The oRBiter who fell to Earth? Not hardly — editor Tom Chesek announces a hiatus for Red Bank oRBit, then turns around and tells you where you’ll still be able to get your fix. (Photo by Dennis Czund)

It’s April Fool’s Eve — time to be perfectly serious.

Effective immediately, Red Bank oRBit will be entering an indefinite hiatus that, when you think about it, isn’t much of a hiatus at all. Your oRBit editor and control voice will be turning his attention to some other matters and endeavors over the next couple of months, with the intent of making your time in oRBit a more pleasant experience —and, of course, keeping the lights on over here at Mission Control.

And it’s our intent to bring you back into oRBit as soon as possible, with a new launch, bold new features, and plenty of Astronaut Ice Cream for all.

Without being too maudlin about it, we’re only talking about laying off the posted feature stories for now. In the meantime, in between time, we’ll be bringing you a remarkable simulation of the oRBit experience, and we’ll be doing it three great ways:

1. We’ll still be updating the listings. The invisible hand that gleans knowledge and enlightenment from The Orb listings database can hardly be expected to take a holiday, so you can feel free to visit Red Bank oRBit anytime you’re looking for the latest take on the music, art, film, theater, signings and recreation events happening in this neck of the tall weeds.

2. We’ll be transmitting from the mothership. You can look for the latest postings by Tom Chesek, on all things cultural in and around Red Bank, in the paperless pages of our mothership site, redbankgreen.

3. We’ve got a killer archive. Really. In less than two years we’ve built up quite a nest-egg of features on cool and creative people, surprising celebs, must-see places and just about anything that can said to have occurred within our cultural radar range. We invite you to browse it at your convenience, because it’s going to remain right here — and we’ve got a fully linked index to our favorite features, all of which are a click away when you Continue Reading.

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Custom decorated masks by Erika Rainey (top left and right), Ksenia Poulber (bottom right) and Andrew Ricci (bottom left) are among the recommended costume during the Imagine Long Branch Masquerade Ball. The public party on April 10 kicks off a new series of monthly 2nd Saturday events throughout Long Branch.

By TOM CHESEK

We knew something different was afoot at those Arts Council meetings that we regularly participate in, when they began to fill up with a younger crowd — people who were already there at the table while the rest of us were still creaking and groaning up the stairs. People with ideas and energy and the stamina to carry them out — which believe it or not is often more important than those sought-after buckets of bucks.

We first met Christine “Reverend Chris” Murphy and Russian-born Ksenia Poulber at these confabs, with the two charmers soon to be joined by mighty Thor Fister (who we knew as frontman for the band A Diary of Need). All three, it turned out, are deeply involved with In Spirit Living Yoga Studio in Long Branch’s Uptown neighborhood — a place where, we’ve reported here in oRBit, the walls are regularly transformed into a Spiritual Art Gallery spotlighting the work of a pretty eclectic bunch of creative sorts, with attendant art parties sweetening the deal on their otherwise too-quiet block of Broadway.

“Chris and Ks and Fist” in turn introduced us to their great friend Matt Makrinos, a jazz musician and co-founder of Red Bank’s WaveLength Tutoring and Test Prep. As we got to talking with this bunch, they impressed us with their savvy on subjects we don’t claim to understand (fine art, health and fitness, the canon of higher education) as well as some that we respond to very well — like the importance of having a good time while doing good.

Being younger than this correspondent, they also understood the real value of social networking. Meaning that while somebody like us might overcompensate, scrambling to be part of the social medium du jour, these guys know it’s really all about the human factor; getting everyone together and talking.

It’s those impulses — getting people together, making sure they have a good time — that led this circle of friends to form Imagine Long Branch, a loose little organization that functions within the established Long Branch Arts Council as an independent “production arm” of the city’s new Arts and Business Coalition. And, by way of introduction, the Imagine crew has opted to go all in, and go in big — with a high-profile public event that exists as merely the tip of an eminently cool iceberg.

