20 years of NJPAC: Reliving its most memorable shows

Revelers at the opening night of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in October 1997 called the new venue a dream come true.

“New Jersey deserves this,” one opening night attendee told the Star-Ledger at the time.

“I really think Newark is going in a good direction, and I think - I hope - this will keep it that way,” another said.

It had taken about a decade for the once-doubted center to go from conception to opening.

Now, as the venue completes its landmark 20th season, leaders at NJPAC say it’s been successful in not only attracting world-class performing acts to New Jersey, but also in helping rejuvenate Newark’s downtown.

In the last 20 years, they say, the center has attracted about 9 million visitors and has put on about 8,500 shows.

"NJPAC has something for everyone and hopefully a little bit more than what you expected," NJPAC's executive vice-president and executive producer David Rodriguez told NJ Advance Media in advance of the center’s 20th anniversary this fall.

“(It) has become a home for many different communities, a forum that's safe and where diversity is celebrated, and that's really the nature of New Jersey.”

To commemorate its 20th season, Rodriguez and former NJPAC producers and programmers Stephanie Hughley and Leon Denmark compiled the following list of top shows ever produced at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, in no particular order.

The audience — which included celebrities like Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, and James Earl Jones — was nearly as star-studded as the line-up. The acts that officially opened the venue on Oct. 19, 1997 included the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Kathleen Battle, Chita Rivera, Cissy Houston, Savion Glover, Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and Alvin Ailey dancers.

Hughley called the opening “a sampling of who NJPAC was going to be...it sent chills up my spine and I knew we were a serious hit for this community.”

The renowned jazz vocalist gave one of her last-ever U.S. performances at NJPAC in Newark on Aug. 30, 1998. Her show at the venue started, the producers said, its focus on concerts featuring artists as storytellers, which has included shows from Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, and Sting.