Jersey City Theater Center Celebrates Pride With LOVEFOOL By Michael John Ciszewski With Brian Dudley

Jersey City Theater Center, in partnership with Healthier Jersey City and Jersey City LGBTQ+ Pride Festival will present LOVEFOOL, created by Michael John Ciszewski with Brian Dudley.  LOVEFOOL will premiere at Jersey City will premiere at Jersey City Theater Center (165 Newark Ave, Jersey City, NJ 07302 / Entrance from Barrow St., Jersey City, NJ, 07302) on Friday August 18, 2023 at 7:00PM. Tickets start at just $15 and are available at www.JCTCenter.org.  

NYC actor and comic Michael John Ciszewski’s LOVEFOOL is a dazzling and deliciously silly romp through his flings, flirtations, and first loves that brims with heart and hilarity. Featuring dazzling and deliciously dumb multimedia outbursts, LOVEFOOL plays like the queer party playlist of your dreams set to shuffle. The show invites audiences to laugh and cry, sing and dance, flirt and fall-in-love along with Michael John as he engages a life-long commitment to unrequited love.

A *very* gay hour that bridges stand-up comedy and confessional, LOVEFOOL has packed raucous, rapt houses in New York City (Asylum NYC), Boston (The Rockwell & New Rep Theatre), and New Jersey (Jersey City Theater Center), earning raves from critics and audiences who call it “exactly the audacious celebration of queer love we need in this moment!” 

"Jersey City Theater Center is pleased to be a part of Jersey City’s pride celebration,” said Olga Levina, Executive Director at JCTC.  “The vibrant threads of diverse cultures, constructing bridges that effortlessly transcend boundaries and forge connections between people, both within the LGTBQ+ community and beyond. JCTC's unyielding dedication to fostering a vibrant community becomes the catalyst for a future where the language of arts becomes the unifying force that brings us all together in harmony.”

Michael John Ciszewski (he/him) is a queer actor, writer, and performance artist born, raised, and returned to New York City after launching his career in Boston and London.

Ciszewski’s work as a solo performer is rooted in queer experience and healing, gleefully journeying across genres as sundry as solo theatre, stand-up, storytelling, and ritual. His debut solo show Everyone is Dying and So Am I premiered in July 2019 and has enjoyed sold-out performances in Boston and at New York City’s United Solo Theatre Festival—spotlighting the best in international solo performance—where it was subsequently nominated for the festival’s audience award. His second solo project The Sun is Sleeping, a full-length original film composed in isolation, was screened in virtual theatrical events from late 2020 into 2021 and attended by over 200 people across 5 time zones, with all proceeds compensating a company of collaborators from across the United States. The full project is now available to stream online.

Michael is a member of the staff of ArtsEmerson at Emerson College’s Office of the Arts. He trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and is a proud graduate of Boston University’s B.F.A. Theatre Arts program. 

The 22nd Anniversary Jersey City LGBTQ+ Pride Festival is 23 consecutive years strong celebrating the diversity of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual, queer, intersex, and asexual communities and allies of Hudson County and the New York City Metropolitan area. Last year the official estimate of attendance at the festival was 20,000 people. Check the “Pride 365” Events Calendar for events throughout the year!

The LGBTQ+ Pride Festival is recognized not only as a premier LGBTQ+ event in Hudson County, but also one of the largest pride festivals in the Northeast. The events of Pride season exemplify the strength and growth of our LGBTQ+ and allied community. More importantly, Jersey City Pride emphasizes the importance of diversity in our community, making it stronger and more accepting of all individuals and their contributions to our society

This year we will be celebrating our 22nd Anniversary with a month-long celebration throughout Jersey City leading up to our Pride Festival celebration on August 26th. The footprint of the festival will be one of the largest in Jersey City Pride history. We’ll be on Newark Ave between Grove Street and Jersey Ave in the heart of historic downtown Jersey City as well as the Grove Street PATH Plaza. The festival is adjacent to major mass transportation: PATH Grove Street (two stops from Manhattan) and Bus.

Healthier JC was established in 2014 and began as a partnership, development, and branding office of the Jersey City Department of Health and Human Services. That year the Healthier JC office applied for a Building a Culture of Health grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and New Jersey Health Initiatives.

Healthier JC will help address health concerns. These health priorities include monitoring Hudson County’s health ranking,  improving access to primary care physicians and mental health providers, facilitating sustainable management of chronic illnesses, preventing and addressing sexually transmitted diseases, enhancing maternal/child health, expanding health education, addressing property reevaluation, and responding to crime and violence.

The Partnership for a HealthierJC team believes in proactively reducing these health disparities and improving health equity.

The Jersey City Department of Health and Human Services is a public agency that strives to build a culture of health. Through the department’s divisions, this multi-purpose public health agency will provide the services needed to promote overall health in the community. Which includes health education, disease prevention, a child care clinic, consumer safety, environmental health, senior affairs, and nutrition services.

#HeathierJC is a great way to create relationships with the community to successfully improve their health through different social spheres. The Jersey City Health Department is at the forefront of change and believes building a platform where Jersey City residents can effortlessly find resources is a great way promote health in the city. Creating relationships with the community is critical to addressing public health needs and the success of #HealtheirJC.

Jersey City Theater Center (JCTC) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) arts organization committed to inspiring conversations about important issues of our times through the arts. Co-founded by Executive Producer Olga Levina, an immigrant from Belarus, Jersey City Theater Center (JCTC) produces and presents universal yet locally relevant works, emphasizing social justice and human rights.  Since 2006, JCTC has provided a platform for all artistic voices to be heard in Jersey City, with the aim of sparking meaningful cross-cultural dialogue that helps build a greater understanding, mutual respect and better communities in New Jersey. 

Programming made possible by numerous supporters, including the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Hudson County Office of Cultural & Heritage Affairs/Tourism Development, Hudson County, the City of Jersey City, and the Office of Cultural Affairs. For those who are interested in attending any of the performances, sponsoring any of the upcoming productions, or purchasing tickets for large groups, please email info@jctcenter.org.

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