Saturday, April 10 is the date for Imagine Long Branch, A Masquerade Ball — a fundraising fun-for-all that promises to put a colorful face on a one-stop sampling of the visual art, music, spoken word and kitchen artistry that exists in and around the sprawling seaside city. It’s a celebration of the culture in LB’s neighborhoods (from shiny new Pier Village to the funkier old enclaves of West End and the Broadway corridor) that “ties the room together” as they say — and behind the mask is an even more ambitious project that’s designed, as Makrinos says, “to make Long Branch a real destination for this sort of thing.”

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Give it up for Jersey’s Bad Boy of Comedy Mike Marino — the Face and the Voice of the forthcoming National Comedy Fest — performing at a Night of Comedy and Networking on April 8.

They call it the National Comedy Fest — a multi-venue mega-event that brings a mix of nationwide touring acts, local hopefuls, improv troupes, theatrical comedies, film presentations and more to theaters, school auditoriums, restaurants and nightclubs in and around Red Bank, Long Branch and Asbury Park. And if you feel as if you haven’t been let in on the joke, don’t sweat it — the Fest is a work in progress, albeit one with a committed debut date of April Fools Day, 2011.

A pet project of Long Branch businessman Todd Katz and Greater Long Branch Chamber of Commerce director Ron Kapowitz, the future funnyfest is also an event that’s found its voice, and its face — stand-up guy Mike Marino. The Jersey City-bred veteran of TV shows, commercials and clubs has been branded “New Jersey’s Bad Boy of Comedy,” although in truth he’s been frequently spotted manning the mic at a long line of charitable fundraisers (including a Red Bank benefit for the Monmouth County nonprofit 180 Turning Lives Around back in January).

As something of a warm-up for next year’s inaugural Comedy Fest, the Long Branch C of C will team with Marino to present its First Annual Night of Comedy and Networking on Thursday, April 8 at Branches in West Long Branch. It’s a benefit for the Jersey Shore Convention and Visitors Bureau, a newly formed entity about which exec director Bob Hilton (of the Blue Bay Inn in Atlantic Highlands) describes as being “here to make a difference” for businesses and municipalities in the Shore communities of Monmouth and Ocean counties. Tix for the event ($25 in advance, $35 at the door) can be reserved by calling the GLBCC at (732)222-0400, and admission includes hors d’oeuvres plus that crucial component of comedy, the all-night open bar.

Mythbusters: Jay Sullivan catches the red-eye as the besieged title character, condemned by both gods and men, in director Aaron Posner’s ORESTES: A TRAGIC ROMP, now playing at Two River Theater. (Photos by T. Charles Erickson)

There’s Orestes, looking ratty but still Redford-esque — a condemned man who wishes only for a “fair and balanced” trial.

There’s his spinster sister Electra — also counting down a messy fate by stoning (all this for killing their mother Clytemnestra); a woman who tells Orestes that his rich uncle “doesn’t have the balls” to help them.

There’s the legendary beauty Helen of Troy, of whom someone says, “that woman is a radioactive packet.” Oh, and Helen is played by a man.

And, by the time Uncle Menelaus shows up — decked out to resemble nothing short of Hunter S. Thompson — we’ve probably reckoned that we’re not in the classical Greece of the ancient dramatist Euripides (except for that part about men playing women).

Still, we kind of are. It’s just that what 21st century American playwright Anne Washburn and dynamic director Aaron Posner have done with this somewhat dusty tragedy is to sharpen the sword of its attacks on royalty, religion and the ever-imperfect rule of law — effectively bringing this circa-408 B.C. relic up to date without any “Hamlet in Space” shenanigans or already-tired topical references.

In Orestes: A Tragic Romp, the adaptation that opened this past weekend and continues through April 11 at Two River Theater, we’re in the court of the assassinated ruler Agamemnon, a sparsely furnished place of washed-out colors and muted hopes (Daniel Conway’s stylized set is essentially a stone slab, one formidable door and a pair of gravel litterboxes at opposite ends), where Orestes and Electra sweat out 100 intermission-free minutes in an effort to avert their judgment, both divine and democratic.

And when that judgment comes down from on high, it arrives in the disembodied person of an Oscar/ Tony/ Golden Globe nominee from a royal bloodline of a different sort. More on that in a moment.

