November 20, 2019

Everything Happens in Princeton: Thoughts On George Kennan and Marie Yovanovitch

By Stuart Mitchner

God has sent his creatures into the world with arms long enough to reach anywhere if they could be put to the trouble of extending them.
—Thomas Chatterton 1752-1770

It seems that the long arms of Wordsworth’s “marvelous boy” have reached into the second decade of the 21st century. While I’ve been unable to learn whether the saying attributed to Chatterton was of his own making or simply, as one source says, “one of his favorite maxims,” the very idea that the authorship is in question accords with his legend. If he seems an unlikely time traveler, he has a claim on this particular day, having been born in the city of Bristol on November  20, 1752. It’s also hard to imagine a figure from the past more relevant to the hoax-and-witch-hunt chaos of this fake-news-conspiracy-theory-tainted age than the 15-year-old who invented a 15th-century poetry-writing priest named Thomas Rowley, fabricating Rowley’s Middle English manuscripts artfully enough to convince certain literary authorities that his forgeries were authentic.

Better Than Marvelous

Any thought of devoting an entire column to Chatterton came to an abrupt end last Friday. The marvelous boy was no match for the marvelous woman who, in the words of the New York Times, had been “Plunged Into the War Zone of U.S. Politics.”

Not that I would have called Marie Yovanovitch “marvelous,” a word I seldom use. She was better than that, better than the infectious superlative William Wordsworth and Cole Porter put into the transcendental conversation. Was she beautiful? strong? quietly compelling? She was better. She was sympathetic. The beauty was in her bearing, her poise, her integrity, the way she made her case, told her story, weathered the patronizing tone of interrogators doing their polite best to avoid taking her seriously.  more

Passage Theatre Continues its Solo Flights Series with “Sorta Rican”; Recording Artist Miss Angelina Brings a Musical Odyssey to Her Home State

“SORTA RICAN”: Passage Theatre has continued its Solo Flights series with “Sorta Rican.” Written and performed by Miss Angelina (above) and directed by Laura Grey, the musical monologue depicts the performer’s search for her cultural identity. (Photo by Rachel Kenaston)

By Donald H. Sanborn III

Passage Theatre has continued its Solo Flights series with Sorta Rican, which was presented November 15-17. Written and performed by actor and recording artist Miss Angelina, this autobiographical monologue is a musical odyssey that humorously follows the singer’s quest to connect with her identity as a Latina.

Miss Angelina is a rapper who has released two albums, and has costarred in a music web series that has been featured on the television series American Latino. She has been touring with Sorta Rican since 2015, presenting it at venues such as the Hard Rock Café (San Juan), Broadway Comedy Club (NYC), and Improv Olympic Theater (LA).

The show itself is a tour. The journey starts with the monologist’s upbringing as part of an immigrant family in Little Silver, New Jersey. From there we follow her to New York City (where she lives in Washington Heights), Miami, and San Juan. These all are places that Miss Angelina visits in the course of a search for her cultural heritage. Along the way she encounters disparate preconceptions about what it means to be a Puerto Rican and/or a Latina. more

Holiday Tradition

Roxey Ballet presents Mark Roxey’s production of “Nutcracker” at The College of New Jersey’s Kendall Theater in Ewing November 28-December 8. Santa will visit, and Princeton Pro Musica will perform at intermission. The November 30, 1 p.m. performance is sensory-friendly for those with special needs. Visit www.roxeyballet.org for more details and ticket information.

Scrooge is Back

McCarter Theatre’s production of “A Christmas Carol” returns December 10-29. Cowering at the top of the steps is Greg Wood, who returns to play Ebeneezer Scrooge, shown here with Adele Batchelder in the 2018 production. Visit mccarter.org for tickets. (Photo by Mark Garvin)

“Delayed Choice” Exhibit At PHS’ Numina Gallery

“VIOLET SERIES III”: This painting by Wanyu Guo is featured in “Delayed Choice: Chinese New-Generation Female Artists,” on view through November 22 at the Numina Gallery at Princeton High School. The exhibit showcases works by 18 women artists trained at the Central Academy of Fine Arts and the Academy of Arts and Design of Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.

