Report To The Community 2021

2021 

report to 

the 

community 

bringing up 

the lights

eport to 

the community 

more than 500 virtual 

events presented 

during the pandemic 

400,000 people engaged 

by digital presentations 

GRAMMY®-winning trumpeter and 

composer Chris Botti brought his 

soothing sound to Prudential Hall as part 

of the 2021 TD James Moody Jazz Festival. 

more than 125 live, 

in-person events in 2021

ack where 

we belong 

In 2021, after a year of virtual 

expansion, NJPAC welcomed back 

live artists, live audiences 

and the joy of the performing arts 

Two-time GRAMMY®-winning 

jazz vocalist Gregory Porter 

made a 2021 appearance as part 

of the TD Jazz Series at NJPAC. 

How does a performing 

arts center thrive during 

a global pandemic? 

When the health crisis began 

in 2020, NJPAC’s answer 

was to pivot full-force 

to virtual offerings that 

encapsulated all aspects of 

the Arts Center’s multipronged 

mission: Entertainment, 

education, civic discussions 

and community-building. 

With a packed schedule of 

virtual programs — more than 

500 presented over the course 

of the pandemic — NJPAC 

served as a lifeline and a source 

of comfort and inspiration to 

its community, its students and 

to arts lovers near and far. 

But the core of NJPAC’s 

work has always been 

live performances for live 

audiences. In spring 2021, as 

the pandemic started to retreat, 

the Arts Center’s campus was 

reactivated with more and 

more events, and the return 

of in-person performances 

became not just a distant 

hope, but an imminent reality. 

“Once the vaccine was 

available to anyone and case 

numbers began to drop, we 

felt we’d turned a corner,” 

recalls John Schreiber, NJPAC’s 

President and CEO. “I started 

saying, to our staff, patrons and 

supporters: We’re not out yet, 

but we’re moving toward the 

exit doors on this pandemic.” 

As the weather warmed, a 

spirit of excitement suffused 

the campus. Virtual events 

gave way to live broadcasts 

from NJPAC’s stages, small 

gatherings and, at last, live 

in-person performances. 

Restarting a robust schedule 

of near-daily concerts was a 

complicated job. Procedures 

for ensuring the safety of 

artists, patrons and staff had 

to be established — and then 

the real difficulties began. 

“There were two competing 

factors in our reopening,” 

explains Warren Tranquada, 

NJPAC’s Chief Operating 

Officer. “One factor was: 

Were we allowed to have 

public events in our building? 

For a long time, we were legally 

limited to a small number 

of people — but having 250 

people in a hall built for 2,800 

doesn’t make a lot of sense.” 

“The other factor was: Is our 

audience willing to come 

back into the theater? It really 

took until June for people 

to start saying they were 

willing to come indoors.” 

Of course, NJPAC’s theaters 

were not dark before June. 

Television shows filmed in 

njpac.org 3

the theaters and parking 

lots, most notably the Hulu 

drama Wu-Tang: An American 

Saga, which lensed its 

season two finale at the 

Arts Center. The New Jersey 

Symphony expanded its 

series of performance films 

recorded in Prudential Hall 

with the production of projects 

that featured two classical 

superstars, violinist Joshua Bell 

and soprano Renée Fleming. 

Local artists took the stage 

as well: In April, Newark’s 

Mayor Ras Baraka made the 

first of two 2021 appearances 

when he was joined on the 

Betty Wold Johnson stage by 

Greater Newark performers 

including violinist Bri Black, 

vocalist Janetza Miranda, 

and rapper Moruf Adewunmi 

to film Welcome to Newark, 

a “destination video” directed by 

Amandla Baraka and produced 

by the Greater Newark 

Convention and Visitors Bureau. 

“It was part of their vision that 

those performances happen on 

the Prudential Hall stage, and 

that day had incredible energy,” 

recalls Kitab Rollins, Director 

of Performance and Broadcast 

Rentals. “Everyone was excited — 

it was such a happy, fun day.” 

In May, NJPAC hosted its 

first in-person events with 

a public audience, a day of 

graduations for Seton Hall 

Law School. During a typical 

spring, graduations fill the Arts 

Center with beaming students, 

proud parents and robed 

professors. All graduations 

are important events, but 

this particular ceremony was 

not just a celebration for the 

graduates, but a milestone 

for everyone involved. 

For the first time in more than 

a year, a ticketed audience 

was ushered into Prudential 

Hall, and NJPAC’s COVID-19 

safety measures were put 

into effect, with vaccinations 

or a recent coronavirus test 

required for admittance. 

“That first graduation was so 

emotional — for the graduates, 

who in many cases had 

graduated earlier and were 

coming back to formally 

receive their diplomas, or who 

were graduating after an 

entire year of being remote,” 

Tranquada explains. 

“It was also emotional for our 

staff, our security team, the 

cleaning crew, for ushers who 

With a packed 

schedule of 

virtual programs, 

NJPAC served as 

a lifeline and 

a source of 

comfort and 

inspiration to 

its community, 

its students and 

to arts lovers 

near and far. 

were back to work for the 

first time in 15 months. There 

was such a sense of hope.” 

A few weeks later, even more 

staffers returned for the taping 

of a series of high-profile events, 

including virtual performances 

that were part of NJPAC’s 

City Verses jazz poetry initiative, 

run in partnership with 

Rutgers University-Newark, 

and the finale of the 2020 

Sarah Vaughan International 

Jazz Vocal Competition, 

filmed with only the judges 

and finalists’ families present. 

This annual celebration had 

been postponed from its original 

fall 2020 date, but the event 

lost none of its power to move. 

“Concerts are my happy place,” 

says Katie Stein, Senior Manager 

of Digital Marketing and 

Content Strategy, “and when 

one contestant started singing 

a Sinatra number, I teared up — 

just to be back in the theater 

again, with music filling the hall.” 

By this time, with state 

requirements for audience 

limits dropped, NJPAC was 

already booking shows 

for the fall season. 

“It was a consistent slow burn,” 

says Evan White, Assistant 

Vice President of Programming, 

who had been booking and 

rescheduling shows throughout 

the crisis. “We were in constant 

communication with agents, 

promoters and other halls. 

We were booking into the 

fall, then we decided to try 

shows over the summer, too.” 

By June 26, 2021, the show 

went on again at NJPAC. 

The first in-person performance 

with an audience was 

experimental, a comedy event 

in the Victoria Theater, with 

a masked, socially distanced 

audience seated in family 

“pods” to limit exposure to each 

other. That performance, by 

comedian Vic DiBitetto, was 

a sell-out — which, given the 

distancing, meant there were 

about 100 people present. 

By NJPAC’s usual standards, 

it was a small event. But 

for the audience and staff 

present, it was a landmark. 

“That was the loudest 100 

people I’ve ever heard in 

the Victoria Theater,” White 

remembers. “The audience 

was so generous — laughing, 

clapping, cheering. For them 

and for us, it was a first taste of 

returning to live performances.” 

Clockwise from top left: Hulu’s Wu-Tang: An American Saga, 

filming at NJPAC; Mayor Ras Baraka taping Welcome to Newark 

in Prudential Hall; last spring’s Seton Hall Law School graduation 

ceremony; Finalist Hailey Brinnel performs at the 2020 Sarah 

Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition; A masked audience 

returning at last for live performances. 

4 

njpac.org

and reggae stars Third World 

were joined by opening acts 

drawn from NJPAC’s virtual 

open mic series, Jersey Fresh, 

as well as students from the 

Arts Center’s City Verses 

summer camp and Hip Hop 

Arts and Culture program. 

“At our rehearsal, all I could 

think was: I am so excited 

to play music with real 

human beings again, for the 

first time in a year and a half!” 

remembers Lili M., a 14-year-old 

pianist from Cranford. 

Sheikia Norris (aka Purple 

Haze), NJPAC’s Director of 

Hip Hop Education Programs, 

notes that those Sounds of the 

City rehearsals marked the first 

time her students had been 

together since March 9, 2020. 

“Several times [that day], 

I found myself crying,” she 

says. “I was so happy to 

see them all, to be alive to 

witness this after last year.” 

The success of last summer’s 

Horizon Fountation Sounds 

of the City was a turning 

point. “By the time it was over, 

everyone had their rhythm 

again,” Jones recalls. “We 

were all in the groove and 

back to our normal routine.” 

By mid-August, as more shows 

were added to the calendar 

of live, indoor events, social 

distancing was ended, with 

vaccinations, masking and 

up-to-date testing keeping 

audiences and staff safe. 

The insistence on either 

vaccination or recent negative 

testing as an entry requirement 

put NJPAC at the forefront 

of safety practices among 

performing arts centers in the 

region, reassuring patrons who 

were nervous about returning 

to indoor performances. 

With those safety procedures in 

place, audiences came back, in 

greater and greater numbers. 

“First, [comedian] Eddie Griffin 

sold out two shows in the 

Victoria Theater,” White recalls. 

“By September, Gregory Porter 

almost sold out Prudential 

Hall. Then, Gilberto Santa 

“Believe me, more than one tear was 

shed among the artists. The joy 

that came from the audiences 

and the artists was palpable. 

And we were able to prove that it was 

safe to come back, too.” 

— David Rodriguez 

“At each NJPAC show, we start 

with a recorded announcement 

of Savion Glover telling everyone 

to put away their cell phones,” 

says production manager 

E. Kevin Jones. “To hear that 

announcement again, after 

more than a year — I breathed 

a sigh of relief. Oh my God, 

we got through it!” 

“Believe me, more than one tear 

was shed among the artists too 

when the theaters reopened,” 

says David Rodriguez, NJPAC’s 

Executive Vice President and 

Executive Producer. “The joy 

that came from the audiences 

and the artists was palpable. 

And we were able to prove that 

it was safe to come back, too.” 

With that small but auspicious 

beginning, the 2021-22 season 

was officially underway — and 

NJPAC’s audiences swelled 

from a hundred people to 

thousands just a few weeks 

later when the free outdoor 

summer series, Horizon 

Foundation Sounds of the City, 

returned as a live event in July. 

Presented annually as a gift to 

Greater Newark, the series is 

usually a recurring, summer-long 

Thursday night festival with 

enormous crowds congregating 

on the Arts Center’s “front 

lawn,” Chambers Plaza. 

The 2021 version of the event 

wasn’t exactly the same, but 

it was still “an unmitigated 

success,” says Tranquada. 

“We limited capacity, 

instituted health screenings 

and we limited the number 

of unvaccinated people who 

could enter. But it still worked — 

and it was truly joyful.” 

Although the enclosure 

around the stage was open 

to a limited number of people, 

others congregated on Center 

Street, in Military Park or on 

the balconies of neighboring 

apartment buildings to 

listen. The just-reopened 

NJPAC restaurant, NICO 

Kitchen + Bar, did booming 

business as the music played. 

Audience members happily 

reunited with friends and 

neighbors after months of 

isolation. Legendary artists like 

rapper Rakim, salsa master 

Tony Vega, DJ Felix Hernandez 

Clockwise from top left: Los Tigres del Norte played to a sold-out house last 

October; Gilberto Santa Rosa made a welcome return; a COVID safety check-in 

station; sweet times at the Mars Wrigley Halloween Treat Truck Tour giveaway. 

6 njpac.org 

njpac.org 7

Rosa returned and sold more 

tickets here than he’d ever 

sold before — and finally, 

Los Tigres del Norte arrived 

and sold out to the rafters.” 

During those months, 

every show was a reunion, 

an emotional regrouping 

between audiences and 

the artists they love. 

Which is not to say that 

the transition back to live 

performances was entirely 

smooth. Some audiences 

questioned safety procedures 

as too strict — while others 

saw them as too lenient. And in 

mid-summer, the Delta variant 

of the coronavirus “hit like 

a rock,” Tranquada recalls, 

throwing some performances 

into doubt and delaying the 

Arts Center’s planned return of 

its staff to their offices. (Later, 

the Omicron variant — a more 

transmissible but milder version 

of the disease — would have 

a similar impact.) And staffing 

shortages that were endemic in 

2021 did not spare NJPAC either, 

prompting some members of 

senior management to moonlight 

as ushers and ticket takers at 

especially busy performances. 

But overall, the trend was 

toward more and more 

successful performances, with 

larger and larger audiences, 

and more of NJPAC’s programs 

returning as in-person 

gatherings. The Community 

Engagement department 

spent late summer and fall 

activating Newark’s parks 

with outdoor, in-person 

performances and classes, 

presented in conjunction 

with the Newark City Parks 

Foundation. By September, 

students returned to in-person 

Saturday arts trainings, 

reformulated as smaller, 

staggered classes to minimize 

crowding in NJPAC’s Center 

for Arts Education. 

In October, Arts Center staff 

officially returned to their offices 

after working from home for 

more than 18 months. The staff 

reunion was cautious but giddy, 

with everyone from producers 

to programmers to fundraisers 

gathering for a masked 

welcome back party in the 

Prudential Hall lobby. For some 

“NJPAC never 

stopped. We did 

virtual, we did 

outdoor events, 

we did socially 

distanced 

performances. 

We never 

missed a 

beat. We 

kept the arts 

alive when 

people needed 

them most.” 

– Kitab Rollins 

staff hired during 2020 or 2021, 

it was their first opportunity to 

meet their colleagues in person. 

“What was so great about that 

day was seeing everyone’s 

expressions, how happy they 

were to reunite with their 

colleagues,” says Beth Silver, 

Vice President and Chief 

People Officer. “That was the 

moment I felt that we were really 

back — not necessarily to 100%, 

but we were on the path.” 

As the season continued, 

more NJPAC traditions 

returned: The TD James 

Moody Jazz Festival marked 

its 10th anniversary season 

with a nearly month-long 

celebration of “America’s 

classical music.” Rutgers 

University-Newark graduation 

ceremonies returned, as did 

the Mars Wrigley Halloween 

Treat Truck Tour giveaway. 

December’s calendar filled up 

with holiday-themed shows 

by pop, jazz and classical 

performers. Non-performance 

nights welcomed the return 

of corporate celebrations, 

including a particularly 

memorable one for which 

Fort Lee’s Cross River Bank 

created a tented Middle 

Eastern bazaar on the Betty 

Wold Johnson stage. 

“I love having people in the 

building again, and I even love 

the crazy hours,” says Austin 

Cleary, Assistant Vice President 

of Sales and Planning. “For that 

Cross River Bank event, I was 

here for 17 hours one day — 

but it was great. I was running 

around the building and I 

realized — Hey, we’re back!” 

While audience numbers hadn’t 

quite reached pre-pandemic 

levels by the end of 2021, and 

resurgences of the virus and its 

variants continued to disrupt 

some events, by the start of 

2022, NJPAC was nearing the 

level of in-person activity it 

sustained before the crisis. 

Most importantly, though, 

NJPAC continued to provide 

the solace and joy of the 

performing arts to the many 

people who look to the 

Arts Center for inspiration, 

connection and community. 

“NJPAC never stopped,” Rollins 

adds. “We did virtual, we did 

outdoor events, we did socially 

distanced performances. We 

never missed a beat. We kept 

the arts alive when people 

needed them most.” • 

virtual offerings continue to evolve 

Virtual Realities (top to bottom): A still from Ailey, 

a documentary streamed by NJPAC as part of a nationwide 

watch; participation actually increased when educators 

were invited to convene online for NJPAC’s 2021 professional 

development trainings; acclaimed jazz violinist Regina 

Carter (top left) took the Geri Allen Jazz Camp online. 

Virtual events have continued to 

be a part of NJPAC’s offerings, even 

as in-person events returned. 

The Arts Center’s Standing in Solidarity 

social justice programming — including 

a nationwide watch of the documentary 

Ailey, about the founder of Alvin Ailey 

American Dance Theater, in January of 

2022 — continued to provide online discussion 

and context around important issues. 

NJPAC’s professional development trainings 

for teachers remained virtual in 2021, as did 

the Arts Education department’s mentoring 

program. Summer camps, including the 

Geri Allen Jazz Camp for young female 

and nonbinary performers, also remained 

a virtual offering but continues to draw 

participants from around the globe. 

“For the virtual professional development 

events, we actually had a higher attendance 

from local participants,” explains Jennifer 

Tsukayama, Vice President of Arts Education. 

“That makes perfect sense: Teachers don’t 

have to find a babysitter, or drive here and 

home again. As for student offerings — once 

we went virtual, we drew students from all 

over. We want to continue to be there for 

them, and we’re still refining how we do that.” 

Meanwhile, NJPAC also began experimenting 

with making some high-demand concerts 

both virtual and live events, simultaneously. 

For example, an Eddie Vedder concert set 

for February 2022 (which sold out almost 

immediately) will be offered as a virtual 

experience as well as a live concert. 

“There will always be a place for virtual 

events, and we’re exploring strategic 

partnerships with online companies that will 

capitalize on the reach of programs we’re 

already offering on stage,” says Evan White, 

Assistant Vice President of Programming. 

“One of the things we realized over the course 

of the pandemic is that NJPAC offers truly 

unique, engaging, entertaining content,” 

David Rodriguez, Executive Vice President and 

Executive Producer. “Content with a real pointof-view, 

content that embraces and celebrates 

diversity. Sharing that content, in all the ways 

we can — including virtually — will always 

be part of our mission going forward.” • 

8 njpac.org 

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“Our connection to the community 

is embedded in NJPAC’s DNA.” 

– Donna Walker-Kuhne 

Some cultural institutions 

quickly turn into their own little 

gated communities. Inside? 

The traditional arts and a 

passive audience. Outside? 

Everything and everyone else, 

including cultural change, 

social questions, informed 

debate and real diversity. 

But that was never the 

model for NJPAC. 

“Our connection to the 

community is embedded 

in our DNA,” says Donna 

Walker-Kuhne, the Center’s 

Senior Advisor for Diversity, 

Equity and Inclusion. 

“Newark is a city of color, and 

while we serve many audiences, 

we have a responsibility to 

respond to that community 

and their different interests. 

the workplace, and the impact 

of racism on people of color 

in the LGBTQ+ community. 

“The Black women in business 

event had a very dynamic panel 

and great participation from 

the audience,” says Walker- 

Kuhne, naming some of her 

favorite events. “Colorism was 

a very hot subject, too.” 

Most of the programs offered 

during 2021 were part of the 

PSEG True Diversity Film Series, 

which pairs screenings of 

socially engaged cinema with 

provocative, post-screening talks. 

“We’ve gotten into a kind of 

rhythm,” Walker-Kuhne says. 

“The films and panels ignite 

very interesting discussions 

on topics like sexuality, 

violence, immigration and 

and choreographer, drew 

viewers from around the country 

to both watch the film and hear 

afterwards from his successors 

at the helm of the Alvin Ailey 

American Dance Theater — both 

Robert Battle, current artistic 

director of the company, and 

Judith Jamison, the company’s 

artistic director emerita. 

Throughout 2021, these 

programs remained virtual 

events, even as NJPAC opened 

its theaters — ensuring their 

accessibility to all, in New Jersey 

and beyond, and the ability for 

the community to discuss these 

important topics safely, even 

during the Omicron surge. 

“We decided to go right into 

your living room,” explains 

Eyesha K. Marable, Assistant 

standing in solidarity w 

NJPAC’s 2021 social justice programming events 

included (clockwise from top left): Immigration: 

Enforcement, Detention and Advocacy; Economic Justice: 

Poverty, Injustice and Racism; Queer, Black, Trans: 

Creating Safe Spaces for All Identities; and Colorism: 

The Darker Side of Fair 

We’re constantly stretching 

and looking for ways to 

deepen our connection with, 

and impact on, the community.” 

That bond has grown even 

stronger over the past year, 

as the Arts Center’s crossdepartmental 

Social Justice 

Programming Task Force, 

established in the days following 

George Floyd’s murder and 

the revival of the social justice 

movement, expanded on its 

work in its second season. 

For almost two years now, thanks 

to the work of the Task Force, 

NJPAC has offered at least one 

program every month focused 

on race, equity and justice. 

In 2021, programs included 

symposia on such of-the-moment 

subjects as the ongoing push for 

reparations for Black communities, 

colorism, immigration policy, the 

challenges Black women face in 

water. The series has become 

a particular passion of mine.” 

Last year films included 

documentaries like Darker 

Side of Fair, a 2004 film 

on the prejudice faced by 

dark-skinned women in India; 

Banished: How Whites Drove 

Blacks Out of Town in America, 

which examines on the 

expulsion of Black families from 

neighborhoods across the South 

during the post-Reconstruction 

era; and Rust, by Newarkbased 

filmmakers Marylou 

and Jerome Bongiorno, which 

focuses on Newark as a 

microcosm of the effects that 

deindustrialization, racism and 

mass incarceration have had 

on the lives of the working poor, 

especially people of color. 

In January 2022, a screening of 

Ailey, a biographical film about 

the celebrated Black dancer 

Vice President of Community 

Engagement. “We offered 

people the opportunity to 

view something in advance 

via a link, and then join us 

online, where we had five 

to seven amazing panelists 

engage in a conversation 

about the film and the topic.” 

“It’s a bit of a book club 

model now, and it’s working 

terrifically,” says Walker-Kuhne. 

“Of course, it’s lovely whenever 

you can come together 

communally, in a theater. 

But I think, even as we move 

past the pandemic, we’re 

going to keep a hybrid option 

for this. We’ve heard from so 

many people, ‘I love joining 

in these discussions — but I 

especially love being able to 

do it now from the comfort and 

safety of my own home!’” • 

– Stephen Whitty 

njpac.org 11

Verdine White 

taking the 

stage 

Artists celebrate 

the return to 

in-person 

performances 

at NJPAC 

“It’s so great to be 

around our family, 

which is all our friends 

in that audience!” 

— Verdine White, Earth Wind & Fire 

We asked some of our favorite performers how they felt to 

be back on stage at the Arts Center, or in NJPAC productions. 

In short: They’re thrilled to see their audiences again! 

“To be able to perform on the 

NJPAC stage following the 

darkest clouds of COVID 

provided a joy so desperately 

needed. The warmth, 

appreciation and support 

of NJPAC audiences is 

something I always look 

forward to. I am so fortunate 

and grateful I was able 

to celebrate at NJPAC the 

beginning of my return 

from the arduous journey 

we’ve all been on.” 

— Dianne Reeves 

“The last two years, it’s 

been kind of tough for live 

entertainment. We’re just 

so happy to be back on 

stage, doing what we do — 

bringing a lot of smiles!” 

— Philip Bailey, 

Earth Wind & Fire 

“NJPAC is one of my favorite 

venues in the country. Getting 

to return to that great stage 

with my friend Tierney Sutton, 

after such a long drought, was 

an emotional and beautiful 

experience. I never stopped 

singing during the pandemic, 

but to have the electrifying 

chemistry of a great and 

grateful audience there gave 

so much joy to my heart 

and deepened our music.” 

— Ann Hampton Callaway 

“Being back on that stage 

means so much to me. 

Feeling the energy of the 

audience is something that 

cannot be replaced…And 

especially being back at 

NJPAC is something I have 

been looking forward to. 

There is something special 

about this venue and this 

audience that really fills 

my heart with joy.” 

— Gilberto Santa Rosa 

“The Movement Revisited 

was my first time performing 

live on stage at NJPAC 

[after the pandemic], and it 

felt marvelous, absolutely 

marvelous. Everyone was 

on the verge of tears — we 

were so happy to see each 

other again backstage, and 

to be able to perform that 

piece specifically. I haven’t 

performed it live since 2015, 

and it’s a big piece with a 

lot of moving parts. To be 

able to bring that piece out 

and perform it at NJPAC was 

the most blissful feeling….” 

— Christian McBride, 

NJPAC Jazz Adviser 

For more on The Movement 

Revisited, please see page 21! 

“Being back on tour [with 

NJPAC’s The Hip Hop 

Nutcracker] is the ultimate 

blessing, after receiving a 

heart transplant less than 

a year ago. The Hip Hop 

Nutcracker is all about 

spreading love during the 

holiday season and we need 

that now more than ever.” 

— Kurtis Blow, 

NJPAC Hip Hop Advisor 

Dianne Reeves 

Philip Bailey 

Ann Hampton Callaway 

Gilberto Santa Rosa 

Christian McBride 

12 

njpac.org 

Kurtis Blow

a celebration 

for a city 

Horizon Foundation Sounds of the City brings 

a community outside to enjoy 

camaraderie and cool tunes 

The 2021 Horizon 

Foundation Sounds 

of the City kicked off 

a summer of relative 

freedom from pandemic 

restrictions — and a 

welcome resumption 

of live concerts 

GRAMMY®-winning gospel 

singer-songwriter Le’Andria 

Johnson was among the 

headline performers when 

Horizon Foundation Sounds of 

the City returned to NJPAC’s 

Chambers Plaza. 

What is the exact opposite 

of being locked-down 

inside your home, alone or 

with only your family? 

How about being outside in 

the sunshine listening to live 

music with a few thousand new 

friends — in other words, the Arts 

Center’s Horizon Foundation 

Sounds of the City program 

of free summer concerts, 

which returned as a series 

of live, in-person events in 

2021 featuring beloved artists 

like salsa star Tony Vega, 

hip hop legend Rakim and 

reggae group Third World? 

The previous year, during 

the height of the pandemic, 

the series had transitioned 

into a series of live DJ 

dance parties offered on 

NJPAC’s Facebook feed. 

But last spring, as New Jersey 

emerged from a long, grim 

COVID winter, the Arts Center 

brought back the concert series 

in its original and much-loved 

format, with performances 

on an outdoor stage, for 

audiences gathered on chairs 

and blankets on NJPAC’s 

Chambers Plaza. And the 

Greater Newark community 

came out in droves to take part. 

