New Jersey Performing Arts Center - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), in downtown Newark

Newark, New Jersey

Newark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S...

, New Jersey

New Jersey

New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, is the sixth largest performing arts center in the United States. Home to the Grammy Award-winning New Jersey Symphony Orchestra

New Jersey Symphony Orchestra

The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra is a symphony orchestra located in the state of New Jersey, United States. Philip James founded the orchestra in 1922. The orchestra is headquartered in Newark, New Jersey. Neeme Järvi, the NJSO's music director from 2005 to 2009, is currently the orchestra's...

(NJSO), approximately 6 million visitors (including more than one million children) have visited the center since it opened in October 1997.

NJPAC has been an important component in revitalization of New Jersey's largest city. Located just west of the Passaic River

Passaic River

The Passaic River is a mature surface river, approximately 80 mi long, in northern New Jersey in the United States. The river in its upper course flows in a highly circuitous route, meandering through the swamp lowlands between the ridge hills of rural and suburban northern New Jersey,...

waterfront, the Center lies in the heart of the city's cultural district around Military Park

Military Park (Newark)

Military Park is a city park in downtown Newark, New Jersey. It is a nearly triangular park located between Park Place, Rector Street and Broad Street. From 1667, when the city was planned, until 1869 it was a training ground for soldiers...

and Washington Park that also include Newark Museum

Newark Museum

The Newark Museum is the largest museum in New Jersey, USA. It holds fine collections of American art, decorative arts, contemporary art, and arts of Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the ancient world...

, New Jersey Historical Society

New Jersey Historical Society

The New Jersey Historical Society is a historical society and museum located in Newark, New Jersey, United States. The Historical Society is housed in the former headquarters of the Essex Club. It has two floors of exhibition space, a gift shop, and a hall for lectures. The NJHS offers occasional...

, and the Newark Public Library

Newark Public Library

The Newark Public Library is the public library system for the city of Newark, New Jersey.-History:In 1902 John Cotton Dana became employed at the Newark Public Library in Newark, New Jersey from until his death in 1929. He established foreign language collections for immigrants and also developed...

. The Prudential Center is just to the south.

NJPAC offers several arts education programs, including arts training classes, scholarships, in-school residencies, professional development, and family and children's programming, allowing students, teachers and families to interact with professional artists and explore the various genres of music, theater, dance, poetry and more.

Performance halls and other facilities

Prudential Hall, a 2,750-seat hall arranged in four horseshoe-shaped tiers, with boxes and the orchestra seating.
Victoria Hall, a 514-seat smaller theater.
The Chase Room, is home to center's cabaret performance series, bi-annual hip hop festival, and spoken word series.
Horizon Theater, a 88-seat black box theater

History

The State of New Jersey

New Jersey

decided to build a world class performing arts center in 1986, when then Governor of New Jersey

Governor of New Jersey

The Office of the Governor of New Jersey is the executive branch for the U.S. state of New Jersey. The office of Governor is an elected position, for which elected officials serve four year terms. While individual politicians may serve as many terms as they can be elected to, Governors cannot be...

Thomas Kean

Thomas Howard Kean is an American Republican Party politician, who served as the 48th Governor of New Jersey from 1982 to 1990. Kean is best known globally, however, for his 2002 appointment as Chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, widely known as the...

appointed a committee to decide the location and the needs of New Jersey's performing arts organization. They chose Newark over other cities because of the density of the surrounding areas, proximity to New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, highway and rail access to the site, and a location inside a dying city in need of revitalization. The last reason was considered especially important, since government authorities had long forsaken the city, becoming a ghetto

Ghetto

A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...

for minorities in notorious housing projects. A major goal of the NJPAC was to help in revitalization of the city, bringing people back into blighted areas and provide jobs for local businesses.