On view through November 22 at the Numina Gallery at Princeton High School (PHS), 151 Moore Street, “Delayed Choice: Chinese New-Generation Female Artists” is an exhibition of original fine art by 18 women artists trained at the Central Academy of Fine Arts and the Academy of Arts and Design of Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. It is the first group exhibition of young female Chinese artists in the United States.

The exhibition, which celebrates the 40th anniversary of formal U.S.-China diplomatic relations, showcases work by Jia Chu, Rui Feng, Tianshu Gong, Wanyu Guo, Nan Hu, Yanhe Liu, Ying Liu, Yiran Wang, Yu Wang, Yujing Wang, Huanpan Xie, Huichao Yang, Huimin Yang, Wen Zhang, Zijia Zhang, Qinyu Zheng, and Qianyin Zhuo.

The artists play with the concept of time and tradition. The exhibition demonstrates traditional Chinese art forms while integrating more contemporary Western styles. Each artist intertwines ideas of society, gender, and culture in their work, providing a relevant new perspective for a modern international and intercultural world. more

“Portraits of Preservation”  Exhibit at D&R Greenway

“PORTRAITS OF PRESERVATION”: Watercolor paintings by award-winning artist James Fiorentino will be featured at D&R Greenway Land Trust December 6 through February 28. The show highlights the landscapes and wildlife found on the acres and properties permanently preserved by D&R Greenway since its founding 30 years ago.

D&R Greenway Land Trust continues the celebration of its 30th year with a new, traveling exhibit, “Portraits of Preservation,” based on watercolor paintings by award-winning artist James Fiorentino. The exhibit highlights the landscapes and wildlife found on 20,865 acres and 308 properties permanently preserved by the D&R Greenway since its founding three decades ago.

The exhibit will launch on December 6 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. with an opening reception featuring an artist talk and special guests. The exhibit will remain on display at the Johnson Education Center weekdays through February 28, after which it will travel to other locations throughout Central New Jersey and surrounding states. more

“Off the Wall” Art Sale/Show at WWAC

“CACHE-CACHE, MON AMOUR”: This mixed media encaustic collage by Marla N. Powers is part of the West Windsor Arts Council’s “Off the Wall: An Affordable Art Sale,” a juried exhibition and art sale on view through December 20 at the West Windsor Arts Center in Princeton Junction.

The West Windsor Arts Council presents the work of over 100 artists in “Off the Wall: An Affordable Art Sale.” The juried exhibition is open to the public through Friday, December 20. As an affordable art sale, artwork is offered at prices from $50 to $400. Artworks may be literally taken off the wall at the time of purchase.

“This is the ninth ‘Off the Wall’ art show and it grows in quality and excitement each year,” said Aylin Green, executive director of the West Windsor Arts Center. “This was our biggest year yet in terms of the number of works submitted for consideration. The exhibition committee did a great job selecting the work. I know it was a difficult thing to do, but, ultimately, the variety of works, all priced under $400, is impressive. I’ve got my eye on two or three.”

Marla Powers’ artwork is representative of the unique art in various mediums and styles that one can see in this show. Powers’ art is influenced by her background in anthropology and her studies of the art of the Lakota people in South Dakota and the Pueblo people in New Mexico. Powers focuses on creating artwork that allows the viewer to sense the movement and energy of the subject matter. This fluidity is evident in Powers’ work cache-cache, mon amour which she created using encaustic collage and mixed media. more

November 13, 2019

Finding Shelter in Shakespeare with Harold Bloom and Ginger Baker

By Stuart Mitchner

When I was very young, I read poems incessantly because I was lonely and somehow must have believed they could become people for me.
—Harold Bloom (1930-2019), from Possessed by Memory

