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Saturday, November 30, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Philip Glass: Akhnaten
OPERA
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 7)
8:00 PM
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$30-$445
https://www.metopera.org/season/2019-20-season/akhnaten/
The List Event Of The Season, or something like it. This isn't Philip Glass's best opera, but it's pretty great. It's about an oddball Pharaoh who imposed monotheism on Ancient Egypt, apparently practiced androgyny, was married to Nefertiti, and sired King Tut (obviously all fodder for an opera — if not quite all in this opera). One problem with the original production back in the '80s was that the production itself was pretty lame, but that shouldn't be a problem here. Phelim McDermott, who did such a great job at the Met with Glass's Satyagraha (although a not-so-great job with Così fan Tutte) directs. And while you might cringe at the thought of jugglers in this opera, they're led by Sean Gandini, the best in the world (seriously). Starring are the knockout countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo (who might have been born to play Akhnaten) and rising-star mezzo J'Nai Bridges, making her Met debut. Karen Kamansek, another welcome Met debutante, conducts. You can't even think of missing this. (This performance seems to be sold out — although last-minute availability usually pops up at this venue. Think the sclerotic Met board will get the message?)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: All that will be open in the area when this is over is P.J. Clarke's.
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Saturday, November 30, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Jozef Van Wissem
MUSIC
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2019
8:00 PM
Trans-Pecos
915 Wyckoff Avenue, Ridgewood, Queens
$11 advance; $14 day of show
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jozef-van-wissem-tickets-79027945713
When I say that lutenist Jozef Van Wissem fuses Renaissance/Baroque with avant/ambient, you'll probably get scared. But this music has some bite to it — and some depth, too. And it's enjoyable as hell, in its oddball quirky way. Recommended to pop fans who have a hankering to connect with Early Music. Or to Early Music fans who are willing to leave that ghetto.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: While in Kathmandu comes so highly recommended by people I trust so highly — who make it sound not only absolutely delicious but also a ton of fun — that I can only urge you to get over there for its Nepalese food. My informants say especially that the cold tomato sesame sauce on the momo dumplings is very highly addictive.
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Saturday, November 30, 2019, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Pioneers Go East Collective: Virgo Star
THEATER
TUESDAY & SATURDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 26 & 30 & DECEMBER 1, 2019
7:00 PM TUESDAY
5:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25; $20 students/seniors
http://lamama.org/virgo-star/
Queer theater collective Pioneers Go East are back with another of their always-entertaining explorations of the gender implications of Western mythos.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hip Filipino at Ugly Kitchen.
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Fri, Nov 29, 2019, 11:00 PM – Sat, Nov 30, 2019, 11:59 PM
Elseworld
MUSIC
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2019
11:00 PM
Elsewhere
599 Johnson Avenue, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$15-$25
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/elseworld-juan-atkins-noncompliant-lauren-flax-juliana-huxtable-relaxer-live-loka-cultivated-sound-tickets-68798236377
Elsewhere's monthly multimedia party, with music, lights, installations, dancing, whatever. Very strong lineup of people providing music this month, including among others Belleville Three member Juan Atkins, the founder of Techno (really!); Brooklyn dancing queen Lauren Flax; and multimedia artist/DJ Juliana Huxtable, who when you think about it is really one of the most exciting and interesting dance-music-allied artists out there.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: If you're not already sick after yesterday of roasts coming out of ovens, Faro has some great ones — supplemented by really special pastas made entirely from local grains.
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Fri, Nov 29, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 1, 2019, 9:00 PM
Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca: Entre Tu y Yo
DANCE
TUESDAY - WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 26 - 27 & 29 -30 & DECEMBER 1, 2019
7:30 PM TUESDAY - WEDNESDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Avenue, Chelsea, Manhattan
$26-$66
https://www.joyce.org/performances/soledad-barrio-noche-flamenca-0
How great that one of the best Flamenco companies in the world resides here in New York. It might be best to see Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca in a club or smaller theater than this, but don’t let that stop you from seeing them anywhere. This program is a set of fiery solos and duos and a few ensemble pieces, dealing (as you might guess) with intimacy. Great dancing, great music, great choreography, oodles of personality. Not to be missed.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Jungle Bird, a brand-new Tiki-ish bar, just opened across the street!
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Fri, Nov 29, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Nov 30, 2019, 9:00 PM
-
Fri, Nov 29, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 1, 2019, 9:00 PM
Jeremy O. Harris: Slave Play
THEATER
MONDAY - WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 25 - 27 & 29 - 30 & DECEMBER 1, 2019 (continuing through JANUARY 5)*
7:00 PM MONDAY - THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Golden Theater
252 West 45th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$39-$227
https://slaveplaybroadway.com/
Another corrosive play by an African-American playwright treating issues of race (and in this case gender) in a formally inventive, narratively skewed manner. It's amazing how much great theater has fit that description in the last couple of years — on the whole, the best American theater there's been. It's even more amazing to have something like this playing on Broadway. I'm skeptical of attempts to bring characteristically Downtown/Brooklyn stuff Uptown — but it would be nice for one of those attempts to succeed for once. Go.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Blue Ribbon was once exciting for re-introducing elemental brasserie-style dining to New York — and for staying open late. Now, when you can’t walk down the street without stepping in bone marrow, the menus seem kind of boring — but decently late hours are rarer than ever, even in even the putative Theater District. Perhaps the most exciting thing about the The Ribbon Midtown, though, is the fancy cocktail bar underneath.
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Fri, Nov 29, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 1, 2019, 9:00 PM
Arthur Miller: The Crucible
THEATER
TUESDAY - WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 26 - 27 & 29 - 30 & DECEMBER 1, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 29)
8:00 PM TUESDAY & FRIDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM WEDNESDAY, SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Bedlam
The Connelly Theater
220 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$59-$115
https://bedlam.org/the-crucible/
We're not supposed to look at art as competition, but it's hard for fans of progressive theater to avoid looking at this production by Bedlam and the just-concluded initial run by spin-off company The COOP as a kind of Stripped-Down Progressive Theater Battle Of The Bands. Bedlam's cut-out-the-fat approach would seem perfect for Arthur Miller's allegory of McCarthyism — if Ivo van Hove hadn't done such a stunning treatment a few years ago. Nevertheless, as I said, we're not supposed to look at art as competiton. (Note that holders of the most expensive tickets will be moved around to be kept closest to the stage action.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Everybody loves the sparkling Vietnamese food at Van Da — and it's practically next door.
