The musician Marc Ribler walked on stage and looked out at the crowd at Bell Theater in Holmdel on a frigid February night.
“Wow, you guys are really close up,” he said.
The audience laughed.
Bell Theater, a nearly 300-seat venue within Bell Works, is indeed an intimate space for live performances. If you’re in the third row, you can easily make eye contact with the people on stage. If you’re in the front row, you could almost make actual contact. The design of the room, in which the stage extends farther into the audience than in a traditional proscenium theater, creates a sense of connection, a feeling that you’re more than a spectator, that you are in partnership with the performers and have your own role to play.
On Feb. 21, Ribler led his band through a nearly two-hour tribute to the music of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Deep into the set, they played “Ohio,” Neil Young’s 1971 response to the Kent State shootings of the year before, when National Guard soldiers shot and killed four unarmed college students and wounded nine others during a rally, after days of unrest, violence and protests against the Vietnam War.
When Ribler and his bandmates sang the chorus (“Four dead in Ohio”), audience members immediately sang along, until the room resounded with the sounds of those four words, repeated over and over. Ribler said, “1970 was pretty crazy,” before adding, “pretty…crazy now, too.” The audience, made up primarily of Baby Boomers and Gen X’ers, cheered.
Such is the cathartic power of the performing arts, especially when presented in a setting like Bell Theater. Andrew DePrisco, executive artistic director, considers that a key advantage of the space. “Because the stage now extends into the audience, it’s very intimate,” DePrisco said. “People in the first few rows feel like the performers are sitting in their laps.”
As DePrisco explains, when Bell Labs was a center of scientific research, the room that is now Bell Theater was used for lectures and presentations, with a sound system that was perfectly adequate for, say, one microphone. When the building was reborn as Bell Works, upgrades were needed in order to stage musicals and concerts. A $250,000 grant from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts Council helped fund renovations, including new lighting and sound systems, a dressing room, a stage curtain, and the new stage itself. “The original seats remain,” DePrisco said, “and the historic nature of the room, with its Brutalist architecture and pillars, has been preserved.”
DePrisco became involved with Bell Theater in 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic derailed plans for renovations. “We had a summer concert series on the deck in 2021,” he said, but it wasn’t until May 2024 when Bell Theater presented its first show, the rock musical “East Carson Street.” After that, DePrisco said, “it’s been full speed since.”
For this season, DePrisco is especially excited about full-scale productions of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” scheduled for June 13 to 29 in honor of Pride Month; and “Steel Magnolias,” July 18 through Aug. 3.
DePrisco said Bell Theater aims for variety in its programming, ranging from concerts like Ribler’s CSNY & Beyond to children’s acts and Broadway series. Axelrod Performing Arts Academy makes its home at Bell Theater, bringing performances such as the upcoming Beatles-themed ballet “One Sweet Dream” by Olivia Miranda and Ballet Reve, in collaboration with student dancers from Axelrod and the Axelrod Academy Show Choir. Bell Theater will present the full-length premiere of “One Sweet Dream” on Saturday, March 1, at 7 p.m., and Sunday, March 2, at 2 p.m. Tickets begin at $28, with student tickets available for $22.
DePrisco sounds giddy when speaking of some of the acts he’s been able to book at Bell Theater, such as the Grammy Award-winning jazz fusion band the Yellowjackets, scheduled for Thursday, April 24, at 7 p.m. Tickets start at $69. “They rarely play a room this small,” DePrisco said.
With the opening this year of Mabel, Bell Works now has a restaurant that serves dinner. That option, along with the bar in the lobby and Bar Bella downstairs, plus extended hours at Corbo’s Pizza in the food court, has made Bell Works a gathering place in the evening as well as during the day.
Additional upcoming events include the “Giant Bubble Show,” with bubble artist Logan Jimenez, at noon and 3 p.m. on Saturday, March 15, with tickets at $25; the Woodstock tribute band Back To The Garden 1969, at 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 28, with tickets starting at $45; and Williams Honor, a country band featuring vocalist Reagan Richards and local music veteran Gordon Brown at 8 p.m. on Saturday, March 29, with tickets starting at $45.
Local musicians will be out in force on May 17 for Bowie & Beyond, featuring David Bowie’s music and hits he wrote or co-wrote for other acts, such as Queen, Mott the Hoople and Lou Reed. The tribute concert will be led by Ray Andersen, joined by local stars Reagan Richards, Layonne Holmes, Arne Wendt, Ralph Notaro, David Anthony, Tommy Labella and Mike Doktorski. Show time is 8 p.m., with tickets starting at $44.50.
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