Strange and yet unexpectedly gratifying, to open the Times one mid-October morning, ready to read the day’s news at arm’s length, or else to sling the paper angrily aside, only to hesitate, startled by the image of Harold Bloom’s all-the-sorrow-and-wonder-of-the-ages face on the front page with the fact of his death at 89. Even so, Bloom’s presence at the top of the news lends it a touch of literary grace, bringing his “people” Hamlet and Falstaff into the fire and fury of the present. In May of this year Bloom told an interviewer, “I teach Shakespeare as scripture,” his bible being The Invention of the Human (1998), in which he envisions the “pervasive presence” of Shakespeare “here, there, and everywhere at once,” as of “a system of northern lights, an aurora borealis visible where most of us will never go.” He grounds his devotion in Falstaff: Give Me Life (2017): “The true and perfect image of life abides with him: robustly, unforgettably, forever….Disreputable and joyous, he speaks to a world that goes from violence to violence.”

On another October morning a week earlier, same kitchen setting, same hour, same newspaper, the heavy weather of a world going “from violence to violence” gives way for the death of drummer Ginger Baker at 80. While Bloom’s passing recalled the quiet, thoughtful moments I sought him out as a teacher between covers, the news about Baker made me smile remembering the night in March 1968 when I saw a man whose his hair appeared to be on fire driving a set of drums like a team of wild horses, so deep in the “torrent, tempest, and whirlwind of passion,” that if someone with prophetic knowledge had assured me that the demon flailing away as if each moment might be his last would not only live through the night but for another 51 years, I’d have thought they were mad.  more

Westminster Choir Begins 100th Anniversary  Celebration with At-Home Concert

By Nancy Plum

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Westminster Choir, the renowned ensemble took the opportunity this past weekend to remind the Princeton community of its raison d’etre. Taking a line from the poetry of W.H. Auden, the 40-voice elite chorus of Westminster Choir College presented a concert of music to “Appear and Inspire” in Bristol Chapel on Sunday afternoon, reaffirming the Choir’s rich history and its connection to American musical culture.

The cornerstone piece of the concert was Benjamin Britten’s Hymn to St. Cecilia, composed to commemorate the patron saint of music and from whose text the title of the concert was derived. Setting poetry by Auden, Britten composed the three-movement work while living in America as war was breaking out throughout Europe. Westminster Choir conductor Joe Miller took the three movements of Britten’s tribute to music and interspersed them throughout the first part of the concert, surrounding Britten’s music with standard works from the Westminster Choir repertory, in many cases featured on Westminster Choir recordings or composed by individuals connected to the Choir College. more

Bah Humbug!

“Scrooge,” a musical adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” comes to Mercer County Community College’s Kelsey Theatre in West Windsor November 22-December 1. This classic tale of the rich, stingy Ebenezer Scrooge closely follows the 1970 musical film starring Albert Finney, which won an Academy Award for music score. Tickets are $22 for adults, $20 for seniors and students. Visit www.kelseytheatre.org.

Children’s Book Illustrations At Zimmerli Art Museum

“DISCOVERY”: This illustration for the book “Discovery” by Vladimir Radunsky is part of “A Celebration of the Children’s Books of Vladimir Radunsky,” on view at the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers in New Brunswick through March 8, 2020. The exhibit features more than 50 original gouache, photo collage, and paper collage illustrations on public view for the first time.

For more than 30 years, artist Vladimir Radunsky created children’s books, combining creative narration, innovative design, and pervasive wit. The Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers now spotlights his career in “A Celebration of the Children’s Books of Vladimir Radunsky,” on view through March 8, 2020.

With support from the Avenir Foundation Endowment Fund, the exhibition features recently acquired artwork for two of the books, Because . . . and Discovery; while illustrations from The Mighty Asparagus and Mother Goose of Pudding Lane are on loan from the collection of Eugenia Radunsky, the artist’s wife. More than 50 original gouache, photo collage, and paper collage illustrations are on public view for the first time and include bilingual labels, in English and Spanish. more

D&R Greenway Features “Nature in Black and White”

“NATURE IN BLACK AND WHITE”: Linocuts by eighth-grade students at Stuart Country Day School of the Sacred Heart are now at the Olivia Rainbow Gallery, D&R Greenway Land Trust, Princeton through December 20. (Photograph by Tasha O’Neill)

