Woodbridge Arts

Eric Andersen

October 3, 2025 |7:30 PM

Spend an evening with Eric Andersen to promote his new album Dance of Love and Death - 17 new songs - the first studio album of new Eric Andersen songs since 2003! Accompanied by Steve Addabbo, Eric will perform songs from the new album as well as others spanning his career.

Aside from his own classics, he’s co-written songs with Lou Reed, Townes Van Zandt, Rick Danko, and Bob Weir (Grateful Dead). And his songs have been covered by many artists including Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Linda Ronstadt, Fairport Convention and Peter, Paul & Mary.

A full-length documentary about Eric Andersen The Songpoet (released 2019) is available for streaming on PBS.

In 2022 a 3 CD tribute album was released with artists (including Bob Dylan, Janis Ian, Richard Shindell, Linda Ronstadt, Happy Traum, Dom Flemons and many others) interpreting and covering Eric’s songs.

Eric’s new album Dance of Love and Death (featuring Lenny Kaye, Larry Campbell and others) released in 2025 as a digital album, 2 CD set and a double LP will be celebrated at this show

Adam Ezra Group

October 4, 2025 |7:30 PM

So how did this band operating so far outside the traditional music world come to win New England Music Award’s “Americana Act of the Year”in 2023? What could have happened to inspire John Oates to call Adam and invite him to begin a songwriting friendship that would lead to John producing their latest release and co-write, “Hold Each Other Now”? What happened to catch the attention of The Wallflowers, who recently invited AEG to join them on their spring tour, or SPIN Magazine who recently proclaimed, “This Independent Underground Folk Band Is Blowing Up Without Selling Out”?

“One person at a time, over many years and thousands of shows, decided to turn their heads to listen. One person at a time decided to share our music with folks they care about. That’s always been our story. It’s no fairytale, but it sure makes me proud and humbled when I look out from the stage to watch theaters full of people singing along to our music.”

These days you’ll find Adam and his bandmates, Corinna Smith (Fiddle), Poche Ponce (Bass), and Alex Martin (Percussion), constantly out on the road. If you look at their tour schedule now, you can buy tickets to see them at festivals, rock venues, and theaters around the country, but you will also see their tour continuously peppered with activism and grassroots events; a testament to an artist who will never forget where he came from, and whose mission is about much more than music.

Devil and Daisy Dirt

October 5, 2025|3:00 PM

A bluegrass tall tale about the Jersey Devil with live music and an 8' wearable puppet. On the night of an annual appetite contest called "I 8 the Devil," Daisy Dirt finds something strange - winged and antlered, wounded but alive - in the dumpster behind Lucille's Luncheonette (aka the Devil's Diner). With the help of a Piney palm reader named Effie and a piece of magic muscle meat from the basement game locker, Daisy evades a villainous poacher named Tasty (Murder) and risks everything to save it. 

Think Pine Barrens "Our Town" meets cryptid E.T, with a shoulder-shot Jersey Devil instead of a stranded extraterrestrial, deer hunters instead of federal agents, and a portal that opens above the Apple Pie Hill fire tower after a midnight lightning strike instead of an alien mothership shaped like a Christmas tree ornament. All backed by a high lonesome sound.

Willie Nile Stories and Songs

November 1, 2025 |7:30 PM

Here's a chance to experience Willie Nile up close and personal in a night of songs and stories with Willie Nile alone on stage with a guitar and piano at the intimate Avenel Performing Arts Center

The New York Times called Buffalo, NY born Willie Nile "one of the most gifted singer-songwriters to emerge from the New York scene in years." Uncut Magazine called him “A one-man Clash” and “the unofficial poet laureate of New York City”. Bono, Bruce Springsteen, Pete Townshend, Lou Reed, Lucinda Williams, Jim Jarmusch, and Little Steven are among those who have sung his praises. 

His album, American Ride, won “Best Rock Album of the Year” at the Independent Music Awards. It appeared on dozens of year-end Top Ten lists for 2013 and was voted “Album Of The Year” by Twangville Magazine. 

The Cowsills

November 2, 2025 |7:00 PM

The real-life inspiration behind the hit television series The Partridge Family, the Cowsills -- teen siblings Bill, Bob, Barry, John, Susan, and Paul in tandem with mom Barbara -- were one of the biggest pop acts of the late '60s, scoring a series of hits including "The Rain, the Park and Other Things", “Indian Lake, and "Hair". The group's origins lie with Bill and Bob, who as children began their singing careers covering Everly Brothers hits. They soon recruited younger brothers Barry and John to play bass and drums, respectively, and as Beatlemania dawned, the teen foursome began performing live at school dances and church socials throughout their native Newport, RI. 

