This is a FREE performance and community event. Please use the form below to register your attendance.

Our Common Thread is an annual performance event presented by coLAB Arts and the First Reformed Church, to support New Brunswick's Interfaith Mens' Rotating Shelter. The event features theater, choral performance, and a panel discussion about homelessness and poverty in New Brunswick.

For this year’s performance, coLAB Arts will be presenting monologue selections from 37 Voices, based on interviews with local individuals who find themselves within the ALICE threshold (Asset Limited Income Constrained, Employed) - those who make too much money to qualify for federal assistance, but are unable to save against the high cost of living in New Jersey.

Panel discussion will feature:
Kiran Handa Gaudioso, COO of the United Way of Northern New Jersey
Jennifer Marrone Apostol, Senior Project Manager for Middlesex County Improvement Authority / MCFOODS Director
Kristin O'Brassill-Kulfan, Coordinator & Instructor of Public History, Rutgers University
Mike Rispoli, News Voices Director for Free Press/Free Press Action Fund
Moderator: Daniel Swern, Co-Founder and Producing Director for coLAB Arts

The monologues will be performed by:
June Ballinger
Turron Kofi Alleyne
Karen Alvarado
Dave Seamon

Choral performance will feature the First Reformed Church Choir, under the musical direction of Benjamin Berman.

Parking is available in the Douglass Student Center parking deck, located just before Loree Dance Theater on Lipman Drive.

To avoid a citation from Rutgers Parking Authority, please register your vehicle using the following link: https://rudots.nupark.com/events/Events/Register/bf255625-6e20-4bde-afb5-b4bd17d352a2

37 Voices project partners include Free Press of New Jersey, United Way of Northern New Jersey, Oral History & Folklife Research, New Jersey Policy Perspective, Newest Americans, Feeding New Brunswick Network, Anti-Poverty Network, Center for Cooperative Media, and NJ Spark.

37 Voices is made possible through lead funding from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation in partnership with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Our Common Thread is made possible with support from Johnson & Johnson, the Middlesex County Board of Chosen Freeholders, and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.