Trenton Renaissance

Spring Forward fills New Jersey’s capital city with play readings, poetry and art.

By: Scott Morgan

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TIMEOFF/MARK CZAJKOWSKI
Poet and storyteller Luray Gross will read at the State Museum Auditorium April 17 as part of the arts and literary festival, Spring Forward.


   The scene was springtime, Trenton 2004, in a downtown so ripe with latent inflorescence, the trees were set to pop like champagne corks. Color was about to be everywhere. Hemlines were about to shrink. Sunbeams were about to thaw the weathered, wintered world. And because of all this stuff, well wasn’t it just the perfect moment to try something new?
   So there they were, inside the walls of the capital city’s oldest cultural pantheon. The poets lurching from their solitude; the playwrights shaking the dialogue from their pens. They had come to the New Jersey State Museum on an experiment and walked out as pioneers, really. Nobody had ever quite done what they did. At least not to this degree. Not in the capital city. And never in the infancy of spring.
   In 2004, the Spring Forward arts and literary festival took a shot at connecting area writers, playwrights and visual artists with the city of Trenton, with audiences and with each other. And it worked, as far as the festival’s Trenton-born originator, Daniel Aubrey, is concerned; worked because artists came and audiences saw and audiences listened.
   But, perhaps more tellingly, Mr. Aubrey knows it worked because there is a Spring Forward II. It, like its predecessor, is happening downtown. So you want to know what Spring Forward is. Well, according to the event’s organizers, it is "a celebration of new art and opportunities in New Jersey’s capital city." More specifically, it is a free, three-day event in and around the State Museum designed to highlight new works by some of the area’s most talented writers and visual artists. The goal, says Mr. Aubrey, is to generate artist and audience participation to strengthen the presence of the creative arts in Trenton.
   The event kicks off April 16 at the State Museum Gallery with a reading of "A Trumpet Sounds," a new play by local writer Pablo Medina, followed by an exhibition of art works-in-progress. More reading will follow at Gallery 125 on South Warren Street and the RF Gallery on West Lafayette Street later that afternoon.
   On Sunday, at the State Museum Auditorium, there will be more poetry and play readings featuring works from Mercer County Community College’s Late Night Series poets and Trenton playwright William Mastrosimone. Members of the public will get to meet more than two dozen guest poets during an afternoon festival reading. Things conclude Monday evening at the Artworks building on Everett Alley with a workshop led by the Trenton Artists Workshop Association, "Opportunities for Artists: New Resources for a New Era." The workshop will be led by Don Ehman of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and will feature professional artists including Ann Marie Miller and Mel Leipzig.
   The importance of holding the events in Trenton, says Mr. Aubrey, is that Trenton is a center, a hub, and an important historic and artistic community, and, frankly, it deserves the presence of art.
   "Trenton is a mythic city in a way," he says. "Trenton is a great place to come into… but people are not used to coming here all the time."
   So why spring? Easy answer from Mr. Aubrey — because autumn is a sardine can of stuff to do. Every events page in every newspaper in the country is stacked with listings for art shows and corn mazes and township festivals built around bountiful crops. But springtime? Plenty of room to showcase art and literature, and probably just in time.
   "After winter," Mr. Aubrey says, "You want to get out. Do something different."
   Mr. Aubrey’s more philosophical answer — springtime is birth. It is fresh and new. And if there is one thing he likes, it’s something different. He likes new ideas and he encourages something you haven’t really seen (or heard) before.
   Which brings us to what Mr. Aubrey wants from Spring Forward II, and beyond. Quite simply, this: "I want people to care about this."
   And he wants quality. He wants bold ideas to challenge people when they come to see and hear what artists and writers have to say. And if that comes at the expense of the bottom line, then darn the bottom line.
   "I’m not looking to see how many people we can shove into a building," he says. "This is not an event that will draw thousands. People are going to have to work on this a little bit. I know that’s counter to mainstream mentality."
   Then again, the bottom line is not really a concern anyway. As Doylestown, Pa., writer/poet/storyteller Luray Gross puts it, "It’s not that (this event) takes money. It takes what I would call ‘casual concentrated energy.’"
   Of course, the founders of Spring Forward make no effort to hide the simple fact that this is an event for artists as much as one for audience. In the end, Ms. Gross says, Spring Forward is not just about the show, it is about the connection. Artist to city, artist to idea, artist to audience and, of course, artist to artist.
   "We often know each other in little realms," Ms. Gross says of the arts community. "But we don’t always get the chance to share our ideas. That’s what this is all about."
Spring Forward II kicks off at the New Jersey State Museum, 225 W. State St., Trenton, April 16, 2 p.m. Readings from U.S. 1 Poets take place at Gallery 125, 125 S. Warren St., 3 p.m. Judith McNally will read monologues and dialogues at the RF Gallery, 46 W. Lafayette St., 4 p.m. A series of readings April 17 begins with poetry from the Late Night Series Poets at 12:15 p.m., followed by a reading of William Mastrosimone’s new play, Eulogy for a Sleepwalker, at 1 p.m. Guest poets from the Kelsey Review, including Luray Gross, New Jersey State Council on the Arts fellows and poets from NJSCA Writers Project, will read at 2:30 p.m. Sunday’s events take place at the State Museum Auditorium, 205 W. State St. Events conclude April 18, 6:30 p.m., with the "Opportunities for Artists" workshop at Artworks, 19 Everett Alley. Free admission to all events. For information, call (609) 599-1215.