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Fri, Nov 29, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 1, 2019, 9:00 PM
David Byrne: American Utopia
THEATER
TUESDAY & WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 26 - 27 & 29 - 30 & DECEMBER 1, 2019 (continuing through FEBRUARY 16)
8:00 PM TUESDAY - WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY
5:30 & 9:00 PM SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Hudson Theatre
141 West 44th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$86-$449
https://americanutopiabroadway.com/
I suppose it's time to remove the stick from my ass about this show. If David Byrne and Annie-B Parson were collaborating on an extravaganza production at, say, Skirball Center, or Peak Performances in Montclair, I'd almost certainly List it. So just because this is on Broadway, that's no reason to disregard it, right? OTOH, although I try to keep my recommendations price-blind, if this were at Skirball or Peak Performances, the prices wouldn't hover around $300 for decent but not top tickets. Is it worth paying $300 to see this when you can see something like Black Exhibition at the Bushwick Starr for $35? I certainly wouldn't have dreamed of spending whatever the then-equivalent of $300 was to see the Talking Heads when they were in their absolute prime. I'm on the fence, then. But if you want to spend a few hundred dollars to see superannuated '70s/'80s pop avant-garde, don't let me stop you.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It's surprising how good Theater District Italian standby Osteria del Doge is, considering how bad you'd assume it to be.
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Fri, Nov 29, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 1, 2019, 3:00 PM
Steven Adly Guirgis: Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven
THEATER
MONDAY - WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 25 - 27 & 29 - 30 & DECEMBER 1, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 22)
7:00 PM MONDAY, TUESDAY & SUNDAY
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Atlantic Theater Company/LAByrinth Theater
Linda Gross Theater
366 West 20th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$71.50-$91.50
https://atlantictheater.org/production/halfway-bitches-go-straight-to-heaven/
Steven Adly Guirgis is back, this time with a play set in a women's halfway house. Expect a lot of expletives, a lot of laughs, and a lot of hidden truth.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Guirgis's plays can go on. So it's a good thing Momofuku Nishi stays open late (late for pathetic New York, anyway).
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Fri, Nov 29, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 1, 2019, 9:00 PM
Arthur Miller: The Crucible
THEATER
TUESDAY - WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 26 - 27 & 29 - 30 & DECEMBER 1, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 29)
8:00 PM TUESDAY & FRIDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM WEDNESDAY, SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Bedlam
The Connelly Theater
220 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$59-$115
https://bedlam.org/the-crucible/
We're not supposed to look at art as competition, but it's hard for fans of progressive theater to avoid looking at this production by Bedlam and the just-concluded initial run by spin-off company The COOP as a kind of Stripped-Down Progressive Theater Battle Of The Bands. Bedlam's cut-out-the-fat approach would seem perfect for Arthur Miller's allegory of McCarthyism — if Ivo van Hove hadn't done such a stunning treatment a few years ago. Nevertheless, as I said, we're not supposed to look at art as competiton. (Note that holders of the most expensive tickets will be moved around to be kept closest to the stage action.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Everybody loves the sparkling Vietnamese food at Van Da — and it's practically next door.
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Fri, Nov 29, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Dec 1, 2019, 8:30 PM
Thomas Ostermeier / Schaubünhe Berlin: History of Violence
THEATER
TUESDAY - WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 26 - 27 & 29 - 30 & DECEMBER 1, 2019
7:30 PM TUESDAY - WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
St. Ann's Warehouse
45 Water Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn
$56-$66
https://stannswarehouse.org/show/history-of-violence/
A stage adaptation of Édouard Louis's fist-to-the-gut autobiographical novel,which is both savage and intellectual. Adapter/director Thomas Ostermeier's work is also both savage and Intellectual, so this might just be a match made in theater heaven.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: After all that sex and savagery, it's very hard not to send you to the exceedingly pleasant River Café. At least you could grab a drink at their exceedingly pleasant bar. (Better be wearing a suitjacket if you identify as male, however.)
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Fri, Nov 29, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Dec 1, 2019, 8:30 PM
Fornés: Fefu and Her Friends
THEATER
TUESDAY - WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 26 - 27 & 29 - 30 & DECEMBER 1, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 8)
7:30 PM TUESDAY - WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Theater for a New Audience
262 Ashland Place, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$70-$115
https://www.tfana.org/current-season/fefu/overview
Another step in the revival of the insufficiently remembered Off-Broadway titan Maria Irene Fornés. This 1977 piece (it's always fun to read gormless contemporaneous mainstream reviews of advanced artistic work) explores the way women thwart their lives by internalizing societal assumptions. Presaging "immersive" theater, in presenting a reunion of old friends over the course of the day, it has the audience move around watching different actions set in different locations played in different areas of the theater. You shouldn't miss a chance to see this.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hop on the Korean fried chicken bandwagon with Korean chain Pelicana.
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Thursday, November 28, 2019, 12:00 AM – 11:59 PM
Happy Thanksgiving
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Tuesday, November 26, 2019, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
100 gecs
MUSIC
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2019
9:00 PM
Elsewhere
599 Johnson Avenue, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$15
https://www.atlaskitchennyc.com/
100 gecs combine just about every chintzy trend in internet-oriented '10s (did we ever name this decade, BTW?) pop with the requisite ironic detachment. Do I have to tell you I love them? Not just me, either: this show sold out in milliseconds.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hmmm, a show at Elsewhere. Wonder where I'm going to send you? (PS – Don't forget that the upstairs cocktail bar inside the venue is much better than the bar at the back of the auditorium.)
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Tue, Nov 26, 2019, 8:00 PM – Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 9:00 PM
David Byrne: American Utopia
THEATER
TUESDAY & WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 26 - 27 & 29 - 30 & DECEMBER 1, 2019 (continuing through FEBRUARY 16)
8:00 PM TUESDAY - WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY
5:30 & 9:00 PM SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Hudson Theatre
141 West 44th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$86-$449
https://americanutopiabroadway.com/
I suppose it's time to remove the stick from my ass about this show. If David Byrne and Annie-B Parson were collaborating on an extravaganza production at, say, Skirball Center, or Peak Performances in Montclair, I'd almost certainly List it. So just because this is on Broadway, that's no reason to disregard it, right? OTOH, although I try to keep my recommendations price-blind, if this were at Skirball or Peak Performances, the prices wouldn't hover around $300 for decent but not top tickets. Is it worth paying $300 to see this when you can see something like Black Exhibition at the Bushwick Starr for $35? I certainly wouldn't have dreamed of spending whatever the then-equivalent of $300 was to see the Talking Heads when they were in their absolute prime. I'm on the fence, then. But if you want to spend a few hundred dollars to see superannuated '70s/'80s pop avant-garde, don't let me stop you.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It's surprising how good Theater District Italian standby Osteria del Doge is, considering how bad you'd assume it to be.
-
Tue, Nov 26, 2019, 8:00 PM – Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 9:00 PM
Fornés: Fefu and Her Friends
THEATER
TUESDAY - WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 26 - 27 & 29 - 30 & DECEMBER 1, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 8)
7:30 PM TUESDAY - WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Theater for a New Audience
262 Ashland Place, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$70-$115
https://www.tfana.org/current-season/fefu/overview
Another step in the revival of the insufficiently remembered Off-Broadway titan Maria Irene Fornés. This 1977 piece (it's always fun to read gormless contemporaneous mainstream reviews of advanced artistic work) explores the way women thwart their lives by internalizing societal assumptions. Presaging "immersive" theater, in presenting a reunion of old friends over the course of the day, it has the audience move around watching different actions set in different locations played in different areas of the theater. You shouldn't miss a chance to see this.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hop on the Korean fried chicken bandwagon with Korean chain Pelicana.
