IN THE ARTS

Johnny Maestro and the Brooklyn Bridge

Ooh-wee, baby! Travel back in time Friday,March 14, during "An Evening of Doo Wop and Rock 'n' Roll" at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank. The concert will feature blockbuster groups Johnny Maestro and the Brooklyn Bridge ("Sixteen Candles"), Kenny Vance and the Planotones, Jay Siegel and the Tokens ("The Lion Sleeps Tonight"), Frankie Ford ("Sea Cruise") and Kid Kyle. The nostalgia begins at 7:30 p.m. at the theater, located at 99 Monmouth St. in Red Bank. Tickets: $40, $35, $30 at the box office, (732) 842-9000, or www.countbasietheatre. org.

Just in time for St. Paddy's Day,

"Dublin's Traditional Irish Cabaret" will be presented Sunday, March 16, at 3 p.m. at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank. A wealth of entertainment for all the family, Dublin's Irish Cabaret is a celebration of everything Irish in music, song and dance.

Hosted by Ireland's renowned comedian Noel V. Ginnity, the show features tenor Paul Hennessy, soprano Emer Hartnett, accordionist Ailbe Grace, Uillean Pipes player Tommy Keane and Music Director Pat Marnane, performing with Dublin's Traditional Irish Dancers.

Tickets are $19.50-$40 and are available at the box office at 99 Monmouth St. For more information, call (732) 8432- 9000 or visit www.countbasietheatre.org.

The ninth annual Honoring Women Composers Concert will take place March 16 at 4 p.m. This year's concert will feature the music of Boston composer Dianne Goolksian Rahbee. Jan Dash, clarinetist, and Elaine Held, pianist, will perform the "Sonata for Clarinet and Piano." Joel DeWitt, violinist, will perform "Soliloquies" op. 22 for solo violin. Tickets are $15 for students and seniors, $5 for children under 12, and $25 for all others. The concert will take place at the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House, 1475 West Front St., Lincroft. For tickets or information, visit www.uucmc.org or call (732) 747- 0707.

The Monmouth Conservatory of Music, Red Bank, will present a concert by the internationally celebrated piano duo of Carolle-Ann Mochernuk and Paul Kueter at 4 p.m. Saturday, March 15. The concert of music for piano solo and four hands features works by Otto Nicolai,Mozart, Ravel, Debussy and Gershwin. The conservatory is offering the concert free, as a gift to the community.Mochernuk and Kueter have performed in the U.S., Canada and Europe. Their repertoire ranges from the classics to contemporary, to

Kueter's four-hand arrangements of American musical theater. The conservatory is located at 50 White St., Red Bank, in the back of Trinity Church. Admission is free and reservations are not required. For more information, call (732) 741-8880, or visit www.monmouthconservatory. org.

ArtsCAP, the Arts Coalition of Asbury Park, is sponsoring a series of roundtable discussions duringMarch andApril to facilitate a dialogue between artists, developers and city officials inAsbury Park. The initial discussion, open to artists and performers living or working inAsbury Park, as well as representatives of arts-related organizations such as art galleries,music venues and theaters, was held March 3. There will be two more meetings culminating in a fourth and final all-inclusive discussion in late April.ArtsCAPwill compile the information and present it to developers and the city.

Those who wish to participate should email artscap@aol.com. The aimof these discussions is to flesh out the goals of the Asbury Park Cultural Plan 2006-2012 for promoting the arts in Asbury Park. The plan can be downloaded from http://www.artscap.org.

The Monmouth University 2008 Visiting Writers Series will present a poetry reading by Angela Ball Tuesday, March 18, at 4:30 p.m. at the 800 Gallery. Ball will give a reading from her work, which includes her seventh book "Night Clerk at the Hotel of Both Worlds," winner of the Donald Hall Prize for Poetry from the Association of Writers and Writing Programs. Ball teaches in the Center for Writers at the University of SouthernMississippi, where she is poetry editor for the Mississippi Review. For more information on the series, call (732) 571-3512.

"The Gin Game," by D.L. Coburn, is being presented by First Avenue Playhouse in Atlantic Highlands. In this Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, Weller Martin and Fonsia Dorsey discover they both dislike the seedy nursing home they live in but enjoy the game of gin rummy, so they begin to play and reveal intimate details of their lives. Performances are every Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8:30 p.m. through March 29, with a Sunday matinee March 16 at 2:30 p.m. at the playhouse, 123 First Ave. Tickets are $20 with a special senior rate of $15 for Thursday evening and Sunday matinees only. For information and reservations, call (732) 291-7552 or visit www.firstavenueplayhouse. com.

Compiled by Gloria Stravelli Designed by Eileen Russell Gerber