“For more than 20 years, this 

is how the city has celebrated 

summer,” says NJPAC Executive 

Vice President and Executive 

Producer David Rodriguez, 

when the series was announced 

in May. “This year, what we’re 

celebrating is not just the 

season, but also the return of 

live performances to Newark.” 

Mayor Ras Baraka and NJPAC 

President and CEO John 

Schreiber opened the series on 

July 15, alongside a number of 

religious leaders who offered a 

blessing to the crowd gathered 

to see series veteran Felix 

Hernandez, whose Rhythm 

Revue Dance Party has been 

a part of Horizon Foundation 

Sounds of the City for years. 

But this year, that performance 

had special resonance, as both 

the kick-off to a summer of 

relative freedom from pandemic 

restrictions, and the start of 

the Arts Center’s resumption 

of live performances. 

“That Felix Hernandez 

show was like the first big 

‘Welcome back to NJPAC’ 

14 

njpac.org

moment,” says Craig Pearce, 

the Arts Center producer who 

oversaw the 2021 series. 

Artists who performed at the 

early concerts represented a 

wide range of musical styles 

and genres. Among the stars 

presented were salsa master 

Tony Vega, gospel singersongwriter 

Le’Andria Johnson, 

beloved reggae band Third 

World and brass-flavored 

protest group Brass Against. 

By far the biggest draw was 

hip hop star Rakim (of Eric B. 

and Rakim), who returned to 

the Horizon Foundation Sounds 

of the City stage several years 

after his last appearance 

or a Caribbean band, we look 

for old-school hip hop artists. 

And R&B soul is usually a huge 

hit with our audiences, too.” 

The opening act for Rakim’s 

show featured NJPAC’s hip 

hop students and a cohort 

of poets and musicians from 

the Arts Center’s City Verses 

summer camp — an initiative 

to teach and celebrate jazz 

poetry, run in conjunction with 

Rutgers University-Newark. 

Numerous health and safety 

measures were in place to 

ensure the wellbeing of all who 

attended: Audiences were 

contained within a fenced area 

(a first for the Arts Center). 

local artists, all drawn from 

the most successful of the 

performers who had been 

featured in NJPAC’s Jersey 

Fresh open mic virtual series. 

East Orange R&B singer Steve 

Lovell, Newark singer-songwriter 

and poet Yeimy Gamez Castillo, 

Elizabeth singer-songwriter 

Jorge Rivera, Newark soul singer 

Gail Campbell, Kearny singersongwriter 

Florianna Heun, 

singer and classical Spanish 

guitarist Janetza Miranda of 

Newark and jazz duo Sounds 

of A&R (featuring future Sarah 

Vaughan International Jazz 

Vocal Competition finalist April 

May Webb of Edison) were 

This page: Jazz duo 

Sounds of A&R with 

trumpeter Randall 

Haywood and vocalist 

April May Webb. 

Opposite page, clockwise 

from top left: a Horizon 

Foundation Sounds of the 

City fan welcomes back 

the free concert series; 

classical Spanish guitarist 

Janetza Miranda; new 

friends dancing in the 

sunshine; another Sounds 

fan soaking up the 

summer spirit; young music 

enthusiasts gathered for 

fun in the sun; singersongwriter 

and poet 

Yeimy Gamez Castillo; 

and salsa sensation 

Tony Vega onstage. 

“For more than 

20 years, Horizon 

Foundation 

Sounds of the City 

is how Newark 

has celebrated 

summer. In 2021, 

we welcomed not 

just the season, 

but also the 

return of live 

performances.” 

— David Rodriguez 

there, flawlessly dropping bars 

(and often letting the deeply 

engaged crowd sing along). 

Before his performance, he 

also offered a master class 

to NJPAC’s Hip Hop Arts and 

Culture students, talking to them 

about his career and work. 

“Sounds of the City always 

hosts an eclectic group of 

artists and a wide variety of 

types of music,” says Pearce. 

“We like to feature a reggae 

All who attended were asked 

if they were vaccinated, and 

security kept the crowd within 

the enclosure to at least 

50% vaccinated at all events. 

A few people even got their 

vaccines at the shows, thanks 

to mobile vaccination units 

provided by Essex County 

and RWJBarnabas Health. 

In another change to the 

series, the remainder of the 

summer’s opening acts were 

among the artists from the 

online series who took to the 


the City stage over the summer. 

“They were elated to be there,” 

recalls Kitab Rollins, who 

produced the Jersey Fresh 

virtual series. “To be on stage 

at NJPAC was such a moment 

for them. They were taking 

pictures and posting on social 

media — and the audiences 

absolutely loved it.” • 

16 njpac.org 

njpac.org 17

into the 

swing 

of things 

The star-studded 2021 TD James Moody Jazz 

Festival welcomed (clockwise from top left): 

Chaka Khan, Lew Tabackin performing as part 

of Celebrating George Wein, Chris Botti, Dianne 

Reeves and the Maria Schneider Orchestra. 

TD James Moody Jazz Festival 

celebrates its 10th anniversary 

with a joyous reunion of jazz greats 

Over 13,000 fans 

attended the TD James 

Moody Jazz Festival 

“There’s no experience like the 

live music experience,” said 

Christian McBride, in the run-up 

to the 10th annual TD James 

Moody Jazz Festival, which 

filled NJPAC’s campus with scat, 

swing and more throughout the 

month of November. “You can 

go to YouTube, you can watch 

television, whatever, but there’s 

nothing like watching musicians 

create. You’ll never hear the 

same performance twice. 

You might hear the same 

melody, but you will never 

hear the same performance.” 

It was a giddy return to 

the tradition of celebrating 

“America’s classical music” 

at the Arts Center, which 

had to skip the festival as 

a live event in 2020. 

And so many of NJPAC’s 

best friends came back to 

its stages for the occasion. 

Performances ranged from 

American standards, to 

crossover pop hits, to the 

artistry of MacArthur “Genius” 

grant winner Maria Schneider, 

whose GRAMMY®-winning 

latest album, Data Lords, 

explores the cost of our modern 

infatuation with technology. 

The inimitable 10-time 

GRAMMY® winner Chaka 

Khan, whose career spans 

both chart-topping pop hits 

and collaborations with jazz 

greats like Herbie Hancock, 

kicked off the festival, opening 

the event with a hit-filled set 

in Prudential Hall. Khan had 

the audience on its feet for 

much of the night, frequently 

holding her microphone out to 

the crowd so they could sing 

along to “I’m Every Woman” 

and “Tell Me Something Good.” 

The following weekend, trumpeter 

Chris Botti returned to NJPAC, his 

silky-smooth horn mesmerizing 

audiences in Prudential Hall, 

even as he walked off the 

stage and into the audience 

to play right in front of them. 

And beloved vocalist and NEA 

Jazz Master Dianne Reeves 

made two return appearances 

as well, dueting with Christian 

McBride at the Sarah Vaughan 

International Jazz Vocal 

Competition and sharing the 

stage with the all-star, all-female 

troupe Artemis, which boasts 

pianist Renee Rosnes, clarinetist 

and soprano sax player 

Anat Cohen, trumpeter Ingrid 

Jensen, tenor sax player Nicole 

Glover, bassist Noriko Ueda 

and drummer Allison Miller. 

The Arts Center’s Chase Room 

became an intimate jazz 

club for the month, hosting 

Broadway actress and singer 

Lillias White performing a 

tribute to Newark’s own Sarah 

Vaughan, and the Django 

Festival Allstars, with their 

salute to Gypsy jazz guitarist 

Django Reinhardt’s music. 

In the Victoria Theater, the 

festival pushed genre boundaries 

by welcoming back the 

Jersey City-based Nimbus 

Dance Company, which has 

choreographed works to jazz 

music as part of the festival before. 

This time, the group appeared 

with tango virtuoso Pedro Giraudo 

and his Tango Quartet to debut 

a new collaboration, Raucous 

Caucus Tango, performed in front 

of a flickering video installation. 

Christian McBride played his 

masterwork, The Movement 

Revisited, a tribute to the 

heroes of the Civil Rights 

Movement, at a celebratory 

performance with the early hip 

hop group The Last Poets. 

But perhaps the festival’s most 

poignant night was its closing 

njpac.org 19

event: Celebrating George 

Wein, a tribute to the great jazz 

impresario and founder of the 

Newport Jazz Festival. Originally 

planned as a tribute to Wein 

on the occasion of his 96th 

birthday, it became a memorial 

of sorts when Wein unexpectedly 

passed away just a few weeks 

before the planned event. 

“George transformed jazz into 

a music for everyone,” NJPAC 

President and CEO John 

Schreiber said as he opened 

the emotional event. When 

he was just a “jazz-crazy kid,” 

Schreiber got his start in the 

music business working for 

Wein — he described his dream 

job interview with the impresario 

as “having an audience with 

the Wizard of Oz” — and spent 

many years of his career at 

Wein’s Festival Productions, 

Inc. Schreiber described the 

pianist and producer as “my 

mentor, my friend, my first and 

best boss, my second father.” 

A battalion of jazz greats 

performed at the event, 

including Christian McBride, 

clarinetist Anat Cohen, bassist 

Peter Washington, pianist 

Kenny Barron, drummer 

Johnathan Blake, trumpeter 

Randy Brecker, saxophonist 

and flutist Lew Tabackin, 

and the vocal trio Duchess. 

And of course, the festival 

included a range of events 

throughout the city, including 

several free performances. 

Newark’s first lady of jazz, 

Dorthaan Kirk, hosted a jazz 

brunch at NICO Kitchen + Bar, 

Don Braden performed a jazz 

concert for children and families, 

Buster Williams appeared at 

Bethany Baptist Church for its 

Jazz Vespers and the history of 

Newark’s beloved jazz channel, 

WBGO, was told through a 

screening of the documentary, 

The WBGO Story: Bright Moments 

from Newark to the World. • 

“The mood of 

the piece is one 

of hope and 

promise...it makes 

you feel good.” 

— Christian McBride 

words and 

music 

A magical night of 

jazz, poetry and activism 

with Christian McBride’s The Movement Revisited 

The words of Civil Rights 

Movement icons Rev. Dr. Martin 

Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, 

Rosa Parks and Muhammad Ali 

resounded throughout NJPAC’s 

Prudential Hall in November, 

as Christian McBride’s 

celebrated jazz symphony, 

The Movement Revisited: A 

Musical Portrait of Four Icons, 

made its New Jersey debut. 

– Jay Lustig 

The inspirational and musically 

varied 70-minute magnum 

opus — which incorporates 

elements of pop, funk and gospel 

music, in addition to jazz — was 

presented as the centerpiece 

of this year’s 10th annual TD 

James Moody Jazz Festival. It 

featured seven-time GRAMMY® 

winner and NJPAC Jazz Advisor 

McBride leading his own 17-piece 

The cast of Christian McBride’s 

monumental The Movement 

Revisited onstage in Prudential Hall 

20 

njpac.org

ig band and playing standup 

bass, with contributions by 

singer Alicia Olatuja and the 

18-member Voices of the Flame 

choir (led by J.D. Steele, who 

also stepped out to do some 

electrifying singing of his own). 

Four orators — poets Sonia 

Sanchez, Willie Perdomo and 

John Murillo, and actor Dion 

Graham — did the readings, 

which were interspersed 

throughout the musical 

passages. They then joined 

forces to cap the piece with 

excerpts from Barack Obama’s 

presidential election victory 

speech of 2008, concluding 

with his call to “reaffirm that 

fundamental truth that out of 

many, we are one; that while we 

breathe, we hope; and where we 

are met with cynicism and doubt 

and those who tell us that we 

can’t, we will respond with that 

timeless creed that sums up the 

spirit of a people: Yes, we can.” 

McBride wrote the first version 

of The Movement Revisited in 

1998, but has modified it in 

various ways over the years. 

It was released in February 

2020, in album form, on the 

Mack Avenue jazz label. 

McBride has not presented the 

work in concert since 2015, and 

had never done so before in 

New Jersey. In a pre-show 

interview, he said he felt it was 

“the right time…and the right 

place” to perform it again, adding 

that “the mood of the concert is 

one of hope and promise” and 

that “if you start listening closely 

to the words and if you get, not 

a sense of pride, but a sense of 

what to do — a course of action — 

I think it makes you feel good.” 

As electrifying as that 

performance was, the opening 

act was almost its equal in 

terms of emotional power, 

particularly for an audience 

that included many from the 

Newark community, including 

large numbers of students who 

were invited to the show. 

Taking the stage as the 

concert began were The Last 

Poets — Umar Bin Hassan, 

Abiodun Oyewole and Baba 

Don Babatunde — whose work 

in the 1960s and 1970s, fusing 

socially conscious poetry with 

music, was a major influence on 

future rappers and spoken word 

“The Movement 

Revisited is a 

celebration of 

social justice 

movements, past 

and present and 

a clarion call to 

take action 

toward a more 

fair and just 

future.” 

— John Schreiber 

artists. Their appearance at the 

event was facilitated by famed 

musician and producer James 

Mtume and his son, Fa Mtume. 

The Last Poets were joined 

throughout their performance by 

Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka, a 

poet whose father, the late Amiri 

Baraka, was a major influence 

on The Last Poets themselves 

with his poetry and activism. 

As part of the set, Mayor Baraka 

gave a fiery reading of his own 

spoken word composition, What 

We Want, drawing ardent cheers 

from the crowd by envisioning 

the world as “one big, giant, 

outrageous we” and making a 

series of assertions such as “we 

need to allow everyone to vote, 

to be represented no matter 

where they are, no matter what 

language they speak, no matter 

what God they speak to.” 

Welcoming the audience to 

the show, NJPAC President 

and CEO John Schreiber said 

that “tonight’s performance is 

part jazz concert, part poetry 

reading, part celebration of 

social justice movements, past 

and present and part clarion 

call to take action towards a 

more fair and just future.” 

Schreiber also thanked festival 

sponsor TD Bank (“they have 

helped us keep great jazz 

playing here at the Arts Center 

for 10 years,” he said) and 

emphasized that the show 

was part of the City Verses: 

Amplifying New Voices Through 

Jazz and Poetry program 

that NJPAC is conducting 

in partnership with Rutgers 

University-Newark, with 

support from a grant by the 

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. 

“And it was an intentional 

choice to put The Last Poets 

and the Mayor together on 

stage for this particular show 

about civil rights and the 

Black American experience 

in the struggle,” explains 

Jennie Wasserman, Project 

Director of City Verses. 

“It was the mayor’s father, 

Amiri Baraka, who inspired 

and mentored The Last Poets 

as a fledgling group in the ’60s. 

So it was really a full-circle 

Newark arts, culture and 

history moment! It was 

important and courageous, 

I think, for NJPAC to program 

the politically charged, often 

searing social commentary 

The Last Poets are known 

for,” says Wasserman. 

“The whole night was absolutely 

magical,” Schreiber concludes, 

“from beginning to end.” • 

The Movement Revisited featured (clockwise from 

top left) bassist-composer Christian McBride, poets 

John Murillo and Sonia Sanchez, and Mayor 

Ras Baraka reading alongside The Last Poets. 

22 njpac.org 

njpac.org 23

man of the 

hour 

G. Thomas Allen becomes the 

first male singer 

to take top honors at the Sarah Vaughan 

International Jazz Vocal Competition 

The 2021 competition attracted 

160 hopefuls from more than 

25 countries around the globe 

Opera singer turned jazz 

vocalist G. Thomas Allen 

takes ownership of NJPAC’s 

Victoria Theater during his 

award-winning performance. 

The crowd at the 10th annual 


Jazz Vocal Competition — 

a full house packing NJPAC’s 

Victoria Theater — was already 

bubbling with anticipation as 

the show began, delighted to 

be watching the performance 

on the Lizzie & Jonathan 

Tisch Stage after the previous 

year’s virtual competition. 

But when G. Thomas Allen, 

one of only a handful of male 

finalists since the competition 

was opened to all genders 

in 2017, took the stage 

and launched into “Good 

Morning Heartache” with 

his crystalline falsetto, the 

audience erupted into cheers 

and applause, as they would 

each time he took the stage. 

“My gut was they would 

either love my rendition or 

hate it, because it is a unique 

approach,” Allen told DownBeat 

magazine after the show. 

It was an astute insight. 

The audience clearly loved 

his sound, and so did the 

judges: Allen took first place 

in the contest, the first male 

singer ever to do so. 

As the judges contemplated 

their decision, Christian 

McBride and jazz great 

Dianne Reeves performed a 

short set, leavening beloved 

tunes like “Lullaby of Birdland” 

by improvising together. 

The competition, named for 

the most famous jazz singer 

to come out of Newark, 

is always a highlight of the 

TD James Moody Jazz Festival, 

and has become a launching 

pad for jazz stars like Cyrille 

Aimée and Jazzmeia Horn. 

A former opera singer turned 

jazz vocalist, Allen boasts a 

four-octave vocal range and 

can sing notes that few male 

singers can reach. He put that 

virtuosity on display at the 

competition, adding trills and 

arpeggios to his performance, 

while the audience clapped 

and shouted their approval. 

He also sang Cole Porter’s 

“Just One of Those Things” — 

njpac.org 

25

Celebrating “The Divine One”: (left to right) 

Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition 

contestants Viktorija Gečytė, Andrea Miller, 

Arta Jēkabsone, April May Webb, and winner 

G. Thomas Allen with Steve Williams, Sheila Jordan, 

Christian McBride, John Pizzarelli, Jazzmeia Horn 

and Renee Rosnes. 

“I feel blessed to be here, not just 

because this is the home of jazz 

and of Sarah, but also because only 

days before my trip here, the border 

reopened! Whew! Which makes this 

competition truly international.” 

in a considerably lower range — 

and closed out his entry with 

a rendition of “Misty,” one of 

Vaughan’s favored tunes, 

back up in his higher voice. 

The audience gave Allen a 

standing ovation for that 

performance, the only such 

accolade of the evening. 

Allen, who now serves as 

a voice instructor at the 

Chicago High School for the 

Arts and on the faculty of 

Columbia College Chicago 

— Viktorija Gečytė 

in addition to performing, 

took home a $5,000 prize. 

Allen took top honors in a field 

of five young singers from across 

the country, including locals 

April May Webb (from Edison), 

who took second place, and 

Arta Jēkabsone (Jersey City), 

who took third place honors. 

Viktorija Gečytė, a Lithuanian 

singer now based in Paris, 

and Andrea Miller of 

Costa Mesa, CA, rounded 

out the competition. 

“You can’t imagine how blessed 

I feel to be here,” Gečytė 

enthused as she took to the 

stage, “not just because this 

is the home of jazz and of 

Sarah, but also because only 

days before my trip here, the 

border reopened! Whew! Which 

makes this competition truly 

international. Cheers to that!” 

In fact, hundreds of hopefuls 

from more than 25 countries 

around the globe entered the 

contest this year, vying for a 

shot at the staged finals. 

A panel of industry 

heavyweights served as 

judges of the competition, 

including former Sassy Awards 

champion Jazzmeia Horn, 

vocalist and NEA Jazz Master 

Sheila Jordan, guitarist and 

singer John Pizzarelli, pianist 

and bandleader Renee 

Rosnes and Steven Williams, 

President and CEO of Newark’s 

jazz station, WBGO. • 

during COVID, a virtual competition 

“The heart of our music is 

improvisation. And, boy, haven’t 

we had to improvise the last 

15 months?” said Gary Walker, 

WBGO morning announcer 

and music director, as he 

kicked off the ninth annual 


Jazz Vocal Competition in June, 

after the event was postponed 

from its expected November 

2020 date by the pandemic. 

It was an unusual iteration 

of the competition, filmed on 

Prudential Hall’s Betty Wold 

Johnson stage without an 

audience. The program was 

then streamed on Facebook, 

with a distanced audience 

offering encouragement to the 

singers through cheerful posts 

full of clapping hands emojis. 

But most unusual of all? The top 

prize was shared by two young 

singers — the first time the 

competition has ended in a tie. 

Gabrielle Cavassa, 26, of 

New Orleans, and Tawanda 

Suessbrich-Joaquim, 25, a Las 

Cruces native, were named 

the winners. Each singer took 

home a $5,000 cash prize. 

“You’re witnessing history!” said 

Walker, as both singers were 

handed the first prize plaque. 

The pandemic shadowed the 

event in all kinds of ways, 

including giving a melancholy 

air to the songs performed. 

“This is a song about a feeling 

that I’ve had, but that I don’t 

know if I can express in words 

alone. It’s about things like love, 

desperation, hopelessness, fear, 

things that are hard to speak 

out loud, but with music I can,” 

Cavassa explained before 

segueing into “Never Let Me 

Go,” accompanying herself 

on guitar. She also performed 

“Easy to Love” and “I’ve 

Never Been in Love Before.” 

“This is a song about 

endurance — a skill I’ve been 

practicing this last year, as 

we all have,” said Suessbrich- 

Joaquim, introducing “Guess I’ll 

Hang My Tears Out To Dry.” She 

also performed “All Or Nothing 

At All,” and then, noting that 

is was “time for something 

sassy,” she launched into 

the much more cheerful “Ain’t 

Nobody’s Business” (originally 

“Tain’t Nobody’s Biz-ness if 

I Do”), a 1920s blues song. 

Twice the talent: For the first 

time in the history of NJPAC’s 


Jazz Vocal Competition, the 

2020 top prize was shared by 

two outstanding jazz vocalists, 

Tawanda Suessbrich-Joaquim 

and Gabrielle Cavassa. 

A total of four finalists, 

selected from more than 600 

submissions, performed live in 

front of only a handful of family 

members, and the competition 

judges, who included NJPAC’s 

Jazz Advisor Christian McBride, 

singers Carmen Lundy and 

Vanessa Rubin, producer Chuck 

Mitchell and WBGO’s interim 

president Robert Ottenhoff. 

The other two finalists who 

performed were Hailey Brinnel 

of Philadelphia, and Benny 

Bennack II of New York, who 

took third place in the contest. • 

26 njpac.org 

njpac.org 27

evel 

in the season 

The annual tradition of holiday 

performances returned to NJPAC 

On the Saturday after 

Thanksgiving, Sarah Brightman 

arrived in Prudential Hall with her 

first Christmas Symphony Tour — 

a festive performance featuring 

songs ranging from “Carol of the 

Bells” and “Silent Night” to more 

modern takes on the holiday 

such as Greg Lake’s “I Believe 

in Father Christmas,” and John 

Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War Is 

Over).” Brightman, the original 

Christine in Broadway’s recordbreaking 

Phantom of the Opera, 

also duetted with Jay Dref on 

that classic musical’s title song. 

It was the beginning of a 

welcome return to celebrating the 

season at NJPAC. As it has done 

throughout its 24-year history, the 

Arts Center offered many holiday 

moments to remember in 2021. 

On the Lizzie and Jonathan 

Tisch Stage of NJPAC’s more 

intimate Victoria Theater, 

actress Jane Lynch appeared 

in A Swingin’ Little Christmas, a 

performance modeled after TV 

Christmas specials of the 1950s 

28 

njpac.org 

and 1960s. The show featured 

Lynch singing new and old 

Christmas songs along with 

Kate Flannery, Tim Davis and 

The Tony Guerrero Quintet. 

Singer Amy Grant, known as “The 

Queen of Christian Pop,” offered 

uplifting contemporary tunes 

from the Betty Wold Johnson 

Stage of NJPAC’s Prudential 

Hall, which was adorned with 

glittering Christmas trees. 

In a more traditional vein, 

the 55 dancers of the State 

Ballet Theatre of Ukraine 

performed the holiday perennial 

The Nutcracker, featuring 

Tchaikovsky’s timeless score 

and Andrei Litvinov’s sumptuous 

choreography as well as a 

spectacular set. Rounding out the 

holiday offerings: A Christmas 

concert by Mannheim 

Steamroller, the best selling 

ensemble that blends classical, 

rock and new age music. 

NJPAC’s signature holiday 

event, The Hip Hop Nutcracker, 

featuring hip hop dancing 


NJPAC welcomed The State Ballet 

Theatre of Ukraine’s sumptuous 

staging of The Nutcracker. 

and beats set to the familiar 

Tchaikovsky score, and starring 

legendary rapper Kurtis Blow, 

returned to stages across the 

country this year. Originally 

presented in 2014, The Hip Hop 

Nutcracker has since become a 

national event, with an annual 

tour that was scheduled to visit 

more than 40 venues in 2021. 

Sadly, the tour’s two performances 

at NJPAC had to be canceled 

due to positive COVID-19 

tests among the company. 

The Arts Center’s annual 

Kwanzaa Festival, sponsored 

by longtime NJPAC supporters 

Toby and Leon Cooperman, 

had been scheduled for the 

same weekend as those The Hip 

Hop Nutcracker shows. It was 

planned as a hybrid event, with 

some in-person features, from the 

traditional artisan marketplace 

to dance performances in 

the Prudential Hall lobby. 

When those in-person aspects 

were canceled on the morning 

of the Festival, Eyesha Marable, 

NJPAC’s Assistant Vice President 

of Community Engagement, stood 

at the doors of the Arts Center 

with President and CEO John 

Schreiber and Senior Director of 

House Management Robin Jones to 

break the news to those arriving. 

“We were thanking the community 

for coming, showing hospitality, 

trying to help people not walk away 

upset,” Marable explains. Bags of 

fruit, vegetables and cornbread 

(a gift from Newark’s Whole 

Foods) — all symbolic of Kwanzaa’s 

roots in African harvest festival 

traditions — were handed out to 

visitors who had to be turned away. 

“Our Kwanzaa festival is the one 

event at NJPAC that is infused 

by the efforts of every part of the 

organization, from arts education 

to programming, ticketing, security, 

front of house — it’s all hands on 

deck. That’s part of what Kwanzaa 

is about: It’s about umoja, unity, 

and ujima, collective work and 

responsibility. And even though 

we had to cancel, that spirit 

was still there,” says Marable. 