-
Tue, Nov 26, 2019, 8:00 PM – Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 9:00 PM
-
Tue, Nov 26, 2019, 8:00 PM – Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 9:00 PM
Arthur Miller: The Crucible
THEATER
TUESDAY - WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 26 - 27 & 29 - 30 & DECEMBER 1, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 29)
8:00 PM TUESDAY & FRIDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM WEDNESDAY, SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Bedlam
The Connelly Theater
220 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$59-$115
https://bedlam.org/the-crucible/
We're not supposed to look at art as competition, but it's hard for fans of progressive theater to avoid looking at this production by Bedlam and the just-concluded initial run by spin-off company The COOP as a kind of Stripped-Down Progressive Theater Battle Of The Bands. Bedlam's cut-out-the-fat approach would seem perfect for Arthur Miller's allegory of McCarthyism — if Ivo van Hove hadn't done such a stunning treatment a few years ago. Nevertheless, as I said, we're not supposed to look at art as competiton. (Note that holders of the most expensive tickets will be moved around to be kept closest to the stage action.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Everybody loves the sparkling Vietnamese food at Van Da — and it's practically next door.
-
Tue, Nov 26, 2019, 7:30 PM – Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 8:30 PM
Thomas Ostermeier / Schaubünhe Berlin: History of Violence
THEATER
TUESDAY - WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 26 - 27 & 29 - 30 & DECEMBER 1, 2019
7:30 PM TUESDAY - WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
St. Ann's Warehouse
45 Water Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn
$56-$66
https://stannswarehouse.org/show/history-of-violence/
A stage adaptation of Édouard Louis's fist-to-the-gut autobiographical novel,which is both savage and intellectual. Adapter/director Thomas Ostermeier's work is also both savage and Intellectual, so this might just be a match made in theater heaven.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: After all that sex and savagery, it's very hard not to send you to the exceedingly pleasant River Café. At least you could grab a drink at their exceedingly pleasant bar. (Better be wearing a suitjacket if you identify as male, however.)
-
Tue, Nov 26, 2019, 7:30 PM – Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 8:30 PM
Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca: Entre Tu y Yo
DANCE
TUESDAY - WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 26 - 27 & 29 -30 & DECEMBER 1, 2019
7:30 PM TUESDAY - WEDNESDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Avenue, Chelsea, Manhattan
$26-$66
https://www.joyce.org/performances/soledad-barrio-noche-flamenca-0
How great that one of the best Flamenco companies in the world resides here in New York. It might be best to see Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca in a club or smaller theater than this, but don’t let that stop you from seeing them anywhere. This program is a set of fiery solos and duos and a few ensemble pieces, dealing (as you might guess) with intimacy. Great dancing, great music, great choreography, oodles of personality. Not to be missed.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Jungle Bird, a brand-new Tiki-ish bar, just opened across the street!
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Tuesday, November 26, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Pioneers Go East Collective: Virgo Star
THEATER
TUESDAY & SATURDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 26 & 30 & DECEMBER 1, 2019
7:00 PM TUESDAY
5:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25; $20 students/seniors
http://lamama.org/virgo-star/
Queer theater collective Pioneers Go East are back with another of their always-entertaining explorations of the gender implications of Western mythos.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hip Filipino at Ugly Kitchen.
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Tuesday, November 26, 2019, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
TAK Ensemble
MUSIC
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2019
6:00 PM
Pop-Up Concerts
Miller Theater at Columbia University
2960 Broadway, Morningside Heights, Manhattan
Free
https://www.millertheatre.com/events/tak-ensemble
Another of those fun Miller Pop-Up Concerts, where you get in for free, grab a free beer or wine, sit up on the stage, and commune with an always-interesting series of artists. Tonight's are particularly interesting: the TAK Ensemble, who very charismatically play a good range of contemporary classical music. Among tonight's composers are the magnificent Tyshawn Sorey, who manages to be at the forefront of both contemporary jazz and contemporary classical (because — let's say it all together — what's the difference?), and Erin Gee, who gets sounds out of the human mouth that you won't believe.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: A quite unstandard Chinese menu at Atlas Kitchen.
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Tuesday, November 26, 2019, 8:30 AM – 9:30 AM
Happy Thanksgiving!
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Monday, November 25, 2019, 9:30 PM – 10:30 PM
-
Monday, November 25, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
John Adams: Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?
MUSIC
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2019
8:00 PM
Los Angeles Philharmonic
David Geffen Hall
10 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$65-$105
http://www.lincolncenter.org/great-performers/show/los-angeles-philharmonic-6
A new piano concerto by John Adams (written only after he'd found the great title, an apocryphal quotation attributed to Martin Luther or one of the Wesleysor maybe the founder of the Salvation Army). It's sort of an Americana version of Liszt's Totentanz, with a honky-tonk tack piano and all. The soloist is Yuja Wang, one of the few young piano virtuosos who's also a musician. As icing on the cake, the remainder of the program consists of music that in different ways plays right to conductor Gustavo Dudamel's strengths: Ginastera's rarely heard highly Argentine-inflected Variaciones Concertantes (I love me some Ginastera!), and Stravinsky's very frequently heard The Rite of Spring, whose savage intensity should be fully conveyed by this conductor.
MAKE A NOTE OF IT: I keep plugging Boulud Sud because I genuinely believe this slick pan-Mediterranean spot is generally underappreciated (and Etiénne the somm!).
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Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 7:00 PM – Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 8:00 PM
Steven Adly Guirgis: Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven
THEATER
MONDAY - WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 25 - 27 & 29 - 30 & DECEMBER 1, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 22)
7:00 PM MONDAY, TUESDAY & SUNDAY
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Atlantic Theater Company/LAByrinth Theater
Linda Gross Theater
366 West 20th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$71.50-$91.50
https://atlantictheater.org/production/halfway-bitches-go-straight-to-heaven/
Steven Adly Guirgis is back, this time with a play set in a women's halfway house. Expect a lot of expletives, a lot of laughs, and a lot of hidden truth.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Guirgis's plays can go on. So it's a good thing Momofuku Nishi stays open late (late for pathetic New York, anyway).
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Monday, November 25, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Face the Music: Transformations
MUSIC
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2019
7:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$15 advance; $20 door
https://roulette.org/event/face-the-music-transformations/
New York's favorite all-kid New Music ensemble joins violinist/guitarist/composer Finnegan Shanahan to perform the music from an album I just adore, Shanahan's The Two Halves: a slice of folk/pop/rock/contemporary classical heaven.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I hate to keep repeating recommendations, but when someplace as good as Kind of Soul opens around the corner from Roulette, it's very hard not to keep sending you there.