D&R Greenway Land Trust’s Olivia Rainbow Gallery presents “Nature in Black and White,” an exhibit of works by eighth-grade students of Stuart Country Day School of the Sacred Heart, on view through December 20. more

November 6, 2019

Channeling Baseball at the J.D. Salinger Centennial Exhibition

By Stuart Mitchner

Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.
 —J.D. Salinger, from The Catcher in the Rye

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is how a column about last week’s World Series, Walter Johnson, Buster Keaton, and old Baron von Humboldt has landed like a well-hit, wind-blown foul ball smack on top of the typewritten manuscript of The Catcher in the Rye displayed in the New York Public Library’s J.D. Salinger centennial exhibition, which is free, if you want to know the truth, and will be on view through January 19, 2020.   

In the first place, Salinger is the only American writer you could pair with Shoeless Joe Jackson, roll the dice online, and score a winning answer, and in the second place, you’d need to read his story “The Laughing Man” about a group of kids from P.S. 165 on 109th Street called the Comanches and a “shy, gentle young man” called the Chief, who had once been “cordially invited to try out for the New York Giants’ baseball team.” According to a financial arrangement with the parents, the Chief would pick up the boys outside school in a “reconverted commercial bus” and drive them over to Central Park to play soccer or football, or, in this case, baseball. Afterward, the Chief would treat them to a running story (“it tended to sprawl all over the place”) about the adventures of the Laughing Man, “who had been kidnapped in infancy by Chinese bandits.”

The plot of the story proper turns with the arrival in the Chief’s life of a peerlessly beautiful Wellesley girl who insists on playing center field with a catcher’s mitt but is welcomed for her prowress as a hitter and speed on the bases (“She seemed to hate first base; there was no holding her there”). The hideously deformed anti-hero of the Chief’s story, his head having been twisted “several turns to the right” in a carpenter’s vise by his kidnappers, is so terrifying to behold that he wears a gossamer mask made out of poppy petals (“he reeked of opium”).

Given the setting of the centennial exhibit, you should know that on rainy afternoons, in addition to his duties as a driver, father-figure, storyteller, and coach, the Chief takes the Comanches to the Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with probably an occasional trip south to the big Beaux Arts building on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street where, as the exhibit commentary notes, Salinger spent many hours and “retained a lifelong affection for the Rose Main Reading Room.” more

Princeton Pro Musica Opens Season with All-Mozart Concert

By Nancy Plum

Despite the vast amount and popularity of liturgical music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, sacred music was not the composer’s principal interest. One would have a hard time convincing the choral field of this — two works in almost every symphonic chorus’ repertory are Mozart’s deathbed Requiem and his monumental, yet incomplete, Great Mass in C minor. The 100-voice Princeton Pro Musica opened its 2019-2020 season with the Mass this past Sunday night at Richardson Auditorium, filling the stage with singers, vocal soloists, and orchestral instrumentalists, all ably led by Pro Musica Artistic Director Ryan James Brandau. Paired with Mozart’s lively Concerto for Clarinet in A Major, the Great Mass in C minor created a program unique in the fact that these were two works Mozart composed because he wanted to, not because he had to for financial reasons.

Mozart’s music for wind instruments is universally charming and captivating. The clarinet appears to have been a particular favorite, likely due to his close friendship with fellow Masonic lodge member Anton Stadler, for whom he composed the 1789 Concerto for Clarinet. The instrument for which this work was composed was likely a basset clarinet — a standard clarinet to which was affixed an extension adding notes in the lower register. Nineteenth-century published versions of this piece adjusted the lower “extension” passages to higher octaves, in some ways making the Concerto more difficult to play. To open Sunday afternoon’s Pro Musica concert, Brandau led a chamber-sized orchestra and guest clarinet soloist Pascal Archer in a spirited performance of Mozart’s three-movement Concerto. Archer, currently acting principal clarinetist for the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, demonstrated not only his command of the instrument and the works technical demands, but also how demonic Mozart’s solo writing could be. more

Music from Roosevelt

The Roosevelt String Band plays The Pete Seeger Songbook at a concert at 2 p.m. Sunday, November 17 at Morven Museum & Garden, 55 Stockton Street. The concert is in conjunction with an exhibit exploring the history and culture of Roosevelt, New Jersey, an experimental immigrant community that has thrived since the 1930s. The exhibit is on view November 15-May 10. Tickets to the performance are $10 (free for Morven members). Visit www.morven.org for more information.

