Lost in Jersey
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Lost in Jersey
More Than Music: How NJPAC Is Changing Newark
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What if the arts could transform not just audiences, but entire cities? In this episode of Lost in Jersey, we sit down with John Schreiber, President and CEO of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), to explore how a lifelong passion for music and culture became the engine behind Newark’s cultural and economic revival.
From his early days as an 11-year-old Broadway superfan to producing jazz festivals with legends like Dizzy Gillespie and Sarah Vaughan, Schreiber has spent five decades reimagining how arts institutions can thrive. His groundbreaking approach married corporate sponsorship with authentic cultural programming, reshaping how the arts are funded and experienced across America.
At NJPAC, John has built more than a venue—it’s a movement. The center anchors Newark’s downtown, sparks residential and business growth, and provides life-changing opportunities for 100,000 students each year. Through the celebrated TD James Moody Jazz Festival, the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition, and bold new partnerships like film studios and arts-focused schools, NJPAC proves that culture is both community and catalyst.
This is a conversation about vision, impact, and the belief that everyone deserves a seat at the table. As Schreiber puts it: “Come on down. You all are welcome.”
Christopher Taylor's Road to Alvin Ailey
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Meeting John Schreiber
Speaker 1John , welcome to Lost in Jersey . It's really nice to meet you .
Speaker 2Yeah , nice to meet you too .
Speaker 1I knew that we were going to interview you . Both of us started doing research and we were like , oh my gosh , his background is incredible . Not only are you the CEO and president of NJPAC , but you also have an incredible background of being part of the Newport Jazz Festival for many years , and then you also produced some of the most iconic films that you know . I think we've seen all of them . And then also now you are bringing in an incredible era of NJPAC with its growth . Can you tell us a little bit about your road to getting into , first of all , jazz and everything ?
Speaker 2Sure , yes , I have been doing this work for 50 years now , so I was very lucky . When I was a student at Haverford College , outside of Philadelphia , I became friends with the British jazz pianist named Marion McCartland and I presented Marion and other jazz musicians when I was at Haverford and when I left school I wanted to do one of two things I wanted to either work for Hal Prince or I wanted to work for George Wayne , who was the founder of the US Grass Festival , and Marianne introduced me to George and George gave me a job right out of school . I was really lucky because the time that I joined the company which was called Festival Productions , we produced over a thousand events a year all over the world with really spectacular jazz musicians , and it was a time when Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald and Cameron Facing and Charlie Mingus and Dizzy Gillespie and you name it , were still working and touring and it was just a remarkable education and I was able to go on the road with all sorts of heroes of mine around the world and I developed a deep love of jazz . George was a genius , because George was the first person who figured out how to integrate sponsors , brands , with entertainment and the most famous thing that he did we did was a series of festivals for 15 years maybe called the Cool Jazz Festivals , k-o-o-l . That was at a time when cigarette companies were not legally allowed to advertise them .
Speaker 2So Cool Brown Williamson decided to realize that jazz and R&B as a way to help the customers , and so this sort of indivisible association between a brand and an event was something that we kind of pioneered .
Speaker 2So we did cool jazz festivals in huge stadiums . There were R&B festivals We'd be in the Meadowlands or we'd be in the Silver Domino Project , which would be , I know . We'd do R&B festivals with Aretha and the Temptations and the Tops and Rachel Horton , you name it and those events would draw 35,000 , 40,000 people . And then we evolved that work into authentic jazz festivals in about 20 cities around the country . So when I was a kid , growing up sort of embedded in different American cities and worked closely with the jazz community , with the nonprofit community , and create festivals featured great headliners but also celebrated the talent that was present in the community all year round , it was a great gift for me as a young producer to understand the intersection of the arts and community via headliners and local heroes , and so that kind of work and the ability to integrate sponsors into that in ways that made sense for them and the brands was a kind of unique opportunity that was sort of formed me as a producer but also was great fun .
Speaker 1They're legends . I mean everyone that you named and just you know you were there during the , I would say , the apex peak of the jazz history . What I find interesting initially , the people that you wanted to work with you went to the top , either a Broadway producer or the top jazz festival producers . Where did you get that kind of gumption to say I'm going to , just you know , go for the A-list top .
