Center for the Arts

Gallery Exhibitions

I Wish That I Had Spoken Only of It All: 20 Years of Sheryl Oring’s I Wish to Say

With backgrounds in journalism and fine art, Sheryl Oring began her ongoing project I Wish to Say in 2004 from a concern that many people’s voices were not being heard. She started to take dictation from the public about what they wanted to say to the (next) President. Dressed as a 1960s secretary with a typewriter, she records whatever participants say onto a postcard, making copies with carbon paper. During larger events, a secretarial bank takes dictation. Oring mails the postcards to the White House and exhibits copies. To date she has mailed over 4100 postcards.

Gallery Exhibitions

Michael Anthony Donato: Angels & Devils

Michael Anthony Donato, a School of Visual Arts graduate, is an award-winning children’s book illustrator. His work on Squanto and the First Thanksgiving aired on Showtime and earned honors from the American Library Association. His illustrations for Tales Alive, a collection of global folktales, received a Parents’ Choice Award. Donato also collaborated with Simon & Schuster and the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Voyage Up the Nile. He currently teaches drawing and advanced painting at Monmouth University.

Artist Reception: October 18, 5-7 PM

Gallery Exhibitions

Mike Richison’s Election Collection: 2004-2024

Mike Richison’s Election Collection: 2004-2020 showcases 20 years of design and video art inspired by the presidential election cycle. Richison began working with this topic in 2004 when he created a short video loop of George W. Bush drinking water during the debates. This evolved into performances and interactive video projects that break down language into musical and abstract elements.

Opening Reception: Thursday, September 19, 2024, from 5:30-7:30pm

Grammy Museum Affiliation

Tuesday Night Record Club

Queen, A Night at the Opera

It’s just like book club but with albums! With new advances in technology, the way we consume music through our devices, apps and on demand streaming services like Pandora, Spotify and iTunes is making the idea of the “album” as an art form extinct. Get together with other music enthusiasts on Tuesday nights to discuss some of the greatest records of all-time! Listen to the album beforehand and then come prepared to discuss. This event will feature Queen, A Night at the Opera.

Adult Education Series

Bring in Da Funk, Part II

Parliament/Funkadelic’s George Clinton declared “we want the funk,” and by the mid-70s the genre was in full swing. On the R&B and pop charts as well as on the dance floor, funk had officially taken over. This two-session virtual course taught by Kit O’Toole covers the peak of the genre, its eventual decline in popularity, and its continuing influence. Artists examined include the Ohio Players, Stevie Wonder, Average White Band, Kool and the Gang, Earth, Wind, and Fire, the Commodores, Cameo, Slave, Zapp and Roger, and many more. In addition, subgenres including go go, punk funk (coined by Rick James), funk rock, and Bay Area funk will be covered. The course includes multimedia presentations and class discussions.

Class Schedule: Thursdays - December 5 & 12 | 7:30 - 9:00 PM

Monmouth Review Early Bird Submission Party

Performing Arts Series

Orchestra of St. Peter by the Sea

Embrace the joy and warmth of the season at the annual holiday concert with Father Alphonse Stevenson and the Orchestra of St. Peter by the Sea! This cherished tradition brings a 42-piece orchestra and exceptional soloists to Pollak Theatre with beloved carols and festive melodies. Be part of this heartwarming celebration and let the spirit of the season come alive through the power of music.

Limited tickets remain! Once the event is SOLD OUT please call the box office to be added to the waitlist, in case last minute tickets become available. 

Tuesday Night Book Club

Percival Everett, James

Join us for Tuesday Night Book Club! Hosted by Monmouth University’s Ken Womack. This month’s novel is Percival Everett’s James. AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR SO FAR FOR 2024 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW • A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and darkly humorous, told from the enslaved Jim’s point of view. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

Adult Education Series

Bring in Da Funk, Part II

Parliament/Funkadelic’s George Clinton declared “we want the funk,” and by the mid-70s the genre was in full swing. On the R&B and pop charts as well as on the dance floor, funk had officially taken over. This two-session virtual course taught by Kit O’Toole covers the peak of the genre, its eventual decline in popularity, and its continuing influence. Artists examined include the Ohio Players, Stevie Wonder, Average White Band, Kool and the Gang, Earth, Wind, and Fire, the Commodores, Cameo, Slave, Zapp and Roger, and many more. In addition, subgenres including go go, punk funk (coined by Rick James), funk rock, and Bay Area funk will be covered. The course includes multimedia presentations and class discussions.

Class Schedule: Thursdays - December 5 & 12 | 7:30 - 9:00 PM

Adult Education Series

Adult Education Series: Christmas Time Is Hear Again

From 1963 to 1969, the Beatles sent Christmas messages on flexidiscs to their US and UK fan clubs. In 1970, a compilation of these messages was sent out, and they were re-released as a collector’s set in 2017. Join SCOTT FREIMAN and KEN WOMACK for a one-session virtual course to explore this unique aspect of the Beatles’ history.

Class Schedule: Thursday, December 19 | 7:30 - 9:00 PM

Grammy Museum Affiliation

Tuesday Night Record Club

The Doors

It’s just like book club but with albums! With new advances in technology, the way we consume music through our devices, apps and on demand streaming services like Pandora, Spotify and iTunes is making the idea of the “album” as an art form extinct. Get together with other music enthusiasts on Tuesday nights to discuss some of the greatest records of all-time! Listen to the album beforehand and then come prepared to discuss. This event will feature The Doors.