Westminster Choir Opens 100th Anniversary Season

MARKING A MILESTONE: The Westminster Choir, conducted by Joe Miller, will present a concert titled “Appear and Inspire: 100 Years of Singing” on Sunday, November 10 at 3 p.m. in Bristol Chapel on the campus of Westminster Choir College.

The Westminster Choir will present a concert titled “Appear and Inspire – 100 Years of Singing” on Sunday, November 10 at 3 p.m. in Bristol Chapel on the campus of Westminster Choir College. Tickets are $20 for adults and $15 for students and seniors and are available by phone at (609) 921-2663 or online at rider.edu/arts.

Led by conductor Joe Miller, the concert will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the ensemble’s founding in 1920, and it will feature repertoire rooted deep in the Westminster Choir’s history. A highlight will be Benjamin Britten’s Hymn to Saint Cecilia, reflecting Westminster Choir’s spirit and mission as it has “appeared and inspired” thousands of choral musicians over the past century. The program will also include the premiere of Psalm 96 “Sing to the Lord a New Song,” composed by Westminster Professor Christian Carey to celebrate the ensemble’s 100th anniversary. Speaking about the new work, Carey said, “It seemed to be an especially appropriate text to celebrate the college’s rich tradition of music-making and express hope for its continued vitality.” more

“Shallows” Exhibit at Johnson & Johnson Gallery

“LOTUS SHADOWS SHALLOWS”: This painting is featured in “Shallows: Recent Paintings by Léni Paquet-Morante,” on view November 11 through December 20 at the New Jersey Artists Series Gallery at Johnson & Johnson Corporate Headquarters in New Brunswick. The Mercerville artist also has a studio at Grounds For Sculpture.

Twenty years after her first solo exhibition in the J&J Artists Series Gallery, “Shallows: Recent Paintings by Léni Paquet-Morante,” on view November 11 through December 20 at the New Jersey Artists Series Gallery at Johnson & Johnson Corporate Headquarters in New Brunswick, offers a series of large format paintings inspired by tidal flats, flood plains, and estuaries.

Receptions are scheduled for December 6 and 18, from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. more

“Transient Brevity” at The Gallery at MCCC

“EIGHTY THREE”: This oil pastel on paper by Nicole Michaud is part of “Transient Brevity,” on view through December 19 at The Gallery at Mercer County Community College in West Windsor. The exhibition features the works of five Philadelphia artists representing a variety of media. A community reception is November 6 from 5 to 7 p.m.

The surreal, the ephemeral, and all that is fleeting awaits visitors to The Gallery at Mercer County Community College (MCCC) for the exhibition “Transient Brevity,” on display through December 19.

A community reception with the artists is November 6 from 5 to 7 p.m. in The Gallery.

“This exhibition examines the notion of ephemerality and how each of the artists chooses to represent that which is fleeting,” said Alice K. Thompson, director at The Gallery at Mercer. “The ephemeral quality of the work displayed varies from artist to artist.”

Five Philadelphia artists, representing a variety of media, take part in the exhibit. The intent of the show, Thompson said, is to bring works together from a cross-section of the visual arts community that speak both singularly and collectively. more

“Dreaming of Utopia” At Morven Museum

“IDEALIZED SCHOOL”: This work by Louis Kahn is among more than 100 objects from 25 collections featured in “Dreaming of Utopia: Roosevelt, New Jersey,” on view November 15 through May 10 at Morven Museum & Garden. An opening reception is November 14, 5:30 to 7 p.m.