Speaker 2And I was an odd little boy . I subscribed to Variety when I was 11 years old , so really I loved all things theatrical and musical and as an 11-year-old I would read lots of road courses , for you know Broadway shows and you know stuff like that , and it was just always something I wanted to do , stuff like that , and it was just always something I wanted to do .
Speaker 1Do you remember your first show that you , I think you grew up in Queens , I did , and you'd probably come into the city for shows . Do you remember the first big show you saw ?
Speaker 2Sure , it was Angela Lansbury in Maine .
Speaker 3Wow .
Speaker 2So I was 12 . And my folks were great . We lived at the last stop on the subway in Maine , wow . So I was 12 . And my folks were great . We lived at the last stop on the subway in Queens and I would take the E train into the theater district and they would give me $8 and I would buy a balcony ticket and I would go and I would sit in the balcony and I would watch these . You know , I remember seeing all black production of Hello Dolly . You know , when I was 12 , 13 years old it was Pearl Valley , it had Hellway with a Star and stuff like that and I just thought that was magical .
Speaker 3And .
Speaker 2I somehow said I want to be in that somehow . And when I got to college , I produced a jazz series at college and I also started a summer theater with the Bryn Mawr College . We'd have the Bryn Mawr Summer Theater . We'd do a show a week for eight weeks and I just thought that was great . And I understood as a schoolboy actor that I was okay , I wasn't going to make a career out of it , and I thought , gosh , I want to be around these people . How can I be around these people , even not as talent , but as a facilitator . And so I spent my life doing that . I spent my life surrounded by talent . I'm so lucky to have these different opportunities to showcase talent .
Speaker 3Absolutely . Did you play an instrument at any time or sing ?
Speaker 2I've sung to myself . I've also always been a listener .
Speaker 1I feel like you know people also need to get that message that arts have an important part to play . You can be successful .
Speaker 2You're right . You can be successful doing these things . You can also lose your shirt . Our young people that we work with in our education program is sharing with them the fact that if one wants to be in the entertainment business , there are four dozen ways to be in the entertainment business . Everyone does not need to be sent a stage with a microphone .
Speaker 3Right .
Speaker 2How does this show happen ? And we have programs that our young folks are involved in , where we share with them different career opportunities in the arts , whether it is as a sound technician , a lighting technician , a tour accountant , any number of ways . In order to get on stage , 50 people have to do something to make that performance possible and I think illuminating that for young people who love the arts , who love entertainment , who love music , who love movies or whatever it is , is part of our opportunity . At Indica , we're about to break ground on a film studio in the south border of Newark with the Lionsgate , and creating a high school , a magnet high school for careers in TV and film production , is something that we begin to talk about with Newark Public Schools , and I'm couldn't remember what that caused Interning or apprenticing a place like a film studio .
Speaker 2A young person can get a union card and a job without a college degree in this business , and this is a burgeoning business . You know film and TV Thanks to John Murphy and the TV Film Tax Credit Program . What we try to instill in our young folks is if you love this stuff , there are so many ways to be engaged in it as a professional , many ways to be engaged in it as a professional .
Speaker 3Yes , and I think
50 Years in Jazz Production
Speaker 3well for myself with NJPAC . My first experience there was with my Daughters . All Dance in town at Danceworks Studios and they participate with NJPAC during the Alvin Ailey performances to dance in the lobby before the performance .
Speaker 3So all the parents come and we watch the dancers dance right before and then we all go into the theater and it is one of the most joyous , community , communal , cheerful , it's one of the best performances of the year . I love it so much and I've I've seen Ailey in Manhattan when I was younger , Uh , but at NJ Pack it just feels different .
Speaker 2Just , I can't say enough about it . You bring up the Ailey and I love Ailey , uh , and have forever . We do a program with Ailey and potential called Ailey camp .
