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Hopewell Theater – A Cultural Community Gem


Experience live music, performance, comedy, film, discussion, and more in one indie theater. Dine in on local comfort food. Hopewell Theater is a spectacular live venue with state-of-the-art projection, lighting, and sound. The theater is also available for private events.

Reopening in September!

Reopening in September!

Normally, you'd see a special offer for free popcorn at concessions using a special code word here. Stay tuned for new specials once we reopen this September!

Featured Events

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The Art of Living Well: The Yin & Yang of Gerry Lopez
The Art of Living Well: The Yin & Yang of Gerry Lopez
Tuesday, August 23

All staff, patrons, and talent are required to wear a mask inside the theater. As of 2022, all staff, patrons, and talent must show proof of vaccination OR a negative COVID-19 test. Please see our Health and Safety page for more information.
  • The path to enlightenment begins at the world’s deadliest wave.
  • This feature-length documentary from award-winning filmmaker Stacy Peralta lifts the veil on one of surfing’s most enigmatic heroes, Gerry Lopez — a man who’s as radical as he is Zen. 
  • This is a FREE event! Click the "Buy Tickets" button to be redirected to our RSVP form.
From award-winning documentary filmmaker Stacy Peralta comes Patagonia’s The Yin & Yang of Gerry Lopez, a film that lifts the veil on one of surfing’s most enigmatic heroes. While “Mr. Pipeline” is famously known for  his calm demeanor in the tube, Gerry built his career with aggressive surfing that left behind a trail of blood and tears.

Gerry is as radical as he is Zen; he transcends categorization. He’s one of the most influential surfers and surfboard shapers of all time, an entrepreneur, a family man, a movie star, and a lifelong yogi who brought surfing to new frontiers. His influence on modern surfing is immeasurable. For the first time, his  story is being told in full.more
  • 23rd August 2022 | 7:00 pm
Your Stage At Any Stage: Open Mic Hosted By Michelle Klein
Your Stage At Any Stage: Open Mic Hosted By Michelle Klein
Calling all singers, poets, and storytellers, neighbors near and far, anyone with obvious or unshowcased talents...Hopewell Theater’s stage is yours!

In fall of 2021 we launched YOUR STAGE AT ANY STAGE, a monthly 90-minute locally curated performance showcase hosted by songstress and storyteller, Michelle Klein, of the beloved Peasant Grill.

You can sign-up to participate here, or you can join us in supporting your neighbors and local talent as audience members by buying tickets!

The order of performances will be set at random on the night of the show by Hopewell Theater and Michelle in an effort to diversify the evening's lineup.

Open to all ages, however, children must have signed consent by their parent or guardian. Due to the popularity of this program, all acts must sign up in advance. All performers will be required to sign and abide by Hopewell Theater's COVID-19 Waiver and Health & Safety Protocols upon confirmation. All performers will be contacted by HT with additional details ahead of show to discuss technical requirements, arrival time, and expectations for the evening.

All performers receive free entry for the evening. Families and friends can purchase online (click “Buy Tickets” to the right), by phone, or at the Box Office ahead of time or the night of.

Performance time slots will be given as follows:
  • Music: up to 10 minutes
  • Comedy: up to 5 minutes
  • Spoken Word/ Storytelling/ Poetry: up to 7 minutes
more
  • 15th September 2022 | 7:00 pm
Karan Casey
Karan Casey
Friday, September 16
  • Singing songs charged with a sense of social responsibility in a career spanning over 25 years, Karan Casey has released eleven albums and contributed to numerous other artists’ projects – appearing on more than 50 albums in total.
  • She has toured extensively throughout North America, Europe, and Japan, performing with her own band as well as collaborating with such diverse musicians as Maura O’Connell, James Taylor, Bela Fleck, Boston Pops Orchestra, Kate Ellis, Niall Vallely, Pauline Scanlon, The Chieftains, The Dubliners, Peggy Seeger, Karen Matheson, Mick Flannery, Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, Tim O’Brien, Solas, and Lúnasa.
  • Karan is currently working on a new stage show to be produced at the Everyman Theatre in Cork in early 2023, as well as an album of new songs about women in the Irish revolutionary period.
  • Advanced Ticket Price: $32-36 plus tax and fees
  • Day of Show Ticket Price: $40 plus taxes and fees
"Karan Casey’s latest album is revelatory. She’s always been a singer of songs that tell a story and show their muscle…This is a strikingly three-dimensional work that stands the test of intensive and repeated listening with ease. A vivid and dazzling snapshot of Casey invincible, at the height of her powers.” - Siobhán Long, Irish Times

“Casey’s voice is among the loveliest in folk music and she’s a wonderful interpreter of both contemporary and traditional material.” - Boston Globe

“Karan Casey's latest solo venture is a thing of rare beauty.” - Sing Out

"The most soulful singer to emerge in Irish traditional music in the past decade." - The Glasgow Herald

“If ever any doubt existed about who's the best Irish traditional woman singer today, "Exiles Return" sweeps aside all pretenders…Karan Casey has no vocal peer.” - Irish Echo