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Performance with Passion Players producers Debby and Michael Schwartz are smiling because it’s springtime, and also because they’ve landed their community theater troupe at an all new home — the IAMA building in Long Branch’s wild West End.

Last we reported on Debby and Mike Schwartz, the hardworking impresarios behind the long-running community stage company Performance with Passion Players (formerly known under the name Over the Rainbow Productions) faced a pretty daunting dilemma: pay a newly jacked-up rent at the Eatontown Playhouse, the sub-microscopic storefront stage they’d occupied for over a decade —  or scramble to find a new home stage venue just as the friendlier weather rolled into the region? 

After a winter’s interlude that saw them stage both adult and junior productions of Guys & Dolls at the 250-seat Middletown Arts Center, the Schwartzes arrived at a decision, as well as at a welcoming new port of call. It’s the Italian American Memorial Association (IAMA) building at 195 West End Avenue in Long Branch, a far more spacious and logistically friendly headquarters that the Holmdel residents will be inaugurating on April 2 with a revival of Gemini. Albert Innaurato’s edgy 1970s ensemble comedy tosses multiple generations of dysfunctional family members, schoolmates and neighbors into a vivaciously vulgar, sexually confused Sunday Sauce that spawned the immortal line, “Take HUMAN bites!” Onstage already at the IAMA is the Players’ current Children’s Entertainment Series revue Back to the 80s, appearing one more time this Saturday at noon. For tickets ($20 for Gemini; $15 for 80s), directions and info on upcoming P-with-P offerings, call (732)888-0339.

Now, if you’re wondering what’s become of the other regular tenant at the Eatontown stage — Mike O’Keeffe and his ever-morphing troupe of spontaneously combustible comics known as Improv Jam — take heart, effendi. We first caught the Jam band during their weekend residency at Red Bank’s long-disconnected Internet Cafe, then watched them get ejected from the former WaWa known unofficially as Phoenix Studio. In other words, it’ll take more than a mob of angry landlords and fire inspectors to kill this krew — and it’s with great pleasure that we report the return of the impishly perverse Improvs on April 3, at their new home, The Showroom screening space in downtown Asbury Park. They’ll be initiating an ongoing Saturday night series at 10pm at a venue that’s made to order — and we’ll be providing you with the prov-da in a future go-round of oRBit! 

Don’t try this at home — but do try this in your hometown, as the KaBoom! Fireworks committee presents a FREE behind-the-scenes look at how the annual Independence Day event on the Navesink is birthed each year. It happens at the Basie this coming Monday, and you’re invited.

Like the Kentucky Derby or your “first time,” it’s loud and exciting and it’s all over in a matter of minutes — but that doesn’t mean that someone hasn’t spent a whole year of hard work getting to that point.

Whether you love it or leave town over it, the annual KaBoom Fireworks on the Navesink event is one of the things that make Red Bank what it is — an attraction that brings more than 150,000 gawkers to multiple sites on the crimson banks of the Navesink; surely the single biggest happening of the borough’s calendar year. 

If you’ve ever wondered what the Third of July would be like without this loud ‘n proud tradition, just seek out a longtime local lifer who can tell you about a year when the town reckoned they’d do it themselves. They’ll tell you stories about the bargeload of pyrotechnics going off all at once; the ground-level display of festively exploding ordnance providing a colorful backdrop to the small, silhouetted figures seen jumping overboard.

Fortunately, the borough has since left it to the pros — first the legendary Grucci family, and for the past four years the Santores of Garden State Fireworks. So, what once was quaint, now simply ain’t — and in the process the KaBoom! committee has set the bar sky-high for all sky shows to follow. Plus, as the committee is proud to point out, the brief but branded event is organized and executed each year without a penny of taxpayer funding.

That funding, of course, has been hard won in an economic climate where nonprofits have largely had to make do with much less. The organizers, who in the past have used a swanky cocktail reception at the Monmouth Boat Club as their primary fundraising campaign kickoff, are introducing a new awareness-raising tradition this year; one that allows everybody in town a behind-the-scenes look at how the big boom is born each year.