Speaker 2And uh , I , I think this one is in nine cities around the country . They really want to do is they recruit young folks from Newark who had never set foot on a stage before yes , who went to intensive camp for about six weeks , and then they do a performance at the end of that intensive camp experience and 60 kids all of a sudden become Ailey dancers and more . It is transformational to see the confidence that the young people have and the pride they have in their ability to execute the choreography . And the audience , of course , is their family and their friends . And there's a lot of whooping and hollering going on and , interestingly , out of Ailey Kent have come dancers who are now in the main company of Ailey . We're working on a film right now based on a book called the Good Life , which is about healthy and creative aging . It's based on Harvard Gerontological Studies going on since 1938 . And one of our subjects in the film is a nearly dancer named Chris Taylor .
Speaker 3Chris Taylor , yeah , we interviewed him . You did , yes , great .
Speaker 2I mean , is there anybody better than him ?
Speaker 3No , he's amazing .
Speaker 2I grew up in Newark , raised by the grandmother , and is now a member of the main company of Ailey , and talking to him about his growing up , his evolution as a dancer and then his thinking about his future has just been fascinating . But again , he's a great example of how the arts can , yeah , really transform .
Speaker 1That's wonderful to know that you're making a documentary film . Well , you know , one of the things that I'd like to touch on is the importance of NJPAC . The impact that NJPAC has had on revitalizing new work cannot be understated . But looking back , I was like when did the turn start to happen ? And it does look like it started to happen in 1997 when NJPAC first broke ground and started . It was part of the revitalization and it shows you how the arts are able to help revitalize a community . And I know that you were talking about breaking ground on this new . I believe it's a huge project , the $330-something million project .
Speaker 2That is our—we've managed to plant our candles . When NGVAC was first imagined in the late mid-'80s by Governor Kane , who is still very much present and part of our NGVAC universe , we just celebrated his 90th birthday . Governor Kane , as a student at Columbia in the late 50s , we saw what was happening on the west side of Manhattan with the construction of Lincoln Center Right , and Lincoln Center was like one of the last things that Robert Moses did . And what they did with Lincoln Center was they built these six theaters and they had a plaza in the middle . And that's what they did . And they didn't save any land around Lincoln Center for future development . So there was an enormous opportunity for Lincoln Center as a business benefit , as a real estate developer . They couldn't do it because they didn't save the land . So when Governor Owen imagined MJ back and the decision was made to locate it in Newark , governor Cohen said you know what ? We're going to build the buildings , we're going to build the theaters , but we're going to save about 20 acres around the art center for future development . Oh , and that was Preston and his vote yeah , so the art center opened . It did well . His building . So the art center opened . It did well .
Speaker 2And in 2008 , my princess , larry Goldman , announced that we would be building a residential tower across the street on one of our plots of land and that residential tower , which is called One Theater Square . It took 10 years from the first announcement to move in . But One Theater Square , which is a 24-story tower with 245 , we rented up really quickly when we opened it and it became a market maker because it was the first ground-up market rate residential in Newark in 60 years . And so we proved a point . It was forever together financing all the stuff , but it happened . And once it happened when it worked , all of a sudden so much more real estate is being developed , residential real estate being developed in the downtown of Newark With great help from Prudential master plan the balance of our campus for future development . So right now we are in construction and if you come to the campus you'll see all of the work going on the 25-story tower on one of our parking lots and six very low-rise and some townhouses all in our parking lot adjacent to the art center .
Speaker 2We are reclaiming the streetscape . The last 100 years Newark has lost 35 miles of streetscape and this is not uncommon in urban centers because in the old days people didn't want to be on the street in urban centers . And now we are turning that on its head and you're saying come on down . We are creating the residential now of 335 units , 60 townhomes , and then across the street we're building a 60,000 square foot education community center . That will take everything we're doing in social impact and in engagement , arts , education , arts and well-being , and we are locating , uh , the heart of that work here in that building , which hold for a couple of years . So everything we do in that building will be free of community . And the big idea is come on down right .
Speaker 2Our community engagement work includes about 200 , 225 free cultural events in the various wards of Newark . So we're saying to Newarkers in fact , we'll come to you with the cultural events and the opportunities to become engaged and you're always welcome . We want you to come downtown and experience what's happening on the campus . So it's hand-created and one among the legal three . So that's the big idea . And open for Summer of Honey Center Summer of Honey .
Speaker 3Center ? Oh okay , and are there opportunities then also for the schools in the area to be able to do field trips or co-classes like with some of that in mind with the educational programs ?