Sample the music on Bandcamp or Spotify | Get merchandise here!more
  • 16th September 2022 | 8:00 pm
Sunny War
Sunny War
Sunday, September 18
  • It’s no secret that great art comes from the margins. From those who are either pushed to create from inner forces, or who create to show they deserve to be recognized. Los Angeles-based street singer, guitarist, and roots music revolutionary Sunny War has always been an outsider, always felt the drive to define her place in the world through music and songwriting.
  • Her restless spirit, a byproduct of growing up semi-nomadic with a single mother, led her to Venice Beach, California, where she’s been grinding the pavement for some years now, making a name for her prodigious guitar work and incisive songwriting, which touches on everything from police violence to alcoholism to love found and lost.
  • Sunny's new album on New West, coming early 2023, features David Rawlings, Jim James, and Allison Russell. She has recently performed Newport Folk Festival and NPR Mountain Stage, and has shared the stage with Watchhouse (Mandolin Orange), Lukas Nelson, and many other notable artists.
  • Advanced Ticket Price: $20-25 plus tax and fees
    Day of Show Ticket Price: $30 plus taxes and fees
Speaking with Sunny War, her mind roves endlessly, jumping between topics, spilling out rapid fire thoughts like her wildly inventive guitar playing.

The pandemic has driven many away from their creative centers, but Sunny’s been uncommonly busy. She founded a Los Angeles chapter of the nonprofit Food Not Bombs and put together a network of volunteers to distribute vegan food to the homeless. She marched for BLM in protest against police brutality and found time to cut a new album at her favorite spot, Hen House Studios in Venice Beach.

Sunny’s last album brought her universal praise and a powerful Tiny Desk performance at NPR. You’d think that the next album would bring a whole suite of expectations, but Sunny shrugged these off easily. She’s motivated less by what others expect and more by her own inner muse, and she’s surrounded herself with an artistic group of friends who are constantly writing, recording, and playing music.

Sample the music on Bandcamp or Spotify | Get merchandise here!more
  • 18th September 2022 | 7:00 pm
The RT's
The RT's
Thursday, September 22
  • Brooklyn-based five-piece The RT’s are known for their eclectic take on rock n’ roll, which mixes punk rock energy, horn drenched soul, and precise musicianship with a lighthearted, but sincere delivery. It’s a sound that has come sharply into focus on the band’s latest release, The RT’s.
  • Producer Chris Peck says in a world where cynicism and cleverness litter the musical landscape, The RT’s offer a refreshing antidote. At a time when rock-and-roll music has little representation in pop, they offer a kind of upbeat swagger. Their unique brand of sincere, lighthearted, and unpretentious music is just what the doctor ordered.
  • “The RT’s are the pizza of bands. You’re always in the mood for it.” - Rachael Price (Lake Street Dive)
  • Advanced Ticket Price: $28-32 plus tax and fees
    Day of Show Ticket Price: $35 plus taxes and fees
They say it takes nearly a decade for a wine to mature. The same could be said for The RT’s (formerly The Rad Trads). If you caught their brand of raucous, beer-soaked trad jazz and blues in the early days, you'll see the same ingredients (boisterous horns, impassioned vocals, and a driving groove) but a new flavor, and the kind of maturity and subtlety that only comes with time.

That’s why it felt like the right moment to change the band’s name, Patrick Sargent (vocals, saxophone, keys) explains: 

“We made this album that felt more authentic and honest than anything we’d ever done, but it didn’t sound like a record by a band called The Rad Trads. So it only felt right to take ownership of this next step in our evolution and abbreviate the name.”

Their forthcoming self-titled album – out Oct 22 – celebrates these changes. While the world was going through difficult times in 2020, the band – Sargent, Michael Harlen (bass, vocals); Alden Harris-McCoy (guitar, vocals); Michael Fatum (trumpet, vocals) and Jamie Eblen (drums) – took the opportunity of downtime to produce new material. They were able to find solace in a greater collaborative energy and discovered a new creative process.

“This record was different from our previous records in that the arrangements were made for the studio,” Harlen explains. “In the past, our tunes would reveal themselves on the road; learning and tweaking them as we played in different rooms each night. Then, when we got into the studio, we would record a version pretty faithful to what we would have played the night before in a bar. But this time around our producer Chris Peck encouraged us to really focus on pre-production and to approach the arrangements through a studio lens. The result is less about raw energy and more about finesse.”

Sample the music on Bandcamp or Spotify | Get merchandise here!more
  • 22nd September 2022 | 7:00 pm
Progressively Funny starring John Fugelsang & Friends
Progressively Funny starring John Fugelsang & Friends
Saturday, October 8
  • He's been murdered on CSI, interviewed 2 Beatles on separate continents in the same week, and famously once got Mitt Romney's advisor to call Governor Romney an "etch a sketch" on CNN.
  • Actor, comedian, and broadcaster John Fugelsang hosts “Tell Me Everything" weekdays on SiriusXM Insight. He performed in “The Bill of Rights Concert" alongside Lewis Black & Dick Gregory which aired on AXS. He's also appeared at Montreal’s “Just for Laughs” Festival and HBO’s U.S Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, hosted America's Funniest Home Videos for ABC, and been called “one of my favorite comedians” by Bill Maher.
  • Also performing in tonight's show is veteran standup comedian Leighann Lord, who has appeared on HBO, Comedy Central, The View, and Showtime's Even More Funny Women of a Certain Age.
  • Advanced Ticket Price: $25-30 plus tax and fees
  • Day of Show Ticket Price: $32 plus taxes and fees
JOHN FUGELSANG:

Considered one of the greatest interviewers of our day, acclaimed comedian John Fugelsang challenges conventional wisdom on politics, media, religion, and pop culture on an entertaining and irreverent daily call-in show on SiriusXM Insight, Channel 127. Journalists, comics, artists, authors, activists and political figures all have a place at the table on this brilliant, witty, irreverently intelligent show.