The planning commission decided that the new center would directly integrated into the city, encouraged walking, and provided a plaza

Plaza

Plaza is a Spanish word related to "field" which describes an open urban public space, such as a city square. All through Spanish America, the plaza mayor of each center of administration held three closely related institutions: the cathedral, the cabildo or administrative center, which might be...

for the city. Previous redevelopment schemes in Newark had all involved skyway

Skyway

In an urban setting, a skyway, catwalk, sky bridge, or skywalk is a type of pedway consisting of an enclosed or covered bridge between two buildings. This protects pedestrians from the weather. These skyways are usually owned by businesses, and are therefore not public spaces...

s that connected all the main office buildings to Newark Penn Station above street level, further segregating the city. The master plan, executed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill

Skidmore, Owings and Merrill

Skidmore, Owings and Merrill LLP is an American architectural and engineering firm that was formed in Chicago in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings; in 1939 they were joined by John O. Merrill. They opened their first branch in New York City, New York in 1937. SOM is one of the largest...

consisted of plazas and pedestrian boulevards, joining major thoroughfares.

After a selection process, the board chose Barton Myers

Barton Myers

Barton Myers, FAIA is an American and Canadian architect and president of Barton Myers Associates, Inc. in Los Angeles, California....

as the lead architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

, based on his experience with theaters and his contextual buildings. They instructed him to build a complex that was the opposite of the Kennedy Center or Lincoln Center, and more like the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust

Pittsburgh Cultural Trust

The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, a nonprofit arts organization, is a driving catalyst behind the ongoing development of the Downtown Pittsburgh Cultural District, Pittsburgh...

. Instead of a monument to the arts, Myers saw it as another part of the city tying it to residents and inviting them into it. He related the physical structure to the context by using brick

Brick

A brick is a block of ceramic material used in masonry construction, usually laid using various kinds of mortar. It has been regarded as one of the longest lasting and strongest building materials used throughout history.-History:...

, exposed steel

Steel

Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...

, and glass

Glass

Glass is an amorphous solid material. Glasses are typically brittle and optically transparent.The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in windows and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silica plus Na2O, CaO, and several minor additives...

as the materials, to reflect the industrial roots of Newark.

During the bidding process

Procurement

Procurement is the acquisition of goods or services. It is favourable that the goods/services are appropriate and that they are procured at the best possible cost to meet the needs of the purchaser in terms of quality and quantity, time, and location...

, NJPAC President & CEO Lawrence Goldman mandated that most of the construction jobs had to go to local minorities. The board of the company successfully implemented this program, suspending a contractor

Independent contractor

An independent contractor is a natural person, business, or corporation that provides goods or services to another entity under terms specified in a contract or within a verbal agreement. Unlike an employee, an independent contractor does not work regularly for an employer but works as and when...

in 1995 for failing to do so. Some, however, questioned whether the $187-million-dollar project was really worth building, when there are so many social ills in the city, an aging infrastructure and a low median income.

Construction began in 1995 and was completed in 1997, receiving rave reviews by The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

architecture critic Herbert Muschamp

Herbert Muschamp

Herbert Mitchell Muschamp was an American architecture critic.- Early years :Born in Philadelphia, Muschamp described his childhood home life as follows: “The living room was a secret. A forbidden zone. The new slipcovers were not, in fact, the reason why sitting down there was taboo. That was...

upon its opening. The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

has said that it houses one of the best modern concert halls on the Eastern Seaboard - handsome in appearance, warm in sound.