Speaker 2Yes , there will be opportunities . At the moment , we reach about 100,000 kids with families every year . With our family programming , our digital programming . 30,000 kids a year come to NJPAC with school groups for
From Theater Fan to Arts Producer
Speaker 2performances that are curated specifically for them .
Speaker 3And for many of our students , this may be the first time they've ever seen a live performance . Yeah , If anyone hasn't been to NJPAC , it is a stunning theater . It is gorgeous inside really . It is so well-designed .
Speaker 2Yeah , I would say to people when I show somebody the theater for the first time , our big concert hall , if they don't go like this , then you know it's a lot .
Speaker 1It's beautiful .
Speaker 3Can you explain Streetscape ?
Speaker 2Well , yeah , it's beautiful . Can you explain streetscape ? Anybody to walk on the street ? Right ? And years ago , after disturbances and the violence that occurred in the 60s , whether it was in Hollywood or Philadelphia or Newark or any number of cities , people became disinclined to want to go to downtowns . Right . And it's taken Newark longer to recover from the Newark Rebellion in 1967 as other cities and so Newark's downtown . In terms of residential areas , believe it or not , newark has had more than 10,000 people living in the downtown right . This is a city with over 300,000 residents right . So the opportunity to advance a new residential not market and affordable right , and this is very important to Mayor Baraka there's always an affordable element to all the new housing in Newark . Encourage those folks to come on down . And when I talk about streetscape , I'm saying we're adding back in streets that have been eliminated through urban renewal .
Speaker 3You see , on a set Okay .
Speaker 2So we want to have more feet on the street . We want people to live downtown , but we also want them , when they come to Injun , to plan a day , you know , go to the North Museum , which is one of the great art museums in the country .
Speaker 3Oh , it's , wonderful , yes .
Speaker 2Go there in the afternoon and tour the museum , have dinner in the Ironbound or in one of the downtown restaurants and they go home . I don't want NJPAC to be a singular solo destination . Newark has more and more to offer . Newark is a great city of the arts . You do a program now called the Dodge Poetry Program , and Dodge Poetry Festival is the largest poetry festival in Northern America . Dodge in their wisdom is working with us now and we now have poetry all year round in Newark . Newark has many , many poets who reside in the city . We have young people working in poetry workshops and I think poetry is a wonderful way for kids to find their own voice and tell us who they are . And again , it's a way to acknowledge and to celebrate the creative vitality of the city and to encourage the next generation of creators .
Speaker 1Okay , so let's talk about
TD Jazz Festival and Community Impact
Speaker 1the TD Jazz Festival . How many years has this been happening ?
Speaker 2We've been doing it since 2012 .
Speaker 1Did you start the festival ?
Speaker 2Yeah , I did .
Speaker 1That's what I thought . I was like I think you've been there for 14 years and I think you're about to do the 14th one , and I was like , did he do that ? The first thing he did when he came ?
Speaker 2That was the first thing I did . Not surprising , there were many jazz musicians who made Newark home and one of them was James Moody . And James Moody was a terrific saxophonist and a flautist and one of the most generous-hearted people ever . And I wanted , if we were going to make a jazz festival in Newark , I wanted to name it after James Moody , because his spirit in my mind sort of encompasses the spirit of jazz , which is collaborative and generous and creative and all the good things right . So Linda Moody , his widow , agreed and so we named the festival the James Moody Jazz Festival .
Speaker 2And TD came in very early in the game as our sponsor for the festival and they've been with us every step of the way . They now also sponsor our student jazz education program and jazz training program and so we started the James Moody Jazz Festival . And then we created the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition and I had toured with Sarah when I was a kid and you know huge fan of Sarah's , and we got permission from the family to do that and that is one of the most joyous events we do . It always is the last Sunday of the Jazz Festival .
Speaker 1It's kind of like an audition and countdown to who's the final winner .
Speaker 2That's it . So we have hundreds of singers from around the world who submit to be considered for it and then we net out with five finalists and we do a wonderful live performance with the finalists and we have terrific judges . Great singers who become . Who are the judges ? Probably our most famous winner is Samara Joy , and Samara Joy won the Grammy for Best New Artist two years after she won the Cerevolon Jazz Vocal Competition , so we're very proud of her .