And, although its in-person 

elements were canceled, NJPAC 

was still able to offer the festival as 

a virtual event. Online programs 

included workshops exploring 

various forms of movement (West 

African, Afrobeat, liturgical and 

Caribbean dance as well as 

the Afro-Brazilian martial art 

of capoeira), a presentation on 

Health and Wellness in the Black 

Community by local representatives 

of the “Divine Nine” (the nine 

original Black fraternities and 

sororities), and a panel discussion 

on The New Renaissance of Black 

Theatre moderated by Ricardo 

Khan, Co-Founder of Crossroads 

Theatre, and featuring Nicolette 

Lynch, Managing Director of 

Yendor Theatre and Ashley 

Nicole Baptiste, Associate Artistic 

Director of Jersey City Theater 

Center, among others. • 

Amy Grant brought 

her 2021 Christmas 

Tour to NJPAC’s 

Prudential Hall. 

Vintage sounds of the season with 

Tim Davis, Jane Lynch and Kate 

Flannery in A Swingin’ Little Christmas. 

Despite the challenges of 2021, NJPAC 

continued to offer holiday 

moments to remember with a variety 

of both virtual and in-person events. 

NJPAC’s signature 

holiday event, The Hip 

Hop Nutcracker, was 

back on a national tour. 

NJPAC’s 2021 

Kwanzaa Festival 

offered virtual 

movement classes 

covering West 

African, Afrobeat, 

liturgical dance 

and more.

“NJPAC is the place where 

I found who I am…NJPAC 

has helped me find 

my voice. Poetry is now 

one of the ways I express 

myself, express my activism, 

because I want to 

make a change in 

the world!” 

— Zarah Bethea, age 15, of East Orange, 

who’s taken acting, musical theater and 

City Verses jazz and poetry classes at NJPAC. 

City Verses students (from left 

to right) Zarah Bethea, Claire 

Kantor and Lili M. pose with team 

leader Attorious Renee Augustin. 

30 

njpac.org 

njpac.org 

31

verses unbound 

Mixing melody and meters, 

City Verses program, funded 

by the Andrew W. Mellon 

Foundation, takes poetry 

to the stage — Stephen Whitty 

Hip hop artist Rakim inspired 

poets from City Verses, 

Arts Education faculty and 

alumni as part of last summer’s 


the City outdoor concert series. 

The sweetly insinuating melody 

of a saxophone. The rat-a-tat 

rhythms of a poet’s plea. 

They continued to come together and 

make beautiful music last year in City 

Verses: Amplifying New Voices in Jazz 

and Poetry, a far-reaching project 

that NJPAC launched in conjunction 

with Rutgers-Newark’s creative 

writing MFA program in 2019, backed 

by a Mellon Foundation grant. 

“The combination of jazz and 

poetry has a long history going 

back to the Harlem Renaissance,” 

explains Project Director Jennie 

Wasserman. “Look at the work of 

Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn 

Brooks, the Black Arts Movement, 

The Last Poets. We like to think 

we’re carrying on that tradition by 

highlighting our local poets and 

Newark’s rich musical history.” 

“The two forms differ, in that 

poetry is written from free 

thought and memorialized as 

such,” explains Rod Shepard, 

a teacher in the program’s 

summer camp and the head of 

the music and audio technology 

program at High Tech High 

School in Secaucus. “Jazz, by 

definition of its idiom, provides 

a written outline, while its 

performance is completely 

open to interpretive expression. 

Yet there is a freedom of 

expression in either that 

can draw them together.” 

“There’s a melody and rhythm 

that tie music and poetry 

together,” adds Attorious Renee 

Augustin, an MFA candidate at 

Rutgers-Newark and the team 

lead for the City Verses poetry 

group. “They’re inextricably 

linked by sound and tradition. 

And to see students dive into 

that — it was just bananas. They 

really got down to the nitty 

gritty. They genuinely inspired 

each other. They inspired me.” 

“My students love it,” Shepard 

says. “It’s an escape, and 

young minds need the break.” 

From the beginning, City Verses 

was meant to be multifaceted. 

“We don’t only do performances 

at NJPAC — we do high 

school residencies, we do 

poetry workshops, we have 

a summer camp,” Wasserman 

says. Obviously, that had 

to be rethought during the 

COVID shutdown, as some 

programs moved into hybrid 

models or went completely 

online. “The program was 

not originally designed to be 

virtual,” Wasserman adds. 

“But we made the best of it.” 

Still, last year, in addition to its 

free summer camp for teenage 

students, City Verses offered 

dozens of opportunities for 

the community to connect with 

jazz and poetry, including five 

virtual poetry workshops led 

by Rutgers MFA poets, and four 

in-person poetry workshops 

at Newark libraries and 

other community venues. 

The December concert Phronesis: 

A Focus on Frequency, 

streamed live on Facebook 

“There’s a melody 

and rhythm 

that tie music 

and poetry 

together. 

They’re 

inextricably 

linked by sound 

and tradition.” 

— Attorious Renee Augustin 

from NJPAC’s Horizon Theater, 

was an eclectic mixture of 

readings and rhythms. 

The newly virtual programming 

brought some unexpected 

benefits too. 

“We were able to reach people 

all over the world,” Wasserman 

says. “In the summer camp 

alone, we had students from 

India, from Ireland — I don’t 

know how they found out about 

it, but it was so great to have 

them sign on and give their 

perspective on things. Going 

forward, I think there’s going to 

have to be a virtual component 

to a lot of what we do. Of 

course, we’re going to continue 

to focus on Newark and Greater 

Newark — those are the primary 

communities we serve — but if 

we can welcome people beyond 

that, so much the better.” 

Still, despite the advantages 

of remote programming, 

everyone agrees the in-person 

events have a special energy. 

One particularly high point 

in July was hip hop artist 

Rakim’s set for NJPAC’s Horizon 

Foundation Sounds of the City 

concert series; City Verses 

students and faculty served 

as one of the opening acts, 

and gave a free jazz and 

poetry performance for nearly 

4,000 people. Wasserman 

is also particularly proud of 

a November concert, The 

Movement Revisited, built 

around a piece by NJPAC Jazz 

Advisor Christian McBride, 

and incorporating the words 

of heroes of the Civil Rights 

Movement and President 

Obama with McBride’s music, 

delivered by his band and 

a large chorus. The opening 

act? Mayor Ras Baraka, 

performing his spoken word 

poetry alongside The Last Poets, 

a veteran music and poetry 

group with a huge influence on 

contemporary hip hop music. 

“That was a real ‘Newark pride’ 

moment,” Wasserman says. 

“And we’ve got a lot coming up, 

including a big, international 

day of jazz highlighting 

our jazz ensembles.” 

“I genuinely think this program 

is institutional now,” says 

Augustin. “It has to be. To see 

the way the students in summer 

camp just light up — they show 

up and they are just so honest 

and vulnerable and brave.” 

“They need this,” Shepard says 

simply. “We need this.” • 

32 

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face to face 

Arts education at NJPAC 

evolves again, 

with a mix of in-person,virtual and hybrid programs 

“We had 

to move 

forward 

to evolve — 

we’re a learning 

community, we 

reflect, learn 

and act accordingly” 

– Jennifer Tsukayama 

Stephen Dent, Faculty 

Member for Hip Hop Arts 

& Culture, leads students in 

an arts training program. 

When NJPAC’s Arts Education 

staff returned to its home base, 

the Center for Arts Education, 

in the fall of 2021, they realized 

they had a lot of work to do. 

For starters, after more than 

a year without in-person 

classes, the building itself 

needed an overhaul. 

“We had to clean out and scrub 

down everything. The building 

had been empty for so long,” 

remembers Jennifer Tsukayama, 

Vice President of Arts Education. 

But the tidying up, while 

extensive — the entire Center for 

Arts Education was sanitized 

with hospital-grade cleaners, 

reorganized, painted, had HEPA 

air purifiers installed in every room 

and had needlepoint bipolar 

ionization systems installed in 

all its HVAC units — was only the 

prelude to the work Tsukayama 

and her team did in transforming 

NJPAC’s education programs 

themselves, to incorporate both 

the lessons learned over 18 months 

of virtual teaching and an 

expanded focus on redeveloping 

the Arts Center’s education 

programs to nurture students 

with trauma-informed, healingcentered, 

anti-racist and culturally 

responsive practices, as well as 

student activism opportunities 

and the support of social workers. 

“We had to move forward, 

to evolve — we’re a learning 

community we reflect, 

learn, and act accordingly,” 

says Tsukayama. 

The first step was transitioning 

NJPAC’s arts training programs 

from a fully virtual model to a 

hybrid one, with some programs 

held in-person and some 

remaining online — and some 

continuing on both tracks. 

“There were many conversations 

about how we were going to 

transition safely,” says Vicky 

Revesz, Senior Director of 

Operations for Arts Education. 

Just determining how many 

students could be accommodated 

in a classroom was a struggle; 

several programs reduced 

the number of participants to 

allow for social distancing. 

“But the kids were so, so ready 

for it. We heard it nonstop: 

When can we come back? 

When is class in-person again? 

They wanted to be back in 

that building,” Revesz says. 

NJPAC’s 2021 summer camps, 

however — including the City 

Verses summer camp, and the 

Geri Allen Jazz Camp for female 

or nonbinary pre-professional 

musicians — remained virtual, 

allowing students from across 

the country and beyond to 

participate. Costs to attend were 

also kept low to accommodate 

families still struggling with the 

financial impact of the pandemic. 

“We had students from across 

the country, from different parts 

of the world, and we didn’t want 

to lose them, they’re part of our 

community now. At the same 

time, we knew we were going 

to be competing with outdoor 

camps and activities, and with 

Zoom fatigue, so we redesigned 

the summer camps again, with 

multiple options for participation,” 

Tsukayama explains. 

In the fall, most arts training 

programs returned as in-person 

classes and “from the moment 

a child walked in the door, 

every little detail had to be 

worked out. Their whole day 

had to be reimagined,” says 

Roe Bell, Senior Manager of 

Schools and On-Site Programs. 

Entry times were staggered to 

prevent crowding in hallways. 

Students were checked into the 

building and into each classroom 

via iPad, leaving a digital record 

to facilitate contact tracing. 

Then came the logistics of 

teaching the arts safely — for 

example, figuring out how 

to conduct musical theater 

classes in which students sing 

together, or Jazz for Teens 

ensemble rehearsals, where 

young musicians play together 

on trumpets and clarinets. 

“We had to do a lot of research 

about aerosol spread,” says 

Revesz. “In the end we got bell 

34 njpac.org 

njpac.org 35

inging the performing 

arts to schools 

A core part of NJPAC’s arts education programming 

has long focused on bringing the performing arts to 

schoolchildren — either by bringing them to the Arts Center’s 

theaters, or by sending teaching artists into classrooms. 

While most schools had not yet resumed field 

trips in 2021, this work continued, as NJPAC’s Arts 

Education department devised residencies that 

could be delivered virtually or in-person. 

“The first big step was creating a safe 

space for teaching artists and 

students to work, then easing them 

back into the fundamentals, getting 

them back to focusing on connection, 

awareness, response.” 

– E. Bradshaw 

covers for the woodwind and 

brass instruments, we purchased 

specific masks that you can 

open up to access the mouth 

but still cover the nose. We 

took all these extra precautions 

because the students needed 

to be able to play together — 

that’s what jazz is!” 

Another innovation: In The Mix, 

a free program that allows 

students from all NJPAC classes 

to gather together and create art 

works on themes of social justice, 

became a hybrid program. 

Both virtual and in-person 

students met together, thanks 

to technological innovations. 

“We had to take the time to work 

out the technical kinks,” says Bell. 

“We found a room with a big 

screen, so everyone could see 

everyone else clearly, and we 

had a speaker system and mics, 

so everyone could be heard. 

Because In The Mix is studentdriven 

and conversation-driven, 

it was the perfect way to pilot 

that hybrid experience.” 

Not only did the program 

thrive, but students involved 

over the course of the year 

produced their own podcast, 

featuring their music, spoken 

word creations and even 

an interview with NJPAC 

Jazz Advisor and Board 

Member Christian McBride. 

In addition to the physical 

restrictions of teaching the arts 

during a pandemic, there were 

changes that had to be made to 

NJPAC’s pedagogical approach 

as well. The Arts Center had 

already embedded social 

workers in each class before 

the pandemic, but they were 

called on even more as students 

returned from an anxious year 

of learning under lockdown. 

Students from the Act Out Loud 

theater class practice scene work 

for their final share. 

“The first step was just making 

sure the kids were okay, 

creating a safe space for 

teaching artists and students 

to work, then easing them 

back into the fundamentals, 

focusing on connection, 

awareness and response,” 

says E. Bradshaw, Director 

of Theater Arts Education. 

“We had classes when half 

the kids would be home with 

COVID-19 and we’d say: Okay, 

let’s talk it out, share whatever 

you want. We talked about 

anxiety and stress. The process 

of making art was so helpful 

to them — we sneak a lot of 

life skills in with the fun stuff.” 

End of semester student 

performances, a vital part 

of each class, presented their 

own challenges: The NJPAC 

tradition of having potluck 

celebrations after each student 

share performance was out. 

Extra microphones were 

brought into the performance 

space, so students could be 

heard even with their masks on. 

And for families not comfortable 

with attending live events, a 

private livestream of the student 

performances was filmed. 

This proved vital not just for 

parents but for staff as well: 

Bradshaw, a new member 

of the faculty who came on 

board during the pandemic 

closure, was unable to attend 

their first in-person student 

share at NJPAC, because they 

caught COVID-19 at the end 

of the semester. But they were 

able to watch the livestream. 

“And I was just crying watching 

them,” they recall. “We had this 

one young woman in our class, 

15 years old, who had talked 

about never getting to play the 

lead. Well she had the lead in 

our performance — and she 

just took our breath away.” 

“That’s what this program is 

all about: Students telling us 

where they want to go, and 

us figuring out how we can 

help them get there.” • 

“We saw what was happening to the arts teachers in 

public schools, they were becoming support staff for 

teachers in the core areas. So we started to do really 

intentional arts integration work, tying the arts to literacy. 

Doriane Swain 

presents the life of 

jazz legend Lena 

Horne virtually in 

the SchoolTime 

production of 

Lena: A Moment 

with a Lady. 

It’s a way we can keep arts in the classroom, while 

supporting classroom teachers and their schools,” says 

Jennifer Tsukayama, Vice President of Arts Education. 

Storytelling Through Dance and Storytelling Through Drama 

were created as virtual, asynchronous residencies that schools 

could use during fall 2020. These opportunities for students 

to engage with reading material, by acting out both the story 

on the page and their own versions of each tale, were the 

Arts Center’s most popular offering for schools during the 

pandemic. In summer 2021, they were reimagined as virtual or 

in-person residency offerings, with new learning goals and a 

deeper integration of the arts and core content subject matter. 

Meanwhile, NJPAC’s SchoolTime Performances, which in a typical 

year bring thousands of children to the Arts Center’s theaters, 

were offered as virtual performances, including one about 

the life of jazz legend Lena Horne. In-person performances 

for schoolchildren are slated to return in spring 2022. 

In a new twist on the series, the printed Teacher Resource 

Guides included with each performance — which 

typically offer more information to contextualize the 

performance for students — were reimagined as podcasts 

that virtual classes could listen to as well as read. • 

36 njpac.org 

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edefining the 

future 

The Colton Institute 

for Training and 

Research in the 

Arts at NJPAC 

will create new 

pathways for 

arts education 

NJPAC’s dedication to arts 

education began more than 25 

years ago, prior to the opening 

of the Arts Center’s campus in 

1997. In a typical year, NJPAC 

offers hundreds of arts education 

classes, residencies and 

workshops, reaching more than 

100,000 students and families. 

Now, the Arts Center’s staff and 

teaching artists are embarking 

on the next step: Redefining how 

the performing arts are taught. 

In 2021, NJPAC announced 

the establishment of the 

Colton Institute for Training 

and Research in the Arts at 

NJPAC, an initiative made 

possible by a generous $10 

million donation from Judy 

and Stewart Colton. Longtime 

supporters of the Arts Center, 

the Coltons made their gift as 

part of NJPAC’s ongoing $225 

million Capital Campaign. The 

fundraising push will expand 

NJPAC’s artistic, educational 

and community-based 

programs, advancing the 

Arts Center’s role as Newark’s 

anchor cultural institution. 

The Colton Institute will support 

the expansion of arts training 

at NJPAC through its Saturday 

classes and summer camps, and 

enable the addition of socialemotional 

learning, mentorship 

and college and career coaching 

to the teaching of performance 

skills. It will also advance NJPAC’s 

professional development 

offerings for school teachers, 

and for its own teaching artists. 

Most excitingly, it will allow 

NJPAC to research the most 

effective and useful ways to 

teach the performing arts — 

and share that information 

with other arts organizations. 

“This gift is especially personal 

for us,” the Coltons said 

when their extraordinary 

contribution was announced 

in early December. 

The Colton Institute is helping NJPAC 

integrate social-emotional learning, 

mentorship and college and career 

coaching into its arts education efforts. 

“One of our grandchildren 

participated in NJPAC’s arts 

education programs, and 

we have seen firsthand how 

transformational that experience 

can be. As Arts Center patrons 

over many seasons, and 

volunteer leaders engaged in 

NJPAC’s evolving education 

work, we wholeheartedly 

believe in the vision and the 

objectives of the Institute.” 

The Institute’s work began in 

earnest in 2021, as new team 

members were added to the 

Arts Education staff, and new 

programs were launched. 

“We’re thinking about this 

holistic approach to developing 

student artists. What does 

it mean to serve the whole 

person? How are we prioritizing 

deep impact?” says Meggan 

Gomez, Assistant Vice President 

of Faculty and Creative 

Practice, one new member of 

the Arts Education team. 

“We’re nurturing the creative 

thinkers of the future, so these 

programs have exponential 

reach. What we do now, 

we will see the impact of 

25 years from now.” 

In addition to Gomez, 

E. Bradshaw joined the team 

as Director of Theater Arts 

Education. A Newark native, 

Bradshaw acted and taught 

across the country before 

returning to their hometown to 

begin the work of expanding 

NJPAC’s theater program 

into a series of trainings in 

every element of theater. 

“This is my town, and to bring 

everything I spent a lifetime 

learning back to my kids — 

and in Newark, they are all my 

kids — is very exciting,” E. says. 

Some Colton Institute programs, 

particularly those that add 

career and life skills to NJPAC’s 

offerings, were launched in 2021. 

A Creative Coaching project 

offered about 20 students the 

opportunity to meet throughout 

each semester, virtually, 

one-on-one with teaching artists 

who are also working arts 

professionals “whenever they 

needed help with a particular 

project, or to take their work 

a step further,” says Danielle 

Vauters, Senior Manager of 

Programming and Performances. 

The program has already 

had some remarkable results: 

One student worked with his 

mentor to record his own EP 

during the course of a semester. 

The Creators Room, another 

virtual project targeting emerging 

artists, put older students 

together with professionals in 

all kinds of arts careers, including 

many who work behind the 

scenes, from theater producers 

to talent managers. 

“It’s for alumni and for our 

students who are almost at the 

point where they’ve done all 

they can at NJPAC,” Vauters 

explains. “They’re interested 

in learning more about certain 

careers, or multiple ways 

to be part of the arts and 

entertainment industry. You can 

be successful in many ways, 

it’s not all about being a star.” 

A pre-professional program 

through which NJPAC helps 

students get paid performance 

opportunities during their high 

school years was expanded 

to include not just jazz 

students, but aspiring MCs, 

deejays and actors as well. 

“We’re 

nurturing 

the creative 

thinkers of 

the future. 

What we do 

now, we will see 

the impact 

of 25 years 

from now.” 

– Meggan Gomez 

Supporting classroom teachers 

is another core aspect of 

the Colton Institute’s work. 

NJPAC’s professional 

development offerings 

expanded to include 

the Social Justice Learning 

Series, virtual workshops 

designed to allow arts teachers 

to incorporate social justice 

issues, from racial inequity 

to environmental activism, 

into their classroom work. 

Other programs focused on 

arts integration — the practice 

of teaching the arts alongside 

academic subject matter, an 

approach that not only keeps 

the arts in school curricula, but 

makes academic lessons more 

effective. In recent years, NJPAC 

has participated in statewide 

arts integration initiatives 

and, with the addition of Arts 

Integration Faulty Lead Natalie 

Dreyer to the department’s 

staff, the Arts Center will be 

able to build on its previous 

work and begin developing 

a more comprehensive Arts 

Integration division. 

“What we’re asking is: How do 

you have a curriculum that is 

about both math and music, 

history and theater, at the same 

time — not teaching theater in 

order to learn history, but valuing 

both equally. We’re offering tools 

and building an ecosystem of 

creative teaching,” says Gomez. 

Next steps will include 

developing more expansive, 

ongoing training for NJPAC’s 

own teaching artists. 

And, as all these programs 

launch, adding a staff of 

research specialists able to set 

research agendas and evaluate, 

quantitatively and qualitatively, 

how effective each program 

is, will be the next step in the 

Institute’s development. 

“The arts play an undeniable 

role in the development of 

children, creating cultural 

citizens who have knowledge, 

compassion, and tangible skills 

to better understand themselves 

and others,” says Jennifer 

Tsukayama, Vice President of 

Arts Education. “With Judy 

and Stewart Colton’s 

meaningful gift, [we have] 

the opportunity to assess the 

impact and effectiveness of 

NJPAC’s teaching, learning 

philosophies and programs 

while finding ways to deepen 

our understanding of the 

arts and arts education.” • 

38 njpac.org 

njpac.org 39

“I’ve been at NJPAC since 2018, 

and now I carry the knowledge 

that there is a whole group of 

people that I share a common 

interest with. I keep that in my 

head everywhere I go: I have 

a place where I belong. 

I’ve learned that I’m more 

creative than I thought 

I was, and I’ve learned there’s 

something I’m good at.” 

— Noah Akinnuoye, age 13, of Maplewood, 

a student in NJPAC’s Hip Hop Arts and 

Culture program. He’s currently working 

on producing a new song based on samples 

from Nina Simone’s “Sinnerman.” 

Noah Akinnuoye 

njpac.org 

41

Michaela Jaé Rodriguez 

our shining stars 

We’re so proud of the work NJPAC arts education alumni 

are doing in a range of artistic fields. We connected with a 

few of them for an update on their current projects — and 

to ask how NJPAC shaped the artists they’ve become. 

Lusine “Lucy” Yeghiazaryan. 

Lucy, a rising jazz vocalist 

and arranger, has received a 

grant from the Women’s Fund 

of NYC for a project entitled 

In Her Words with vocalist 

Vanisha Gould. The piece will 

be performed at Caramoor 

Jazz Fest in summer 2022, and 

the recording of In Her Words 

was ranked #20 among vocal 

albums of the year in the 16th 

Annual Jazz Critics Poll. 

“I’ve often talked about how 

instrumental Jazz For Teens 

was for me, because it gave 

me an opportunity to work 

with a solid rhythm section 

long before most singers get a 

chance in the real arena. This 

gave me the confidence and 

strength that I think audiences 

appreciate in me today. I think 

this more than anything was 

extremely helpful for me as a 

young musician.” — Lucy 

Daryl L. Stewart. An actor, 

director, producer and educator, 

Daryl is currently developing 

a new performance series 

called Broadway in the Bricks 

in partnership with the Newark 

Museum of Art and Newark 

Arts, and is developing and 

directing a new Black musical, 

Step Show, that celebrates the 

rich legacy of African American 

step dance, in partnership with 

MASS MoCA. He also recently 

received a New Jersey Education 

Association Award of Excellence. 

In the past, he’s also worked 

as a teaching artist at NJPAC. 

“NJPAC’s impact on my life 

as an artist and individual 

is undeniable. I remain 

connected to an incredible 

roster of artists, scholars, 

educators, community 

leaders, thinkers and doers 

who represent the diverse 

and expansive history of 

NJPAC. Some of the senior 

staff members have literally 

watched me grow up from 

anxious adolescent artist 

to award-winning artist 

and educator.” — Daryl 

Alex Wintz. Alex is a jazz 

guitarist and teacher who 

performs with multiple groups 

and ensembles, including the 

Terraza Seven Big Band; he was 

nominated for a 2020 GRAMMY® 

Award for his work with Terraza. 

Last year, Alex released his latest 

album, Alex Wintz Trio: Live to 

Tape, and continued to perform 

at top venues across New York 

and New Jersey. Additionally, 

he now teaches guitarists in 

the Jazz for Teens program. 

“One of the things I always 

try to impart to my current 

students is that you benefit 

by being challenged by your 

peers. The more you do that, 

the better you’re going to 

become…and if you seek out 

programs like Jazz for Teens, 

you get a taste of what other 

people sound like, which is 

both humbling and inspiring. 

When I first came to NJPAC, I 

thought I was pretty good for 

my age, but there were kids a 

few years older than me who 

knew all these tunes by Parker 

and Ellington. That really 

pushed me to keep working.” 

— Alex 

Ricky Persaud. Ricky, a guitarist 

and vocalist, is currently working 

on his ninth studio album, 

which will be released in June 

2022. He’s also preparing for a 

performance at Carnegie Hall. 

But his biggest milestone, he says, 

was that he graduated Summa 

cum laude from the Berklee 

College of Music in June 2021. 

“When I first started the 

various programs at NJPAC 

(like Jazz For Teens and various 

songwriting courses), I barely 

understood music theory. 

