Mission

Raconteur Ventures (R.A.C.) is dedicated to Reviving and Animating Communities through cultural programming. Now in its second season at UC PAC's The Hamilton Stage.

Alex Dawson, owner and event coordinator of the late and legendary Raconteur, continues the accomplished and eclectic programming that made the bygone bookstore an internationally known venue and a favorite of The New York Times, The Huffington Post, the London Guardian, and The Star Ledger. Expect uprecendented access to award-winning filmmakers, acclaimed authors, celebrated musicians, and the occasional fire-spitting escape artist.

Focusing on the overlap between entertainment and education, Dawson creates bold, interactive events that turn audiences into intellectual communities and provide candid access to acclaimed artists (eliminating the hierarchy that often exists between an on stage guest, or star, and an audience).

Dawson has almost a decade of experience developing and executing programs in the central Jersey area. He has coordinated 500 + free events in The Raconteur, and 50 + ticketed events (e.g. three day film festivals and four hour word festivals) in a variety of much larger venues, including The Forum Theatre, a five hundred seat landmark moviehouse in Metuchen, and The State Theatre, a renovated eighteen hundred seat vaudeville venue/silent film palace in New Brunswick.