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Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 7:00 PM – Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 8:00 PM
Jeremy O. Harris: Slave Play
THEATER
MONDAY - WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 25 - 27 & 29 - 30 & DECEMBER 1, 2019 (continuing through JANUARY 5)
7:00 PM MONDAY - THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Golden Theater
252 West 45th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$39-$227
https://slaveplaybroadway.com/
Another corrosive play by an African-American playwright treating issues of race (and in this case gender) in a formally inventive, narratively skewed manner. It's amazing how much great theater has fit that description in the last couple of years — on the whole, the best American theater there's been. It's even more amazing to have something like this playing on Broadway. I'm skeptical of attempts to bring characteristically Downtown/Brooklyn stuff Uptown — but it would be nice for one of those attempts to succeed for once. Go.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Blue Ribbon was once exciting for re-introducing elemental brasserie-style dining to New York — and for staying open late. Now, when you can’t walk down the street without stepping in bone marrow, the menus seem kind of boring — but decently late hours are rarer than ever, even in even the putative Theater District. Perhaps the most exciting thing about the The Ribbon Midtown, though, is the fancy cocktail bar underneath.
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Sunday, November 24, 2019, 8:30 PM – 9:30 PM
-
Sunday, November 24, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Inside Out XIV: VEER Quartet / Clebs
MUSIC
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2019
8:00 PM
Brooklyn Conservatory of Music
58 Seventh Avenue, Park Slope, Brooklyn
$15
https://bkcm.org/event/inside-out-xiv/
Two great ensembles: a very cool show for Park Slope. VEER Quartet is violinist Sarah Bernstein's improvising string quartet, playing quartet music like you've never heard. Clebs is an electronic voice/electronics-percussion duo comprising Emilie Weibel (a superb vocalist) and the invaluable Jason Nazary, very much worth hearing.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You wouldn't expect one of the better ramen spots in New York to be on Seventh Avenue in Park Slope — but there Danbo is.
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Sunday, November 24, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Ghost Ensemble: Universe Sings
MUSIC
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2019
8:00 PM
Areté Venue & Gallery
67 West Street #103, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
$15; $10 students
https://www.artful.ly/store/events/19191
Am I going to call the sound of the Ghost Ensemble haunting? I'm afraid I am. But what else can you expect from a shimmering combination of winds, strings, harp, accordian, and percussion? At least on paper, the highlight of this show promises to be a piece by deep listening master Pauline Oliveros. But Ghost Ensemble shows are usually all good.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: A new generation of California wine, and California-inspired food, at Coast and Valley.
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Sunday, November 24, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Gavilán Rayna Russom: Physicality Rev 3: One Woman Show (Club Mix)
MUSIC
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2019
7:30 PM
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$25
https://nationalsawdust.org/event/gavin-rayna-russom-3/
The third and last in a series of shows where Gavilán Rayna Russom — the electronics whiz of LCD Soundsystem — explores physicality, both as a defining factor for self and as a defining factor for aesthetcs. Each show has presented a different "mix" of the concept. This one's the Club Mix, so be ready to move.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Cheeseboat for incredibly rich contemporary Georgian food; Hotel Delmano for postprandial cocktails to thin out your blood (I know cocktails don't really do that — but I feel like they should).
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Sunday, November 24, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Sunday, November 24, 2019, 4:30 PM – 5:30 PM
Kathleen Supové: "Eye to Ivory" CD Release Party
MUSIC
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2019
4:30 PM
Spectrum
70 Flushing Avenue, Garage A, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$15; $10 students
http://www.spectrumnyc.com/site/calendar.php
Kathleen Supové, that goddess of contemporary classical piano (and electronics!), plays stuff from her new album, by a plethora of composers you want to hear, including Supové's house composer Randall Woolf, electronic innovator Dafna Naphtali, and Supové's Doctor Nerve bandleader Nick Didkovsky.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: If you don't go to Russ & Daughters in the Navy Yard before this, I'm going to come over to where you are and yell at you. Afterwards, housemade whisky at the Gatehouses at Kings County Distillery.
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Sunday, November 24, 2019, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
Alkemie & Elliot Cole: Beautee & Bountee: An Arthurian Refraction
MUSIC
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 23 & 24, 2019
7:30 PM SATURDAY
4:00 PM SUNDAY
5 Boroughs Music Festival
SATURDAY: The Noble Maritime Collection
1000 Richmond Terrace, Building D, Sailor's Snug Harbor, Staten Island
SUNDAY: Areté Venue & Gallery
67 West Street #103, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
$25; $15 students & seniors
http://5bmf.org/alkemie/
Ace Medieval consort Alkemie teams up with composer/performer Elliot Cole — who as a member of Oracle Hysterical knows a thing or two about putting contemporary twists on Early Music styles — for a new Arthurian song cycle. I'm betting this will be delightful with a capital D.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Saturday, you're not going to get anywhere on Staten Island without travelling a little. But you can walk to Nürnberger Bierhaus in under half an hour — and boy will you be happy once you get there! Sunday, I'm feeling the wonderful California wine bar Coast and Valley.
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Sunday, November 24, 2019, 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Schola Antiqua: Maximilian's Musical Armory
MUSIC
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2019
1:00 & 3:00 PM
Fuentidueña Chapel, The Cloisters
99 Margaret Corbin Drive, Fort Tryon Park, Manhattan
$65; $1 accompanying children ages 6-16
https://www.metmuseum.org/events/programs/met-live-arts/fy20-schola-antiqua
I love going to Early Music concerts at The Cloisters. I love walking high over the Hudson through Fort Tryon Park from the subway to get there; I love communing with the unicorn before the show; I love interacting with the single nicest usher in all New York; I love walking down the precipitous steps outside the Cloisters after the concert and stopping by to pay obesiance to Her Most Serene Highness Elsa la Reina del Chicharron (see below) afterwards. (NB: Go to the Cloisters via the 190th Street A stop; leave [and access Elsa's] via the Dyckman Street stop — you want to walk down those stairs not up.) Today, Chicago's Rennaisance vocal group Schola Antiqua sings music from the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, who liked the arts as much as he liked fighting the Netherlands and expanding the Holy Roman Empire by marrying off his children and grandchildren. Unusually for Rennaisance polyphony, there will be an emphasis on low voices. You can check out Maximilian's non-musical armor in an accompanying exhibition at the main branch of The Met.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: So the last time I was at Elsa la Reina del Chicharron, the guy in front of me on line ordered a morcilla — and it looked GREAT. I had a radical thought: maybe you can go to Elsa's and order something other than the celestial chicharron. Then it hit me: you can order a smaller portion of chicharron and get both.