John is a regular on CNN, MSNBC, and has appeared more than 20 times on ABC's hit show, "Politically Incorrect" with Bill Maher. He has contributed to both Huffington Post and Daily Kos.

He sold out theaters across the country with Stephanie Miller on "The Sexy Liberal Comedy Tour", has been nominated for a Drama League award for his off-Broadway solo show, "Guilt: A Love Story". He's appeared at Montreal's Just for Laughs Festival, HBO's US Comedy Arts Festival, and on stage in DC alongside Lewis Black and Dick Gregory. He's also performed for American Troops abroad, including on a humanitarian mission in Haiti.

His film, Dream On, a road trip in search of the American Dream, was named "Best Documentary" at the NY Independent Film Festival. Directed by two-time Oscar nominee Roger Weisberg, the film examines the current state of the American Dream while retracing the journey Alexis de Tocqueville made while writing Democracy in America. The film features 200 interviews in 55 cities in 17 states, including Mike Huckabee, Barney Frank, and Paul Krugman.


LEIGHANN LORD:

Leighann Lord is a veteran standup comedian who has appeared on HBO, Comedy Central, The View, and Showtime's Even More Funny Women of a Certain Age. 

She has performed for the troops in the Middle East and her Dry Bar comedy special has had over one million views. Leighann is a former co-host of the Emmy-nominated StarTalk with Neil de Grasse Tyson and she has received the AHA Humanist Arts Award. 

Leighann is the author of several humor books including: Dict Jokes and Real Women Do it Standing Up, available on Amazon.more
  • 08th October 2022 | 8:00 pm
"The Music of the Night" with John Smitherman
Sunday, October 9
  • From Broadway to Buckingham Palace, John D. Smitherman has been there! John has the prestige and honor to have been one of the original Three American Tenors. He has performed well over 100 different roles on the professional theatre stage, including the Big Three: Jekyll & Hyde, The Phantom, and Jean Valjean in Les Miserables.
  • As a concert artist, John has inspired standing ovations, literally, around the world - specializing in Broadway and classical music as well as the great standards made famous by such artists as Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Andrea Bocelli, Josh Groban, Mario Lanza, and many others.
  • Come see why audiences around the world have declared Smitherman’s show “…one of the most entertaining and a must see!”
  • Advanced Ticket Price: $36-40 plus tax and fees
  • Day of Show Ticket Price: $45 plus taxes and fees
Start your Halloween early with Music of the Night! featuring music from Phantom of the Opera, Jekyll & Hyde, as well as other Broadway songs from shows performed by Mr. Smitherman like Les Miserablés, Man of La Mancha, South Pacific, Mamma Mia, West Side Story, Show Boat, and many more.

John will perform duets with some of the greatest voices in the era. A wonderfully entertaining evening for the entire family. Get your tickets now!
 

Praise for John Smitherman: 

“One of the greatest voices of this generation!” (New York Press)

“A voice as big and beautiful as the Rockies!” (NY Press)

“The Mario Lanza of today!” (Miami Press)

“It’s as if the role of Jean Valjean was written for him!” (PA Press)more
  • 09th October 2022 | 7:00 pm

Performing Arts Theater with a Hometown Feel

This 180-seat dine-in performing arts theater in the heart of Hopewell, NJ is within driving distance of Princeton, Lambertville, and Flemington. We are a live music and performance venue and movie theater where everyone is welcome.

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Latest News from HT

Jonah Tolchin’s New Album Releases July 15

Born and raised in Princeton, New Jersey, acclaimed singer-songwriter and bluesman Jonah Tolchin returns to Hopewell Theater on Friday, July 29 for an album-release concert.

The album, Lava Lamp, releases Friday, July 15!

“I wanted to let go and cut loose with this album,” says Tolchin.

How Did We Do?

Hopewell Theater has been presenting events for four seasons since our post-lockdown reopening in fall of 2021.

Your opinion matters to us, and helps guide our decisions moving forward almost a year later. Let us know how we’ve been doing and what you’d like to see in the future in our 2022 Post-Reopening Survey.

Panelists & Supper Club Menu for Food for Thought: “Julia”

This spring, our popular series, The Art of Living Well (AOLW), continues with new AOLW Supper Clubs entitled Food for Thought.

AOLW is known for presenting diverse programs that explore ways of cultivating serenity, meaning, and a deeper connection to one’s self and the world.