But by the time I finished those 

programs, my understanding 

of music theory was so 

good that I aced my Berklee 

College of Music audition and 

was awarded a full four-year 

scholarship. Also, I felt my 

songwriting, composition 

and playing skills improved 

dramatically while attending 

NJPAC...I [was able] to 

apply what I learned to 

other musical mediums of my 

choosing.” — Ricky 

Other alumni highlights: 

Composer, conductor and multiinstrumentalist 

Tyshawn Sorey, 

a Jazz for Teens alumni, won a 

MacArthur “Genius” Award in 

2017, and has been lauded for 

his compositions that bridge 

classical music and jazz. In 

February 2022, he debuted a 

new piece, Monochromatic Light 

(Afterlife), commissioned by the 

Rothko Chapel in Houston. 

Actress and singer Michaela 

Jaé Rodriguez has starred for 

years in the FX television series 

Pose. In 2021, she became the 

first transgender woman to be 

nominated for an Emmy Award in 

a major acting category for her 

work on the show. The role also 

won her the Golden Globe for Best 

Actress in a Television Drama. 

Stage and screen star Okieriete 

Onaodowan, famed for his role 

in the original Broadway cast 

of Hamilton, closed 2021 with 

a bang, as his character on the 

Shonda Rhimes drama Station 19 

perished in an explosion. 

His casting in the fourth season 

of Jack Ryan was announced 

shortly thereafter. • 

Lusine “Lucy” Yeghiazaryan 

Daryl L. Stewart 

Alex Wintz 

Ricky Persaud 

42 njpac.org 

njpac.org 43

uilding a home for 

creativity 

Plans for the Cooperman Family 

Arts Education and Community Center 

How do you create a space 

where the performing arts can be 

taught, created and showcased 

for a community and then, shared 

with the world, all in one building? 

Thoughtfully. 

Throughout the year, work on 

NJPAC’s Cooperman Family 

Arts Education and Community 

Center, scheduled to break 

ground in 2023, advanced 

carefully and steadily. Arts 

Center team members from 

the Arts Education, Community 

Engagement, Programming, 

Production and other 

departments contributed 

to an ongoing process of 

establishing what features 

should be included in the new 

50,000-square-foot building, 

made possible by a foundational 

gift from the Cooperman family. 

The family’s gift was made in 

support of NJPAC’s $225 million 

Capital Campaign, designed 

to fuel a significant expansion 

of artistic, educational and 

community-based programming 

that leverages the arts as a 

driver of human potential, 

social impact, economic 

development and neighborhood 

revitalization. The Campaign will 

advance NJPAC as an anchor 

cultural institution in Newark 

for generations to come. 

move forward 

“It was a tremendously 

collaborative process, as it 

needed to be,” says Tim Lizura, 

Senior Vice President of Real 

Estate and Capital Projects. 

“This is the first major capital 

expansion of the Arts Center 

in 25 years and it’s a once-ina-lifetime 

opportunity. We’re 

focused on getting the sense 

of the place just right — what 

we’ve talked about is that 

the Cooperman Center is a 

complement to the Arts Center, 

a place for education, creation 

and discovery...” Lizura adds. 

Over summer 2021, NJPAC 

advanced the planning for 

the Cooperman Center by 

selecting the architectural firm, 

Weiss/Manfredi, from more 

than 20 applicants as the firm 

that would create the concept 

design for the new building. 

The celebrated team at Weiss/ 

Manfredi has created museums, 

theaters, libraries and university 

structures around the world. 

“Their sense of collaboration 

and their true understanding of 

NJPAC’s mission came through 

in their proposals, and it 

was clear that they would 

be the best partner for the 

Arts Center,” says Lizura. 

“Our vision for the Cooperman 

Center is inspired by NJPAC’s 

enduring commitment to 

arts education,” say Michael 

Manfredi and Marion Weiss, 

principals of the firm. 

“Our design is envisioned as 

an open invitation, a place 

where the walls can talk and 

welcome diverse communities 

of students and artists to learn, 

experiment and create.” 

Over the course of several 

months of Arts Center teams 

working with Weiss/Manfredi 

designers, a vision for the 

new space emerged: A threestory 

building bifurcated by a 

grand staircase with classrooms 

in a range of sizes. Each 

classroom will feature storage 

spaces and soundproofing 

and will be “wired for the 

technology of the next 25 

years” in order to share classes, 

meetings, performances and 

more virtually, says Lizura. 

Another feature, a public 

children’s reading room — 

an offering that the Arts Center 

will collaborate with the Newark 

Public Library to create — will 

give youngsters an opportunity 

to learn about artists and 

performers. In recognition of 

a leadership gift from Karen 

and Ralph Izzo, the room will 

be named the Izzo Family 

Children’s Reading Room. 

The Cooperman Center will 

also include an educational 

space where students will 

have an opportunity to learn 

about technical theater. 

“As we were planning these 

spaces, we had to take into 

account all the different activities 

that could take place there: 

educational offerings, performing 

arts programs for seniors, 

community gatherings and 

meetings. We had to think about 

things like: What size instruments 

will we need to fit in the elevators? 

How many drum kits can we fit 

into a storage space? Will the 

kids in the hip hop program be 

able to hear the theater kids in 

the next room? How many people 

do we expect to attend a film 

screening?” says Chelsea Keys, 

Director of Special Projects. 

Beyond the physical requirements 

of the new building, this 

process gave NJPAC the 

runway to envision new arts 

education programs that will 

be housed at the facility. 

“I see the Cooperman as a 

place of belonging — a powerful 

venue for celebrating and widely 

sharing the vast contributions 

of communities and artmakers 

while also building the future of 

artmaking and arts education,” 

says Jennifer Tsukayama, Vice 

President of Arts Education. 

“Here, we can take NJPAC’s 

longstanding commitment to 

amplifying student voices to 

the next level. The Cooperman 

Center will be a creative and 

educational incubator in which 

our Arts Education Research 

Lab innovates and invents arts 

education curricula, pedagogy 

and programs, and the Creative 

Incubator will push conventional 

artmaking practice and support 

new, genre-expanding work.” 

In addition to spaces dedicated 

to arts education, the third 

floor of the new building will 

feature two large professional 

rehearsal studios, each with 

a suite of offices and ancillary 

spaces, designed to be used 

by performance companies 

and productions in the 

creation of new works. 

“The rehearsal studios will allow 

NJPAC to extend its efforts to 

create new content for tours, 

broadcast and the mainstage,” 

explains David Rodriguez, 

NJPAC’s Executive Vice President 

and Executive Producer. 

“Combining the studios with our 

existing theaters makes Newark 

a creative hub for all levels of 

artistic project development. The 

studios will also be available for 

community-based artists through 

a space grant program. Their 

location in the Cooperman Center 

will allow artists to interact and 

provide master classes for young 

people from throughout Newark 

and beyond while in residence.” • 

“We see the Cooperman Center as a 

complement to the Arts Center, a place 

for education, creation and discovery, 

a place where we get to shape the 

arts and education district that 

surrounds our theaters.” – Tim Lizura 

Project designer Weiss/Manfredi’s 

rendering of the new, three-story 

Cooperman Center, a purpose-built 

home for NJPAC’s education efforts, 

made possible by a gift from the 

Cooperman family. 

44 

njpac.org

Summer Fun in Military Park with (left to right): volunteers Joan 

Ross and Jeanette Marable, bassist Shaun Bass, NJPAC teaching 

artist Wincey Terry, NJPAC’s Assistant Vice President of Community 

Engagement Eyesha Marable, drummer Gene Lake, Jr., NJPAC 

teaching artist Victor Burks and NJPAC teaching artist Lara Gonzalez. 

njpac.org 

47

eaching out 

A mix of approaches brings NJPAC 

community engagement 

programming to more people than ever 

– Stephen Whitty 

Engaging with the Greater 

Newark community is a core 

objective at NJPAC, and a vital 

part of its programming since 

the Arts Center’s opening. 

But how do you truly, personally 

engage when your own common 

sense, and the CDC, warn you 

not to? How do you bring people 

together when masks and 

social distancing are the rule? 

Now we have over 160. In the 

past, we would often reach 

20,000 people over the course 

of a year. In the last year, 

we reached about 90,000.” 

And just as NJPAC has never 

been just one thing — concerts, 

lectures or dance — neither 

are the programs Marable’s 

department promotes. 

African dance class with Fritzlyn 

Hector, contemporary Caribbean 

dance with Shola Roberts, Israeli 

folk dancing with Yvonne Peters, 

salsa dance with Desiree Godsell 

and Indian dance with Reema 

Limson, along with sessions on 

liturgical dance and ballet. There 

was even a session with a Radio 

City Rockette, Sally Hong, to get 

people in the holiday mood. 

Clockwise from top: Summer Fun in Riverfront 

Park with Shaquana Jordan; students 

dancing in Military Park; Books on the Move 

presented at First Avenue Elementary; Books 

on the Move in Military Park with Wincey 

Terry and a jazz quartet in Riverfront Park. 

“You do the pandemic pivot,” 

says Eyesha K. Marable. 

NJPAC’s Assistant Vice President 

of Community Engagement 

knew things would have to 

change when the first wave of 

COVID hit. But the key word 

was “change” — not cancel. 

Dance lessons went online. 

Film screenings became links. 

Book readings went virtual. 

Two years later, Marable’s 

department is now delivering 

on its mission with a hybrid 

approach — offering 

some free events that are 

virtual, and some in-person. 

They’ve discovered a silver 

lining in that pandemic cloud: 

Having an online component 

has allowed them to still 

connect with the community 

while now welcoming 

participants from around 

the world. 

“Since COVID first hit, we’ve only 

grown,” she says. “We once had 

over 120 partner organizations. 

“Since COVID 

first hit, we’ve 

only grown. 

In the past, we 

would often 

reach 20,000 

people over the 

course of a year. 

Last year, 

we reached 

about 90,000.” 

– Eyesha K. Marable 

“We co-host Wellness Wednesdays 

with RWJ Barnabas, which offers 

virtual dance classes, amazing 

recipes and wellness tips,” she 

says. The diverse offerings 

included a hula steps class with 

John-Mario Sevilla, an urban and 

“Deepening the partnership 

with RWJ Barnabas, we also 

had a wellness fair with virtual 

classes taught by people from 

across the world,” Marable 

says. “We knew right from the 

start of the pandemic that 

self-help and self-care were 

going to become crucial.” 

Crucial, too, was finding a way 

to get out of that pandemic 

bubble — but safely. So NJPAC’s 

Community Engagement team 

worked with members of the 

Arts Education and Marketing 

departments to lead NJPAC’s 

involvement in Newark’s Summer 

Fun in the Park programs, 

produced as part of Mayor Ras 

Baraka’s Back Together Again 

initiative, which sponsored a 

variety of outdoor, in-person 

programs during the warm 

weather days of 2021. 

As part of that initiative, jazz 

concerts, children’s programming 

and games came to Tubman and 

Riverfront Parks. Music lovers had 

njpac.org 49

amplifying the arts across the city 

a variety of grooves to get into 

at Military Park, from the funk, 

soul and fusion of After Work 

Fridays to the uplifting stylings 

of Soulful Summer Sundays. 

Jersey Fresh, NJPAC’s popular 

virtual open mic event that 

launched in fall 2020 and ran 

through spring 2021, grew 

into an in-person celebration 

of Garden State performers 

through a series of live iterations 

of the show at several city parks. 

The Community Engagement 

team produced more than 100 

events in the parks, including 

all the programming at Military, 

Washington and Riverfront. And 

the Arts Center’s Marketing team 

promoted the initiative, which 

drew more than 10,000 people 

from July through October. 

Another program, the Arts 

Center’s long-running Books on 

the Move, celebrates children’s 

literature while highlighting 

iconic performing artists of color. 

In 2021, NJPAC teaching artist 

Wincey Terry gave free virtual 

readings of the biography Celia 

Cruz: Queen of Salsa, geared to 

engage the youngest readers in 

the life story of that legendary 

performer. The book, selected 

for Hispanic Heritage Month, 

drew 500 children from schools, 

libraries and homes to take 

part via Zoom. Through the 

Participants in one of the virtual dance classes presented by NJPAC and 

RWJ Barnabas as part of Wellness Wednesdays. 

end of the season, five more 

public, virtual Books on the 

Move events are planned. 

“Books on the Move has 

grown way beyond our local 

community,” Marable says. “We’re 

now in Jersey City, in Asbury 

Park, Atlantic City, Pleasantville…” 

Yet even as NJPAC engages with 

communities around the state 

and around the world — “since 

the pandemic, we’ve had people 

joining us online from England, 

Canada, Curaçao,” Marable 

says — its heart is still at home. 

“We base programs on what’s 

happening in the community,” 

she explains. “We have an 

amazing advisory council, six 

different teams — Latinx, jazz, 

faith-based, elders, dance, 

LGBTQ+ — and their suggestions 

are essential to our programming. 

We’re not just dreaming 

things up sitting at home.” 

Or even just thinking about 

one part of the city. 

“I realized last year that 80 

percent of our work in Newark 

has been in the Central Ward,” 

Marable says. “So we spent 

the last six months touring the 

other wards. We spoke with 

leaders in those communities, 

making sure we know who their 

emerging artists are and asking 

how we can partner with them.” 

Marable’s own work continues. 

She ticks off plans for 2022 

projects already scheduled 

or about to take place: 

A day of events, classes and 

celebrations held in conjunction 

with Alvin Ailey American 

Dance Theater during the 

company’s annual residency 

at NJPAC; a celebration of 

community elders; and a big, 

in-person celebration of Rev. 

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and 

of contemporary activists 

working for social justice as 

he did, which will now be held 

in May, after Omicron moved 

the event from its traditional 

January date. By the end of the 

2021-22 season, Community 

Engagement will have produced 

245 events, both virtual and 

in-person programs. 

The mission, she says, is 

simple — and ongoing. 

“Find amazing artists and 

platform them well,” she says. 

“Give the community the 

opportunity to hear their voices, 

to see things through their 

lens — and make sure the world 

continues to be a better place.” • 

As NJPAC made plans 

throughout the year for the 

redevelopment of its campus 

in Downtown Newark, staff 

members held targeted 

conversations with Newark’s 

artists, families and local 

groups to ensure its work would 

best serve the community. 

And when the Arts Center 

asked for feedback from 

its neighbors, it got it. 

“They all said ‘Look, we 

love what you’re doing, 

but what about coming to 

us, to our neighborhood?’” 

recalls Eyesha K. Marable, 

Assistant Vice President of 

Community Engagement. 

“So we listened to what 

people had to say to us, and 

I had to agree: They were 

accurate, we’re not really 

present predictably across the 

city’s neighborhoods. So we 

came back and reassessed.” 

The result of that reassessment? 

A new determination to 

“double down on Newark,” 

as Chelsea Keys, Director of 

Special Projects, puts it. 

The desire for consistent, 

predictable performing arts 

programming, produced by 

NJPAC or in collaboration with 

local artists, presented in all 

the city’s neighborhoods, gave 

birth to a new plan for NJPAC 

to deeply partner with existing 

local organizations to provide 

more access to the arts citywide. 

“The idea is that we will have 

a menu of our programs that 

we can make available, but 

we also want to ensure that 

these locations will offer events 

that reflect the faces of the 

community, that will spotlight 

the artists who live in those 

neighborhoods,” says Marable. 

“We’re going to do it by 

partnering with organizations 

that are trusted, that have 

built-in connections with these 

communities, but that may 

not have the resources of a 

large arts organization.” 

“We’re coming in to say: 

What do you need? How 

can we help with what 

you’re already doing?” 

These locations throughout 

the city would feature 

programming designed to 

complement existing events 

run by the Arts Center’s partner 

organizations, and offer new 

programming that reflected 

the needs and wants of each 

locality, from music classes 

for preschoolers to open mic 

performances for neighborhood 

artists. NJPAC could amplify 

the resources of each partner 

by offering equipment, 

marketing assistance or 

production services. 

NJPAC is working with 

consultants at CNTR Arts, 

a team of community organizers 

and creative producers who 

have worked on similar 

projects with New York City’s 

Public Theater, among other 

organizations, to begin to 

create a rubric describing both 

how to select local partners 

in this work, and how to 

approach the overall initiative. 

“The team at CNTR Arts 

has taught us a new way of 

working,” says Keys. “They have 

experience in large, communitycentered 

initiatives, and they’ve 

been working with us every step 

of the way on the visioning part 

of this. With their help, we’ve 

thoughtfully engaged a diverse 

cross section of community 

stakeholders and NJPAC 

staffers in this planning, and 

we’re determining what kind of 

partner we’re going to be before 

we enter into partnerships 

with local organizations.” 

Although the ultimate goal of 

this plan is to have these venues 

in neighborhoods throughout 

the city, the first step will be 

to open one location to serve 

as a model, as early as fall 

2022, while taking the time to 

more thoughtfully spread out 

existing community engagement 

programs throughout Newark. 

“We have to take our time to do 

this right,” says Marable. “We’ll 

start with one location, build 

out the programming there, and 

learn from that experience.” • 

50 njpac.org 

njpac.org 51

won’t you be 

our neighbor? 

Plans announced to 

transform NJPAC’s 

campus into a vibrant 

district of homes, stores, 

restaurants and more 

Imagine you’re planning 

to meet a friend to see a 

performance at NJPAC. 

You dash out of your apartment, 

down to the street, and duck into 

a store a few doors away to pick 

up a gift for your pal, maybe 

a book or a bottle of wine. Then 

you head down the block to 

meet up with them at a fun new 

restaurant. As you dine, you 

watch the flow of people strolling 

by, and listen to a musician 

playing on the sidewalk. 

You finish your meal and 

head to the theater — 

right across the street. 

After the show, you talk about 

the performance as you 

wander into a stylish food 

hall for after-hours cocktails. 

Perhaps you stop by a gallery 

and take in a new exhibition. 

You say goodbye to your friend 

and walk back home — your 

apartment is, after all, just across 

the way. You admire the city lights 

reflected on the Passaic River 

as you walk back to your place, 

the hum of Newark at night 

murmuring in the background. 

And that entire evening, 

you never even need to 

leave NJPAC’s campus. 

An artist’s rendering of NJPAC’S 

redevelopment project that will 

bring 350 new rental residencies — 

both market rate and affordable 

homes — to Newark’s downtown. 

Such an evening could become 

a reality in just a few years: This 

vision of a bustling, welcoming 

urban neighborhood where 

people live, shop, gather, dine 

and enjoy the arts, all within 

a few compact city blocks 

surrounding NJPAC, is the 

inspiration behind the new real 

estate development project 

announced in midsummer — 

the creation of a new arts and 

education district right on 

the Arts Center’s campus. 

The project, slated to break 

ground in the first quarter of 

2023, will create a vibrant 

neighborhood of multifamily 

buildings, shops, restaurants 

and cultural spaces, plus 

about 15 townhomes and 

condos, on a portion of the 

7.3 acres of developable land 

on NJPAC’s riverfront campus. 

This dynamic redevelopment 

will add about 350 rental 

residences — both market rate 

and affordable homes — to 

Newark’s downtown, in addition 

to the condos and townhomes. 

The centerpiece of the retail 

environment on the new 

Mulberry Street will be a 

food hall called Mulberry 

Market, curated by celebrated 

restaurateur Marcus Samuelsson, 

whose Newark restaurant, 

Marcus B&P, has become 

a cornerstone of the city’s 

downtown dining scene. A 

state-of-the art teaching kitchen 

that will provide community 

cooking classes will also be a 

component of the new food hall. 

And this project is only 

the first phase of a multitiered 

plan to build a new 

live-work-play destination 

all around the Arts Center. 

“Contributing to the ongoing 

revitalization of Newark’s 

downtown has always been 

central to the Arts Center’s 

mission,” says John Schreiber, 

NJPAC’s President and CEO. 

“This plan calls for a thoughtful, 

curated mix of residential 

buildings, retail environments 

and cultural resources. And it’s 

a purpose-designed community, 

one that reintroduces a 

neighborhood fabric lost to 

mega-block development 

during the 1950s and 1960s. 

We’re adding streets back 

to the city where people can 

live, walk, shop and dine.” 

The celebrated architectural 

firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill 

(SOM), known for its work 

in creating environmentally 

advanced buildings and public 

urban spaces, was selected 

to design these new facets of 

the Arts Center’s campus. 

NJPAC has partnered with 

developers Center Street 

Owners (CSO), led by L+M 

Development Partners, to 

complete the project. CSO is an 

organization formed specifically 

to create this development. 

“We want 

this new 

neighborhood 

around NJPAC 

to be an 

exciting 

place to live 

as well as a 

uniquely 

engaging 

destination 

for arts lovers 

from all over.” 

– John Schreiber 

Well-known in Newark, L+M 

has also developed many 

other downtown sites including 

Walker House and the Hahne & 

Co. building. Prudential Impact 

& Responsible Investments is 

also a partner on the project. 

“We’re proud to unveil the 

transformative plan for the Arts 

Center in collaboration with 

NJPAC, which will not only help 

to lift up the arts community 

in Newark, but also deliver 

much-needed mixed-income 

housing and opportunities for 

local businesses,” says Ron 

Moelis, CEO and Co-Founder 

of L+M Development Partners. 

NJPAC is not financing any of 

the vertical development; rather, 

it is providing the guiding vision 

for this new district, as well as 

a ground lease for the project. 

Early conceptual inspiration 

and financial support for 

the project was provided by 

Prudential Impact & Responsible 

Investments. NJPAC has been 

working on master planning this 

redevelopment of its campus 

since 2019, initially working with 

rePlace Urban Studio, a multidisciplinary 

agency devoted 

to rethinking urban design. 

The ideals adopted by rePlace 

and the Arts Center ultimately 

led to a plan for an open, 

welcoming “public realm” 

where streets and alleys 

crisscross the downtown, 

connecting busy thoroughfares 

and letting in light and air. 

A main feature of the new 

development is a pedestrianfriendly 

extension of Mulberry 

Street, across from what is now 

NJPAC’s Lot A parking area. 

A simultaneous redesign of the 

Arts Center’s Eastern facade 

will create a new, welcoming 

entryway to the NJPAC campus. 

“This project will create new 

roads connecting 50 Rector 

Park with One Theater Square, 

and the river with Military 

Park,” says Tim Lizura, NJPAC’s 

Senior Vice President of Real 

Estate and Capital Projects, 

who worked tirelessly on the 

project for months before 

the announcement. 

Once completed, the 

development will provide 

not just individual homes 

and businesses, but an entirely 

new community — and a 

tantalizing destination for 

everyone who loves the arts. • 

52 njpac.org 

njpac.org 53

saluting 

all our women 

Women@NJPAC programming 

celebrated all the ways women 

build communities 

Throughout the season, 

Women@NJPAC not only 

supported the Arts Center’s 

education and community 

engagement missions — as it 

has since before NJPAC opened 

its doors — but also continued 

to expand its programming 

to offer its members and 

women in all fields insights 

and new ways to connect. 

“I call our approach the 

three C’s,” says Faith Taylor, 

President of Women@NJPAC. 

“We’re having an impact on 

our community, we’re making 

connections between women 

and we’re ensuring continuity, 

that the organization builds 

on the legacy of its first three 

decades and the work that 

we’re doing now will last.” 

Many of the Women@NJPAC 

programs continued digitally 

in 2021, but by year’s end, 

the group began to return 

for in-person celebrations. 

In March, the third annual 

Women@NJPAC Gathering 

of Givers, a celebration of the 

impact of women in philanthropy, 

was held, this time as a virtual 

event devoted to examining 

the role women will play in 

reinventing the post-COVID-19 

world — from workplaces 

to nonprofits to the arts. 

Speakers included Lara Abrash, 

Chairman and CEO of Deloitte 

& Touche, and Joanne Lin, a 

principal at Newark Venture 

Partners. The gathering also 

brought together leaders from 

the worlds of philanthropy, 

art and activism, like fayemi 

shakur, Arts and Cultural Affairs 

Director in the City of Newark, 

and Salamishah Tillet, Founding 

Director of the New Arts Justice 

Initiative at Express Newark, 

who discussed how art is 

transforming the public square. 

“When the pandemic hit, we 

saw very quickly the drastic 

shifts in the workplace,” said 

Abrash at the event, while 

noting that American women 

lost hundreds of thousands 

of jobs during the crisis (while 

men, overall, gained jobs). 

“We need to use what we’ve 

learned from the pandemic to 

help inform our decisions, and 

it’s imperative that we keep a 

gender lens on the decisions we 

are making so these impacts 

are not carried forward. As 

a society, we don’t want our 

advances in technology, and 

the possibilities of new ways 

to conduct work, to have a 

negative impact on the ground 

we’ve made up over so many 

years around gender equity.” 

“We’re having an impact on our 

community, making connections between 

women and ensuring continuity – 

that the organization builds on the 

legacy of its first three decades...” 

– Faith Taylor 

Leading Ladies: Reframing 

Newark Through Art panelists, 

left to right: Yeimy Gamez 

Castillo, Rebecca Jampol, Regina 

Barboza, Laura Bonas-Palmer 

and moderator Aisha Glover. 

njpac.org 

55

lessons in leadership 

Later that month, Women@ 

NJPAC supported the Arts 

Center’s robust lineup of social 

justice programming by hosting 

She Did That: Black Women 

in the Workplace, as part of 

the PSEG True Diversity Film 

Series, which highlighted the 

growing impact of African 

American women executives and 

entrepreneurs — and the barriers 

they face in corporate America. 

In April, Force of Beauty, another 

online conversation, celebrated 

a new Audible Original memoir 

of growing up in Newark by 

Mikki Taylor, an Editor-at-Large 

of Essence Magazine and a 

member of the Women@NJPAC 

Board of Trustees. Taylor, her 

co-author Deborah Riley Draper 

and CBS Saturday Morning host 

Michelle Miller discussed the 

story of Taylor’s grandmother 

Bessie, a seamstress, and her 

mother Modina, who styled 

Newark jazz legend Sarah 

Vaughan, as they raised families 

in the city, succeeding in the 

face of numerous hardships. 