Upon signing with MGM in 1967, The Cowsills added Mom to the band and had their first million-selling single, “The Rain, the Park and Other Things” (usually called the flower girl song) which was magnificently featured in Jim Carrey’s movie, “Dumb and Dumber”. They performed on such notable TV shows as the Ed Sullivan Show, the Johnny Cash show, the Tonight show, Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas, and also had their own NBC television special in 1968.

“Indian Lake” followed in the summer of ‘68 and in 1969 they had their biggest hit, the multi-million selling title song from the musical “Hair”. The Cowsills also recorded the theme song for the TV show “Love, American Style” which is still one of the most popular songs they perform in their shows. 

In 2025 the Cowsills still perform as a full band but for this show siblings Bob, Paul and Susan will perform an intimate show as an acoustic trio. Here's a chance to hear the songs and stories up close and personal in the cozy 195 seat Avenel PAC with state of the art sound and lights  

The Joni Project

March 7 | 7:30 PM

The Joni Project formed as a tribute in sound and spirit to Joni Mitchell, one of music’s greatest and most innovative artists. They are quite simply the finest and most musically sophisticated tribute to Joni on the scene today.  

The band is fronted by Long Island's remarkable multi-instrumentalist and singer Katie Pearlman, who impressively plays Joni's songs in their original open guitar tunings, and also includes jazz and jam band mainstays Dave Berg (guitar), Dan Ehrlich (bass), Alan Lerner (drums),Mark Mancini (keyboards), Steve Finklestein (percussion), Premik Russell Tubbs (saxophone and flute), and Victoria Faiella (backing vocals). 

Collectively, they've performed with members of the Grateful Dead, The Band, The Doors, the Neville Brothers, and so many others. Premik Russell Tubbs alone has played with Carlos Santana, Whitney Houston, Sting, James Taylor, Lady Gaga, Herbie Hancock, and more. Together, they bring fresh interpretation to Joni's legendary tunes from their many eras and genres - particularly from the time of her stunning and dynamic collaboration with Jaco Pastorius, Pat Metheny and Michael Brecker.

Eilen Jewel

April 2 | 7:30 PM

Hailed by American Songwriter as “one of America’s most intriguing, creative, and idiosyncratic voices,”Eilen Jewell rises from the ashes on her captivating new album, Get Behind The Wheel, picking up the pieces of her shattered world and finding new purpose and meaning after watching her marriage, her band, and what felt like her entire career fall apart in a series of spectacular, heartbreaking implosions.

 Co-produced by multi-instrumental wizard Will Kimbrough (Todd Snider, Hayes Carll), the collection pushes the acclaimed singer and songwriter’s trademark blend of vintage roots-noir into more psychedelic territory, with spacious, cinematic arrangements complementing her revelatory explorations of grief, loss, resilience, and redemption.

An Idaho native,Jewell built her career the old fashioned way, touring relentlessly with the kind of undeniable live show that converts the uninitiated into instant acolytes. Over the course of nine albums,she’s crisscrossed the globe countless times and shared bills with the likes of Lucinda Williams, Loretta Lynn, Mavis Staples, Wanda Jackson, George Jones,and Emmylou Harris. Rolling Stone lauded Jewell’s “cleverwriting,” while NPR declared that she has a “sweet and clear voice with a killer instinct lurking beneath the shiny surface,” and The Washington Post mused that “if Neko Case, Madeleine Peyroux and Billie Holiday had a baby girl who grew up to front a rockabilly band, she’d probably sound a lot like Eilen Jewell.”

Steve Forbert

April 4 | 7:30 PM

Steve Forbert is a true American treasure, a fact underscored by his 21st album, Daylight Savings Time. Like all his albums of original songs, it’s suffused with what venerated rock journalist Robert Christgau discerned as his “omnivorously observant” songwriting, marked by Steve’s gift for finding the deeper meaning and magic within the spectrum of everyday moments, as well as his abundant melodic and poetic enchantment.

 Daylight Savings Time contemplates and celebrates the proverbial ‘extra hour of daylight’ that comes with the time change. “Yeah to chirping crickets and to daylight savings time!” he sings on the album’s first single “Sound Existence,” “The best ain’t yet to come, but you could still get by just fine.”

Steve arrived in New York City from his Meridian, Mississippi hometown in 1976. He slotted seamlessly into the “new folk” revival in such Manhattan clubs as Folk City, The Bitter End, and Kenny’s Castaways.

He quickly won a major label deal with Nemperor/CBS Records and released his heralded debut, Alive on Arrival, in 1978. His next album, Jackrabbit Slim, released in 1979, brought wider renown to Forbert with its #11 pop chart hit “Romeo’s Tune.” It provided the stature for his troubadour existence, which has kept him active ever since as “a striking performer, very much worth seeing and hearing,” according to the New York Times.