Speaker 1But before that you have what is it ? A week or two weeks of events .
Speaker 2Yeah , we have about 10 days worth of events . One of the artists who's important to us is Christian McBride , and Christian McBride and I go back probably 35 years . The first time I saw him I was producing a jazz festival in Philadelphia and Dizzy Gillespie was with me and we were dedicating this jazz festival to Dizzy Gillespie and we went to see a high school band perform and Dizzy sort of shoved me in the side and said who is that kid playing the bass ? That kid's a monster . And that kid was 14-year-old Christian McBride .
Speaker 3Oh my God , it's incredible .
Speaker 2It's a lovely story . That was my first meeting or knowing of who Christian McBride was when I got to NJPAC . I wanted Christian to be the artistic advisor to the Jazz Festival and he said yes . And then I added him to our board and around that time my old boss , george Wein , made him the artistic director of the Newport Jazz Festival . And he's a beautiful cat , right , yeah . And he encompasses all sorts of genres of the music . He's comfortable playing with anybody . And the spirit of jazz , the spirit of collaboration . Wynton Marsalis once said to me that jazz is the most democratic of musics . In order for great jazz to get produced , musicians have to listen to each other , respect each other , give each other space .
Speaker 3Everyone gets their time to shine and do a solo and you step back and you then you add in and right you just try to enhance the whole piece together that's right and that , to my mind , is what informs a good community , right .
Speaker 2That kind of cross-collaboration , and nobody is taking pride of place for any you know , tremendous length of time . It's one of the things I love about Newark it's a really collaborative community and that's , to my mind , one of the funnest things about having this job and defining ourselves
NJPAC's Education and Career Programs
Speaker 2as an agricultural institution , right , and that means to me we're here , we'll be here and we are in service to community in ways that we know about and ways we don't know about , and so we're always wide open to ideas and if we can do it , we'll do it with them , with somebody or some group . If we can't do it because we work with so many different organizations and individuals , we can say , oh , not for us , but if you talk to these three people , maybe that idea can come true . So the idea of a performing arts center as an anchor cultural institution in service to community is something that we practice every day and it's a great gift .
Speaker 1That is a gift .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1Let's not forget , we got to talk about the Moody Festival artists . What are some highlights that you'd like to point out ?
Speaker 2Christian's going to do a show with his big band and he has three good singers on that show with him . One is Andrew Day and then Jose James and Lettucey , and it kind of speaks to how Christian works , because Christian is not a traditionalist as it relates to the music , and so this is a show that will appeal to jazz aficionados and also fans of R&B and soul . Stanley Clark is coming to the Jazz Festival and Stanley Clark is probably one of the great jazz bassists of all time and he doesn't perform with great frequency , so we're really excited that he'll be there . Wonderful jazz guitarist named Stanley Jordan is coming , and Stanley Jordan's got a whole program of the music of Jimi Hendrix , which should be really interesting .
Speaker 2D'arthane Kirk is somebody who is kind of legendary in Newark . She was one of the founders of WBGO . She's now 85 years old . She is the first lady of jazz in Newark and every year we do a jazz brunch that's called Darth Ann's Place and she is the hostess . And this year Nat Adderley Jr is going to be the headliner at the jazz brunch and he's a really wonderful pianist . So he'll be there . And then we've gotten in the habit of doing a show called Represent , which is a program that , through the arts , advances social justice narratives , and so that show , which is part of our Dodge Poetry program , will include Chuck D Rakim , dj Spinner , the New York and Slam Poetry team and others . So this is again our opportunity to sort of mix and match genres . My old boss , george Wein , used to say not everybody likes jazz , but everybody likes a jazz festival . Right .
Speaker 1It's true , they are very fun , they are very fun , exactly so .
Speaker 2The idea is let's bring folks in to hear jazz-related musics , introduce them to it , and maybe we make some new friends for the music through that . And what's another great thing about jazz and it's also true of dance through Ailey , for example is these art forms draw the most diverse audiences right .
Speaker 3Yes , it's the best all ages , everything , everyone , and then that's why it feels so good in the audience also yeah , exactly that sort of sense of celebration and community .
