Cultural Mecca

The arts are alive and well and growing by leaps and bounds in central New Jersey.See related story:

Housing the Arts
See related story:
The Elixir of Love
By: Hilary Parker
   In answer to the familiar "What exit?" quip, central New Jerseyans are blessed with a slew of comebacks if they’re talking about the arts.
   They might say to take Exit 7A off the New Jersey Turnpike, for those traveling south, to spend a day at Hamilton’s Grounds For Sculpture. Traveling north? Exit 8 will have you headed toward McCarter Theatre and the Princeton University Art Museum. Travelers from Philadelphia won’t want to miss Exit 1 off Route 95 North to take in a show at Patriots Theater at the War Memorial, and the New Street exit off Route 18 North will have visitors on their way to theater-lined Livingston Avenue in New Brunswick.
   In truth, nearly every exit off every road leads to some artistic treasure in central New Jersey, a veritable mecca of the arts. Case in point? The more than 30 area arts organizations already registered for the upcoming Mercer County Arts Showcase on May 20, hosted at the 35-acre Grounds For Sculpture park.
   "As a member of the arts community in New Jersey, we realized the importance of the fact that if one agency can help and reach out to other agencies, the entire arts community benefits," says Bonnie Brown, membership/events manager at Grounds For Sculpture. "You can’t exist in a vacuum. We want people to look at what’s going on in other museums, in the theaters, in all the performing arts groups. It makes New Jersey dynamic and this area that we’re in… extremely dynamic."
   The May 20 event is but one opportunity for area arts organizations to join together, and a number of successful collaborations are already underway to promote the arts, and the artists, in the local communities. The Princeton Area Arts and Culture Consortium, organized through the Princeton Regional Chamber of Commerce, can boast many high-caliber members at its monthly meetings, and the Pack the House initiative has successfully launched an events calendar to reduce the number of performance conflicts, given the plethora of arts events constantly underway.
   In her nearly four years as president and chief executive officer of PRCC (she will leave her position to become Princeton University’s director of community and regional affairs May 22), Kristin Appelget saw tremendous growth in support for the arts in the area, and said the trend is only just beginning.
   "We’re at the beginning of an arts transformation," she said, citing the recent $101 million gift from Peter B. Lewis to support the arts at Princeton University. "I could even use the word ‘revolution.’"
   Paul Muldoon, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and Howard G.B. Clark ’21 University Professor in the Humanities at Princeton, is founding chairman of the new University Center for the Creative and Performing Arts. Mr. Muldoon says the UCCPA will serve the on-campus community by providing education for those with a general interest in the arts as well as more serious artists looking to pursue their endeavors in a deeper context, but it will also enrich the artistic offerings of the surrounding community.
   "There’s the sense that a university has a responsibility to its community," he says, noting that he shares with University President Shirley Tilghman "a strong, strong belief that the arts really are educative, that they help us to make sense of our lives. That’s all of us," he says, and again, more emphatically, "all of us."
   In keeping with this belief, Mr. Muldoon hopes programs offered through the university, and the UCCPA in particular, will attract even more people from the surrounding community into the cultural life at university. "The gate is open and one should come in," he says.
   Of course, the region also happens to be a long-time source of internationally recognized artists. Princeton alone can claim actor/singer Paul Robeson, architect Michael Graves and J. Seward Johnson Jr., who created Grounds For Sculpture. The popular band Blues Traveler has roots at Princeton High School, and the world is eagerly awaiting filmmaker (and West Windsor-Plainsboro High School grad) Bryan Singer’s summer release, Superman Returns.
   As Mr. Muldoon implies, however, fame and fortune are not prerequisites to merit "artist" designation, and talented residents abound in the region. The town of Roosevelt is something of an artists’ haven and areas of Trenton, with their funky architecture and ambiance, are home to myriad people happily going about their artistic business. That’s to say nothing of the thousands of non-resident artists who pass through the region each year, offering pre-concert chats before concerts at Patriots Theater, appearing on stages big and small, or giving viewers insight into their art pieces hanging in the galleries of the New Jersey State Museum in Trenton or the Hunterdon Museum of Art in Clinton.
   Some suggest the region’s artistic wealth is due to its proximity to New York and Philadelphia, others remark that perhaps those cultural hubs are just a bit too inconvenient to reach — hence the numbers of museums, theaters and galleries that sprung up in New Jersey — but whatever the explanation, it’s hard to question central New Jersey’s place on the artistic map.
   A stroll down Livingston Avenue, walking past three theaters — George Street Playhouse, the State Theatre and Crossroads Theatre — located within footsteps of one another, directly across the street from the Heldrich Plaza currently under construction, suggests that New Brunswick is one city that is helping to put the area on the map.