Morven Museum & Garden explores the history and culture of Roosevelt, N.J. — from an experimental immigrant utopia to artist colony — with more than 100 objects from 25 collections shown together for the first time in “Dreaming of Utopia: Roosevelt, New Jersey,” on view November 15 through May 10, 2020. An opening reception is November 14, 5:30 to 7 p.m., at 55 Stockton Street.

“Roosevelt, New Jersey is an interesting iteration of the American story,” said Morven Executive Director Jill Barry. “Started as a government experiment to improve the lives of city-dwelling factory workers, the idea of a farming/factory communal utopia quickly soured, and in its place an artist-led Eden emerged. The unique canvas of a constructed modern community fostered the blossoming of a dynamic creative class in the 1950-60s that continues to echo through to modern day.” more

Contemporary Weaving at New Hope Arts Center

“ARCTIC PLANES”: This tapestry by Mary-Ann Sievert is part of “For the Love of the Loom – The Fine Art of Weaving,” on view at the New Hope Arts Center November 16 through January 5, 2020. The exhibition also features woks by Rita Romanova Gekht, Bojana Leznicki, Susan Martin Maffei, Ilona Pachler, Armando Sosa, and Betty Vera.

Seven contemporary fiber artists will be featured in “For the Love of the Loom – The Fine Art of Weaving” at the New Hope Arts Center from November 16 through January 5, 2020.

The artists — Rita Romanova Gekht, Bojana Leznicki, Susan Martin Maffei, Ilona Pachler, Mary-Ann Sievert, Armando Sosa, and Betty Vera — work with a variety of techniques, from traditional to experimental.

Though equipment may range from manually-operated to computer-assisted looms, each artist approaches weaving as an artistic medium. As vehicles for personal expression, their textiles reflect each artist’s background, influences, and individual artistic vision — whether encompassing ancestral traditions or commenting on contemporary life. more

October 30, 2019

The Poetry of Quid Pro Quo on Ezra Pound’s Birthday

By Stuart Mitchner

The people fancy they hate poetry, and they are all poets and mystics!
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, from “The Poet”

Three years ago, Ben Lerner published The Hatred of Poetry (Penguin Random House 2016), claiming that “Many more people agree they hate poetry than can agree what poetry is.” Billy Collins took a more nuanced approach in his 2007 collection, The Trouble with Poetry. Two years into this quid pro quo presidency, however, the quasi quid pro quo to hatred and trouble would seem to be Why Poetry? (Ecco paperback 2018) by Matthew Zapruder, who read at Princeton’s Lewis Center October 4.

I found out about Lerner’s book in a New York Times Op-Ed piece by Alissa Quart making a case for why Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren is wise to have a poet on her team. Noting that “poetry readership is generally up,” Quart cites a National Endowment for the Arts survey showing that almost 12 percent of American adults read poetry in 2017, up from under 7 percent in 2012.

Love it or hate it or who-cares, poetry abounds this month, beginning with the birth of Wallace Stevens (October 2) and ending with the arrival of John Keats (October 31). Along with Ezra Pound, whose birthday is today, October 30, and whose name was once synonymous with the hatred of poetry, there’s Arthur Rimbaud (October 20), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (October 21), John Berryman (October 25), and Dylan Thomas and Sylvia Plath (October 27).  more

Acclaimed British Tenor Performs Schumann Song Cycle at Richardson Auditorium

By Nancy Plum

In a three-concert series entitled “Icons of Song,” Princeton University Concerts is examining both the concept of love and ways to expand the boundaries of chamber music. Composers through the centuries have explored the ups and downs of love through the solo song genre, and in the first of the “Icons of Song” series, Princeton University Concerts presented a program of two song cycles celebrating these very ideas. Accompanied by pianist Brad Mehldau, British tenor Ian Bostridge performed a contemporary song cycle by Mehldau, as well as Robert Schumann’s lyrically Romantic Dichterliebe. Throughout the more than 25 songs which made up the two cycles, the audience at Richardson Auditorium last Tuesday night listened in rapt attention as these two esteemed performers conveyed some of the most formidable yet tender poetry in literature.

