shakespeare Theatre on the campus of Drew University.







LATEST FEATURES

ART | COMEDY | DANCE | FILM | MUSIC | THEATRE | COMMUNITY | KIDS



Your Lips Never Left Mine is a modern mystery/thriller, with traces of neo-noir, and features many of the nuances of classic horror films. Making his feature directorial debut, Matthew Kozlark, delivers an exhilarating story with lots of twists and turns that is sure to leave the viewer on the edge of their seat, anticipating what will happen or be revealed next.



Migration is often discussed in terms of the places people leave and the places they eventually call home, but Clan of the Painted Lady, directed by Jennifer Chiu, is more interested in everything that happens in between. The documentary follows Chiu as she reconnects with her Hakka identity and traces her family history stretching across China, India, and Canada. Born in India and raised in Canada, Chiu grew up mostly separated from her father, who spent much of his life in Kolkata, India. What begins as a personal search into her own family eventually becomes a larger exploration of migration, cultural loss, and what it takes to keep a culture alive across generations.



In 2025, Cherlyn Hsing-Hsin Liu, an artist, filmmaker, and writer whose work is experimental, conceptual, avant-garde, and philosophic, began working with an antique hand-cranked projector from 1909, and this experience led her to reflect on the evolution of film and experiment with the process, which included painting by hand directly on the film. She treated the film not as individual frames, but as hundreds of feet of scroll paintings that flowed before her eyes as the gears in the projector were turned by her own hand. She described the feeling as a boat sailing, or the wind singing. The title of the film is derived from an old Chinese anecdote.”Having heard the wind pass by countless times, one has finally come to realize the landscape of life, the Dao of life.”



(MONTCLAIR, NJ) -- Outpost in the Burbs presents Fred Tackett and Scott Sharrard (from Little Feat) on Friday, December 11, 2026 at the First Congregational Church (40 South Fullerton Avenue) in Montclair. Doors are at 7:00pm; showtime is 8:00pm.







LATEST COLUMNS


Makin Waves Song of the Week: "Listen for a Moment" by The Beagles with Joy

The Makin Waves Song of the Week is "Listen for a Moment," the title track and second single of the latest LP from Princeton-based The Beagles with Joy.


Rock On! This Week's Sound Bites... 08/27/2026

"John and I started the band," said Scuffletown guitarist and founding member Marc Carraway, "We've been playing together for 28 years primarily as a duo but we also bring other folks in and Matty is our go to third man for many of our tours and big shows. So, we started 28 years ago as an acoustic duo with guitar, vocal, harmonica, accordion and flute and we've been going strong in the Charlottesville area ever since."


Makin Waves Song of the Week: "Tide and the Moon" by Cory Blair

The Makin Waves Song of the Week is "Tide and the Moon" from "Midheaven," the debut EP of Asbury Park singer-songwriter Cory Blair.

* Events This Week in New Jersey

* This Week in Music

* This Week in Theatre

* Top 15 Most Read Stories from the Past Week




Daily Edition 09-02-26

Here is a look at the articles published yesterday. The Daily Edition comes out Monday through Friday with a recap of articles published Friday through Sunday on Mondays.