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Saturday, November 23, 2019, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
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Saturday, November 23, 2019, 8:30 PM – 9:30 PM
Hypercube Plays ICEBERG
MUSIC
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2019
8:30 PM
Rockwell Music Hall, Stage 3
185 Orchard Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$15
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hypercube-iceberg-tickets-64436733003
ICEBERG is a composers' collective that almost obstinantly refuses to require aesthetic commonality among its members. So its shows are nothing if not wide-ranging (well, also thought-provoking and enjoyable). Tonight the music is performed by the unique sax/guitar/piano/percussion quartet Hypercube — and boy should it be good.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Who knows? If you're really lucky, you'll be able to get seated at Wildair, for good food and GREAT natural wine.
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Saturday, November 23, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Lucy Dhegrae: More Beautiful than Words Can Tell
MUSIC
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2019
8:00 PM
The Processing Series
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$25
https://nationalsawdust.org/event/lucy-dhegrae/
The fabulous singer Lucy Dhegrae begins a four-recital series based on four compositions she commissioned addressing aspects of trauma recovery. Tonight's piece is by the lively Osnat Netzer. There'll be several other pieces on the program, including ones by such faves as the melifluous Caleb Burhans (who as far as I'm concerned should compose more), the gnarly Jason Eckhardt, and the extremely inventive Bethany Younge.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Seems like a night for Sardinian food and wine at D.O.C. Wine Bar.
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Saturday, November 23, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Saturday, November 23, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Unsound New York
MUSIC
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22 & 23, 2019
8:00 PM
FRIDAY: St. Peter's Church
346 West 20th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
SATURDAY: Knockdown Center
52-19 Flushing Aveneu, Maspeth, Queens
FRIDAY: Free (with R.S.V.P.)
https://blankforms.org/events/ksiyc/
SATURDAY: $25-$30 advance; $35 door
https://www.unsound.pl/en/solidarity/news/unsound-ny-announcement
The great Polish avant-garde music festival Unsound returns to New York! Friday's free show sees the stateside debut of the legendary (really) Polish psych–modal folk group (that doesn't do this strangely appealing music anything near justice, but it'll have to do) Księżyc. Saturday's marathon at Knockown Center features a plethora of notable acts, including (and I'm just cherry-picking here) London's avant-dubstep The Bug in his first local appearance in a dog's age, electronic whiz Tim Hecker's collaboration with a Japanese gagaku enemble, etherealist Grouper's new project Nivhek, the New York debut of Berlin dance minimalist Caterina Barbieri, and Amenisia Scanner with one of their overwhelming multi-media productions.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Friday, excellent sushi for the price at Ushiwakamaru. Saturday, clubby Vietnamese at Bunker.
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Saturday, November 23, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Oak and Ghost: The Music of Nathan Schram
MUSIC
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2019
8:00 PM
1 Rivington
1 Rivington Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$20; $10 students
https://metropolisensemble.org/all-events/oak
We mainly know Nathan Schram as the violist of the Attacca Quartet — but he's also a composer of electronica-inflected contemporary classical music. Here he celebrates the release of a new album of his compositions with a concert with the Quartet.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Uber-stylish Thai at Uncle Boon's.
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Saturday, November 23, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Hamid Al-Saadi & Safaafir: Journey to the Heart of the Iraqi Maqam
MUSIC
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2019
8:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$30
https://roulette.org/event/rba-hamid-al-saadi-with-safaafir-journey-to-the-heart-of-the-iraqi-maqam/
Iraqi Maqam is yet another altogether beguiling form of music that you can profitably acquaint yourself with. Expressive vocals singing semi-improvised serpentine melodies over highly structured instrumental backings. Here the vocals are handled by one of the (perhaps the) leading current exponents of the style, Hamid Al-Saadi. And the instrumental backings are handled by an ensemble led by the excellent jazz trumpet player Amir ElSaffar — here wearing his santur (a kind of hammered dulcimer)–playing hat.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The old burger-at-Building on Bond / cocktails-at-Robert double play.
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Sat, Nov 23, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Nov 24, 2019, 4:00 PM
Verdi: Requiem
MUSIC
TUESDAY, THURSDAY, SATURDAY & SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 21, 23 & 24, 2019
7:00 PM TUESDAY
7:30 PM THURSDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Teodor Currentzis / musicAeterna & Jonas Mekas
The Shed
545 West 30th Street, Hudson Yards, Manhattan
$45-$99
https://theshed.org/program/series/18-requiem
The great nonnarrative fillmmaker Jonas Mekas's last work before he died this year was this filmed accompaniment to the highly controversial Teodor Currentzis's performance of Verdi's Requiem (a work that sounds a lot more like an opera than a church service). Currentzis likes to clarify things as if you were looking at them through a lens, and then charge them up. These live performances (with Mekas's accompanying film) are undoubtedly among the musical events of the season. No surprise they're sold out.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Am I going to send you to the nosebleedingly expensive, retrograde TAK Room? I'm afraid I am: I like that retrograde food.
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Saturday, November 23, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Alkemie & Elliot Cole: Beautee & Bountee: An Arthurian Refraction
MUSIC
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 23 & 24, 2019
7:30 PM SATURDAY
4:00 PM SUNDAY
5 Boroughs Music Festival
SATURDAY: The Noble Maritime Collection
1000 Richmond Terrace, Building D, Sailor's Snug Harbor, Staten Island
SUNDAY: Areté Venue & Gallery
67 West Street #103, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
$25; $15 students & seniors
http://5bmf.org/alkemie/
Ace Medieval consort Alkemie teams up with composer/performer Elliot Cole — who as a member of Oracle Hysterical knows a thing or two about putting contemporary twists on Early Music styles — for a new Arthurian song cycle. I'm betting this will be delightful with a capital D.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Saturday, you're not going to get anywhere on Staten Island without travelling a little. But you can walk to Nürnberger Bierhaus in under half an hour — and boy will you be happy once you get there! Sunday, I'm feeling the wonderful California wine bar Coast and Valley.
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Saturday, November 23, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Nate Wooley: Seven Storey Mountain VI
MUSIC
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2019
7:00 PM
Blank Forms
St. Peter's Church
346 West 20th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$10
https://blankforms.org/events/nate-wooley-seven-storey-mountain-vi/
As Lincoln Center's supposedly "spiritual" White Light Festival gets more and more generic, the spiritual action this week moves to avant-garde powerhouse Blank Forms, presenting a new iteration of the questing trumpeter Nate Wooley's vocal/instrumental/electronics magnum opus. Seven Storey Mountain started 12 years ago as an evocation of Thomas Merton using a tape of sounds from Wooley's apartment (air conditioner, refrigerator) and an instrumental trio playing both scored and improvisational sections. But it just grew since then, into a piece for some 32 singers and players (and those home tapes), tonight comprising a sort of crème de la crème of the New York jazz/classical improvisational music scene. Major.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: When formerly French-leaning chefs go Italian, you always suspect them of playing to the gallery. But longtime (now former) Gotham Bar & Grill stalwart Alfred Portale comes by it honestly and has been talking about it for years. Let's see how his brand-new venture Portale is.
