Alex Dawson is a professor at Rutgers University, where he teaches creative writing courses. He wrote this hour-long bluegrass tale about the Jersey Devil with live music and a eight-foot wearable puppet costume. In 2024, they ran a sold-out fifteen-show tour in NY/NJ at bars, barns, and breweries and a four-night showcase at a Manhattan theater. Now they are coming to the Pinelands Preservation Alliance!
Historic Barn at the Pinelands Preservation Alliance
Dates: Saturday, April 12 and Sunday, April 13
Times: Shows are at 7:30 pm and 9:30 pm on both nights.
Tickets are $25/person in advance, $30 at the door. Limited seating – reserve today. Our barn is handicap accessible. Run time: 1 hour.
NOTE: Saturday, April 12 at 7:30 PM is SOLD OUT! Tickets are available for the rest of the shows. Get yours before they are gone.
Please note: This show is not for kids. They classify the show as PG-13.
Proceeds from this event help us ensure that the forests, rivers and swamps that inspired the legend of the Jersey Devil remain protected for future generations of believers.
A bluegrass tall tale about the Jersey Devil with live music and an 8′ wearable puppet. On the night of an annual appetite contest called “I 8 the Devil,” Daisy Dirt finds something strange – winged and antlered, wounded but alive – in the dumpster behind Lucille’s Luncheonette (aka the Devil’s Diner). With the help of a Piney palm reader named Effie and a piece of magic muscle meat from the basement game locker, Daisy evades a villainous poacher named Tasty (Murder) and risks everything to save it.
Think Pine Barrens “Our Town” meets cryptid E.T, with a shoulder-shot Jersey Devil instead of a stranded extraterrestrial, deer hunters instead of federal agents, and a portal that opens above the Apple Pie Hill fire tower after a midnight lightning strike instead of an alien mothership shaped like a Christmas tree ornament. All backed by a high lonesome sound.
For info and pics, visit TheDevilandDaisyDirt.blogspot.com.
“Riveting and one-of-a-kind!” (Joyce Carol Oates, The Gravedigger’s Daughter), “Stunning! Jim Henson meets Johnny Cash!” (Lev Grossman, The Magicians, The Bright Sword), “Amazing! It will absolutely blow your mind!” (Jersey Is the World), “Very weird and very Jersey! See it to believe it!” (Weird New Jersey), “Fantastic! See this play if you can!”(Brian and Wendy “Mother of Yoda” Froud, The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth), “Mesmerizing. Wildly inventive and totally unmissable.” (Sophie White, Where I End), “Beautiful. Incredible.” (Adrien Beau, The Vourdalak), “The hero we need. Very cool and all kinds of fun!” (Stephen Graham Jones, The Only Good Indians), “A wild ride! Leathery and magical! Dawson is the Chuck Norris of story-telling.” (Clay McLeod Chapman, Ghost Eaters, Wendell & Wild), “Brilliant! Half creature feature, half country song!” (Lee Pfeifer, Cinema Retro), “Incredible! Amazing! Chucky would be jealous.” (Tom Holland, Fright Night, Child’s Play), “Dawson is the OG Jersey Devil. A twisted yarn that could only happen in my home state.” (Mike Edison, Raunch Hands, I Have Fun Everywhere I Go), “Gripping. Captivating. Reminiscent of Shel Silverstein’s epic poems.” (Fears Mag), “Powerful, poetic, and really strange!” (Will Rogers, Earth Break, Blackwood, Guide to the Unknown).