A native of London, Bostridge received his musical education in England’s finest institutions, including as a choral scholar at Westminster School and a student at St. John’s College in Oxford and Cambridge. His recordings of both opera and lieder have won major international prizes and have been nominated for 15 Grammy awards. Bostridge and Mehldau have been collaborating since 2015, with Mehldau composing several works specifically for the tenor. Mehldau’s 11-song cycle, The Folly of Desire, premiered just this past January and toured by Mehldau and Bostridge this year, set the poetry of Blake, Yeats, Shakespeare, and Goethe, among others. more

A Young Con Artist Tells His True Story in “Catch Me If You Can”; The Pennington Players Present the Broadway Musical at Kelsey Theatre

“CATCH ME IF YOU CAN”: Performances are underway for The Pennington Players’ production of “Catch Me If You Can.” Directed by Laurie Gougher, the musical runs through November 3 at the Kelsey Theatre. A bright red sweater is one of many costumes — and personas — worn by Frank Abagnale Jr. (Scott Silagy, center), as he tells the story of his many exploits, with the help of the ensemble. (Photo by Jon Cintron)

By Donald H. Sanborn III

As a con artist, Frank Abagnale Jr. gave the authorities plenty of metaphoric song and dance, so it is fitting that he gets to do so, literally, as a character onstage.

Catch Me If You Can is being presented by The Pennington Players at the Kelsey Theatre. This brash, energetic musical is based on the true story that became a hit Steven Spielberg film in 2002.

Abagnale originally detailed his exploits in his 1980 autobiography, which he authored with Stan Redding. The 2011 musical version has a flippant but amiable libretto by Terrence McNally. The music is by Marc Shaiman, and the lyrics are by Shaiman and Scott Wittman.

The score by Shaiman and Wittman is characterized by much of the jocularity and musical flavor present in their songs for Hairspray, which also is set in the 1960s. more

Westminster Kantorei Sings Traditional Anglican Service

CHAMBER CHOIR: Westminster Kantorei, conducted by Jay Carter, presents “An Evening of Choral Evensong” on Friday, November 1 at 7:30 p.m. in Bristol Chapel on the campus of Westminster Choir College.

“An Evening of Choral Evensong” is the title of a concert being presented by the chamber choir Westminster Kantorei on Friday, November 1 at 7:30 p.m. in Bristol Chapel on the campus of Westminster Choir College.

The program models a traditional Anglican service of choral evensong, aligned with the Feast of All Saints’ Day. It will be led by Kantorei’s new director, Jay Carter. The program will include works traditionally performed for All Saints’ Day, such as William Byrd’s Gaudeamus Omnes in Domino and Justorum Animae, Thomas Tallis’ Te Lucis Ante Terminum and Adrian Batten’s Magnificat and Nunc Dimitis from his fourth service. more

“Quietude” Joint Exhibit at Artists’ Gallery

“ROCKY BROOK”: Landscape paintings by Joe Kazimierczyk and photographs by Joseph Zogorski will be featured in “Quietude,” on view November 7 through December 1 at Artists’ Gallery in Lambertville. An opening reception is Saturday, November 9, 4 to 7 p.m.

Artists’ Gallery, 18 Bridge Street, Lambertville, will present “Quietude,” an exhibit of landscape paintings by Joe Kazimierczyk and photographs by Joseph Zogorski, November 7 through December 1. An opening reception is Saturday, November 9, 4 to 7 p.m.

“Quietude” is defined as the state of being calm — peacefulness, stillness, tranquility. The artwork of Kazimierczyk and Zogorski embodies this feeling as each artist finds his inspiration in the quiet and serenity of the world around us.

Kazimierczyk’s oil paintings are inspired by the scenes he encounters while exploring the mountains and forests of Northern New Jersey. An avid hiker, his work in this show focuses on the trails, rivers, and streams he finds in parks ranging from the Sourland Mountains to the Delaware Water Gap, and points in between. more