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Saturday, November 23, 2019, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Celia Bengolea & Michèle Lamy
DANCE / PERFORMANCE
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2019
4:00 PM
Performa 19
Jeffrey Deitch
18 Wooster Street, Soho, Manhattan
Free
http://performa19.org/tickets/untitled-performa-commission
Choreographer Celia Bengolea teams up with fashionista/installation artist/chanteuse Michèle Lamy for an exploration of destruction, serenity, and pleasure. Bengolea takes an ethnographic approach to classical and vernacular dance styles that I, for one, find enormously appealing. The two performers will be dressed in Kawakubo from Lamy's extensive collection.
MAKE A NOTE OF IT: Odd times like this show's are what the wonderful all-day café Le Mercerie is there for.
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Saturday, November 23, 2019, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Philip Glass: Akhnaten
OPERA
TUESDAY & SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19 & 23, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 7)
7:30 PM TUESDAY
1:00 PM SATURDAY
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$30-$445
https://www.metopera.org/season/2019-20-season/akhnaten/
The List Event Of The Season, or something like it. This isn't Philip Glass's best opera, but it's pretty great. It's about an oddball Pharaoh who imposed monotheism on Ancient Egypt, apparently practiced androgyny, was married to Nefertiti, and sired King Tut (obviously all fodder for an opera — if not quite all in this opera). One problem with the original production back in the '80s was that the production itself was pretty lame, but that shouldn't be a problem here. Phelim McDermott, who did such a great job at the Met with Glass's Satyagraha (although a not-so-great job with Così fan Tutte) directs. And while you might cringe at the thought of jugglers in this opera, they're led by Sean Gandini, the best in the world (seriously). Starring are the knockout countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo (who might have been born to play Akhnaten) and rising-star mezzo J'Nai Bridges, making her Met debut. Karen Kamansek, another welcome Met debutante, conducts. You can't even think of missing this.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: All that will be open in the area when this is over is P.J. Clarke's.
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Sat, Nov 23, 2019, 10:00 AM – Sun, Nov 24, 2019, 11:00 AM
Tarik Kiswanson: As Deep as I Could Remember, as Far as I Could See
PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY & SATURDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 21 & 23 - 24, 2019
6:00 PM THURSDAY
1:00 & 3:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Performa 19
Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House
1 Bowling Green, FiDi, Manhattan
Free (with R.S.V.P.)
http://performa19.org/tickets/as-deep-as-i-could-remember-as-far-as-i-could-see
Multi-media artist Tarik Kiswanson, whose parent emigrated from Palestine to his native Sweden, reflects on what is gained and lost through migration and relocation. His work will be performed by local NYC eleven-year-olds of various ethnicities and nationalities.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Good pizza and subs at The Grotto. Or, good food and GREAT drinks at The Dead Rabbit.
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Fri, Nov 22, 2019, 10:00 PM – Sun, Nov 24, 2019, 8:00 PM
Pioneers Go East Collective: Virgo Star
THEATER
MONDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 18 & 22 - 24, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 1)
7:00 PM MONDAY & SUNDAY
10:00 PM FRIDAY
5:00 PM SATURDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25; $20 students/seniors; SUNDAY BENEFIT $50-$100
http://lamama.org/virgo-star/
Queer theater collective Pioneers Go East are back with another of their always-entertaining explorations of the gender implications of Western mythos.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hip Filipino at Ugly Kitchen — which will still be open after the late shows.
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Friday, November 22, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Val Jeanty & Risha Rox: Ritual Merging
PERFORMANCE
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2019
8:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$18 advance; $25 door
https://roulette.org/event/val-jeanty-ritual-merging/
Haitian-American sound artist Val Jeanty and Jamaican-American performance Risha Rox combine to create a ritual taking their background cultures into Afro-Futurism.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Grand Army Bar really is the best spot in the neighborhood for food and (especially) drink.
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Friday, November 22, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Torkwase Dyson: I Can Drink the Distance: Plantationocene in 2 Acts
PERFORMANCE
TUESDAY & FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19 & 22, 2019
6:00 PM TUESDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY
Performa 19
Pace Gallery
540 West 24th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
Free (with R.S.V.P.)
http://performa19.org/tickets/i-can-drink-the-distance-plantationocene-in-2-acts
A performative installation dealing with black migration, in the creation of which Torkwase Dyson received input from scholars and thinkers in many pertinent fields.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Very hard to avoid sending you to El Quinto Pino for tapas and a legendary uni panino.
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Friday, November 22, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Unsound New York
MUSIC
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22 & 23, 2019
8:00 PM
FRIDAY: St. Peter's Church
346 West 20th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
SATURDAY: Knockdown Center
52-19 Flushing Aveneu, Maspeth, Queens
FRIDAY: Free (with R.S.V.P.)
https://blankforms.org/events/ksiyc/
SATURDAY: $25-$30 advance; $35 door
https://www.unsound.pl/en/solidarity/news/unsound-ny-announcement
The great Polish avant-garde music festival Unsound returns to New York! Friday's free show sees the stateside debut of the legendary (really) Polish psych–modal folk group (that doesn't do this strangely appealing music anything near justice, but it'll have to do) Księżyc. Saturday's marathon at Knockown Center features a plethora of notable acts, including (and I'm just cherry-picking here) London's avant-dubstep The Bug in his first local appearance in a dog's age, electronic whiz Tim Hecker's collaboration with a Japanese gagaku enemble, etherealist Grouper's new project Nivhek, the New York debut of Berlin dance minimalist Caterina Barbieri, and Amenisia Scanner with one of their overwhelming multi-media productions.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Friday, excellent sushi for the price at Ushiwakamaru. Saturday, clubby Vietnamese at Bunker.
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Friday, November 22, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Dessa
MUSIC
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2019
7:30 PM
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$25-$27
https://nationalsawdust.org/event/DESSA
Minnesota poet–essayist–neuroscience enthusiast Dessa is the whitest hip-hop artist on Earth (even if she's half Latinx). I mean that as genuine praise: she takes the style and adopts it to her own usages — and it's great. Some of the stuff on her last album (very good) leaned a little more pop — which is fine with me.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: What can I tell you? I'm still loving the fresh clean version of a now-ubiquitous-in-NYC cuisine at X'ian Town.
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Friday, November 22, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
PAT (Jacob Satterwhite & Nick Weiss): You're at Home
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2019
7:00 PM
Performa 19
Pioneer Works
159 Pioneer Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn
$20
http://performa19.org/tickets/you-re-at-home
Multimedia artist Jacob Satterwhite's schizophrenic mother left behind a trove of a capella recordings of ditties she wrote, which Satterwhite and musican Nick Weiss (of Teengirl Fantasy) manipulated into a very good album of abstract electronic dance pop. They'll perform those pieces tonight, along with other music, accompanied by Satterwhite's visual works and animations. Should be great.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: New York's current most legendary hamburger at Red Hook Tavern. If only you could get in.