“Telling the story of three brilliant 

matriarchs in Newark is really 

telling the story of mothers 

in America,” says Draper. 

In May, the Women@NJPAC 

Spring Luncheon returned 

after a year’s hiatus, this time 

as an online gathering. The event 

featured iconic fashion designer 

Norma Kamali as the keynote 

speaker, Broadway leading 

lady Laura Benanti as 

host and also included a 

During 2021, Women@NJPAC presented an online Spring Luncheon @ Home, 

featuring a conversation with iconic fashion designer Norma Kamali, 

here with moderator Marlie Massena; another virtual event, Force of Beauty, 

hosted Essence Magazine Editor-at-Large Mikki Taylor, who discussed her 

recent memoir about growing up in Newark. 

performance by acclaimed 

jazz violinist (and NJPAC Board 

Member) Regina Carter. 

June brought the launch of 

Women Leaders @ Work, 

a new series of virtual events, 

co-sponsored by Executive 

Women of New Jersey, 

which explores the impact 

of businesswomen who are 

advancing enterprises large 

and small. The first event 

in the series, Women in the 

Boardroom, focused on women 

taking leadership roles on 

corporate and nonprofit boards, 

challenging the “old boys club” 

of these powerful organizations. 

“You’re brought on the Board 

to lead from a position of 

strength, and express opinions 

that sometimes may not be 

held by the majority but need 

to be said,” explained Sharon 

Taylor, a member of the New 

Jersey Resources Board. 

“I think women in particular are 

extraordinarily well suited to not 

always lead with a two-by-four, 

but still say what needs to be said 

in a way that can be heard and 

understood — and, if necessary, 

they can put a fine point on it.” 

After the success of the second 

Spotlight Gala @ Home in the 

fall, Women@NJPAC returned to 

hosting in-person events at the 

end of the year, with its annual 

meeting in the Chase Room, 

followed by a panel discussion 

called Leading Ladies: Reframing 

Newark Through Art, featuring 

a quartet of female leaders at 

the city’s arts institutions: Regina 

Barboza, Interim Executive 

Director of Newark Arts; Yeimy 

Gamez Castillo, Co-Founder of 

ImVisibleNewark; Laura Bonas- 

Palmer, Co-Owner and Curator 

of Akwaaba Gallery; and 

Rebecca Jampol, Co-Director 

of Project for Empty Space. 

The discussion was moderated 

by Aisha Glover, Audible’s Vice 

President, Urban Innovation. 

The need to support artists to 

sustain the city’s growth quickly 

became a focus of the discussion. 

“Arts are the only business sector 

where people are expected to live 

off their passion — and nobody 

can eat passion!” says Barboza. 

“We pay teachers, doctors, any 

other professionals. How do you 

support artists? You pay them for 

their work!” adds Bonas-Palmer. 

“When you offer that kind 

of support for the artists in 

your community, that’s creative 

placemaking,” offers Jampol. 

“When you have a new building, 

and you put a mural in the lobby? 

That’s not creative placemaking — 

that’s decorating.” • 

How do you inspire young 

women to be leaders? 

One surefire way: Introduce 

them to women who are 

already leading, and show 

them how much like these 

icons they already are. 

In October, NJPAC helped 

produce a speaking tour for 

voting rights activist, political 

leader and bestselling author 

Stacey Abrams. While she 

didn’t appear at NJPAC, the Arts 

Center helped arrange for her 

appearance at Kings Theater in 

Brooklyn — and made it possible 

for some young Greater Newark 

leaders-in-training to meet her. 

Women@NJPAC offered tickets 

to 25 young women from SHE 

Wins, a Newark-based leadership 

and social action organization 

for middle and high school girls, 

and from the BOLD Women’s 

Leadership Network at Rutgers 

University-Newark, to hear 

Abrams speak. The evening 

was an inspiring one for the 

girls, particularly when they 

had the chance to meet with 

Abrams before the event. 

“She was talking about her 

experiences in church, doing 

community service. She grew up 

with no lights in her house, but she 

still made an effort to give back to 

the community, volunteer at soup 

kitchens. She saw it as her job to 

give back, because there’s always 

someone who has less than you. 

I thought that was really inspiring,” 

says Nyla Mitchell of Newark, age 

16, a SHE Wins member and North 

Star Academy student who was 

part of the group to see Abrams. 

“When she talked about being 

a leader, she asked us: How can 

we expect to be a leader if we 

can’t see things from another’s 

point of view? If you can’t admit 

you’re wrong, then you’re not 

a leader,” remembers Sasha 

Andrews of Newark, age 18, 

also a North Star student. 

Four young women who ended 

up sitting in the front row at 

the event were acknowledged 

from the stage by Abrams 

and later met with the icon 

herself. The next day, Abrams 

tweeted about meeting the 

girls, describing them as 

“exceptional young women” 

and “dynamic change agents.” 

“When we took a picture 

with her, she was shocked by 

how young we were,” recalls 

Princess Clarke of Newark, 

age 14, a student at Bard 

High School Early College. 

“When she was speaking on 

stage, (Abrams addressed) 

how she felt about how old 

our president is. And she 

said: ‘Princess there in the 

front row tonight would think 

that’s extremely old!’” 

Abrams got it right, Clarke adds. 

“I mean, my grandmother is 

older [than the President], 

but yes — that’s still old.” • 

Political leader and voting rights 

activist Stacey Abrams meets with 

students from SHE Wins before her 

appearance at Kings Theater. 

56 

njpac.org

a night 

to 

remember 

Kelli O’Hara, Bobby McFerrin, 

The Manhattan Transfer and 

more celebrate NJPAC in the 

second spotlight 

gala broadcast 


NJPAC’s 2021 Spotlight Gala 

@ Home began with the 

Tony-winning Broadway star 

Kelli O’Hara singing the soaring 

ballad “Pure Imagination,” 

from the 1971 film Willy Wonka 

and the Chocolate Factory. 

She chose that song for two 

reasons, she explains. 

“First of all, we turn to NJPAC 

to experience the imagination 

of performing artists and to 

teach our kids how to use 

their imaginations through the 

power of the arts,” she says. 

“But in the past year and a half, 

NJPAC has had to use its own 

imagination to come up with 

new ways of keeping the arts 

and arts education coming.” 

One example of that kind 

of innovation has been 

the presentation of the 

Spotlight Gala itself, 

which is organized by 

Women@NJPAC. A glittering 

and much-anticipated 

fundraising event held 

annually for more than 

25 years, the Gala was 

obliged to go virtual in 2020 

because of the pandemic. 

And it remained virtual in 

2021, with an hour-long show 

titled Perfect Harmony that 

was broadcast October 2 on 

NJ PBS and streamed online. 

O’Hara hosted in addition to 

performing. She introduced 

clips featuring jazz-pop 

innovator Bobby McFerrin 

and the masterful vocal 

groups The Manhattan 

Transfer, Take 6, Under the 

Streetlamp (performing 

a medley of hits by Frankie 

Valli & The Four Seasons) and 

Naturally 7. O’Hara’s second 

vocal performance of the evening 

was also the show-closer: 

the inspirational “You’ll Never 

Walk Alone,” from Rodgers & 

Hammerstein’s Carousel. 

Charles Lowery, Chairman and 

CEO of Prudential Financial and 

a member of NJPAC’s Board of 

Directors, introduced a segment 

featuring the recipients of NJPAC’s 

2021 Founders Award, Toby and 

Leon G. Cooperman and their 

family. Philanthropists in areas 

such as health and education 

in addition to the arts, the 

Coopermans have supported 

many NJPAC programs and 

initiatives, and their generous 

founding gift will help launch 

the Cooperman Family Arts 

Broadway leading lady 

and Spotlight Gala host 

Kelli O’Hara onstage in 

Prudential Hall 

Despite the effects of the 

pandemic, the 2021 Spotlight 

Gala @ Home raised 

more than $2.1 million, 

making it one of NJPAC’s 

most successful 

Spotlight Galas ever 

58 

njpac.org

the cooperman family: 

a legacy of generosity 

NJPAC’s annual fundraising event remained 

virtual in 2021, with an hour-long show 

titled Perfect Harmony that was 

broadcast on NJ PBS and streamed online. 

Education and Community 

Center, due to open in 2025. 

“The Cooperman Center is at 

the heart of what our future 

is,” says NJPAC President 

and CEO John Schreiber. 

“In philanthropy, you’ve got to 

pick the winning horse,” says 

Leon Cooperman. “John’s a 

winner, and we gave him 

the money to empower him 

to do what he has to do.” 

NJPAC “is a success story,” 

says Toby Cooperman, “so we 

assume this will be as well. And 

it’s going to hopefully make a 

difference in people’s lives.” 

Prudential Financial and the 

Coopermans were the lead 

sponsors for the Gala, which 

also featured messages and 

commentary from Women@ 

NJPAC President Faith Taylor, 

Women@NJPAC Trustees and 

Gala Co-Chairs Mindy Cohen 

and Nina Wells, NJPAC’s Vice 

President of Arts Education 

Jennifer Tsukayama and 

students in NJPAC’s arts 

training programs. Also, 

The Manhattan Transfer 

(featuring Newark native 

Alan Paul), Take 6, Naturally 7 

and Under the Streetlamp’s 

Brandon Wardell taped 

special new segments to 

introduce their numbers. 

The event raised more than 

$2.1 million, placing it among 

NJPAC’s most successful 

Spotlight Galas ever. 

With the pandemic having 

forced cancellations or 

postponements of so many 

shows, says Women@NJPAC 

Bobby McFerrin 

Take 6 

Managing Director Sarah 

Rosen, “it’s more important 

than ever to be able to have 

that revenue. And the really 

big bonus from recreating the 

Gala as a PBS special is that 

we were able to tell the 

story about our Arts 

Education programs to a 

much larger audience.” 

The partnership with NJ 

PBS, she says, was critical 

to the Gala’s success. 

“There were a lot of virtual 

events that were hosted by 

nonprofits over the last two 

years, and most of them were 

excellent programs, where 

you either did a Zoom or a 

livestream of some sort. But 

the fact that ours was on 

public television…I don’t think 

anybody else has done that. 

“Being New Jersey’s anchor 

cultural institution, and always 

having been committed to 

the whole state, it really was 

wonderful that New Jersey’s 

public television station agreed 

to partner with us on this.” • 

Leon Cooperman — founder 

and chairman of Omega 

Advisors, and former Chairman 

and CEO of Goldman Sachs 

Asset Management — is a 

financier, executive and an 

extraordinary philanthropist. 

He’s also a father and a 

grandfather, the founder of a 

clan raised to work hard and, 

most importantly, to give back. 

NJPAC honored Lee, his wife 

Toby and the whole Cooperman 

family at the 2021 Spotlight Gala 

for their long history of support 

of the Arts Center, and for their 

foundational 2019 gift toward 

NJPAC’s new Cooperman Family 

Arts Education and Community 

Center, which will open in 2025. 

The son of Polish immigrants, 

Lee grew up in a one-bedroom 

apartment in the South Bronx. 

He attended Hunter College in 

New York, becoming the first 

in his family to get a degree. 

He also attended Columbia 

Business School, then started at 

Goldman Sachs the day after 

his 1967 graduation. He rose 

to become CEO at Goldman 

Sachs Asset Management. 

After 25 years at Goldman, he 

left to start his own firm, the 

hedge fund Omega Investors. 

Toby, a teacher who worked 

for many years as a learning 

disabilities specialist at the 

ELLC, a special needs school in 

Chatham, had already devoted 

her career to helping others. 

In 2010, Lee and Toby signed 

the Giving Pledge, joining the 

group of billionaires who have 

committed to giving the majority 

of their wealth to charitable 

concerns. Both before and after 

they signed the Pledge, the 

Cooperman family’s generosity 

Top: The Cooperman Family — including, from left, Jodi Cooperman, Kyra 

Cooperman, Toby Cooperman, Leon Cooperman, Wayne Cooperman and 

Courtney Cooperman — visit the NJPAC campus. Bottom left: NJPAC President 

and CEO John Schreiber with Toby and Leon. Bottom right: Toby and Leon 

Cooperman at home during the Spotlight Gala @ Home taping. 

has been extraordinary. 

While their philanthropy has 

prioritized education, health, 

the arts and Jewish life, 

the Cooperman family has 

advanced innumerable efforts. 

Lee and Toby have shared their 

philanthropic spirit with their 

whole family, who are now also 

engaged in finding new ways 

of helping. Among many other 

charitable projects, their son, 

Wayne and his wife, Jodi, joined 

Lee and Toby in establishing 

The Cooperman Family Fund 

for a Jewish Future at the 

Jewish Community Foundation 

of MetroWest in New Jersey, 

which supports mitzvah projects 

and Birthright Israel trips and 

camp for Jewish youngsters. 

Their other son, Michael, is 

the founder and principal of 

PlusFish Philanthropy, which 

designs and funds science and 

capacity building to protect 

the fisheries of the developing 

nations of the tropics, an 

essential food supply for 

hundreds of millions of people. 

Today, a whole new generation 

of Coopermans — Lee 

and Toby’s grandchildren, 

Kyra, Courtney and 

Asher — are poised to join 

the family’s efforts. • 

60 njpac.org 

njpac.org 61

many voices, 

one mission 

The Arts Center expanded its focus on 

diversity, equity and inclusion 

through multiple channels 

Celebrating diversity has been 

a central principle of NJPAC’s 

mission since its inception, a core 

value shaping its programming, 

its hiring practices and more. 

In 2020, the global rebirth of 

the social justice movement 

following the murder of George 

Floyd led to a significant 

expansion of the Arts Center’s 

public-facing programming 

focused on equity and 

inclusion, from film screenings 

to professional development 

workshops for teachers. 

But in 2021, staff and senior 

management at NJPAC also 

examined the organization’s 

own culture through the lens of 

diversity, equity and inclusion, 

creating new pathways for 

the institution to grow. 

“Our focus on DEI actually 

started much earlier, when 

we worked with the Boston 

Consulting Group to create 

a strategic plan for the Arts 

Center,” says Donna Walker- 

Kuhne, who had been NJPAC’s 

Senior Advisor of Community 

Engagement, but mid-2021 took 

on the role of Senior Advisor of 

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. 

“One of the pillars of that plan 

was to create a culture here 

where diversity and inclusion are 

part of all aspects of our work.” 

“That’s important to know, 

because this was not a hasty 

response to an angry staff — and 

as a consultant, I’ve had clients 

where this work is a response 

to that. This was very different: 

It was a thoughtful response 

Members of NJPAC’s African American 

Employee Resource Group joined forces for a 

“day of service” in support of the global nonprofit 

housing organization Habitat for Humanity. 

to the realization that we want 

NJPAC to be an anti-racist 

organization, and to commit 

to doing the work needed 

to achieve that,” she says. 

Walker-Kuhne and Beth Silver, 

Vice President and Chief People 

Officer, as well as a crossdepartmental 

Arts Center team, 

did months of work on exploring 

strategies that advance diversity, 

equity and inclusion, and 

incorporating these efforts as a 

central part of NJPAC’s strategic 

plan. This work evolved into 

multiple new internal initiatives 

that launched in January 2021. 

The first step was staff education. 

Several online staff training 

sessions were offered to all 

NJPAC employees by Silver and 

the People and Organization 

team, who sourced online 

training programs on workplace 

harassment, being an upstander 

in the face of racism and more. 

Each training was followed by 

live small-group discussions 

that involved everyone from 

entry-level staffers to senior 

management. Cheryl Rosario, 

the founder of CGR Consulting, 

a DEI-focused consulting group, 

came on board to lead these 

discussions throughout the year. 

Each training offered a different 

focus, from the basics of 

civility in the workplace to 

recognizing unconscious bias. 

Silver also facilitated the 

deployment of a staff survey 

on attitudes about diversity, 

equity and inclusion, and how 

NJPAC could improve its support 

for all employees. The results 

of the survey yielded several 

new goals for the organization, 

from empowering women in the 

workplace to fostering a culture 

that allowed staffers to bring 

their “whole selves” to work. 

Mid-year, a DEI Committee 

was added to the NJPAC 

Board of Directors’ initiatives, 

with 10 Board members and 

volunteer leaders from a range 

of industries coming together for 

the first time in June to discuss 

ways that the Arts Center could 

further enhance its commitment 

to equity and inclusion. 

“The Board is in many ways 

our mirror — they objectively 

provide feedback on how 

we’re doing, they help shape 

and guide our goals. To ensure 

that we are implementing DEI 

principles in the best ways 

possible requires their support 

and their feedback,” says Silver. 

Perhaps most significantly, 

in 2021 NJPAC formed and 

launched four Employee 

Resource Groups — internal 

affinity groups for Black/ 

African American, Latino/ 

Hispanic, LGBTQ+ and Women, 

designed to support staffers’ 

goals at work, and brainstorm 

new ways to make the Arts 

Center as inclusive as possible. 

“We wanted everyone who 

works here to have a safe place 

where they could raise their 

concerns and find ways to make 

positive change,” says Silver. 

“There was no expectation of 

what my role would be, we were 

free to really plot our own path,” 

says Kira Ruth, Senior Manager 

of Programming Operations, 

“We want 

NJPAC to be 

an anti-racist 

organization, 

and to commit 

to doing the 

work needed 

to achieve that.” 

– Donna Walker-Kuhne 

who took on the role of 

Chair of the African American 

Employee Resource Group. 

“The ERGs gave a lot of people 

the opportunity to have their 

voices heard. Speaking for 

myself, I feel like I really dropped 

the filter that I would normally 

keep up at work — and I 

hope that it allowed other 

people to feel that way too.” 

The ERG meetings are “not a 

[complaint] session, but what 

they offer people is the comfort 

of being able to be more open 

about what their concerns are — 

always with the goal of thinking 

about how things could be 

done differently or better,” says 

Mary Jaffa, NJPAC’s Assistant 

Vice President of Finance, and 

Chair of the Women’s ERG. 

The ERGs were not only 

enthusiastically embraced by 

staff, but they also led to a 

profusion of staff-led initiatives 

that took place throughout the 

year. Among them: The LGBTQ+ 

ERG sponsored a series of events 

around Pride Week in Newark, 

including a public Pride Happy 

Hour at NICO Kitchen + Bar and 

a digital staff Pride celebration 

that included drag bingo 

and lessons in vogueing. 

The Women’s ERG offered a 

series of digital workshops 

with Laurie Chock, President of 

Chock Global Communications, 

on communicating and 

presenting effectively at work. 

The group also successfully 

advocated for a flexible 

work time policy at NJPAC. 

Las Jardineras — the name 

created by participating staffers 

for the ERG for employees of Latin 

and Hispanic heritage — made 

a presentation at an all-staff 

meeting explaining the difference 

delineated by the words Latin 

and Hispanic. The group also 

hosted an El Día De Los Muertos 

celebration, and offered a 

salsa lesson at a meet-andgreet 

event held to welcome 

new potential ERG members. 

The African American ERG 

created a staff presentation 

called Do You Know Newark? 

that delved into the city’s history 

and its role as a hotspot of jazz 

that fostered the talents of artists 

from Sarah Vaughan to Wayne 

Shorter. It also organized a day of 

service with Habitat for Humanity 

for all of the ERG members. 

“We try to make everything we 

do informative, but entertaining 

as well,” says Ruth. “I feel like 

there’s been real growth here, 

as an organization, through 

the work of the ERGs.” 

“And I am hopeful of more 

growth to come,” she adds. 

“There’s always room to grow.” • 

62 njpac.org 

njpac.org 63

emembering 

nai-ni chen 

The masterful modern 

dancer, choreographer 

and champion of Chinese 

dance traditions was an 

integral part of NJPAC’s 

dance programming 

– Robert Johnson 

One of NJPAC’s longestenduring 

traditions is its Chinese 

New Year performance — a 

riot of fluttering silks, dazzling 

acrobatics, puppetry and 

dance — presented each year 

since the Arts Center’s opening 

season by the Nai-Ni Chen 

Dance Company, a troupe 

co-founded by its namesake 

choreographer and her 

husband, Andy Chiang. 

In December 2021, about a 

month before the company was 

set to celebrate The Year of the 

Water Tiger at NJPAC, Chen, 62, 

passed away while traveling in 

Hawaii. Her death saddened 

everyone at the Arts Center. 

“She was such a kind 

person,” says David Rodriguez, 

Executive Vice President and 

Executive Producer. “So many 

in the NJPAC audience knew 

her for more than 20 years of 

Chinese New Year celebrations 

here, but she was also an 

exquisite choreographer of 

contemporary work that 

merged her Chinese heritage 

with modern dance. And behind 

the scenes, she was a mentor for 

NJPAC’s Jersey Moves Festival 

of Dance since it began.” 

A highly respected artist who 

was a pillar of the Asian- 

American arts community, Chen 

was known for her outstanding 

choreographic craft, rooted 

in America’s modern dance 

tradition. Yet the precision 

and rigor of traditional 

Chinese dance informed her 

choreography, and her own 

performances as a dancer. 

Her personal journey as an 

immigrant, and as the child of 

refugees, gave her a grasp 

of history and politics, and an 

acute sensitivity to the plight of 

ordinary people caught up in 

the maelstrom of world events. 

While Chen’s primary focus 

was on contemporary dance, 

she had received a thorough 

grounding in traditional Chinese 

performing arts while studying 

in her native Taiwan. This 

experience would serve Chen 

in a way she never expected. 

When NJPAC’s Founding Vice 

President for Arts Education, 

Philip Thomas, first encountered 

the company performing at 

the John F. Kennedy Center for 

the Performing Arts in 1996, 

Thomas suggested that the 

Fort Lee-based troupe should 

appear regularly at NJPAC. 

The Arts Center opened its doors 

the following year with Chen 

named as a Principal Affiliated 

Artist. Chen conceived of the 

Chinese New Year celebration 

as a way of representing her 

community, honoring her 

teachers and introducing 

audiences to Chinese culture. 

“NJPAC is the mother of 

it all,” says Andy Chiang, 

recalling the origins of the 

annual celebration. 

According to Chiang, 

the company spends 

two-and-a-half months 

each year preparing the New 

Year’s spectacle, which always 

combines fresh material with 

old favorites. Typically, it 

showcases puppet lions 

romping with their handlers 

and performing tricks with 

a magic pearl (Double Lions 

Welcoming the Spring) and 

the thrilling Dragon Dance, 

in which the Dragon winds 

its way around the stage like 

a speeding express train, 

golden scales flashing. 

In between these numbers, 

the company typically treats 

audiences to folk dances 

from China’s minority regions, 

excerpts from Chinese 

operas and music performed 

on Chinese instruments. 

The company also offers 

a version of its Chinese 

New Year celebration for 

school children, through the 

Nai-Ni Chen saw 

her company’s 

annual Chinese 

New Year 

celebration 

at NJPAC as 

a way of 

representing 

her community, 

honoring her 

teachers and 

introducing 

audiences to 

Chinese culture. 

Arts Center’s SchoolTime 

Performance series. Chiang 

estimates that 100,000 

people have seen the show 

at NJPAC over the years. 

NJPAC also showcased 

Chen’s contemporary 

choreography. “Every time we 

turn to NJPAC, they always 

come back in a supportive 

way to make presenting or 

commissioning Nai-Ni’s work 

possible,” Chiang says. 

A milestone in this 25-year 

relationship was the 2001 

premiere of Dragons on the Wall, 

co-commissioned by NJPAC for 

the Alternate Routes Festival, 

an exploration of censorship, 

imprisonment and the invasion 

of privacy in totalitarian 

societies, inspired by the poetry 

of Chinese dissident Bei Dao. 

NJPAC also sponsored the 

premiere of Isle of Dunes 

(2006), a moody evocation of 

the American Southwest that 

was part of Chen’s American 

Landscape series. Chen’s 

playful Raindrops (2003), 

and three dances in her Way 

of Five series (2007-2010) all 

received premieres at NJPAC. 

Most recently, NJPAC hosted 

the premiere of 2018’s A Quest 

for Freedom, a collaboration 

between Chen and the Ahn Trio. 

Chiang remains determined 

to hold the troupe together. 

Dancer Greta Campo was 

appointed Interim Artistic 

Director, while PeiJu Chien-Pott, 

a former star of the Martha 

Graham Dance Company, 

has come on board as 

Choreographer and Director 

of Contemporary and Creative 

Dance. Ying Shi, a longtime 

associate, will take charge of 

the traditional repertoire. 

Chen left the troupe a legacy of 

more than 70 dances. The group 

has an ambitious schedule 

planned for spring 2022, 

including the New York premiere 

of a contemporary program 

called Awakening, which will 

feature Chen’s final creations. 

“If I can keep on reviving 

Nai-Ni’s work and organizing 

in such a way that people 

can see it, then I will be very 

happy,” Chiang says. • 

64 njpac.org 

njpac.org 65

njpac short stories 

classical music, 

modern methods 

Throughout the 2021 season, 

NJPAC and its partners in 

the world of classical music 

expanded their work online, to 

bring sonatas and symphonies 

to audiences at home. 

NJPAC’s Classical Conversations 

series, hosted by the Artistic 

Director of the Discovery 

Orchestra, George Marriner 

Maull continued throughout 

the season with virtual deep 

dives into Tchaikovsky’s 

Symphony No. 4 in F Minor, 

Chopin’s Scherzo, Op. 31 in B-Flat 

Minor and Handel’s Hallelujah 

chorus, each online discussion 

geared to allow fans to better 

understand these beloved works. 

And long before the New Jersey 

Symphony would return to 

the NJPAC stage in front of an 

audience, the ensemble was on 

the Betty Wold Johnson stage 

in Prudential Hall to create 

several concert films including 

two exceptional offerings taped 

in May, one featuring worldrenowned 

violinist Joshua Bell 

with soprano Larisa Martínez, 

and another featuring leading 

opera soprano Renée Fleming. 

