Old is New
On NJN’s State of the Arts
Friday, November 17 at 8:30 pm; and Wednesday, November 22 at 11:30 pm

STATEWIDE – This edition of State of the Arts deals with how the past is reinvented. In Old is New, a famous documentary film is transformed into a hit Broadway musical; old barns find new life; old comics are honored by new artists; and an old town finds a new engine of economic revitalization in the arts. Old is New airs on Friday, November 17 at 8:30 pm, with a rebroadcast on Wednesday, November 22 at 11:30 pm.

• Grey Gardens
Tony Award winner Christine Ebersole, a Maplewood, New Jersey resident, stars in what may be the season's most talked about new Broadway musical, “Grey Gardens” — an imaginative adaptation of the 1975 cult documentary by the Maysles Brothers, about the reclusive, eccentric relatives of Jackie Kennedy who were discovered living in squalor in a dilapidated Hamptons mansion. In the second act, Ebersole plays “Little Edie,” the middle-aged, exhibitionist daughter who was once engaged to Joe Kennedy; and also, in a tour de force performance, she plays the overbearing mother, “Big Edie,” in the first act. State of the Arts producer Amber Edwards talks with Ebersole, with the show's composer Scott Frankel and playwright Doug Wright, and with legendary filmmaker Albert Maysles, to discover how this much cherished film was reinvented for the musical stage.

• Masters of American Comics
The Newark Museum and The Jewish Museum in New York are presenting the two-part exhibit, “The Masters of American Comics,” September 15, 2006 through January 28, 2007. State of the Arts producer Susan Wallner visits the Newark exhibit with Steven Guarnaccia, an artist and chair of the Illustration Department at Parsons New School of Design, to find out how early comic artists have influenced contemporary artists. Guarnaccia, a resident of Montclair, New Jersey, takes a tour of the exhibit describing how visionary comic strip creators such as George Herriman (“Krazy Kat,” 1913-1944) and Winsor McCay (“Little Nemo in Slumberland,” 1905-1914) paved the way for today’s thriving world of comics and illustration.

• Barns
The New Jersey Barn Company, based in Ringoes and Princeton, New Jersey, has been saving the state’s historic barns for more than twenty-five years. State of the Arts producer Christopher Benincasa follows the Barn Company crew to several sites, including two in rural Cranbury, New Jersey — where one barn is going up and another coming down. In the process, he learns about the architecture and archaeology of barns from company founder Elric Endersby, and gets a tour of the New Jersey Barn Company’s “world headquarters”: a restored eighteenth-century tavern in Ringoes.

• Collingswood Revisited
State of the Arts producer Eric Schultz visits Collingswood, New Jersey, to see how the arts are playing a central role in the town’s urban revitalization. He talks to the mayor, artists, restaurateurs, real estate companies, residents, and Alan Willoughby, the executive director of the Perkins Center for the Arts. In 2002, the Perkins Center expanded to a satellite facility in Collingswood, renovating an old storefront auto dealership into art studios, classrooms, and exhibition spaces within an environmentally sensitive "green building." State of the Arts, which recently earned its twenty-fifth Emmy Award, is also celebrating 25 years of covering the creative life in New Jersey.State of the Arts, the award-winning, half-hour arts magazine, airs every Friday at 8:30 pm, followed by an encore presentation each Wednesday at 11:30 pm. The current episode of State of the Arts can be viewed online at www.njn.net.

Funding for State of the Arts is provided by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. The series producer is Susan Wallner and the executive producer is Nila Aronow.