NEWSLETTER
Presented as part of the 2026 ESL Rochester Fringe Festival
Rochester, N.Y. (August 26, 2026) — Rochester native and Grammy-nominated musician Jared Engel brings his Musicians’ Baseball Club of Brooklyn to the Dryden Theatre for The Old Ball Game: Baseball Legends Told Through Film and Live Music. A mix of baseball, silent film, live music, and poetry, the program takes place at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Saturday, September 26, as part of the 2026 ESL Rochester Fringe Festival.
The Old Ball Game continues the Dryden Theatre’s commitment to presenting silent film with live musical accompaniment while bringing a contemporary take on the form to audiences.
The program includes Day of the Catch (2025), about the Grapefruit League’s forgotten and hilarious origin story, and The Mascot Race (2026), a fast-paced baseball story set in modern-day New York. Together, these award-winning, live-scored films explore baseball through history, humor, music, and the distinctive visual language of silent cinema.
“Coming home to Rochester to present my two short films at the Dryden Theatre is a special experience for me,” said Engel. “I grew up and developed my love of film and baseball here, so it’s exciting to return with films that I made myself. The Mascot Race will have just premiered in Brooklyn the week before, so this screening is part of the film’s first tour. Both films were made to be experienced with live musical accompaniment, so I’m especially happy to be able to present them this way at the George Eastman Museum as part of Rochester Fringe, with a great group of musicians alongside me in the pit, live-scoring the screenings.”
Tickets are $15 for nonmembers and $13 for George Eastman Museum members. For more information and tickets, visit the event page.
About Jared Engel
Jared Engel is a Grammy-nominated musician who has been a mainstay of the New York City music scene since 2003. An accomplished multi-instrumentalist, he is often seen on subways, sidewalks, and bike paths hauling some combination of upright bass, bass guitar, tuba, 4-string plectrum banjo, and 5-string banjo. Many know Engel for his decade-long tenure as the house bassist for the trad-jazz and bluegrass sessions at Mona’s, a beloved East Village institution. Alongside his regular performances around New York City, he has had the pleasure of recording and performing with acclaimed artists including Abigail Washburn, David Grisman, Tony Trischka, Kaia Kater, Béla Fleck, and Steve Martin. His extensive performance history includes appearances at major bluegrass festivals across the country as well as nearly every major jazz venue in New York City. Engel has also enjoyed a busy career as a touring musician, performing throughout the United States and around the world. In 2025, he made his filmmaking debut with the short silent film Day of the Catch, which tells a true story from baseball lore circa 1915 and features an original score composed by Engel. He is also the creator of The Old Ball Game, a multimedia performance combining baseball stories, silent film, and live music.
About The Musicians' Baseball Club of Brooklyn
The Musicians' Baseball Club of Brooklyn is a baseball-themed arts collective led by musician and filmmaker Jared Engel. Also known as FUMBL (The Formerly Unemployed Musicians' Baseball League), the Club began during the pandemic as a community baseball team for NYC musicians and evolved into a creative project combining live music, silent film, comedy, and baseball history. The Club’s original productions include the award-winning Day of the Catch and The Mascot Race, both presented with live musical accompaniment. The Old Ball Game is the Club’s signature live show, bringing forgotten baseball stories to life through original films, music, and multimedia performance at theaters, museums, festivals, and ballparks.
About the George Eastman Museum
Founded in 1947, the George Eastman Museum is the world’s oldest photography museum and one of the largest film archives in the United States, located on the historic Rochester estate of entrepreneur and philanthropist George Eastman, the pioneer of popular photography. Its holdings comprise more than 450,000 photographs, 31,000 motion picture films, the world’s preeminent collection of photographic and cinematographic technology, one of the leading libraries of books related to photography and cinema, and extensive holdings of documents and other objects related to George Eastman. As a research and teaching institution, the Eastman Museum has an active publishing program, and its L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation’s graduate program (a collaboration with the University of Rochester) makes critical contributions to film preservation. The George Eastman Museum is supported with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. For more information, visit eastman.org.
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