The performances, conducted 

by Xian Zhang, now in her sixth 

season as the Symphony’s 

music director, were made 

available on its website — 

and may be broadcast at a 

later date, as several of the 

Symphony’s films made early in 

the pandemic were, via NJ PBS. 

The violin-focused concert 

featured music by Mendelssohn, 

Mozart and Wieniawski. 

For Fleming’s performance, 

she sang Wagner’s Wesendonck 

Lieder for the first time, while the 

Symphony also played Wagner’s 

Siegfried Idyll and Bizet’s 

Adagietto from L’Arlésienne 

Suite No. 1, and native 

New Jersey poets Michelle 

Above: Joshua Bell with the 

New Jersey Symphony in 

Prudential Hall, taping a concert 

made available for streaming on 

the Symphony’s website. 

Below: George Marriner Maull, 

the longtime host of NJPAC’s 

popular Classical Conversations. 

Moncayo and Jane Wong 

read from their own works. 

“I’ve been pleasantly surprised 

by the response to consuming 

music and art online,” says 

Bell in an interview included 

in the online package. “[The 

pandemic] actually forced a lot 

of us to be creative in the way 

we presented music. And people 

were very thirsty for music.” 

“I think a lot of what we 

discovered during this process 

will continue after we’re back 

in the swing of things.” 


politics take 

the stage 

From its beginnings, when 

Republican Governor Tom Kean 

joined Newark’s Democratic 

Mayor, Sharpe James, to 

advocate for an Arts Center in 

the city, NJPAC has been a joint 

effort by people of all political 

persuasions, encouraging 

Garden Staters to find common 

ground while still engaging in 

the free and frank discussions 

that make democracy work. 

That tradition continued on 

September 28, when incumbent 

Democrat Phil Murphy and 

Republican challenger Jack 

Ciattarelli met in Prudential 

Hall for their first debate of New 

Jersey’s gubernatorial election. 

Outside the Arts Center, 

supporters of each candidate 

gathered by Military Park, 

raising cheers and waving 

flags and banners. Inside, 

both men came out swinging, 

playing to an energetic and 

often vocal audience in 

the hall, as well as viewers 

and listeners on television, 

radio stations and online. 

Hosts Sade Baderinwa of 

WABC, Brian Taff of WPVI, 

Adriana Vargas-Sino of 

Univision, and NJ Advance 

Media reporter Amanda 

Hoover moderated the 

debate and asked questions 

submitted by students, 

reporters and the public. 

NJPAC proudly hosted the 

debate in partnership with a 

cohort of Garden State media 

and academic institutions, 

including WABC-TV, WPVI, 

Univision65, NJ Advance Media, 

WHYY-FM radio, Rutgers 

Eagleton Institute of Politics 

and Rutgers School of Public 

Affairs and Administration. 

Evergreen Partners produced 

the debate on behalf of NJPAC. 

The debate was sponsored by 

PSEG and broadcast on both 

ABC-owned TV stations in the 

New York and Philadelphia 

markets, Univision 41 and WHYY 

radio. It was also streamed 

across WABC and WPVI’s 

streaming apps and on 

streaming platforms Fire TV, 

Android TV, Apple TV, Roku and 

Hulu. WBGO Radio in Newark 

was also a debate partner. 

Ciattarelli started strongly, 

saying that because the 

Governor had not immediately 

declared a state of emergency 

during Hurricane Ida, he bore 

Left: Governor Phil Murphy and opponent 

Jack Ciattarelli debate at NJPAC. 

Right: Sade Baderinwa and Jim Gardner 

were among the evening’s moderators. 

some responsibility for the 

death of 30 New Jerseyans 

in the disaster. Murphy 

countered that catastrophic 

events like Ida were a 

product of climate change, 

which his administration 

was committed to fighting. 

The cost of living in New 

Jersey was, not surprisingly, 

another point of contention, 

with Ciattarelli citing the state’s 

property taxes, the highest in 

the nation. Murphy flipped the 

subject around, ticking off what 

New Jersey’s taxes paid for 

under his administration, from 

an increase in school aid to full 

funding of workers’ pensions. 

The real winners of the evening? 

New Jersey voters, who got 

to hear extensively from both 

candidates, as NJPAC proved 

again that its stage was a 

fitting place for all of the 

state’s great performances — 

even the political ones. 

— Stephen Whitty 

66 njpac.org 

njpac.org 67

Acclaimed pianist Arturo 

O’Farrill brought Salsa 

Meets Jazz to NJPAC 

Sweet times came 

courtesy of Mars 

Wrigley’s Halloween 

Treat Truck Tour 

NJPAC’s Emmy-winning 

The Hip Hop Nutcracker 

2021 Business Partners Roundtables guests 

included (clockwise from top left) Senator Bob 

Menendez; Scott Kirby, CEO of United Airlines; 

Tanuja M. Dehne, President & CEO, The Dodge 

Foundation; and Scott O’Neill, former CEO of 

Harris Biltzer Sports & Entertainment. 

nosotros hablamos 

españo 

Scores of Latin and Hispanic 

performers appear at NJPAC 

every year, from legendary 

sonero Gilberto Santa Rosa 

to Latin jazz star Arturo 

O’Farrill to Mexican singersongwriter 

Ana Gabriel. 

In October, NJPAC unveiled a 

new way to reach fans of those 

artists: A Spanish-language 

version of its website, which 

can be found at es.njpac.org. 

The Arts Center partnered 

with Smartling, a leader in 

translation management, to 

offer NJPAC’s entire publicfacing 

web presence in both 

Spanish and English. 

“NJPAC has always served an 

incredibly diverse audience. 

It only makes sense for us to 

invite as many people as we 

can to discover everything 

the Arts Center has to offer in 

their primary language,” says 

David Rodriguez, the Arts 

Center’s Executive Producer 

and Executive Vice President, 

who led the effort to transition 

NJPAC’s website to a bilingual 

model, in collaboration with 

Las Jardineras (the Arts 

Center’s Employee Resource 

Group for staffers of Latin 

and Hispanic heritage), the 

NJPAC Latino Community 

Advisory Committee and the 

Arts Center’s Marketing team. 

“We fill our stages with worldclass 

artists from across the 

globe, because our community 

traces its roots to places around 

the world,” adds Rodriguez. 

“So many of these artists 

have fan bases whose first 

language is Spanish, and 

we want to ensure they all 

feel welcome at NJPAC. We 

look in the future to translate 

our web content into other 

languages representing the 

diverse communities we serve.” 

Smartling, a firm that pairs 

automated translation services 

with the work of live translators, 

assisted NJPAC in translating 

121 web pages (approximately 

45,000 words) into Spanish 

for the new website’s launch. 

As new concerts, classes 

and events are added to the 

Arts Center’s calendar, they 

now appear on both the 

Spanish and English language 

websites simultaneously. 

“We want everyone, Spanishspeaking 

or English-speaking, 

to be able to enjoy NJPAC, to 

come to events, to bring their 

children to take part in classes, 

to be a part of our community,” 

says Rosa Hyde, Senior 

Director of Arts Education 

Performances and Special Event 

Operations, and the Chair of 

Las Jardineras. “Language 

should never be a barrier to 

enjoyment or education.” 

time for treats 

Not all holiday celebrations 

have gone back to normal 

after the pandemic, but 

one Newark holiday tradition 

was back in full force 

this year: Mars Wrigley’s 

Halloween Treat Truck Tour. 

The famous candy company, 

born in Newark and now 

headquartered a few blocks 

from NJPAC, partnered with the 

City of Newark to send a just 

slightly spooky yellow, orange 

and black Halloween truck to 

key locations, to hand out tote 

bags full of candy and costume 

accessories, like fairy wings. 

The truck rolled up in front of 

the Arts Center on the afternoon 

of October 22 about a week 

before Halloween, to distribute 

bags full of goodies to children 

and everyone young at heart 

and sweet of tooth (including 

a few Arts Center staffers). 

and the 

winner is... 

NJPAC is many things: 

A performing arts center, an arts 

educator, a convener of civic 

events, a real estate developer. 

And, as of this past October, 

NJPAC is also an Emmy winner! 

The Arts Center, along with 

its partners ALL ARTS and 

The WNET Group, took home 

the 2021 New York Emmy 

Award for Entertainment — 

Longform Content, for the 

filmed version of NJPAC’s 

homegrown holiday 

spectacular, The Hip Hop 

Nutcracker, which was 

taped in Prudential Hall 

to air as a PBS special. 

NJPAC’s President and CEO 

John Schreiber, and Executive 

Producer and Executive Vice 

President David Rodriguez, were 

both named as award-winners 

thanks to their roles as executive 

producers of the special, as 

was the show’s host — in both 

its filmed and live iterations — 

legendary rapper Kurtis Blow. 

Alas, none of them were able 

to walk a red carpet, as the 

awards were presented this year 

at a virtual gala, livestreamed 

on Facebook, YouTube, and 

the New York Emmy’s own 

website. Marvin Scott of WPIX 

announced the award from 

the middle of Times Square, 

and a clip of the performance 

was shown when The Hip Hop 

Nutcracker was announced 

as the category winner. 

taking care 

of business 

NJPAC’s Business Partners 

Roundtables — discussion events 

for the employees of the Arts 

Center’s Business Partners, 

companies that support NJPAC’s 

arts education and community 

programming — were one of 

the first programs to become 

live virtual events in 2020, and 

the series continued as a digital 

one throughout 2021, with 

a greatly increased number 

of events, featuring business 

executives, thought leaders 

and government officials from 

across the state in discussion 

with John Schreiber and others. 

Some events were one-on-one 

chats with major players in the 

state, from New Jersey’s senior 

Senator Bob Menendez, who 

chatted with Schreiber from 

the halls of Congress, to Scott 

Kirby, CEO of United Airlines, 

who spoke about the impact 

of the pandemic on the travel 

industry — and especially 

on Newark’s own Newark 

Liberty International Airport. 

Scott O’Neil, the former CEO 

of Harris Blitzer Sports & 

Entertainment (which operates 

the Prudential Center), spoke 

not just about his organization’s 

work in Newark, but also 

discussed his new memoir and 

advice book, Be Where Your 

Feet Are: Seven Principles to 

Keep You Present, Grounded, 

and Thriving, about how to 

succeed in work and in life. 

And Tanuja M. Dehne, President 

and Chief Executive Officer 

at the Dodge Foundation, 

spoke about transforming 

her organization into an 

actively anti-racist one. 

Indeed, several Roundtable 

events complemented the Arts 

Center’s work in advancing 

social justice, diversity and 

inclusion, including a discussion 

with Barry Ostrowsky, President 

and CEO of RWJBarnabas 

Health, and the organization’s 

Senior Vice President and Chief 

Social Integration & Health 

Equity Strategist, DeAnna 

Minus-Vincent, on strategies the 

healthcare system is pursuing 

to be actively anti-racist 

across all levels and services. 

68 njpac.org 

njpac.org 69

A panel of executive 

heavyweights — Debbie Dyson, 

President of ADP National 

Account Services; Charles 

Lowrey, Chairman and CEO 

of Prudential Financial; and 

Tim Ryan, US Chair and Senior 

Partner of PwC US — joined in 

a conversation, led by CNBC’s 

Sharon Epperson, on the role 

of corporate initiatives in 

advancing social justice. 

“These Roundtables really 

offered our Business Partners 

unique access to some high 

profile speakers, and a 

resource for education and 

employee engagement,” 

says Valerie Blau, NJPAC’s 

Corporate Giving Manager. 

a new role 

for the arts: 

boosting wellbeing 

In July, the Arts Center 

announced a new facet of its 

work, which will be incorporated 

throughout its efforts in 

2022: A new programming 

vertical that leverages the 

arts to increase individual 

and community wellbeing. 

The Horizon Foundation of 

New Jersey, the charitable 

arm of Newark-based Horizon 

Blue Cross Blue Shield of 

New Jersey — which has long 

supported Arts Center programs 

like the Horizon Foundation 

Sounds of the City concert 

series — made a $3 million 

gift to support new wellness 

programming both at NJPAC 

itself and throughout Newark. 

The new initiative is an 

outgrowth of work NJPAC 

began in recent years by 

offering wraparound services 

with some of its most popular 

programs. The Arts Center 

began integrating social workers 

into its arts education efforts 

a few years ago, as NJPAC’s 

Maker-model classes prompted 

children to talk about, and make 

art out of, their lived experiences. 

Co-locating these mental health 

services with arts education 

was incredibly successful, and 

the team of social workers from 

the Mental Health Association, 

funded by the Healthcare 

Foundation of New Jersey, is 

now fully integrated into NJPAC’s 

classes and summer camps. 

Similarly, nutritionists from 

RWJBarnabas Health have 

become a vital part of the Arts 

Center’s Wellness Wednesdays 

community dance classes. 

Pre-pandemic, they offered 

smoothies and nurturing snacks 

after in-person events; as the 

classes became virtual, they 

segued into offering nutrition 

tips, and demonstrating 

healthy recipes prior to 

Zoom dance classes. 

Throughout 2021, NJPAC worked 

with a consultant, Alyson Maier 

of the University of Florida 

Center for Arts in Medicine, 

who has integrated the arts 

into medical settings at a range 

of healthcare organizations, 

to identify other ways to 

expand arts programming 

paired with wellness. 

Among the possibilities: Arts and 

aging programs, to capitalize 

on research that shows the 

arts can counteract mental 

health challenges facing elders 

arts programming in health 

care settings, ranging from 

jazz performances in hospitals 

to professional development 

workshops for healthcare 

providers on how to integrate 

the arts into their practices; 

“social prescribing,” which 

offers healthcare professionals 

the opportunity to prescribe a 

performance or an arts class 

for clients’ health; and health 

education theater, which offers 

performances that convey 

vital health information. The 

Arts Center has already 

experimented with this; NJPAC’s 

production of SLUT: The Play, 

staged in 2018, offered Newark 

students insight on issues from 

bullying to sexual abuse. 

“Both this partnership with 

the Horizon Foundation, and 

our upcoming arts education 

and community center, the 

Cooperman Center, will create 

new opportunities for our 

community to access health 

information and services that 

reinforce the work of our fellow 

anchor institutions in Newark,” 

says John Schreiber. • 

“NJPAC’s partnership with the Horizon 

Foundation, and our upcoming arts 

education and community center, the 

Cooperman Center, will create new 

opportunities for our community to 

access health information and services 

that reinforce the work of our fellow 

anchor institutions in Newark.” 

— John Schreiber 

The Horizon Foundation of New Jersey 

made a $3 million gift to support new 

wellness programming both at NJPAC itself 

and throughout Newark. 

70 njpac.org 

njpac.org 71

Audience members at the Tony 

Vega performance at 2021 Horizon 

Foundation Sounds of the City. 

njpac.org 

73

74 

Joan Borneman Earl Best Elayne Lite 

remembering 

those we lost 

Marva Nichols 

njpac.org 

Amy Liss 

Kevin Williams 

Everyone at the Arts Center 

mourns the loss of members of 

the NJPAC family who passed 

away in 2021. All these dear 

friends contributed greatly 

to advancing our work and 

mission, and to enriching our 

Arts Center community. 

Earl Best, a community 

organizer also known as 

“The Street Doctor,” who served 

many years on NJPAC’s Council 

of Elders, passed away in 

December. A native Newarker, 

he grew up in the South Ward. 

Best served 17 years in prison 

after he was convicted of bank 

robbery. Upon his release, he 

dedicated his life to helping 

those in need in his hometown, 

founding the Street Warriors, 

a group that advocated for 

nonviolence and increased 

opportunities for young people. 

Joan Borneman, of Livingston, 

served as a volunteer for 

NJPAC for decades. Named 

Volunteer of the Year in 1999, 

Joan staffed every Dodge 

Poetry Festival at NJPAC, held 

the record for chairing the most 

Volunteer Appreciation Dinners, 

and was a steadfast friend 

to hundreds of Arts Center 

students and their families. 

She passed away in February. 

Amy Liss, of Summit, was 

a longtime supporter and 

advocate for the Arts Center; 

her generosity was particularly 

focused on bolstering NJPAC’s 

work in education. Her extensive 

philanthropy supported the Ms. 

Foundation, the Summit Library, 

the Newark Conservancy, 

the Newark Museum of Art, 

Overlook Hospital, the Jewish 

Federation and the New Jersey 

Symphony, among many others. 

She passed away in September. 

Elayne Lite, a volunteer at the 

Arts Center since its opening 

night, died in December. A 

teacher for four decades, 

in her retirement she spent 

thousands of hours volunteering 

at NJPAC and was named 

Volunteer of the Year in 2000. 

She worked with students at 

the Center for Arts Education, 

assisted the Development 

team and led public tours of 

the campus, guiding numerous 

Arts Center staffers through the 

theaters on their first visits. 

“Lady” Ella D. Jones, 

a reading specialist with 

the Newark Public Schools, 

became an usher and then 

a volunteer at NJPAC after 

she retired. She was also 

a charter member of the 

Jubilation Choir, which 

was led by her great-niece, 

Dr. Stefanie Minatee. She was 

named the Volunteer of the 

Year in 2001. She published a 

memoir, titled 32,870 Days and 

Counting, on the occasion of 

her 90th birthday. There were 

indeed many more days left 

to count; she passed away 

in November, age 103. 

James Mtume, a jazz and 

R&B musician, songwriter, 

producer and activist, passed 

away in January 2022. 

Originally known for his work 

as a percussionist with Miles 

Davis, he later wrote R&B hits 

for his own band, Mtume, 

and for performers including 

Stephanie Mills and Roberta 

Flack. His hit, “Juicy Fruit,” was 

later famously sampled by 

Notorious B.I.G. for his song, 

“Juicy,” which topped charts 

in 1994. In 2021, Mtume helped 

arrange the performance of 

The Last Poets at NJPAC’s 

TD James Moody Jazz Festival. 

Marva Nichols, an NJPAC 

usher for 18 years before her 

retirement in the spring of 2021, 

passed away in July. Known 

for her sharp wit and high 

spirits, Marva always made 

a point of reaching out to 

colleagues on their birthdays, 

and kept in touch with her 

team even during the long 

months of pandemic closure. 

Geraldine Richardson, 

of Elizabeth, a member of 

NJPAC’s Finance department 

for 19 years, passed away 

in November. She served as 

the Arts Center’s Accounts 

Payable Staff Accountant, a 

role in which she handled tens 

of thousands of invoices every 

year. Often reserved, she was 

known by her friends for her 

quiet sense of humor — and 

her love of soap operas. 

Paula Rubi Cruz, a native of El 

Salvador who made her home 

in Newark, joined NJPAC’s 

housekeeping team in 2001 

and became an essential 

member of the department 

during her decades of service. 

A hard worker who always 

arrived at the Arts Center with 

a smile for her colleagues, 

she was respected by 

everyone in her department. 

She passed away in July. 

Kevin Williams served as 

an usher and later Assistant 

Head Usher at NJPAC for 13 

years, before leaving the Arts 

Center in 2016. Known for his 

exceptional fashion sense and 

bright smile, he made it a point 

to return to NJPAC to visit the 

usher team several times a year. 

He passed away in August. • 

njpac.org 75

a message from 

john schreiber 

Dear Friend: 

President and Chief Executive Officer 

When I ask Josh Weston — our venerable and esteemed NJPAC Board 

member, perpetually curious world citizen, and all around force for 

good — how he’s doing, he will often reply: “Age adjusted, excellent!” 

Believe me, at 93, Josh’s “excellent” is an understatement. These days he is an 

active changemaker that folks half his age would have a hard time matching. 

As, God willing, we head for the exit doors on the dreadful pandemic that has upended 

so many lives, I’ve taken to stealing (and slightly adapting) Josh’s line. When people 

ask me how I’m doing, I am inclined to say: “Pandemic adjusted, excellent!” 

I am happy to report that that’s true of your Arts Center as well. 

NJPAC has hung on tight during this unexpected two year roller coaster ride that 

has obliged our team, staff and volunteer leaders to think and act differently to 

sustain our work as Newark and New Jersey’s anchor cultural institution. 

Now, just like the old days, we’re back to presenting live to full houses in our 

theaters. Reading this Report, you’ll run out of fingers if you try to count the 

references to staffers who shed tears when greeting audiences, students, parents, 

and colleagues at Arts Center in-person events that doubled as reunions. 

During the height of the pandemic, as my wife and I were sequestered in 

our home, grocery shopping online and watching untold hours of Netflix, 

I wondered if audiences would ever come back once it was safe to do so. 

Would staying home be the new normal? 

I really shouldn’t have worried. 

Once the CDC, Governor Murphy and Mayor Baraka gave us the green light 

to get back to business, our community returned in droves. As I write this, the 

memory of it makes me well up. And my gratitude for that is boundless. 

As you review this chronicle of the year and change just passed, you’ll see that (to lift a 

bit of Churchillian language) “Never give in — never give up” has been our mantra. 

Our hundreds of virtual events on topics ranging from social justice to salsa dancing reached 

hundreds of thousands of viewers. Ambitious execution of our real estate master plan 

continued unabated. We advanced our company-wide work to ensure that we operate as 

an authentically anti-racist, inclusive and equitable mission-driven business. Thanks to strong 

support from the Federal government and the State of New Jersey, we were able to bring 

staff back from extended furloughs and restore positions the pandemic had forced us to cut. 

And through it all, you always had our back. You continued to support NJPAC with 

philanthropy, proffered wisdom, messages of encouragement, and daily reminders 

that the work we do every day to entertain, educate, and engage is meaningful and 

life enhancing. I can’t begin to tell you how important that has been to all of us. 

As pandemic evolves to endemic, I promise that the Arts Center will continue to be 

here for everyone: striving to provide value to the remarkable communities we serve. 

Thanks for the unique and indispensable role you play in making that promise real. 

All good wishes, 

Steven M. Goldman, 

Partner at PBM 

Capital Group 

Barry H. Ostrowsky, 

President & CEO 

of RWJBarnabas 

Health 

a message from 

steven m. goldman 

and barry h. ostrowsky 

Dear NJPAC Friends and Supporters: 

What a difference a year makes! 

Twelve months ago, NJPAC was hard at work providing virtual programming 

to a world stuck at home. Classes, conversations, performances and 

more — all the opportunities this Arts Center offers to engage with 

the world, think about it and reflect on it — came to us on our screens, 

from the phones in our hands to the TVs in our living rooms. 

The experience of the pandemic left us with some invaluable lessons, including a new 

understanding of the importance of community, and how technology can expand 

the borders of that community. But we are grateful that the health crisis is at last 

receding, and our Arts Center is returning to what it has always done best: Presenting 

world-class artists, live on stage, to an audience gathered right in front of them. 

Variants made our progress toward a “new normal” slower than we would have 

liked. But we’re here. From outdoor summer concerts that seemed to welcome half of 

Newark to NJPAC’s Chambers Plaza for music and fellowship, to in-person classes 

in the Center for Arts Education where young musicians could at last jam side by 

side, this year of reopening has offered so many joyful moments at the Arts Center. 

As NJPAC began to present live, in-person shows last summer, 

it also began to expand on so many initiatives that were 

born during the darkest days of the pandemic. 

We are already seeing the result of those efforts, from the Standing in Solidarity 

programming that has offered us a deep dive into the roots of structural racism, 

to an exploration of the role the arts can play in promoting well-being. These are 

the exciting beginnings of what promise to be long-lasting, useful and important 

ways that the Arts Center can further deliver on its mission. And the progress that 

has been made in advancing NJPAC’s plans to build the Cooperman Center and 

a new neighborhood of homes, businesses, galleries and more on its campus will 

positively impact Newark’s downtown arts and education district for years to come. 

The year past was one of restoration — of hope, of joy, of community. 

This year ahead will be one of discovery and innovation. 

We are so grateful you’re a part of the Arts Center’s exciting journey 

into what’s possible when the arts and community align. 

Sincerely, 

Steven M. Goldman 

NJPAC Board of Directors Co-Chairs 

Barry H. Ostrowsky 

John Schreiber 

njpac.org 77

the budget picture 

as of June 30, 2021 

operating Income - $20.0 million 

new jersey performing 

arts center corporation 

consolidated balance sheets june 30, 2021 and 2020 

contributed revenue 

66% 

18% 

endowment income and reserve transfers 

6% 

1% 

performance and 

performance related revenue 

arts education revenue 

9% other earned income 

Assets 2021 2020 

Cash and cash equivalents $ 12,607,006 7,882,568 

Accounts receivable, 

net of allowance for doubtful accounts 2,284,941 2,951,134 

Contributions and grants receivable, net 30,324,867 42,335,700 

Prepaid expenses and other assets 2,593,531 2,727,254 

Investments 117,199,631 74,764,756 

Property and equipment, net 102,331,609 105,329,667 

Total assets $ 267,341,585 235,991,079 

operating expenses - $20.0 million 

theater operations 35% 

arts education 10% 

performance and 18% 

performance related 

10% 

8% 

marketing and communication 

19% 

development 

general and administrative 

Liabilities and Net Assets 

Liabilities: 

Accounts payable and accrued expenses $ 3,461,831 2,234,975 

Advance ticket sales and 

other deferred revenue 2,234,903 3,124,922 

Loans payable 10,762,661 10,045,975 

Other liabilities 8,538,729 6,987,371 

Total liabilities $ 24,998,124 22,393,243 

Commitments and contingencies 

Net assets: 

Unrestricted: 

Designated for special purposes, including net 

investment in property and equipment $ 93,151,049 95,392,902 

Designated for operations 0 0 

Total unrestricted 93,151,049 95,392,902 

Temporarily restricted 49,675,533 33,272,637 

Permanently restricted – endowment 99,516,879 84,932,297 

Total net assets 242,343,461 213,597,836 

Total liabilities and net assets $ 267,341,585 235,991,079 

78 njpac.org 

njpac.org 79

njpa leadership 

board of directors as of December 31, 2021 

Rishi Varma Carmen Villar Robert C. Waggoner Nina M. Wells, Esq. Josh S. Weston Karen C. Young 

Co-Chair 

Steven M. Goldman, 

Esq. 