Tuesday Night Book Club

Harold Pinter, Betrayal

Join us for Tuesday Night Book Club! Hosted by Monmouth University’s Ken Womack. This month’s novel is Harold Pinter, Betrayal. “One of the most essential artists produced by the twentieth century. Pinter’s work gets under our skin more than that of any living playwright.” —New York Times. Upon its premiere at the National Theatre, Betrayal was immediately recognized as a masterpiece. It won the Olivier Award for best new play, and has since been performed all around the world and made into an Academy Award-nominated film starring Jeremy Irons, Ben Kingsley, and Patricia Hodge. Betrayal begins with a meeting between adulterous lovers, Emma and Jerry, two years after their affair has ended. During the nine scenes of the play, we move back in time through the stages of their affair, ending in the house of Emma and her husband Robert, Jerry’s best friend.

Gallery Exhibitions

Michael Malpass: Renaissance Man

Through the alchemy of welding and traditional blacksmithing, Michael Malpass commanded steel, bronze, copper, and brass with a sculptor’s precision. He elevated these industrial remnants, liberating them from their utilitarian past, and reimagined them as vibrant works of art— imbuing them with new life and meaning.

Opening Reception: Friday, February 7, 5:30 - 7:30

The Metropolitan Opera: Live in HD

Aida

Soprano Angel Blue makes her long-awaited Met role debut as the Ethiopian princess torn between love and country, one of opera’s defining roles. Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin takes the podium for Michael Mayer’s spectacular new staging, which brings audiences inside the towering pyramids and gilded tombs of ancient Egypt with intricate projections and dazzling animations. Mezzo-soprano Judit Kutasi, following her 2024 debut in Verdi’s La Forza del Destino, is Aida’s Egyptian rival Amneris, and tenor Piotr Beczała is the soldier Radamès—completing opera’s greatest love triangle. The all-star cast also features baritone Quinn Kelsey as Amonasro and bass Dmitry Belosselskiy as Ramfis. This live cinema transmission is part of the Met’s award-winning Live in HD series, bringing opera to movie theaters across the globe.

Visiting Writers

Akhil Sharma – Visiting Writer

Sharma is a highly decorated short-story writer and novelist; he’s been awarded many of the most prestigious prizes and recognitions that a fiction writer can receive. His first novel, An Obedient Father (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000), hailed in New York Magazine by Jonathan Franzen as “A great novel” and described by Hilary Mantel in the New York Review of Books as “uncompromising,” with a “first chapter . . . [that] blasts off the locks and splinters the wood,” received the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel and was chosen as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

Art on Screen

Florence and the Uffizi Gallery

Florence and the Uffizi Gallery is a journey into the Italian Renaissance through the most beautiful, representative works of art of the period. It is a totally immersive and unique experience and allows the audience t0 see, listen, feel and savor the most outstanding and celebrated breeding ground of creativity in the history of art.

Grammy Museum Affiliation

Tuesday Night Record Club

The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

It’s just like book club but with albums! With new advances in technology, the way we consume music through our devices, apps and on demand streaming services like Pandora, Spotify and iTunes is making the idea of the “album” as an art form extinct. Get together with other music enthusiasts on Tuesday nights to discuss some of the greatest records of all-time! Listen to the album beforehand and then come prepared to discuss. This event will feature The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.

Gallery Exhibitions

Ocean Bodies, A Solo Exhibit by Eco-Artist Kimberly Callas

Monmouth University’s Ice House Gallery presents Ocean Bodies, a powerful solo exhibition by multimedia artist Kimberly Callas. The exhibition will open on February 6, 2025, with an evening reception from 5:30 to 7:30 PM, and will run through April 4, 2025. Ocean Bodies offers an immersive exploration of humanity’s interconnectedness with the ocean, drawing on symbols, archetypes, and ecological narratives to invite contemplation and action.

Opening Reception: February 6, 2025, 5:30–7:30 PM

Gallery Exhibitions

Ocean Bodies, A Solo Exhibit by Eco-Artist Kimberly Callas

Monmouth University’s Ice House Gallery presents Ocean Bodies, a powerful solo exhibition by multimedia artist Kimberly Callas. The exhibition will open on February 6, 2025, with an evening reception from 5:30 to 7:30 PM, and will run through April 4, 2025. Ocean Bodies offers an immersive exploration of humanity’s interconnectedness with the ocean, drawing on symbols, archetypes, and ecological narratives to invite contemplation and action.

Opening Reception: February 6, 2025, 5:30–7:30 PM

Tuesday Night Book Club

The 1619 Project

Join us for Tuesday Night Book Club! Hosted by Monmouth University’s Ken Womack. This month’s novel is The 1619 Project. A dramatic expansion of a groundbreaking work of journalism, The 1619 Project: A New American Origin Story offers a profoundly revealing vision of the American past and present. The New York Times Magazine’s award-winning “1619 Project” issue reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This new book substantially expands on that work, weaving together eighteen essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with thirty-six poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance. The essays show how the inheritance of 1619 reaches into every part of contemporary American society, from politics, music, diet, traffic, and citizenship to capitalism, religion, and our democracy itself.