Programming

Since opening, artists that have appeared on NJPAC's stages include the Boston Symphony Orchestra; Yo-Yo Ma; Julian Lloyd Webber; Bob Dylan, Diana Krall, Ballet Nacional de Cuba; Lauryn Hill, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Twyla Tharp Dance; Dance Theatre of Harlem; Israel Philharmonic; Nancy Wilson and Ramsey Lewis; Berlin State Opera Orchestra; Royal Danish Ballet; Hilary Hahn; Bill T. Jones; Itzhak Perlman; the Vienna Choir Boys; Midori, Sarah Brightman; Sting; Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo; Elvis Costello; the National Song & Dance Company of Mozambique; Don Henley; the Afro-Cuban All-Stars; Audra McDonald; the Buena Vista Social Club; Melissa Etheridge; the Czech Philharmonic; Bette Midler; The Chieftains; Herbie Hancock; Sweet Honey in the Rock, Garrison Keillor; Maurizio Pollini, Gewandhaus Orchestra; Balé Folclorico da Bahia; Peter, Paul & Mary; Bobby McFerrin and Savion Glover; Three Mo’ Tenors; Orchestre National de France; Aspen Santa Fe Ballet; Art Garfunkel; Kodo Drummers; Cirque Eloize; Kirov Orchestra; Flying Karamazov Brothers; Dresden Orchestra; Martha Graham Dance; Johnny Mathis; and Evgeny Kissin.

NJPAC has also played host to tours of popular Broadway musicals such as Evita; The Sound of Music; Grease; Annie; Blast!; Bring in ‘da Noise, Bring in ‘da Funk; Fame; Fosse, Sunset Boulevard; Peter Pan; Movin’ Out; Les Misérables; The Full Monty; Fiddler on the Roof; Oklahoma; 42nd Street; The Producers; and Cats.

A regular season is presented by the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra

New Jersey Symphony Orchestra

.
In 2010 the Center for the first time hosted the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival

Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival

The biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival is the largest poetry event in North America.-Background:The four-day celebrations of poetry have been called “poetry heaven” by the 1995–1997 US Poet Laureate Robert Hass, “a new Woodstock” by the Christian Science Monitor, and “Wordstock” by The...

.

NJPAC has attracted over 6 million patrons (including 1 million children) since its October 18, 1997 Opening Night.

In 2011, a new director/CEO for the center, John Schreiber

John Schreiber

John Schreiber is an American author, teacher, and theater director. He has taught for over 30 years in southern Minnesota, was a finalist for Minnesota Teacher of the Year in 2003, and has directed over 120 plays and musicals....

, replaced its founding director, Lawrence Goldman.

Future

NJPAC is collaborating on the development of One Theater Square

One Theater Square

One Theater Square is a proposed mixed-use skyscraper to be built in Newark, New Jersey. The building, whose name is inspired by its location across the street from the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, would be the tallest in the city...

, a mixed used skyscraper

Skyscraper

A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many stories, often designed for office and commercial use. There is no official definition or height above which a building may be classified as a skyscraper...

that will include market-rate apartments, affordable housing, retail space, and become the tallest building in Newark upon its completion.

Future plans including expansion across McCarter Highway to the Passaic River

Passaic River

, opening up more of the waterfront and connecting it to Bears and Eagles Riverfront Stadium. Eventually the company will build two residential buildings for performers and condominiums, completing a boat-shaped plaza at the center.

Transportation

Newark Light Rail

The Newark Light Rail is a light rail system under New Jersey Transit Bus Operations serving Newark, New Jersey. The service consists of two segments, the original Newark City Subway, and the extension to Broad Street station...

service opened as July 17, 2006, at the NJPAC/Center Street

NJPAC/Center Street (NLR station)

NJPAC/Center Street Station is a light rail station on the Newark Light Rail's Broad Street Extension. Service on this line opened on July 17, 2006, at 1:00 p.m. EDT....

station, connecting the site with Broad Street Station

Broad Street Station (Newark)

Newark Broad Street is a New Jersey Transit commuter rail station at 25 University Avenue in Newark, New Jersey. Built in 1901-03 on the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad main line from Hoboken to Denville, Scranton and Buffalo, the station's historic architecture includes an elegant clock...

and Penn Station Newark

Pennsylvania Station (Newark)

Pennsylvania Station is a major transportation hub in Newark, New Jersey. Located at Raymond Plaza, between Market Street and Raymond Boulevard, Newark Penn Station is served by the Newark Light Rail, New Jersey Transit commuter rail, Amtrak long distance trains, the PATH rapid transit system, and...

External links