Co-Chair 


Treasurer 

Marc E. Berson 

Assistant Treasurer 

David Jones 

Secretary 

Michael R. Griffinger, 

Esq. 

Founding Chair Chair Emeritus 

Raymond G. Chambers William J. Marino 

ex officio 

Chair Emeritus 

Arthur F. Ryan 

Lara Abrash Marsha I. Atkind Lawrence E. 

Bathgate II, Esq. 

James L. Bildner, Esq. 

Daniel M. Bloomfield, 

M.D. 

Modia “Mo” Butler 

The Honorable 

Ras J. Baraka 


Joseph N. DiVincenzo 

Elizabeth A. Mattson 

The Honorable The Honorable 

Elizabeth Maher Muoio Philip D. Murphy 

Jacob S. Buurma, Esq. Nancy Cantor, Ph.D. Regina Carter Mindy A. Cohen Matthew Connor Edwan Davis Pat A. Di Filippo 


Luis A. Quintana 



Faith Taylor 


Tahesha Way 

Enrico Della Corna Robert H. Doherty Patrick C. Dunican, 

Jr., Esq. 

Debbie Dyson Shereef Elnahal, M.D. Anne Evans Estabrook Christine C. Gilfillan 

Savion Glover Yan Gu Ryan P. Haygood, Esq. William V. Hickey Jeffrey T. Hoffman Ralph Izzo, PhD The Honorable 

Thomas H. Kean 

Scott A. Kobler Mitchell Livingston Charles Lowrey Ellen B. Marshall Christian McBride Carlos Medina D. Nicholas Miceli 

Eva Reda Christopher R. Reidy Richard W. Roper The Honorable 

Clifford M. Sobel 

Gary St. Hilaire David S. Stone, Esq. Michael A. Tanenbaum, 

Esq. 

Two of NJPAC's newer staff 

members, Alexis Green and 

Nicola Alexander, enjoy their 

first NJPAC holiday party. 

80 njpac.org 

njpac.org 81

oard of directors as of December 31, 2021 

women@njpac board of trustees 

as of December 31, 2021 

Co-Chair 

Steven M. Goldman, Esq. 

Partner 

PBM Capital Group 

Co-Chair 



RWJBarnabas Health 

Treasurer 

Marc E. Berson 

Chairman 

The Fidelco Group 

Assistant Treasurer 

David Jones 

Co-Founder, President & CEO 

CastleOak Securities, LLC 

Secretary 

Michael R. Griffinger, Esq. 

Director 

Gibbons P.C. 

Founding Chair 

Raymond G. Chambers 

The MCJ Amelior Foundation 

Chairs Emeriti 

William J. Marino 

Retired Chairman, President & 

CEO Horizon BCBS of New Jersey 


Retired Chairman & CEO 

Prudential Financial 

Lara Abrash 

Chairman & CEO 

Deloitte, LLP 

Marsha I. Atkind 

Retired Executive Director & CEO 

The Healthcare Foundation of NJ 

Lawrence E. Bathgate II, Esq. 

Partner 

Bathgate, Wegener & Wolf P.C. 

James L. Bildner 

CEO 

Draper Richards Kaplan 

Foundation 

Daniel M. Bloomfield, M.D. 

Chief Medical Officer 

Anthos Therapeutics 

Modia “Mo” Butler 

Partner 

Mercury Public Affairs 

Jacob S. Buurma, Esq. 

Vice President 

The Sagner Companies 

Nancy Cantor, Ph.D. 

Chancellor 

Rutgers University – Newark 

Regina Carter 

Jazz Master and Artistic Director 

NJPAC Geri Allen Jazz Camp 

Mindy A. Cohen 

Community Leader and 

Philanthropist 

Matthew Connor 

Chief Financial Officer 

Broadridge Financial Solutions 

Edwan Davis 

Senior Vice President & 

Chief Audit Executive 

Johnson & Johnson 

Enrico Della Corna 

New Jersey Regional President 

PNC Bank 

Pat A. Di Filippo 

Executive Vice President 

Turner Construction Corporation 

Robert H. Doherty 

Senior Commercial 

Credit Manager 

Healthcare, Education, 

Not for Profit 

Patrick C. Dunican, Jr., Esq. 

Chairman & Managing Director 

Gibbons P.C. 

Debbie Dyson 

President 

ADP National Account Services 

ADP 

Shereef Elnahal, M.D. 


University Hospital - Newark 

Anne Evans Estabrook 

CEO 

Elberon Development Group 

Christine C. Gilfillan 

President 


Savion Glover 

Actor, Tap Dancer, 

Choreographer 

NJPAC Artistic Advisor 

Yan Gu 

Vice President, 

Head of Commercial 

Mars Wrigley North America 

Ryan P. Haygood, Esq. 


New Jersey Institute for 

Social Justice 

William V. Hickey 

Retired Chairman & CEO 

Sealed Air Corporation 

Jeffrey T. Hoffman 

Senior Vice President 

N.A. Field Operations Data 

Analytics & Sales Effectiveness 

Chubb 

Ralph Izzo 

Chairman, President & CEO 

PSE&G 

The Hon. Thomas H. Kean 

President 

THK Consulting, LLC 

Scott A. Kobler, Esq. 

Partner 

McCarter & English, LLP 

Mitchell Livingston 


NJM Insurance Group 

Charles Lowrey 

Chairman & CEO 


Ellen B. Marshall 

Northeast Regional 

Market Executive 

Santander Bank, N.A. 

Christian McBride 

Jazz Master and 

NJPAC Artistic Advisor 

Carlos Medina 

President 

Robinson Aerial Surveys 

D. Nicholas Miceli 

Regional President, 

Florida Metro 

TD Bank 

Eva Reda 

Executive Vice President & 

General Manager 

Global Partnership & Product 

Development 

American Express 

Christopher R. Reidy 

Executive Vice President 

Chief Financial Officer & 

Chief Administrative Officer 

BD 

Richard W. Roper 

Public Policy Consultant 

The Hon. Clifford M. Sobel 

Former U.S. Ambassador 

to Brazil 

U.S. Department of State 

Gary St. Hilaire 


Horizon BCBS of New Jersey 

David S. Stone, Esq. 

Senior Managing Partner 

Stone & Magnanini 

Michael A. Tanenbaum, Esq. 

Chairman 

Tanenbaum Keale, LLP 

Rishi Varma 

Partner & Managing Director 

Boston Consulting Group 

Carmen S. Villar 


Merck, Co. 

Robert C. Waggoner 

Chairman 

Burrelles 

Nina M. Wells, Esq. 

Former Secretary of State 

State of New Jersey 

Josh S. Weston 

Honorary Chairman 

ADP 

Karen Young 

US Pharmaceutical and Life 

Sciences Leader 

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP 

Ex Officio 

The Hon. Ras J. Baraka 

Mayor 

City of Newark 

The Hon. Joseph DiVincenzo, Jr. 

Essex County Executive 

The County of Essex, New Jersey 

Elizabeth A. Mattson 

Chairperson 

NJ State Council on the Arts 

The Hon. Elizabeth 

Maher Muoio 

State Treasurer 


The Hon. Philip D. Murphy 

Governor 


The Hon. Luis A. Quintana 

Council President 

Newark Municipal Council 



New Jersey Performing 

Arts Center 

Faith Taylor 

President 

Women@NJPAC 

The Hon. Tahesha Way 

Secretary of State 


Directors Emeriti 

Dennis Bone 

Barbara Bell Coleman 

Albert R. Gamper 

Veronica M. Goldberg 

Judith Jamison 

A. Michael Lipper, CFA 

Victor Parsonnet, M.D 

Donald A. Robinson, Esq. 

John Strangfeld (Chair Emeritus) 

Diana T. Vagelos 

President 

Faith Taylor 

Secretary 

Christine Pearson 

Sherri-Ann P. 

Butterfield, Ph.D. 

Michellene Davis, Esq. 

Co-Executive 


Margarethe Laurenzi 

Marcia Wilson 

Brown, Esq. 

Immediate Past President 

Co-Executive 


Sonia Luaces 


Deborah Q. Belfatto 



Farah N. Ansari Linda Baraka Rana Peterson 

Barclay 

Patricia L. Capawana Alejandra Ceja Patricia A. 

Chambers* ** 

Antoinette 

Ellis-Williams 


Suzanne M. Spero 

Audrey Bartner 

Treasurer 

Lisa Osofsky 

Adenah Bayoh 

Sally Chubb* ** Mary Lynn Clark Barbara Bell 

Coleman** 

Catherine J. Flynn Christine C. Gilfillan Aisha Glover Veronica M. 

Goldberg* ** 

Zenola Harper, Esq. 

Shané Harris Tammye T. Jones Vani Krishnamurthy Brooke Lawson Ruth C. Lipper** Dena F. Lowenbach** Marlie Massena 

Gabriella E. Morris, 

Esq.* 

* Founding Member 

**Trustee Emerita 

Ferlanda Fox Nixon, 

Esq. 

Lori Spoon Mary Kay Strangfeld** Mikki Taylor Diana T. Vagelos* ** Nicole D. Wescoe 

82 njpac.org 

njpac.org 83

women@njpac board of trustees as of December 31, 2021 

President 

Faith Taylor 

Global Sustainability Leader, 

Kyndryl 

Co-Executive Vice President 

Margarethe Laurenzi 

Executive Director 

Maher Charitable Foundation 

Co-Executive Vice President 

Sonia Luaces 

Partner, PwC LLP 

Vice Presidents 










Treasurer 

Lisa Osofsky 

Partner, Private Client Services 

Practice Leader 

Mazars USA, LLP 

Secretary 




Immediate Past President 

Marcia Wilson Brown, Esq. 

Retired Vice Chancellor 

for External and 

Governmental Relations 


Farah N. Ansari 

Partner 

Schenck, Price, Smith & King, LLP 

Linda Baraka 

Chief of Staff 

State of NJ Legislative District 28 

Rana Peterson Barclay 






Adenah Bayoh 

Owner/Managing Member 

Foya Foods, LLC 

Sherri-Ann P. Butterfield, Ph.D 

Executive Vice Chancellor 


Patricia L. Capawana 

Founder 

Patricia Capawana Executive 

Events, LLC 

Alejandra Ceja 


Panasonic Foundation 

Panasonic Corporation 

of North America 

Patricia A. Chambers* ** 


Philanthropist; Chair 

Lambert Bridge Winery 

Sally Chubb* ** 



Mary Lynn Clark 

Retired President 

Wyndham Vacation Rentals 

Barbara Bell Coleman** 

President 

BBC Associates, LLC 

Michellene Davis, Esq. 

President and CEO 

National Medical 

Fellowships, Inc. 

Antoinette Ellis-Williams 

Chairperson and Professor 

Department of Women’s and 

Gender Studies 

NJCU 

Catherine J. Flynn 

Partner 

Flynn Watts Law 


President 


Aisha Glover 


Center for Urban Innovation 

Audible 

Veronica M. Goldberg* ** 





Litigation, Labor & Employment 

Horizon BCBS of New Jersey 

Shané Harris 

President 

The Prudential Foundation 

Tammye T. Jones 



Vani Krishnamurthy 

Founder & CEO 

CoCo Gallery 

Brooke Lawson 


Market General Manager 

New Jersey Neiman Marcus 

Ruth C. Lipper** 



Dena F. Lowenbach** 



Marlie Massena 

Senior Brand Planner 

Jellyfish 

Gabriella E. Morris, Esq.* 

Chief Philanthropy Officer 

World Food Program USA 

Ferlanda Fox Nixon, Esq. 

Chief of Policy and 

Government Affairs 

African American Chamber of 

Commerce of New Jersey 

Editor, TAPinto Denville 

Lori Spoon 


Global Head of Customer & 

Broker Engagement 

Berkshire Hathaway 

Specialty Insurance 

Mary Kay Strangfeld** 



Mikki Taylor 

President, Satin Doll 

Productions, Inc. 

Editor-at-Large, ESSENCE 

Magazine 

Diana T. Vagelos* ** 



Nicole D. Wescoe 

Regional President 

Northeast Region 

Whole Foods Market 

*Founding Member 

**Trustee Emerita 

family of donors 

NJPAC thanks each and every one of its supporters for making a commitment 

that helps ensure the future well-being and success of your Arts Center. 

The acknowledgments presented here are based on July 1, 2020 to December 31, 2021. 

NJPAC is enormously grateful for the many contributions the Arts Center received after 

January 1, 2022, which will be recognized in next year's Report to the Community. 

njpac shining stars as of December 31, 2021 

New Jersey Performing Arts Center reserves special accolades for its Shining Stars — 

the generous visionaries, luminaries and great dreamers who make everything possible. 

This list includes contributors whose cumulative giving to NJPAC totals $1 million and above. 

dreamers 

$10,000,000 & above 

Anonymous (2) 

The Chambers Family and 


City of Newark 

Judy and Stewart Colton 

Toby and Leon Cooperman 

Essex County 

Betty Wold Johnson+ 

New Jersey State 

Council on the Arts 

Prudential/The Prudential 

Foundation 

Estate of Eric F. Ross 


Victoria Foundation 

Women@NJPAC 

luminaries 

$5,000,000 & above 

Bank of America 

The Joan and Allen 

Bildner Family Fund 

CIT 

The Horizon Foundation 

for New Jersey/Horizon 

Blue Cross Blue Shield 

of New Jersey 

Merck Foundation 

Katharine+ and 

Albert W.+ Merck 

NJ Advance Media 

PSEG Foundation/PSEG 

Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch 

Wells Fargo Foundation 

The Josh Weston Family 

visionaries 

$1,000,000 & above 

ADP 

Alcatel-Lucent 


Anonymous 

AT&T 

BD 

Randi and Marc E. Berson 

Casino Reinvestment 

Development Authority 

Chubb 

Joanne D. Corzine Foundation 

Jon S. Corzine Foundation 

Geraldine R. Dodge 

Foundation 

Doris Duke Charitable 

Foundation 

Edison Properties 

Newark Foundation/ 

The Gottesman Family 

Anne Evans Estabrook DBA 

Elberon Development Co. 

Ford Foundation 

Gibbons P.C. 


The Griffinger Family 

Harrah’s Foundation 

Hess Foundation, Inc. 

WIlliam and Joan Hickey 

The Izzo Family 

Jaqua Foundation 


Family of Companies 

JPMorgan Chase 

Kresge Foundation 

The Blanche and Irving 

Laurie Foundation 

Arlene Lieberman/The Leonard 

Lieberman Family Foundation 

A. Michael and Ruth C. 

Lipper/Lipper Family 

Charitable Foundation 

William J. and Paula Marino 

McCrane Foundation, Inc., 

care of Margrit McCrane 

The Andrew W. Mellon 

Foundation 

New Jersey Cultural Trust 


Dr. Victor Parsonnet and 

Jane Parsonnet+ 

Pfizer Inc. 

Michael F. Price 

PwC 

Robert Wood Johnson, 

Jr. Charitable Trust 


The Ryan Family 

The Sagner Family Foundation 

Schering-Plough Corporation 

The Walter V. and Judith L. 

Shipley Family Foundation 

Sills Cummis & Gross, PC 

The Smart Family Foundation/ 

David S. Stone, Esq., 

Stone and Magnanini 

John Strangfeld and 

Mary Kay Strangfeld 

Foundation 

Michael and Jill Tanenbaum 

Morris and Charlotte 

Tanenbaum 

TD Bank/TD Charitable 

Foundation 

Turner Construction 

Company/Pat A. Di Filippo 

Turrell Fund 

United Airlines 

Diana and P. Roy Vagelos 

Verizon 

Robert and Mary 

Ellen Waggoner 

Wallace Foundation 

+deceased 

njpac council of trustees as of December 31, 2021 

Val Azzoli 

Michael F. Bartow 

Rona Brummer 

John M. Castrucci, CPA 

Elizabeth G. Christopherson 

Susan Cole, Ph.D. 

Robert S. Constable 

Irene Cooper-Basch 

Anthony R. Coscia, Esq. 

Andrea Cummis 

Samuel A. Delgado 

Steven J. Diner, Ph.D. 

Andrew Dumas 

Dawood Farahi, Ph.D. 

Curtland E. Fields 

Albert R. Gamper 

Bruce I. Goldstein, Esq. 

Renee Golush 

Paula Gottesman 

Sandra Greenberg 

Kent C. Hiteshew 

Patrick E. Hobbs 

John A. Hoffman, Esq. 

Lawrence S. Horn, Esq. 

Reverend M. William 

Howard, Jr. 

Reverend Reginald Jackson 

Howard Jacobs 

Robert L. Johnson, M.D. 

Marilyn “Penny” Joseph 

Donald M. Karp, Esq. 

Gene R. Korf 

Rabbi Clifford M. Kulwin 

Ellen W. Lambert, Esq. 

Paul Lichtman 

Kevin Luing 

Joseph Manfredi 

Antonio S. Matinho 

Bari J. Mattes 

John E. McCormac, CPA 

Catherine M. McFarland 

Joyce R. Michaelson 

Edwin S. Olsen 

Richard S. Pechter 

Daria M. Placitella 

Jay R. Post, Jr., CFP 

Steven J. Pozycki 

Marian Rocker 

David J. Satz, Esq. 

Barbara J. Scott 

Marla S. Smith 


Joseph P. Starkey 

Sylvia Steiner 

Arthur R. Stern 

Andrew Vagelos 

Richard J. Vezza 

Kim Wachtel 

Constance K. Weaver 

Elnardo J. Webster, II 

E. Belvin Williams, Ph.D. 

Gary M. Wingens, Esq. 

Jazz for Teens students Victoria Csatay 

on vocals and Hasan Ali on saxophone 

participate in a final student share. 

84 njpac.org 

njpac.org 85

the muse society as of December 31, 2021 

NJPAC’s Muse Society recognizes those visionary friends who include the Arts Center in their financial planning through bequests, 

charitable gift annuities, insurance and other deferred gifts. We are deeply grateful to the following friends who have included the 

Arts Center in their estate plans and made known their future gift. For more information or to notify NJPAC of your intent to include 

it in your estate planning, contact Amy Fitzpatrick, Vice President of Development, at 973.297.5822. 


Lawrence E. Bathgate, II 

Judith Bernhaut 

Andrew T. Berry, Esq.+ 


The Joan+ and Allen Bildner+ 

Family Fund 

Candice R. Bolte 

Edmond H.+ and 

Joan K. Borneman+ 

Ann and Stan Borowiec 

Raymond G. Chambers 


Fred Corrado 

Ann Cummis 

Mr. and Mrs. James Curtis 

Harold R. Denton 

Richard DiNardo 

Charles H. Gillen+ 

Bertha Goldman+ 


Renee and David Golush 


Phyllis and Steven E. Gross 

Mr. and Mrs. Warren Grover 

Opera Link/Jerome Hines+ 

William and Joan Hickey 


Estate of Susan B. Joseph 

Jackie and Larry Horn 

The Meg and Howard Jacobs 

Family Foundation 

Rose Jacobs+ 

Gertrude Brooks Josephson+ 

and William Josephson 

in Memory of Rebecca 

and Samuel Brooks 

Kaminsky Family Foundation 

Adrian and Erica Karp 

Gail and Max Kleinman 

Joseph Laraja, Sr.+ 

Leonard Lieberman+ 

Ruth C. Lipper 

Amy C. Liss+ 

Dena F. and Ralph Lowenbach 


Joseph and Bernice O’Reilly+ 

Mr. and Mrs. Paul Ostergaard 

Maria Parise+ 

Dr. Victor Parsonnet and 

Jane Parsonnet+ 

Donald A. Robinson, Esq. 

Marian and David Rocker 

Estate of Donald Ronk 

Estate of Eric F. Ross+ 

premier donors and sponsors as of December 31, 2021 

NJPAC salutes the enormously generous institutions and individuals whose aggregate contributions 

(gifts, grants, sponsorships and events) for the year total $50,000 or more. 

$1,000,000 & above 








Foundation 


Women@NJPAC 

$250,000 & above 

ADP 

Anonymous 




The Horizon Foundation for 

New Jersey/Horizon 


of New Jersey 

Blanche and Irving 



Foundation 




TD Bank /TD Charitable 

Foundation 


$100,000 & above 


Anonymous 

Audible, Inc. 

BD 

F.M. Kirby Foundation 





Newark Foundation 


The Healthcare Foundation 

of New Jersey 


M&T Bank 

Mars Wrigley 


PwC 





John Strangfeld and Mary 

Kay Strangfeld Foundation 



Tanenbaum 



$50,000 & above 

Atlantic, Tomorrow’s Office 

Randi and Marc E. Berson/ 

The Fidelco Group 



Broadridge Financial 

Solutions, Inc. 

Jennifer A. Chalsty 

Chubb 

Mindy A. Cohen and 

David J. Bershad 

Deloitte, LLP 



Mimi and Edwin Feliciano 

Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation 

Gibbons P.C. 


Renee and David Golush 

Greenberg Traurig, LLP 

Investors Bank/Investors 

Foundation, Inc. 






PNC 

Robert Wood Johnson 

Foundation 

Rutgers, The State University 

of New Jersey 


Steinway and Sons 

Bernice Rotberg+ 

The Steven and Beverly 

Rubenstein Charitable 

Foundation 


Ethel Smith+ 

Leonard R. Stern+ 

Paul Stillman Trust 

John Strangfeld and Mary 

Kay Strangfeld Foundation 


Tanenbaum 

Carolyn M. VanDusen 

Diana and P. Roy Vagelos 

Artemis Vardakis+ 

Nina and Ted Wells 

Judy+ and Josh Weston 

+deceased 

T-Mobile USA, Inc. 

Turrell Fund 




+deceased 

business partners as of December 31, 2021 

NJPAC is deeply grateful to the following corporations, foundations and government agencies for their generous annual support 

of artistic and arts education programs, the endowment fund, and maintenance of the Arts Center. For more information, 

please contact Valerie Blau, Corporate Giving Manager, at 973.297.5135. 

benefactor 

$1,000,000 & above 




Foundation 

Women@NJPAC 

leadership circle 

$200,000 & above 

ADP 


Foundation 

Anonymous 







of New Jersey 




TD Bank/TD Charitable 

Foundation 


co-chair circle 

$100,000 & above 


BD 

F.M. Kirby Foundation 

The Healthcare Foundation 

of New Jersey 

Mars Wrigley 

Matrix Development 


director’s circle 

$50,000 & above 

Anonymous 


Broadridge Financial 

Solutions, Inc. 

Deloitte LLP 



Geraldine R. Dodge 

Foundation 

Investors Bank/Investors 



M&T Bank 




PNC 

PwC 

Richmond County 

Savings Foundation 

Robert Wood Johnson 

Foundation 

Rutgers, The State University 

of New Jersey 


Steinway and Sons 

Turrell Fund 

T-Mobile USA, Inc. 


president’s circle 

$25,000 & above 

Bloomberg Philanthropies 

CastleOak Securities, LP 

Chubb 


Newark Foundation / 


Gibbons P.C. 

Greenberg Traurig, LLP 

Harris Blitzer Sports 

& Entertainment 


Family of Companies 

L+M Development Partners Inc. 

Lowenstein Sandler LLP 


National Endowment 

for the Arts 

The Nicholas Martini 

Foundation 

Rita Allen Foundation 

Turner Construction Company/ 

Pat A. Di Filippo 


Valley Bank 

Verizon 

Windels Marx Lane & 

Mittendorf, LLP 

composer’s circle 

$10,000 & above 

Anonymous in honor 

of Stefon Harris 


Brookdale / Newark ShopRite 

Chiesa Shahinan & 

Giantomasi, PC 

Coca-Cola Refreshments 

DoorDash 

EpsteinBeckerGreen 

Gateway Security, Inc. 

Genova Burns LLC 

HLW Architecture LLC 

The Hyde and Watson 

Foundation 

Jacobs Levy Equity 

Management 

Landmark Fire Protection 

Novartis Pharmaceuticals 

Corporation 

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton 

& Garrison, LLP 

The Provident Bank 

Foundation 

SP+ 

Stephen and Mary Birch 


Two Center Street Urban 

Renewal, LLC 

Whole Foods Market 

encore circle 

$5,000 & above 

Arnold & Porter 

Berkeley College 

Berkshire Hathaway 

Specialty Insurance 

Brach Eichler LLC 

J. Fletcher Creamer & Son, Inc. 

Davis & Gilbert LLP 

DeWitt Stern Group 

E.J. Grassman Trust 

EisnerAmper LLP 

Frank and Lydia Bergen 

Foundation 

Gallagher Benefit Services, Inc. 

Gilbane Building Company 

Hansome Energy Systems 

Inserra Supermarkets 

Jewish Federation of 

Greater MetroWest NJ 

KPMG 

Langan 

Linden Cogeneration Plant 


Mercury Public Affairs 

Michael Rachlin & 

Company, LLC 

New Jersey Resources 

NFP Insurance Brokerage 

Peapack-Gladstone Bank 

Pennoni 

Prime Buchholz 

PS&S 

Schenck, Price, Smith 

& King, LLP 

Sherman Atlas Sylvester 

& Stamelman LLP 

SILVERMAN 

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill 

Structure Tone 

Thornton Tomasetti, Inc. 