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Friday, November 22, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Blow: Venus and Adonis
OPERA
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2019
7:00 PM
Opera Lafayette
Museo del Barrio
1230 Fifth Avenue, East Harlem, Manhattan
$25-$105
https://operalafayette.org/calendar/blows-venus-amp-adonis
The first English opera (unless it's something other than an opera, like a Masque), John Blow's Venus and Adonis features the kind of stick-to-your-ribs tunes the English have always been good for. Enormously enjoyable, really. Opera Lafayette has been reviving rare operas with great style for 25 years now, and it's good to see them bringing the Baroque up to the Museo's extremely apt faded jewelbox of a theater.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Before the show, the fast-casual West African food at Teranga has been getting knockout notices. After the show, you could do a lot worse than to walk over to everybody's favorite poultry restaurant, Mountain Bird.
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Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 8:30 PM – Sat, Nov 23, 2019, 9:30 PM
-
Thursday, November 21, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
-
Thursday, November 21, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
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Thursday, November 21, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Verdi: Requiem
MUSIC
TUESDAY, THURSDAY, SATURDAY & SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 21, 23 & 24, 2019
7:00 PM TUESDAY
7:30 PM THURSDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Teodor Currentzis / musicAeterna & Jonas Mekas
The Shed
545 West 30th Street, Hudson Yards, Manhattan
$45-$99
https://theshed.org/program/series/18-requiem
The great nonnarrative fillmmaker Jonas Mekas's last work before he died this year was this filmed accompaniment to the highly controversial Teodor Currentzis's performance of Verdi's Requiem (a work that sounds a lot more like an opera than a church service). Currentzis likes to clarify things as if you were looking at them through a lens, and then charge them up. These live performances (with Mekas's accompanying film) are undoubtedly among the musical events of the season. No surprise they're sold out.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Am I going to send you to the nosebleedingly expensive, retrograde TAK Room? I'm afraid I am: I like that retrograde food.
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Thursday, November 21, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Dynasty Handbag: Presents Weirdo Night
PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2019
7:30 PM
Performa 19
The Jewish Museum
1109 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$15 advance; $18 door
http://performa19.org/tickets/weirdo-night
A variety show!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Table d'Hote is a good reliable bistro. Hurry if you want to make dinner after the show.
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Thursday, November 21, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Future Bible Heroes
MUSIC
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2019
7:30 PM
From 69 to 50: A Stephin Merritt / Magnetic Fields Residency
Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater, Symphony Space
2537 Broadway, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$30; $20 age 30 and under
https://www.symphonyspace.org/events/future-bible-heroes
Stephin Merritt, the Cole Porter of the Lower East Side (actually, he now lives in the Village), continues his four-concert residency at Symphony Space with a (very) rare concert by his synth-pop band the Future Bible Heroes. Expect clever lyrics, earburrowing tunes — and synth! Either sold out or almost so: move fast.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: With all the attention being paid to Japanese-Peruvian Nikkei cuisine in New York these days, it's easy to forget about Chifas, the Chinese-Peruvian places that actually occupy a much more fundamental place in Peruvian food culture. Flor de Maya is one of the only ones in the City.
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Thursday, November 21, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Thursday, November 21, 2019, 6:30 PM – 7:30 PM
Ambient Chaos
MUSIC
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2019
6:30 PM
Spectrum
70 Flushing Avenue, Garage A, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$15; $10 students/seniors
http://www.spectrumnyc.com/site/calendar.php
Noise! Jazz! Lounge! Electronics! Ambient!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: This show will go past midnight, so you'll want to eat first. Maybe some natural wine and conservas at Rhodora. Afterwards, alcoholic beverages from New York State (and nowhere else) at Cardiff Giant.
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Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 12:00 PM – Sun, Nov 24, 2019, 8:00 PM
Yu Cheng-Ta: Fameme
PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 21 - 24, 2019
THURSDAY - SUNDAY 12:00 - 7:00 PM
THURSDAY 8:30 PM
Performa 19
Wallplay 321 Canal
321 Canal Street, Soho, Manhattan
THURSDAY 8:30 PM: Times Square, Midtown, Manhattan
Free
http://performa19.org/tickets/fameme
http://performa19.org/tickets/times-square-reveal
Taiwanese media artist Yu Cheng-Ta explores the cultural phenomena of social media influencers and food trends by tracing, through live and video performances, the attempts of a fictional Taiwanese farmer to promote durian in New York (good luck!). Thursday night, there's a grand reveal in Times Square.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: How nice that the tres lovely all-day café La Mercerie is right around the corner from the Soho site. To my taste, their Crêpe Complète is one of the best dishes in New York. Around Times Square Thursday night, the tacos at Los Tacos No. 1 are just great.
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Thursday, November 21, 2019, 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Tarik Kiswanson: As Deep as I Could Remember, as Far as I Could See
PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY & SATURDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 21 & 23 - 24, 2019
6:00 PM THURSDAY
1:00 & 3:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Performa 19
Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House
1 Bowling Green, FiDi, Manhattan
Free (with R.S.V.P.)
http://performa19.org/tickets/as-deep-as-i-could-remember-as-far-as-i-could-see
Multi-media artist Tarik Kiswanson, whose parent emigrated from Palestine to his native Sweden, reflects on what is gained and lost through migration and relocation. His work will be performed by local NYC eleven-year-olds of various ethnicities and nationalities.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Good pizza and subs at The Grotto. Or, good food and GREAT drinks at The Dead Rabbit.
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Wednesday, November 20, 2019, 9:30 PM – 10:30 PM
J. Hoard: Sonic Journey Through the Past
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2019
9:30 PM
Joe's Pub, Public Theater
425 Lafayette Avenue, NoHo, Manhattan
$15
https://publictheater.org/productions/joes-pub/2020/j/j.-hoard/
Brooklyn neo-R&B sensation J. Hoard takes his act across the river. See him before he takes over the world.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: As usual, drink your minimum at Joe's Pub, where the cocktails are much better than the food. Then, Japanese snacks at Kenka.
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Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Nov 24, 2019, 4:00 PM
David Byrne: American Utopia
THEATER
WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 20 - 24, 2019 (continuing through FEBRUARY 16)
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY - FRIDAY
5:30 & 9:00 PM SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Hudson Theatre
141 West 44th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$86-$449
https://americanutopiabroadway.com/
I suppose it's time to remove the stick from my ass about this show. If David Byrne and Annie-B Parson were collaborating on an extravaganza production at, say, Skirball Center, or Peak Performances in Montclair, I'd almost certainly List it. So just because this is on Broadway, that's no reason to disregard it, right? OTOH, although I try to keep my recommendations price-blind, if this were at Skirball or Peak Performances, the prices wouldn't hover around $300 for decent but not top tickets. Is it worth paying $300 to see this when you can see something like The Black History Museum . . . at HERE for $35? I certainly wouldn't have dreamed of spending whatever the then-equivalent of $300 was to see the Talking Heads when they were in their absolute prime. I'm on the fence, then. But if you want to spend a few hundred dollars to see superannuated '70s/'80s pop avant-garde, don't let me stop you.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It's surprising how good Theater District Italian standby Osteria del Doge is, considering how bad you'd assume it to be.