This coming Wednesday, March 31, the Count Basie Theatre will be the host venue for a 7:30pm presentation entitled KaBoom at the Basie. Emceed by KaBoom! committee chairman Peter Reinhart and featuring special guest pyrotechnicians Chris and Augie Santore, the free event promises “an inside look at how fireworks are made (don’t try this at home!) and all of the elements that go into creating a large-scale choreographed, musical pyrotechnic experience.”

Videos of last year’s show will be screened; a “TBD talented local young person” will perform the National Anthem, Mrs. Red Bank Donna Lyn Geigerich will present a motivational peptalk, and an audience Q&A is also on the program. As the featured attraction, the Santores will demonstrate their craft using “on-stage props” that we can only suppose will be an illuminating part of the presentation. 

There’s no charge for admission, but the organizers are asking attendees to RSVP by Friday, March 26. Reservations made by that date will receive tickets in the mail (all later reservations can pick up free tix at the Basie box office on Monday) — and front-row seats have been reserved for the first 100 people to reserve tickets via Facebook and Twitter.  And — in a nod toward more traditional forms of social networking — there’ll be an opportunity to make a good will donation at the show, courtesy of the good old “Kick In for KaBoom” bucket.

Pink Frog’s Russ Bucci (in “Solo Suicide” mode) is among the old friends, neighbors and customers gathering at the Asbury Lanes this Sunday to stage a benefit for Cheri Jiosne, the former co-owner of Red Bank’s much missed Second Nature Emporium, whose battle with breast cancer has sounded a call to action from the likes of The Ribeye Brothers,Dub Proof, and more. Check out today’s roundup of Sunday sauciness (subtitled CENOBITE SYMPHONY) for details on how to be there in person or in spirit — and while you’re here, be sure to stretch your legs at our Friday and Saturday stationstops, plus dig if you will our feature interview with the shaman of show, Mr. Tony Pallagrosi. Oh, and don’t forget to Continue Reading for a cracker-jack surprise.

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Tony Pallagrosi is pictured onstage at January’s big Light of Day concert in Asbury Park. The promoter, musician, fundraiser, club manager, mover and shaker joins Concerts East partner Jerry Bakal for an informal talk on THE JERSEY SHORE MUSIC SCENE: PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE, Saturday at NovelTeas in Red Bank. (Photos by Mike Black)

By TOM CHESEK

He’s the man in the picture — seldom if ever in the spotlight or at center stage, but always there in the group shot, at the all-star curtain call, the presentation of the ceremonial check. You’ll find him on the cover of the second album by the Jukes, or sharing the frame with public figures that most mere mortals would never get within 200 yards of. If you knew nothing else about Tony Pallagrosi, you’d take him to be a mysterious character on a par with Waldo, or perhaps a very ingenious gate crasher.

Try “mover and shaker.” Go-To Guru. A maharishi of make-it-so; equipped with All-Access, Level 5, golden-ticket Lifetime Backstage Pass, personally stamped and validated by Saint Peter, Heimdall, and the CSM.

Not bad for a cat from Point Beach who played trumpet behind Southside Johnny back in the day; a guy who generations of performers can recall from his gigs as manager of the old Fastlane (later Hitsville) and the long-defunct Club Xanadu in Asbury. With his longtime business partner Jerry Bakal, Pallagrosi purchased the former Hunka Bunka in Sayreville in 2003, transforming the old barn into the Starland Ballroom and creating  an attraction that at one time boasted rights to being the fourth most moneymaking concert club on the planet. For nearly 20 years, the partners have operated as Concerts East, one of the region’s biggest purveyors of live entertainment (with an accent on Le Rock) and the name behind such events as the Warped Tour, as well as major bookings at the Count Basie and the State Theatre. You’ll even find the promoters involved with smaller shows (like a recent appearance by the Blasters at The Saint), where you can still find Pallagrosi the diehard music fan digging on the vibe he’s wrought.

Since selling the Starland to AEG in 2007, however, Tony’s time has been increasingly taken up by a cause with which he’s been involved from the earliest stages — the Light of Day Foundation and its annual benefit concerts dedicated to Parkinson’s Disease research. Pallagrosi teamed with fellow promoter/ LOD founder Bob Benjamin and musical linchpin Joe Grushecky to build a branded event that’s attracted friends like Bruce Springsteen and Michael J. Fox — an event that’s grown from a loose jam session at Red Bank’s Downtown Cafe, to a series of shows that spans two continents and two calendar years.

