Bell Theatre brings top level stage entertainment to Holmdel

By:  | March 1, 2025 |  |  Holmdel

By Bill Clark

The Bell Theatre, a new venue which opened at Bell Works in Holmdel last year, is bringing concerts, musicals and other performances to the quickly growing hub of culture in Monmouth County. 

Overseen by the Axelrod Performing Arts Center in Deal, the Bell Theater sprung from a partnership between the two prior to the pandemic, but quickly grew into an idea that saw the former lecture hall become a premiere destination for the arts. 

The Axelrod Academy was based at Bell Works back in 2020, offering dance and other performance lessons to children and adults. During the pivots that the business required during the pandemic, Bell Works asked Axelrod to produce performances using its outdoor spaces. 

As the pandemic closures and precautions began to lift, Axelrod and Bell Works CEO Ralph Zucker and Creative Director Paola Zamudio crafted plans for the former lecture space, renovating and restoring the area for “music, dance, concerts and all kinds of entertainment,” Executive Artistic Director Andrew DePrisco said. 

A reconfigured stage, upgraded lighting and audio equipment and backstage areas all came together with funding from Sheldon and Ann Vogel and securing a grant through the New Jersey Arts Council. 

The first shows in May 2024 opened to great success and plans for the future are to continue to expand on that success with even more exciting entertainment offerings. 

“We're looking to bring a diverse offering of musicals and concerts,” DePrisco said. 

The stage has hosted rock bands and jazz concerts since its opening, and coming soon will be a Broadway series with “Steel Magnolias” and “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” being the first theater productions for the space. 

The Axelrod is no newcomer to the theater scene. The production company has spent the past two decades filling its stage in Deal with a powerful array of local and national offerings. DePrisco himself has had a hand in about 75 percent of the Deal theater’s productions. 

“My network is pretty wide, and I've been able to attract this really diverse, wonderful group of artists and professionals to come together to create something special that the audience can't see anywhere else,” he said. 

One comment that DePrisco frequently hears from guests of both theaters is the quality of the production rivals that of what patrons would get at venues in New York City. DePrisco and the team he works with are proud that residents in the area don’t have to board a train, battle traffic and tolls and fight the crowds of the city to enjoy productions that feel like Broadway. 

“That's a beautiful thing,” he said. 

DePrisco said that each production has a local feel to it. Bell Theater doesn’t host national traveling outfits for its plays. They work with agents in New York to cast the productions. Axelrod has hired its own stage directors, choreographers and music directors. 

Axelrod and Bell Theater are diligent in their decision making. Although art can be exploratory and experimental, it’s still a business that subsists off patrons purchasing tickets and finding a way to the seats. 

“We have to make careful choices about the programming that we do,” DePrisco said. “We want to find stuff that audiences are excited to see. We produce original works so that it's the only place you'll see [them]. The musicals and plays that we're doing, both at the Axelrod and in and at Bell works are created specifically for our stage.”

There are two bottom lines. One on the spreadsheet, the other its philosophy. 

“The theater is a forum of ideas, talent and entertainment,” he said. “It brings people together regardless of their race, creed, political background. To come in and experience stories being told or celebrating music of a certain artist or a composer or a band, I think that it brings people together in a unique way that other forms of community don't achieve.”

DePrisco isn’t alone in this endeavor. Although he has spent 30 years in various aspects of theater production, the Axelrod Advisory Council helps guide the vision with experience in direction, choreography and dance. These members have made the Axelrod Theater in Deal so successful that Bell Works tapped them to help build a premier space. 

Of course Axelrod wasn’t starting from scratch with the new Bell Theater either. Certain restrictions were set forth just based on how the former lecture hall had been laid out. The walls and seats are set in place, but they expanded the stage and reconfigured curtains to make things more conducive to a variety of performances. Now, each side has wings so that performers can enter and exit without walking past audience members. The twelve curtains can shift and morph so that any desired illusion between the audience and the performers is not broken. 

Though options are plentiful, they still must work within the layout of a stage that is 40 feet across and 25 feet deep. This means there is no space for an orchestra pit and limitations on set pieces that are unable to fit. 

The limitations only come in the form of physical dimensions. DePrisco and Axelrod have access to the resources that come with working with Bell Works which is “one of the most unique places in our state, maybe in the country,” according to DePrisco. 

The new restaurants, retail and community spaces help support the Bell Theater’s vision, and in turn, the Theater helps support the goals of Bell Works. As a space that hopes to be a local, affordable rival to what New York City offers, the space and offerings of Bell Works may help bolster that case for anyone desiring a night out. Ample parking and proximity to the Garden State Parkway increase its allure. 

“It's just so unique. And there's such an energy when you walk into the building,” DePrisco said. 

The building utilizes the space during the day for conferences and any other needs that businesses may require. Axelrod works around this. Certain days will have a matinee, but most productions take place in the evening. This schedule embodies the spirit of Bell Works itself. Commerce and art coexist in a communal space where each supports the other. 

“It is just really a remarkable space,” DePrisco said. “We're so happy to be there. And you know, our relationship with the management of Bell Works is terrific and they're just such wonderful, positive, concerned people.”