   "The audiences are learning that they don’t have to go to New York for great performances, they can get them right here," says Mitchell Krieger, managing director of George Street Playhouse. He praised the world-class performances offered by the three theaters all under the umbrella of the New Brunswick Cultural Center (GSP is a producing theater, State and Crossroads are mainly presenting theaters), as well as the fine restaurants and atmosphere that lends itself to a wonderful night out, close to home. "With today’s hectic lifestyle, people are more likely to partake of cultural events when they don’t have to travel too far to them."
   Speaking from his experiences living in New York, Michigan and California, Mr. Krieger says New Jersey is an interesting state in that — despite its large population of nearly 9 million people — "it has no really strong major city." He pointed to development and increasing numbers of people choosing to live in New Brunswick as evidence that New Brunswick may grow into the strong city New Jersey lacks, and said the arts are a crucial component of New Brunswick’s success.
   Nine million residents make the state a melting pot in every sense, and the central New Jersey region is culturally and artistically diverse. Here the arts flourish in all their incarnations — the prevalence of non-traditional venues successfully offering multidisciplinary programming to wide audiences is testament to this fact.
   Take the Princeton Public Library, for instance. To say the library is a place to check out books is akin to saying Rome is a good place to buy gelato; the statements may be true, but they miss the bigger picture, the vast assortment of artistic wonders in each locale.
   "What we’ve been doing is expanding our focus and also broadening our reach," said Leslie Burger, director of PPL. "There are many ways for people to learn new information and to challenge their intellect, not only through words, but it happens through the visual arts, through music. The opportunity to bring all those things together in an institution like the library that is open and accessible to all people in the community is a great merit."
   From theatrical offerings, like the "McCarter Live at the Library" series that brings prominent actors, directors and playwrights to the library to discuss the latest productions at the nearby theater, to changing exhibitions in the Community Room, the library staff is committed to providing free programming to the entire community. Partnerships with numerous area groups, such as the Arts Council of Princeton, Passage Theatre in Trenton and Global Cinema Café, serve to supplement and enhance the library’s artistic offerings.
   Ms. Burger likes to think of the library as a mini-version of the 92nd Street YMCA in New York City, constantly providing programs and events that focus on the arts, and her hope is that all people, especially those who might not otherwise have the opportunity to enjoy the region’s artistic wealth, come to view the library as an arts venue in and of itself.
   Another unconventional, albeit successful, arts provider is the Community Arts Partnership at the Peddie School. CAPPS, which has its roots in the Community Concert Association of Hightstown-East Windsor, has experienced tremendous growth since its founding in 2001.
   "It’s somewhat nontraditional in the sense of a private school housing a nonprofit arts association on campus for a substantial dialogue with the surrounding community," explained Robert Rund, founding director, and he sees the community connection as an important factor in CAPPS’ success. "The arts are one way, in a society that seems to be moving further and further away from community, it is one way to bring people together and have a common experience."
   Featuring appearances by artists just starting out and internationally renowned performers on tour, CAPPS tries to strike a balance between local and non-local artists as much as possible, said Mr. Rund. He himself travels to New York two to three times a week to stay abreast of upcoming artists, visiting smaller venues like Joe’s Pub and Blue Note as well as larger stages such as Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. Harking back to CAPPS’ educational roots, all performances are preceded by free pre-concert chats (open even to non-ticket holders) and Mr. Rund says his hope is for CAPPS to offer more and more programming off the Peddie campus to reach under-served populations in the community.
   Grounds For Sculpture, the sculpture park that is so much more, similarly reaches out to people who wouldn’t typically take advantage of an art museum.
   "What we’re trying to do here is reach out to communities and help make the connection between art and everyday life and the importance of art in everyday life," Ms. Brown says. "It’s a haven for people who maybe aren’t used to seeing art in a traditional way or have a fear of going to a traditional museum."
   Ms. Brown coordinates most of the non-sculptural programming at GFS, including upcoming summer outdoor concert series, a new collaboration with The Outlet, a nonprofit dance organization, and a continuing partnership with George Street Playhouse. In addition, GFS provides educational programs for teachers and students, and works with Trenton Educational Dance Institute to bring dance to students in Trenton’s public schools.
   All this ultimately goes to show that whichever exit is taken in this arts mecca, be it a mainstream highway or off the beaten path, chances are it will take people on something of an artistic pilgrimage — and it’s not limited to the "artists" among us.
   Mr. Muldoon says it best: "The arts are not only for artists with a capital A, but for everyone else."