Speaker 2We come to these live events not only enjoy the artists that we love , but to be with our friends who love it too .
Speaker 3Yes , it's a totally different feeling . I also tell people
Transforming Newark's Downtown
Speaker 3my band had a gig on Sunday and everyone said , oh , you got to send us the video and I said it's not going to sound the same it never does , it's so much better live at least in my ears . It's so much better live at least in my ears .
Speaker 1Right , and the experience is a memory for life of the whole event . It's not just the music , it's everything that came with it . Knowing that you have been to so many festivals , I know that this is a tough question to ask , but what is the first one that you can think of ? Like ? That was just the most incredible experience that I can remember in my history .
Speaker 2Two of them . One was what George did with the Newport Jazz Festival . He moved it from Newport to New York in 1972 . There were riots in Newport and it was a time after the Woodstock Festival and stuff like that , where , you know , the Newport Festival had been going on for years without incident . But after Woodstock and Altadena , all of a sudden the nature of festivals changed and George booked some pop acts and rock and roll acts at the Newport Jazz Festival in Newport
Jazz Festival Highlights and Memories
Speaker 2in the late 60s and they had trouble , they had issues with violence and unruly behavior .
Speaker 2And so George said you know what ? I'm going to move this festival to New York , I'm going to reinvent it and I'm going to do 50 events in 10 days at , you know , 20 different venues . And it was at that time like a revolutionary thing to do that and it worked . And so my first festival experience was the Newport Jazz Festival in New York , 1976 . And it was just mind-boggling to me . So we did things at Carnegie Hall , we did things at Lincoln Center , we did the Staten Island Ferry , we did Damage Park . I mean free events , paid events . It was just like I thought , man , I'm in heaven , you know .
Speaker 2Wow , every day it was the greatest and I thought I have like found my future right here . And then the next April got to work on the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival , which was another one of our festivals , and again it was the early days of that festival and my job was to park cars in the artist parking lot . But that festival , that fairgrounds , the multiple stages , the food , the crafts , all that stuff , you know , yeah , it's incredible .
Speaker 1It's interesting , it was the first of both of those that were the most you know memorable . You've had an incredible career . We didn't even talk about the films that you've produced . You've contributed so much to all of us .
Speaker 2Well , you're very kind to say that I've led a really lucky life .
Speaker 1I think you did a lot of work there behind the scenes . I don't think it was all luck .
Speaker 2Well , thank you .
Speaker 3We can't let you go before we ask you to tell us something you absolutely
Jersey Pride and Misconceptions
Speaker 3love about New Jersey .
Speaker 2Gosh .
Speaker 3I know it's a tough one . It's a tough one .
Speaker 2You know I'll tell you what pisses me off . Okay , I have dual residency . You know , I lived in Montclair . I lived in Newark when we opened our apartment house across the street and now I live in Brooklyn . So I'm like a dual resident , right , I love both . But what pisses me off is when my New York friends , when I say I'm the you know I'm an NJ PAC in Newark some of them say that is so cool , what a great place . You have such an amazing mayor . You know , boy , I got to get out there and then other people that sort of lower their eyes and go . You know , I'm so sorry about what's happened to your career . You know it's like . So there is an essential misunderstanding or lack of knowledge about how diverse Jersey is , how robust the cultural environment is . You know great the communities are and you know I feel like I want to be an evangelist for why Jersey is cool and Jersey is cool .
Speaker 1Or start a podcast . Exactly , we agree with all the things that you love and we're pissed off about the same things you are .
Speaker 2You're doing a great public service right .
Speaker 1We are .
Speaker 2Thank you .
Speaker 1Well , thank you so much for being with us on Lost in Jersey . It's really it's an honor to have met you . I'm so impressed with all that NJPAC does for everyone and also for the city of Newark .
Speaker 2Yeah , well , please , you know , please , come on down and anybody who's listening or watching come on down . You all are welcome .
Speaker 3Thank , welcome . Thank you Absolutely . This podcast was produced by Rachel Martens and Jeanette Afsharian . You can find us on Spotify , iTunes and Buzzsprout . Thanks for listening . See you next week .
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