a special message from NJPAC CEO John Schreiber

Renovations at NJPAC mean you can now nab a chair of your own in Prudential Hall

Roughly a year from now, NJPAC will hit a major milestone:

In October 2027, this Arts Center will celebrate its 30th birthday.

Three decades is a long time. Millions of people — more than 13 million, actually, for those of you keeping score at home — have visited this Arts Center for concerts, dance performances, festivals, comedy shows, weddings, graduations and parties, decade after decade.

The NJPAC team has always been a house-proud bunch. We pride ourselves on keeping this building in spectacular shape. The copper elevator doors will always shine, and the four-story windows in the Prudential Hall Lobby will always offer a crystal-clear view of the cityscape beyond our walls.

But our beautiful theaters are in use so consistently that some wear and tear is inevitable. So as I write this, we’re in the midst of a six-week closure of our theaters — the first significant shutdown since we resumed performances after the pandemic — that we’re using to give our physical plant some well-earned TLC.

The biggest part of this project: For the first time in almost 30 seasons, we’re replacing and upgrading every seat in both Prudential Hall and the Victoria Theater. All 2,868 seats in the Pru, and 513 in the Vic, will be replaced between now and our reopening on September 24.

And here’s the fun part: As we implement these upgrades, we’re offering our supporters and audience members something we haven’t made available in a generation.

For a limited time, you can sponsor a pair of the new seats in Prudential Hall, and have your name engraved on a brushed-aluminum plaque affixed to the front of the seat. You can put your name there, or the name of your company or a loved one, so long as the name fits on two lines of 33 letters each, the choice is yours. (Of course, seats that were already “named” back in the 1990s will continue to bear the names of their original sponsors, now engraved on brand new plaques.)

Purchasing a pair of named seats costs $1,500; funds raised through this seat “sale” will support all of the Arts Center’s Social Impact programs, from arts training classes for children to free performances in the community. To sponsor a pair of seats, please click here or contact our Development team at 973.297.5802.

If your budget doesn’t stretch that far, we are also offering, for the first time in many years, the opportunity to inscribe your name on a brick that will be installed as part of the ongoing renovation of our grounds.

Some 8,000 arts lovers purchased named bricks in the Arts Center’s earliest days. Until October, you can join that group for a donation of $200. Have no fear if you are among the thousands who previously purchased a brick. Your named brick will also appear in a permanent installation on our beautiful, renovated outdoor plaza.

I know how much those bricks mean to our Members and supporters; for years, I’ve watched people “visit” their brick on Chambers Plaza before and after performances. (And when we announced the redesign of the plaza, questions about the named bricks were among the most frequent we heard!)

It means something to be a part of an organization like NJPAC that is so deeply invested in its city and its community. I’m thrilled that so many people have wanted their name associated with this Arts Center over the years, and that we can offer that opportunity again today.

You’re in for a real treat when you attend your next performance. The seats are custom-made for NJPAC by Series Seating, a company that specializes exclusively in seats and chairs for theaters and arenas.

The new seats are similar to our original ones, but subtly different. Made of sturdy couma wood — stained a rich red for the Pru seats, to match our gorgeous wooden wall panels — the chairs feature linen-like fabric cushions. In Prudential Hall, those cushions will be a dark teal color; in the Victoria, they’re a wine-red shade.

The designs were chosen over months of meetings and phone calls and sample-examining powwows, by our in-house design team, led by our Senior Creative Director, Patricia Ryan.

New seat and back cushions will offer our audiences a more comfortable experience in our theaters; the chairs feature ergonomic designs created to facilitate “active sitting,” which increases blood circulation and reduces back strain and joint stiffness. They will also open and close more quietly than our original seats — so no one will miss a note of a performance if anyone must leave their seat mid-show.

And since we were, of necessity, removing all the original seats in both theaters, we took this opportunity to repair and refinish every inch of our wooden floors. Anthony Rosta, NJPAC’s Senior Director, Operations and Capital Projects; Chad Spies, Vice President, Operations and Real Estate; and Tim Lizura, Executive Vice President, Real Estate and Capital Projects, have all worked tirelessly on this project.

At this moment, if you walked into Prudential Hall, you’d see the floors bare and seatless for the first time since 1997. It looks like nothing so much as an enormous wooden indoor ice skating rink. The newly polished wood gleams.

This whole project is part and parcel of our reimagination of the entire Arts Center campus — a refresh of our facilities that will encompass everything from the establishment of the ArtSide mixed-use residential development (which we are building in partnership with our colleagues at LMXD) on what was once Lot A, to the construction of the Cooperman Family Arts Education and Community Center across the street. Many upgrades to our original building are planned or have already taken place, from the replacement of all our carpeting last summer to the ongoing work to build a new loading dock for our stages out back.

I can’t wait for you to see our evolving campus and fully restored concert halls — and to welcome you back to more wonderful performances here.