A selection from Middletown High School North’s awards-dominating production of Les Miserables, performed onstage at the Count Basie Center Wednesday night.
Press release from the Count Basie Center for the Arts
The 18th annual Basie Awards, honoring excellence and achievement in Monmouth County high school theatre, drew a capacity crowd to historic Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank Wednesday night.
The Basie acquired this onetime residence in the professional office zone. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Less than two years after completing a $25 million expansion, the Count Basie Center for the Arts has added to its Red Bank real estate holdings.
But the nonprofit theater has no plans to seek an exemption from property taxes on the newly acquired site, a spokesman told redbankgreen.
Bruce Springsteen arriving at the Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank Friday.
Phoenix Productions’ home at 56 Chestnut Street was painted over with a two-story mural last month. (Photo by Allan Bass. Click to enlarge.)
Press release from the Count Basie Center for the Arts
The Count Basie Center for the Arts and Red Bank-based Phoenix Productions intend to merge, allowing the community theatre company to officially become part of the organization which has hosted its productions for more than 30 years, the two nonprofits announced Tuesday.
Press release from Count Basie Theatre
The Count Basie Center for the Arts has been approved for a $100,000 Grants for Arts Projects award to support mindALIGNED, the organization’s collective impact initiative in the areas of professional development for educators, creative teaching strategies, artist residencies and arts experiences.
For several months, posters outside the pandemic-idled Bow Tie Cinemas have read: “This is not a Hollywood ending. This is a Red Bank beginning.” (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Despite facing an uncertain post-pandemic future itself, Red Bank’s Count Basie Center for the Arts has added a two-screen movie theater to its portfolio.
The entertainment juggernaut has taken over the former Bow Tie Cinemas venue on White Street, the Basie said in an announcement Monday.
The Red Bank Holiday Express concert and Town Lighting is on for its 27th annual showing under what appear to be seasonally ideal conditions Friday night.
Details are below.
The Monmouth Conservatory of Music’s new home, at 65 Chestnut Street, features a giant mural on the facade. Below, violin teacher Bettina Forbes in the new building. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Having completed its absorption of the Monmouth Conservatory of Music, the Count Basie Center for the Arts gave the classical-music school its own home in Red Bank Monday.
The new name, Hackensack Meridian Health Theatre, applies to the historic performance space, officials said. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
It may always be best known to locals as ‘the Basie,’ but Red Bank’s oldest and most prominent entertainment venue is nothing if not prolific with monikers.
On Friday, yet another new one went up on the Monmouth Street marquee that bears the name of the town’s most famous son.
Comedian Jon Stewart brought some star power to lunchtime at the Count Basie Center for the Arts Wednesday.
Jon Stewart, nursing an injured left arm, at the Count Basie Theatre in 2012 for an appearance with news anchor Brian Williams. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Six years after a packed-house appearance, satirist and Red Bank homeowner Jon Stewart plans a return to stage of the Count Basie Center for the Arts this month, the theater announced Wednesday.
Christian Brothers Academy’s ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ presentation at the Basie Awards Wednesday night.
Winners were announced [Wednesday] evening at the 13th annual BASIE AWARDS, honoring excellence in high school theater in Monmouth County.
The rollout of the new name will begin immediately, theater officials said. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Marking the start of a new chapter — and the end of that whole ‘theater or theatre?’ conundrum — Red Bank’s Count Basie Theatre has been rebranded the Count Basie Center for the Arts, officials said Monday.
The name reflects the 92-year-old venue’s present and future as a “campus,” where performance art is learned, developed and staged, said Basie chief executive officer Adam Philipson. More →
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. More →
A sold-out concert in memory of late Smithereens singer and songwriter Pat DiNizio will be livestreamed from the Count Basie Theatre Saturday, the Red Bank venue announced Tuesday.
For the second consecutive year, Red Bank’s Count Basie Theatre was the top-grossing theater in New Jersey in 2017 — and 24th among theaters its size worldwide — according to an announcement by the theater.
The Count Basie Theatre will go ahead with a planned January 13 concert despite the death last week of Smithereens lead singer Pat DiNizio, the Red Bank venue announced Monday.
Two days after the Count Basie Theatre announced that the Red Bank venue would unveil a new ‘club’ format with a January 13 concert by the Smithereens, the band’s lead singer has died, according to a Tuesday post on the band’s website.
The domed ceiling of the Count Basie Theatre. Below, Linda and Jay Grunin.
“Giving Tuesday,” founded in 2012 by New York City’s 92nd St. YMCA and the United Nations Foundation, was originally a “response to commercialism and consumerism” during the holiday season. It has since turned into an international day of giving.
Next Tuesday, Nov. 28, the nonprofit Count Basie Theatre will join forces with 94.3 The Point and The Jay and Linda Grunin Foundation for a day-long, live broadcast from the Basie to raise funds for the Veterans Tickets Foundation, or Vet Tix.
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.
Dozens of local politicians and players in the arts world turned out for the event. Below, Basie board members Steven Van Zandt and his wife, Maureen Van Zandt. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A $23 million expansion of Red Bank’s Count Basie Theatre formally got underway Wednesday, beginning what’s expected to be a 20-month endeavor to turn the Vaudeville-era venue into a powerhouse for live performance and arts education.
The aim, musician and actor Steven Van Zandt told an al fresco gathering, is “to make Red Bank an example to the rest of the county of what it is possible to do” in elevating the arts.
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.
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.
The classic-rock conservatory kids of the Count Basie’s Rockit! program hit the Basie boards Saturday with a salute to the Summer of Love.
It goes without saying that none of the dynamic young vocalists and instrumentalists of Rockit! at the Basie were around for 1967’s fabled Summer of Love — and chances are excellent that few if any of their parents were, either. So perhaps their grandparents could tell them a thing or two about life a half a century ago, when the air was charged with ready-or-not change and momentum, not to mention patchouli oil.
Of course, you didn’t have to be there with flowers in your hair to recognize that the year was a pivotal one for the popular culture in general, and a fast-maturing rock music in particular. So when the kids from Rockit! take to the famous stage of the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank this Saturday evening, they’ll be channeling the spirit of the era’s most game-changing album — and welcoming an in-the-flesh veteran of a genuine hit-making institution.
The Count Basie’s free summer film series continues on Tuesday with screenings of ‘In the Heat of the Night’ and Guardians of the Galaxy.’
While the venerable venue once known as the Carlton can trace its cinematic lineage way back to the silent-screen age, the grand auditorium of Red Bank’s Count Basie Theatre put in many decades of service giving the local moviegoing audience what it couldn’t always get at home — from glorious technicolor and stereophonic sound to that all-important enticer known as air conditioning.