Ben Vereen Brings BROADWAY AND BEYOND to NJPAC, 11/15

Two-time Tony Award winner and Theater Hall of Fame inductee Ben Vereen will bring his one-man show -- a timeless and intimate journey through the Broadway songbook – to NJPAC's Victoria Theater on Thursday, November 15, 2012 at 1 p.m.

Tickets to Broadway & Beyond are $49 and may be purchased by visiting the NJPAC Box Office at One Center Street in downtown Newark, by telephone at 1-888-GO-NJPAC (1-888-466-5722), or at www.njpac.org. This unique afternoon is made possible in part by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and Discover Jersey Arts.

A fixture of American show business for more than 40 years, Ben Vereen attended The High School of Performing Arts in New York City. His career took off after he was cast in the off-Broadway production of The Prodigal Son. He made his Broadway debut in Hair and won his first Tony award for Best Actor in a Musical for his performance in Pippin. Along with his stage career, Vereen made a name for himself in TV and film in the mini-series Roots. In addition to numerous Golden Globe and Emmy Nominations, Vereen was recently inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame.

Spend an afternoon with the ultimate song-and-dance man. Two-time Tony Award winner Ben Vereen has been a fixture of American show business for over forty years, on Broadway (Pippin, Fosse, Jesus Christ Superstar), on television (as Chicken George in the classic Roots), and on the big screen (in Fosse's All That Jazz and in his Golden Globe-nominated performance in Funny Lady). A recent inductee to the Theater Hall of Fame and winner of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Museum of Dance, Vereen comes to NJPAC for a timeless yet contemporary journey through the Broadway songbook. "It's always a pleasure to spend time in the company of a survivor, a pro, and a performing prince," says The New York Observer. "Ben Vereen is all three."

The New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) is the artistic, cultural, educational, and civic center of New Jersey -- where great performances and events enhance and transform lives every day. The largest cultural venue for performing arts in the state of New Jersey, NJPAC annually presents more than 350 concerts, plays, recitals, spoken word, and cultural events. The performance home of the critically acclaimed New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, NJPAC regularly welcomes the world's foremost performers in every genre, from Itzhak Perlman, Tony Bennett, and Yo-Yo Ma, to Paul Simon, Youssou N'Dour, and ZZ Top; from Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company to the National Song and Dance Company of Mozambique.

Located in the heart of an emerging downtown Newark, NJPAC has been widely cited as a catalyst in the revitalization of New Jersey's largest city, attracting more than seven million visitors since it opened in 1997. NJPAC's arts education initiatives have reached more than a million Newark and New Jersey children with innovative programs including the Wells Fargo Jazz for Teens, The Star-Ledger Scholarship for the Performing Arts, The Young Artist Institute, and the Verizon Passport to Culture School Time and Series. NJPAC also offers in-school residencies in dance, theater, music, and the literary arts. The cornerstone of Newark's cultural community, NJPAC's free outdoor summer music series, Sounds of the City, is an annual highly anticipated event, attracting between 2,000 and 3,000 people to the three-acre Theater Square on Thursday nights during the summer months. To learn more, visit www.njpac.org.