U.S. Title Solutions 

Union Foundation 

Ware Malcomb 

Willis Towers Watson 

+deceased 

86 njpac.org 

njpac.org 87

the vanguard society as of December 31, 2021 

New Jersey Performing Arts Center is deeply grateful to the following individuals and families for their generous annual support, 

which makes it possible for NJPAC to maintain its world-class venue, fill it with star-studded, diverse performances, and carry out 

its arts education programs that transform New Jersey’s children. For more information, please contact 

Josh Adler, Director of Major Gifts, at 973.297.5821. 

leadership circle 

$200,000 & above 






John Strangfeld and 


Foundation 



co-chair circle 

$100,000 & above 

Anonymous 






director’s circle 

$50,000 & above 

Anonymous 


Mimi and Edwin Feliciano 


David and Renee Golush 

Gottesman Family 




Tanenbaum 

president’s circle 

$25,000 & above 


Sally Chubb 


David J. Bershad 

The Hon. Jon S. and 

Sharon Corzine 


Mr. and Mrs. Warren Grover 

Kaminsky Family Foundation 

Don Katz and Leslie Larson 

Dana and Peter Langerman 

Charles F. Lowrey Jr. and 

Susan T. Rodriguez 

McCrane Foundation, Inc., 

care of Margrit McCrane 

Bobbi and Barry H. Ostrowsky 

Richard S. and Kayla L. Pechter 

Rob and Nora Radest 

Mr. and Mrs. Leslie C. Quick, III 

Marian and David Rocker 

The Steven and Beverly 

Rubenstein Charitable 

Foundation 

The Sagner Family Foundation 

Tracy and Theodore Spencer 

David S. Steiner and 

Sylvia Steiner 

Charitable Trust 

Walsh Family Fund of the 

Community Foundation 

of New Jersey 


composer’s circle 

$10,000 & above 

Bruce and Jean Acken 

Anonymous 


Lawrence E. Bathgate, II 

and Michelle Bengue 



Stephen and Mary Birch 


Dennis and Denise Bone 


Rose Cali 

Edwan and Alexis Davis 

Linda V. Della Corna & 

Enrico A. Della Corna 

Patrick C. Dunican, Jr., Esq. 

Debbie Dyson 

J. Andres Espinosa 

Nancye and Robert Falzon 


Alice Gerson Goldfarb 

Arlene Goldman 

Phyllis and Steven E. Gross 

Gary St. Hilaire 

Jeffrey and Judy Hoffman 


Meg and Howard Jacobs 



Scott and Susan Kobler 

A. Michael and Ruth C. Lipper/ 

Lipper Family Charitable 

Foundation 

Amy and William Lipsey 

The Harold I. & Faye B. 

Liss Foundation 

Mitchell A. Livingston 

The Lester and Grace 

Maslow Foundation, Inc. 


Harold and Donna Morrison 

Richard and Kayla Pechter 

James and Nancy Pierson 

Christopher R. Reidy 

Karen and Gary D. Rose 

Philip R. Sellinger 

Karen Sherman 

Cliff and Barbara Sobel 

Alexine and 

Warren Tranquada 

Carmen Villar 

Amrit Walia 

Thomas C. Wallace 

Joyce and George 

Wein Foundation 

Karen and Bill Young 

Barbara+ and 

Edward D. Zinbarg 

encore circle 

$5,000 & above 

Anonymous 

Daniel Bloomfield 

and Betsy True 

Candice R. Bolte 

Linda M. Bowden 

The Hon. Jon M. Bramnick 

Modia Butler 

Nancy Cantor and 

Steven R. Brechin 

Norman L. Cantor 

Michael Choy 

Austin G. Cleary 

Sylvia J. Cohn 

The Colbert Family Fund 

of Coastal Community 

Foundation of SC 

Matt and Susan Connor 

Alma DeMetropolis, CFA 

Robert Doherty 

Donna and Kenneth Eberle 

Gregg N. Gerken 

Jill and James G. Gibson 

Lawrence P. Goldman 

and Laurie B. Chock 

Yan Gu 

The Huisking Foundation 

Rabbi and Mrs. Clifford 

M. Kulwin 

MartyAnn and Ralph LaRossa 

Judith Lieberman 

Barry and Leslie Mandelbaum 

Ellen Marshall and 

Jim Flanagan 

Mr. and Mrs. D. Nicholas Miceli 

Duncan and Alison Niederauer 

Laurence B. Orloff and 

Deanne Wilson 

Jean and Kent Papsun 

Judith and Kenneth Peskin 

Roberta and Richard E. Polton 

Eva Reda 

Lennon Register and 

Barbara White 

David Rodriguez 

Richard N. Ross 

Susan Satz 

Virginia McEnerney and 


James and Sharon Schwarz 

Stephen and Mary Jo Sichak 

Paul and Denise Silverman 

Robert and Marjorie Sommer 

Rosemary and Robert 

Steinbaum 

Faith and Gary Taylor 

Robert and Sharon Taylor 

Bruce A. Tucker 

Rishi Varma and Pooja Khanna 

Robert and Mary 

Ellen Waggoner 

Helene and Gary Wingens 

Thomas Wisniewski 

+deceased 

spring luncheon @ home 2021 sponsorships as of December 31, 2021 

presenting sponsor 

$25,000 


underwriters 

$10,000 


David Bershad 

The Horizon Foundation 

for New Jersey/Horizon 


of New Jersey 


Neiman Marcus Short Hills 


gold sponsors 

$5,000 


Rose Cali 


spotlight gala @ home 2021 sponsorships as of December 31, 2021 

NJPAC and Women@NJPAC are profoundly thankful for these supporters of the 2021 Spotlight Gala @ Home: 

lead sponsor 

$450,000 

Toby and Leon G. Cooperman 

underwriter 

$150,000 


hometown heroes 

aka vice chairs 

$50,000 

BD 

Mindy Cohen and 

David Bershad 




of New Jersey 

Merck & Co., Inc. 

PSEG 

PwC 

Tanenbaum Keale, LLP 


Nina Mitchell Wells, Esq. and 

Theodore V. Wells, Jr. 

platinum channel 

surfer dinner 

committee 

$35,000 

Gibbons P.C. 

Patricia A. Chambers 


Kathy Grier 

Ruth C. Lipper/Lipper Family 

Charitable Foundation 




Christine S. Pearson 

PSEG 

PwC 

Simon Quick Advisors 



Nina Mitchell Wells, Esq. 

and Theodore V. Wells, Jr. 

Whole Foods Markets 

silver sponsors 

$3,500 

Bloomingdale’s 

Alma DeMetropolis 

gold live-streamer 

dinner committee 

$25,000 

ADP 




Chubb Corporation 

Shelley and Steven Einhorn 

Mario Gabelli and 

Regina Pitaro 



silver remote controller 

$15,000 

Bloomberg Philanthropies 

BNY Mellon 


Alma DeMetropolis 

The Fidelco Group/ 


Greenberg Traurig LLP 






PNC 

Seyfarth & Shaw 



Stone & Magnanini 

SP+ 

Structure Tone 

Tata Consultancy Services 


Flynn Watts LLC 

PNC Wealth Management 

TD Bank 

Nanar and Anthony Yoseloff 

friend sponsors 

$1,000 

Audible, Inc. 


Inez Bershad 

Ann and Stanley Borowiec 


Austin Cleary 

Barbara Bell Coleman 

Kelly Donovan 


Jane and Michael Griffinger 

Ruth L. Hutter 

Tammye and David Jones 

Sheila F. Klehm 

Paula Marino 

platinum advocates 

$5,000 

Charles C. Anderson 

Sandy Bernhardt 

Evelyn and Stephen Colbert 





TD Bank 

Valley Bank 

gold advocates 

$2,500 

Deborah and 

Joseph Belfatto 

Bleema and William Bershad 


Mark and Jane Wilf 

Family Foundation 

silver advocates 

$1,500 





KPMG 

Margarethe and 

Mark Laurenzi 

Nicole Wescoe 

advocates 

$1,000 

Susan and David Bloom 


Heather and Patrick Marotta 

Robin Cruz McClearn 


Eileen and Leslie Quick 

Kathleen Theune 

Kate S. Tomlinson 

Diana T. Vagelos 

donors 

$500 

Rana Barclay 

Alexandra Brady 


Cathryn and Richard DuBow 

Howard and Debby Kaminsky 

Sonia Luaces 

Marlie Massena 

Howard and Peggy Menaker 

Lynne Pagano 

Susan Silver 

Linda and Brian Sterling 


Sherri-Ann Butterfeild 

Edmund Hajim 

Obi Imegwu 

Tammye and David Jones 

Judith M. Lieberman 

Ferlanda Fox Nixon 

and Milford Nixon 


Arnold and Sandy Peinado 


Schenck, Prince, 

Smith & King, LLP 

Wally Stern 

full-page ad sponsors 

Audible 

Meg and Howard Jacobs 

A. Michael and 

Ruth C. Lipper 




Rutgers University-Newark 

half-page ad sponsors 

Genova Burns 

in-kind donations 

Advanced Parking Concepts 

BD 

Marcus Samuelsson 

official media sponsor 

88 njpac.org 

njpac.org 89

members as of December 31, 2021 

njpac staff and administration as of December 31, 2021 

New Jersey Performing Arts Center gives special thanks to the following Members who help meet the Arts Center’s annual 

financial needs with gifts of $650 to $4,999. For information on becoming a Member, please call 973.297.5809. 

sustainer 

$3,000 & above 

Sinead and Christopher 

Bennett 


Eleonore Kessler Cohen 

and Max Insel Cohen+ 

Margaret J. Cunningham 

Herbert+ and Karin Fastert 

Lauren and Steven Friedman 

Geremia Helou 

Mr. and Mrs. Robert G. Kuchner 

Ellen and Donald Legow 

Tim Lizura 

Edwin S. and Catherine Olsen 

Robin and Leigh Walters 

The Honorable Alvin Weiss 

patron 

$1,250 & above 

Anonymous (2) 

Florence Barrau-Adams 

and Bryan Adams 

Ronald K. Andrews 

Brian Archer 

Marsha I. Atkind 

Wendee Bailey 

Joseph and Jacqueline 

Basralian 

George and Jane Bean 

Barbara+ and Ed Becker 

Jeri Burt and Michael Merlie 

Patricia and Anthony 

R. Calandra 

Regina Carter 

Mr. and Mrs. Charles 

M. Chapin, III 

Nancy Clarke 

Kevin and Linda Conlin 

Vaughn E. Crowe 

Andrea Cummis and 

Richard Fiscus 

Trayton M. Davis 

D’Maris and Joseph Dempsey 

Linda H. Dunham 

Drs. Brenda and 

Robert Fischbein 

Thomas P. Giblin 

Mr. and Mrs. Michael Gilfillan 

Carolyn Gould 

Thomas L. Green 

Susan and Mark Halliday 

Kitty and Dave Hartman 

Mr. and Mrs. Robert J. Henry 

Joan Hollander 

Alan and Carrie Holtz 

William W. Huisking 

Paulette and Robert Jones 

Adrian and Erica Karp 

Irvin and Marjorie Kricheff 

Amy and Steven P. Kruvant 

Dr. Marlene E. Lengner 

Mark and Gayle Lerch 

Susan Lippa 

Dena and Ralph Lowenbach 

Kevin and Trisha Luing 

Lana Masor 

Massey Insurance Agency 

Edward Moran 

Gabriella E. Morris 

Jack and Ellen Moskowitz 

Bruce Murphy and MJ Lauzon 

Judith Musicant and 

Hugh A. Clark 

Helene and Martin Myers 

Joseph and Sheila Nadler 

Jeffrey S. Norman 

Dr. Christy Oliver 

Wayne C. Paglieri and 

Jessalyn Chang 

Dr. Kalmon D. Post and 

Linda Farber Post 

Samantha Pozner and 

Andrew Hickman 

Caroline and Harry Pozycki 

Chali Prasper 

Cecile and Trevor Prince 

Jonathan and Bethany 

Rabinowitz 

Lawrence A. Raia 

Brent N. Rudnick 

Jeremy and Tony Saccente 

Barbara Sager 

Mr. and Mrs. Newton B. Schott 

Rita and Leonard Selesner 

Mr. and Mrs. Floyd Shapiro 

Diana and Laurence Smith 

Elaine Staley 

Kate S. Tomlinson and 

Roger Labrie 

Mr. and Mrs. R. Charles 

Tschampion 

Mr. and Mrs. David S. Untracht 

Kathryn Vermilye 

Richard and Arlene Vezza 

Drs. Radha and Rao 

V. Vinnakota 

Lisa Webber 

Dr. Joy Weinsteun and 

Dr. Bruce Forman 

Lloyd Williams 

Mr. and Mrs. Pat Wood 

Gary and Wendy Young 

Richard Zaborowski 

supporter 

$650 & above 

Lara Abrash and Gary Guth 

Cheryl Adams 

Anonymous 

Rana and Andrew Barclay 

Lisa and Scott Braunstein 

Nadine Brechner 

James and Sharon Briggs 

Eloyd O. Britt 

Dr. Kimberly Brown and 

Parkway Eye Care Center 

Marcia Wilson Brown 

Calvin Carver 

Mary Beth Charters 

Arthur Connolly 

Martha Cybyk 

Maryanne and David R. Dacey 

Aliah Davis-McHenry 

and Brian McHenry 

Elizabeth Del Tufo 

Suzanne Deluca-Warner 

Walter Douglas 

Eleanor and John Dunn 

Carylmead Eggleston 

Sybil Eng and Tad Roselund 

Michael Etkin 

Edward W. Fagan 

Sanford and Zella Falzenberg 

Laura Fuhro 

Dr. Ronald Gandelman and 

Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell 

Claudia and Kenneth 

Louis Gentner 

Maureen and Subhendu Ghosh 

David H. Gibbons , Jr. 

Clifford and Karen Goldman 

Mr. and Mrs. Charles 

C. Goodfellow 

Donna Grant 

Mary and Bradford Graves 

Wayne and Catherine 

Greenfeder 

Lonnie and Bette Hanauer 

Ryan P. Haygood, Esq. 

Danielle Johnson 

Richard and Cindy Johnson 

Mary and David Jones 

Leah and Rich Kabrt 

Marwa Kamel and Dr. 

Shereef Einahal 

Dr. and Mrs. John W. Kennedy 

Andrea and Jason Kimmel 

Courtney Koch and 

Patrick DeWald 

Joan M. Kram 

Vani Krishnamurthy 

Nancy Laird 

Mark and Sheryl Larner 

Deborah Lashley and 

Harrison Snell 

Dorothy Litwin-Brief 

Janet Lonney 

Edward Mafoud 

Santa and Michael R. Mallon 

Howard and Peggy Menaker 

Ray Merchant 

Hector Mislavsky and 

Judy Martinez 

Drs. Douglas and 

Susan Morrison 

William and Patricia O’Connor 

Monica Padovano Casiello 

Mark Pentelovitch 

Doren Pettiford 

Charles M. Piscitelli 

Jay R. Post, Jr. CFP 

Douglas and Susan Present 

Amy and Reginald Pretto 

Gusta A. Pritchett 

Oliver B. Quinn 

Charity Quinn and Mark Yecies 

Bidisa Rai 

Frank Rand 

Nogah Revesz 

Diane Ridley-White 

William A. Robinson 

Ina and Mark Roffman 


Joel Rosen 

Jeffrey and Regina Roth 

John and Alice Rubinstein 

Suzanne and Richard Scheller 

The Schiffenhaus Foundation 

Drs. Rosanne S. Scriffignano 

and Anthony Scriffignano 

Karen and Roger Shults 

Latoya Singleton 

Richard Sodon 

Marilyn and Leon Sokol 

Theodore N. Stephens II 

Linda and Brian Sterling 

Beverly and Ed Stern 

Stanley and Sharon Streicher 

Linda Tancs 

Jill Tarnow 

Lola Tate-McGhee 

Marilyn Termyna 

Marva Tidwell 

Louise and David J. Travis 

Jon Ulanet 

Paul and Sharlene Vichness 

Dr. Deborah and Peter Vietze 

Susan D. Wasserman 

Jacqueline Williams 

Diane C. Youg, M.D., P.A. 

+deceased 

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT 

John Schreiber** 


Ashanti Hargrove 

Executive Assistant to the 


Chelsea Keys 

Director, Special Projects 

David Rodriguez* 

Executive Vice President & 

Executive Producer 

Kira M. Ruth**** 

Senior Manager 

Programming Operations 

Warren Tranquada** 

Executive Vice President & COO 

Valerie Fullilove 

Executive Assistant 

Timothy Lizura 


Real Estate & Capital Projects 

ARTS EDUCATION 

Jennifer Tsukayama* 

Vice President, Arts Education 

Meggan Gomez 

AVP Faculty & Creative Practice 

Mark Gross* 

Director, Jazz Instruction 

Rosa Hyde* 

Senior Director, Performances & 

Special Events Operations 

Jennie Wasserman 

Project Director, City Verses 

Victoria Revesz* 

Senior Director, 

Arts Education Operations 

Erica Bradshaw 

Director of Theater Arts 

Sheikia “Purple Haze” Norris* 

Director, Hip Hop Arts & Culture 

Roe Bell 

Senior Manager, School and 

Community Programs 

Ashley Mandaglio 

Assoc. Director 

Professional Learning & Programs 

Danielle Vauters 

Senior Manager, Programming 

and Performances 

Kristine Mathieson 


CRM & Business Operation 

Justin DePaul 

Arts Education Office & 

Facilities Manager 

Daniel Silverstein 

Manager, Onsite Programs 

Rene Velez-Torres 

Manager, Youth & 

Emerging Artist Development 

Kimberly Washington 

Manager 

Marketing, Sales & Recruitment 

Randal Croudy 

Coordinator 

Arts Education Performances 

Steven Hayet 

Coordinator, Business Operations 

Antonella Sanchez 

Coordinator, Program Operations 

Demetria Hart 

Project Coordinator, City Verses 

Natalie Dreyer 

Arts Integration Faculty Lead 

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT 

Eyesha Marable* 

Assistant Vice President, 

Community Engagement 

Daniela Fonseca 

Associate Producer 

Meleika Amos 

Associate Producer 

DEVELOPMENT 

Amy Fitzpatrick 

Vice President, Development 

Sarah Rosen 

Managing Director 

Women@NJPAC 

Joshua Adler 

Director, Major Gifts 

Jenifer Braun 

Director, Editorial Content 

Roseann Evans 

Director 

Foundation & Government 

Funding 

Deborah Purdon 

Director 

Research & Prospect Management 

Christine Walia 

Director, Events 

Rolston Cyril Watts 


Development Operations 

Harris Cabrera 


Foundation Relations 

Valerie Blau 

Corporate Giving Manager 

Christine Carroll 

Manager, Special Events 

Gabrielle DeGaetano 

Membership Manager 

Lauren Siegel 

Manager, Major Gifts 

Imani Frederickson 

Development Coordinator 

FINANCE 

Lennon Register 

Vice President & CFO 

Yolanda Doganay 

Assistant Vice President 

& Controller 

Mary Jaffa**** 

Assistant Vice President, Finance 

Manuela Silva**** 

Senior Accountant, Payroll 

Monique Cook 

Senior Financial Analyst 

Wali East 

Staff Accountant 

Inger Parsons 

Staff Accountant 

Accounts Payable 

PEOPLE & ORGANIZATION 

Beth Silver 

VP, Chief People Officer 

Ginny Bowers Coleman**** 

Director, Volunteer Services 

Taheerah Smiley 

Human Resources Generalist 

Donna Walker-Kuhne* 

Senior Advisor 

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion 

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES 

Ernie DiRocco*** 

AVP, Infrastructure & Operations 

Carl Sims**** 

Director, Cyber Security 

Rodney Johnson*** 

Network & Help Desk 

Support Analyst 

MARKETING & 

COMMUNICATIONS 

Katie Sword* 

Vice President, Marketing & 

Communications 

Fallon Currie* 

Coordinator 

Marketing Operations 

Jason Paddock 

Senior Director, Marketing 

Yesenia Jimenez**** 

Director, Loyalty Services 

Charlene A. Roberts* 

Director, Performance Marketing 

Patricia Ryan 

Creative Art Director 

Tina Boyer* 

Director, Creative Services 

Latoya Dawson* 

Manager, Marketing 

Katie Stein 


Digital Marketing & Content 

Doris Ann Pezzolla**** 

Senior Graphic Designer 

Allison Calabro 

Lead Graphic Designer 

Matthew Cherry* 

Digital Marketing Manager 

Alexis Green 

Digital Marketing Coordinator 

Ashlee Nolan 

Coordinator, Creative Services 

April Jeffries 

Sr. Representative of 

Loyalty Services 

Nicola Alexander 

Assistant, Creative Services 

Daryle Charles** 

Priority Customer Representative 

Jerome H. Ennis 

Consultant 

Herbert George Associates 

Angela Thomas 

Consultant, Performance 

Public Relations 

OPERATIONS 

Chad Spies*** 

Vice President, Operations 

& Real Estate 

Anthony Rosta 

Director, Facilities 

Hernan Soto**** 

Senior Supervisor 

Operations Support Staff 

Francisco Soto* 

Supervisor 

Operations Support & Services 

Kemar Brown 

Assistant Supervisor 

Operations Support & Services 

Tyrone Boyd 

Delbert Green 


David Martina* 


Meredith Hull 

Operations & Event Manager 

Todd Tantillo**** 

Chief Engineer 

J. Dante Esposito**** 

Assistant Chief Engineer 

Brian Cady** 

Maintenance Engineer 

Sherman Gamble*** 


Mariusz Koniuszewski** 


James McMorrow 

Director, Security, Parking 

& Traffic Operations 

Thomas Dixon**** 

Safety & Security Manager 

Robin Jones*** 

Senior Director 

House Management 

Kathleen Dickson**** 

Assistant House Manager 

Lamont Akins**** 

Head Usher 

Jerry Battle** 

Head Usher 

Edward Fleming**** 

Head Usher 

Cynthia Hamlett-Robinson*** 

Head Usher 

Tracey Robinson 

Head Usher 

George Gardner Jr.**** 

House Painter 

PRODUCTION 

Chris Moses*** 

Senior Director, Production 

Christopher Staton* 

Senior Production Manager 

E. Kevin Jones 

Production Manager 

Crystal Cowling* 

Associate Production Manager 

Rachel Macleod* 

Production Coordinator 

William Worman**** 

Head Carpenter 

Mario Corrales**** 

Assistant Head Carpenter 

Bryan Danieli*** 

Assistant Head Carpenter 

Barbara Guerra 

Apprentice Carpenter 

Hugo Munoz-Campos* 

Apprentice Carpenter 

Jacob Allen*** 

Head Electrician 

John Enea* 

Assistant Head Electrician 

Adam Omeljaniuk**** 

Journeyman Electrician 

Marion Pinckney**** 

Journeyman Electrician 

Jan Clark 

Assistant Head Electrician 

John DiCapua* 

Assistant Head Audio 

John Finney*** 

Assistant Head Audio 

Richard Edwards**** 

Specialist Carpenter 

George Honczarenko*** 

Journeyman 

Joseph Hunt*** 

Journeyman Carpenter 

Naheem Wright** 

Journeyman Carpenter 

Amere Jenkins** 

Specialist Audio 

Daniel Pagan* 

Specialist Video 

Allison Wyss**** 

Senior Artist Assistants 

Melvin Anderson** 

Artist Assistant 

Lowell Craig*** 


Rachel Dresner 


Loni Fiscus 


Daniel Ovalle* 


Sindy Sanchez Virto 


MJ Santry 


Suzanne Santry 


PROGRAMMING 

Evan White*** 


Programming 

Simma Levine 

Producer, Special Projects 

Craig Pearce* 

Producer, Festivals & Performances 

Kitab Rollins*** 

Senior Director Performance & 

Broadcast Rentals 

William W. Lockwood, Jr.**** 

Programming Consultant 

SPECIAL EVENTS 

Austin Cleary*** 


Sales & Planning, NJPAC Events 

TICKET SERVICES 

Erik Wiehardt*** 

Director, Ticket Services 

Stephanie Walker**** 

Associate Director, 

Ticketing System 

Nicole Craig**** 

Associate Director, Box Office 

Robin Polakoff* 

Ticketing System Specialist 

Veronica Dunn-Sloan*** 

Box Office Manager 

Darren DeBose 

Box Office Manager 

Jana Thompson* 

Box Office Representative 

Belva Moody* 

Box Office Representative 

Service Recognition 

(as of 12/31/21) 

* * * * 20+ years 

* * * 15+ years 

* * 10+ years 

* 5+ years 

90 

njpac.org

season funders as of December 31, 2021 

NJPAC is grateful to the following partners for their commitment and investment in our mission. 

Official Sponsors: 

Official Sponsor of the 

Spotlight Gala 

Official Airline of NJPAC Official Imaging Supplier of NJPAC Official Soft Drink of NJPAC Media Sponsor 

major support also provided by: 

The Chambers Family and The MCJ Amelior Foundation 


Toby & Leon Cooperman 


The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation 

The Smart Family Foundation/David S. 

Stone, Esq., Stone and Magnanini 

John Strangfeld and Mary Kay Strangfeld Foundation 

The Weston Family 

additional support provided by: 

Audible, Inc. 

Joan+ and Allen Bildner+ Family Fund 

Edison Properties Newark Foundation/The Gottesman Family 

Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation 


William J. & Paula Marino 

McCrane Foundation, Inc., care of Margrit McCrane 

PNC 


Steinway & Sons 

Michael & Jill Tanenbaum 


Turell Fund 

John & Suzanne William/Goldman Sachs Gives 

+deceased 

The core of NJPAC’s work has 

always been live performances 

for live audiences. In spring 

2021, as the pandemic started to 

retreat, the Arts Center’s campus 

was reactivated with more 

and more events, and the 

return of in-person performances 

became not just a distant hope, 

but an imminent reality. 

92 

njpac.org

new jersey performing arts center

Report To The Community 2021

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