This Saturday evening finds Jerry and Tony appearing at NovelTeas Authors Aromas & Gifts, Kim Widener’s recently inaugurated book salon/ tea room/ gift boutique on the Left Bank of Red Bank. And before we go any further, everybody in the regional music biz can relax; the guys haven’t written a kiss-’n-tell memoir that names names — in fact, they don’t have a book to promote at all. They’ll be there at 7pm to present a talk under the title The Jersey Shore Music Scene: Past, Present & Future. As the name only hints at, it’s an ultimate-insider’s look at the bands, the bars, the business, the beef, the ballyhoo — and the barometer of ever-evolving tastes and tech.  

It’s also a full-tilt fundraiser for the guest speakers’ favorite causes — Light of Day, and the Joan Dancy & PALS Foundation for ALS patients in our community, of which Bakal is a trustee. And, the presentation will culminate in an interactive Q&A session moderated by Jerry Zaro, director of the NJ Office of Economic Growth. 

Until such time as the Concerts East partners have an actual best-seller to plug on the Today show, theirs is a story that can only be heard by literal word of mouth — so Red Bank oRBit rang up Tony P for a preview of Saturday’s topical talk, and our little exclusive is waiting for you, just around the corner.

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A cherished tradition at Monmouth University for several years running, Joanie Madden and Cherish the Ladies get a crucial jump on NEXT St. Pat’s Day, Friday night at the Pollak.

Previously in oRBit, we slipped you through the side door for tonight’s final discount-priced preview of Orestes at Two River Theater — and we sat you down at the Moviola to watch some rough dailies of this weekend’s Garden State Film Festival. Following are three more items for your Friday fetishizing. 

1. Cherish the Ladies at Monmouth University. A while back, our friends in the Celtic rock band The Snakes illuminated us as to the phenomenon of “Saint Practice Day,” the process by which the observance of St. Pat’s is spread across the calendar like the nose on Fightin’ Joe Moran’s tanktown-pug kisser. Here on the Jersey Shore, the party starts well in advance of March and keeps going long after the last cardboard shamrock sags from the wall — and as the latest exhibit we submit for your approval the return of Joanie Madden’s quintet of Irish American neotraditionalists Cherish the Ladies to Monmouth University’s Performing Arts Series — their fifth appearance by our reckoning at the Pollak Theatre on the West Long Branch campus. They’ll be joined by champion step dancers plus a fervent local fanbase, and tickets for tonight’s 8pm show ($32 and $40) can be reserved right here.  Friday, 8pm/ $32, $40

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He’s not even supposed to be here tonight: Brian (CLERKS) O’Halloran is among the cast of favorite players taking part in a reading of the comedy play SUBMITTED BY C. RANDALL McCLOSKEY, at Holmdel Theatre Company.

Previously in oRBit, we welcomed back the elegant and awesome Pinky as she makes a belated homecoming today at River Road Books; escorted you to this afternoon’s big gala fundraiser at Monmouth Conservatory of Music, and interviewed Tony Pallagrosi as the Shore-rock mover and shaker visits NovelTeas in Red Bank for an informal lecture on the Jersey music biz. Following are five more Saturday specialities. 

1. The Met Live in HD at Monmouth University. The folks at NYC’s Metropolitan Opera bagged themselves a special Emmy award for their groundbreaking (and boxoffice blinging) series of high-definition simulcasts that convey the company’s Lincoln Center productions live to movie theaters across the continent. This Saturday at 1pm, Monmouth University presents the latest of the Met offerings to display in HD upon the big screen of the Pollak Theatre, with Simon Keenlyside and Marlis Petersen starring in the Ambroise Thomas operatization of Shakespeare’s trademark trag’ concerning melancholy Danes and such (with Ophelia’s mad scene said to be among the greatest in opera). Tickets are $22 ($20 seniors, $10 kids and students) and can be reserved right here. The production will be repeated at 6:30pm on Wednesday, April 14. Saturday, 1pm/ $22

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Red Bank native and accomplished film composer Christopher Young is live and in person, as the Count Basie Theatre screens the Young-scored gorezone classic HELLRAISER for free.

Previously in oRBit, we gave you the wrap on this weekend’s Garden State Film Festival — and clued you in on a spirited and altogether civilized event over at the historic Crane House. Following are three more found objects from the Sunday Sauce. 

1. Monmouth Symphony Orchestra at the Count Basie Theatre. Once or maybe twice a season, veteran Monmouth Symphony Orchestra conductor Roy Gussman steps away from the podium for a program featuring the baton-wielding prowess of assistant maestro Lucian Rinando. The expert flautist stands before the assembled players of the homegrown musical organization this Sunday afternoon at the Count Basie, as the orchestra welcomes guest soloist Nicolas Gatto on English horn for a program of selections by Beethoven (the Eroica Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major), Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (Concertino for English Horn) — and Ambroise Thomas (Overture to Mignon), whose operatic adaptation of Hamlet is the subject of Saturday’s Metropolitan Opera simulcast at Monmouth U. The Basie program’s preceded by the traditional pre-concert talk at 2:15pm. Sunday, 3pm/ $30

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Filmmaker Kyle Mumford and his father, Shore chef and restaurateur Chris Mumford. The documentary feature MUMFORD’S LAW is a chronicle of a son’s search for his father’s story — and a study in how personal pain can play a part in forming the strongest of bonds. 

A great chef, they say, puts his heart and soul out there on every plate; lays it all bare like the most confessional manuscript or personally pertinent painting. Even so, there are few masters of the kitchen who’ve had the guts to do what Chris Mumford has done, on film and in public.

In the new documentary film Mumford’s Law, the founder and head instructor of Mumford’s Culinary Center in Tinton Falls opens up about his life and times — from the carefree days before the premature death of his mother, to middle-age contentment as a family man and successful business owner. In between are accounts of abuse at the hands of a violent stepmom, the devastating death of his youngest brother (and the descent into addiction of his oldest), drug deals gone dangerously south, regrets in life and love and career — and the backstory of a family that had to be torn to pieces before it could truly come together.

As if he didn’t already have enough on his plate, Mumford had to tell his story to a camera-wielding interlocutor with his own highly personalized stake in the matter — his son Kyle Mumford, a student at NYC’s School of Visual Arts and a first-time feature director who fesses up to his own struggles with depression within the course of the film. Promoted with the tagline “The greatest story a father ever told his son,” the 90-minute doc exists as a tribute to the awe and respect that Kyle and his younger brother (singer-songwriter Quincy Mumford, who contributes original music and appears in the film) have for their dad — and it uses the medium to breach the wall of family secrecy and silence, in a way that no backyard game of catch is likely to accomplish. There’s also, we hasten to add, quite a bit of joy in the film.

Even so, Chris admits that “I told about seventy percent of my story to Kyle; there’s another thirty percent that’s too personal to share.” The elder Mumford made his remarks at the AMC Loews Monmouth Mall megaplex on Tuesday night, where the film had its first public showing as part of Chuck Rose’s ongoing Filmmakers Symposium series. 

Rose, a producer of the finished film and an early champion (as is Front Street Trattoria owner Michael Aufiero, from whom we first heard about the project), moderated a post-screening discussion with various members of the Mumford clan — among them the director’s mother, who contributed what might have been the most trenchant observation of the evening.

“Just about everyone can find a piece of their own family’s story in what Kyle has done,” said Mrs. Mumford without a rolling camera to capture her words. “Everyone owns a piece of this film.”

Audiences will have another chance to see Mumford’s Law when the producers present a world premiere benefit event on May 19 at Tim McLoone’s Supper Club on the Asbury Park boardwalk. It’s a full-on fundraiser for the Food Bank of Monmouth and Ocean Counties, featuring a 7pm pre-show open bar (and discounted dinner) courtesy of Mr. McLoone, a meet-and-greet with the filmmaker after the screening, and complimentary hors d’oeuvres from Mumford’s own kitchen. Tickets ($50) can be reserved by calling (732)918-2600, and you can have a look at the trailer right here.