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Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 8:00 PM – Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 9:00 PM
FKA twigs: Magdalene
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20 & 21, 2019
8:00 PM
Kings Theatre
1027 Flatbush Avenue, Flatbush, Brooklyn
$55-$75
http://www.kingstheatre.com/calendar/fka-twigs-magdalene/
FKA twigs's records are so distinctive, so interesting, so artful — her R&B is so minimalist it almost reaches the borderline of classical — that it was disappointing to see at Afropunk this summer that her live show, for all its choreographic pretensions, is so slick and Vegasy. But that music!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Before the show, there are a lot of roti shops in the area, but Jen's is my favorite. Limited seating (to say the least). After the show, it's worth a walk over to Sycamore: flower shop by day, bar by night.
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Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Nov 24, 2019, 4:00 PM
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Wednesday, November 20, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Julia Easterlin / Feral Children
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2019
8:00 PM
Balboa Restaurant
1655 Bedford Avenue, Crown Heights, Brooklyn
$10 suggested donation
https://www.facebook.com/events/445126716106185/
A rewarding double bill. Julia Easterlin does attractive chamber-pop. Feral Children is yet another jazz ensemble, this one a sax/bass/drums trio featuring Nick Dunston, certainly the most active young bass player in Brooklyn — and probably the best. (Sax player Noah Becker and drummer Lesley Mok are no slouches, either.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Well, Balboa is a Caribbean(-American) restaurant and bar itself. But I'd say the power play here is to drink at Balboa during the show but to eat beforehand at The Food Sermon for some of the best (and most distinctive) Caribbean in town.
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Wednesday, November 20, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Wednesday, November 20, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Meredith Monk's Birthday Dance Party
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2019
8:00 PM
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$35-$77
https://nationalsawdust.org/event/Meredith-Monks-Birthday-Dance-Party
Meredith Monk will be out on the floor celebrating her 77th Birthday, to the sounds of LCD's Reyna Russom, Bhangra DJ Rekha, drag artist Neon Calypso, and Queer Latinx Futurist José Rivera, Jr. Birthday treats by Milk Bar!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Natural wine and Latin-leaning snacks at Cosmico, National Sawdust's new on-site wine bar from the folks behind Colonia Verde.
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Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sat, Nov 23, 2019, 8:30 PM
Peeping Tom: 32 rue Vandenbranden
DANCE / PERFORMANCE
WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20-23, 2019
7:30 PM
Next Wave Festival
BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton Street, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$25-$85
https://www.bam.org/32rue
Trouble afoot in a trailer community on a mountaintop. Set to music ranging from Bach to K-Pop. I hope this is as good as it sounds like it's going to be.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Is the smoked brisket at the brand new Brisket Brothers any good? Only one way to find out.
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Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Nov 24, 2019, 6:00 PM
Thomas Ostermeier / Schaubünhe Berlin: History of Violence
THEATER
WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 20 - 24, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 1)
7:30 PM WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
5:00 PM SUNDAY
St. Ann's Warehouse
45 Water Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn
$56-$66
https://stannswarehouse.org/show/history-of-violence/
A stage adaptation of Édouard Louis's fist-to-the-gut autobiographical novel, which is both savage and intellectual. Adapter/director Thomas Ostermeier's work is also both savage and Intellectual, so this might just be a match made in theater heaven. (A stage adaptation of an earlier Louis audiobiographical novel, to which this one was the follow-up, is playing at BAM.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: After all that sex and savagery, it's very hard not to send you to the exceedingly pleasant River Café. At least you could grab a drink at their exceedingly pleasant bar. (Better be wearing a suitjacket if you identify as male, however.)
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Wednesday, November 20, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Conrad Tao
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2019
7:30 PM
Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall
154 West 57th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$38-$45
https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2019/11/20/Conrad-Tao-Piano-0730PM
Conrad Tao plays an interesting mix of solo piano pieces, with David Lang, Julia Wolfe, and Jason Eckhardt on one side and Bach, Schumann, and Rachmaninov on the other. You can decide for yourself whether Elliot Carter, also being played, is a modern or a classic. Sold out, unfortunately.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Burger Joint, hidden in the lobby of the Parker New York Hotel.
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Wed, Nov 20, 2019, 6:00 PM – Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 7:00 PM
Chou Yu-Cheng: Chemical Gilding, Keep Calm, Galvanize, Pray, Ashes, Manifestation, Unequal, Dissatisfaction, Capitalize, Incense Burner, Survival, Agitation, Hit
PERFORMANCE
WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20 & 21, 2019
6:00 PM
Jeffrey Deitch
18 Wooster Street, Soho, Manhattan
Free (with R.S.V.P.)
http://performa19.org/tickets/chemical-gilding-keep-calm-galvanize-pray-ashes
Installation/visual/performance artist Chou Yu-Chen examines systems of capital in building, construction, and real estate by creating a mock-up of an actual construction site inside this former Soho lumber warehouse, with workmen moving around construction materials in formations that mirror rising and falling stock market indicies and real estate values.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I wonder if pan-regional Mexican cantina Papatzul is still good? It certainly used to be.
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Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Nov 24, 2019, 3:00 PM
Arthur Miller: The Crucible
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19 - 24, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 29)
8:00 PM TUESDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM SUNDAY
Bedlam
The Connelly Theater
220 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$59-$115
https://bedlam.org/the-crucible/
We're not supposed to look at art as competition, but it's hard for fans of progressive theater to avoid looking at the now-concurrent productions by Bedlam and spin-off company The COOP as a kind of Stripped-Down Progressive Theater Battle Of The Bands. Bedlam's direct cut-out-the-fat approach would seem perfect for Arthur Miller's allegory of McCarthyism — if Ivo van Hove hadn't done such a stunning treatment a few years ago. Nevertheless, as I said, we're not supposed to look at art as competiton. (Note that holders of the most expensive tickets will be moved around to be kept closest to the stage action.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Everybody loves the sparkling Vietnamese food at Van Da — and it's practically next door.
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Tuesday, November 19, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 7:30 PM – Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 8:30 PM
Untitled Projects / Unicorn Theatre, UK: The End of Eddy
THEATER
TUESDAY - THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19 - 21, 2019
7:30 PM
Next Wave Festival
BAM Fisher
321 Ashland Place, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$25
https://www.bam.org/endofeddy
A stage adaptation of Édouard Louis's stunning powerful autobiographical coming-of-age novel, imbued as a Bordieu scholar's work should be by a clear sense of how socioeconomic structures dictate life experiences. (An adaptation of Louis's follow-up autobiographical novel is now playing at St. Ann's.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Really marvelous Persian food at Sofreh — if you can get in.
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Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Nov 24, 2019, 8:30 PM
Zawe Ashton: for all the women who thought they were Mad
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19 - 24, 2019
7:30 PM TUESDAY - SUNDAY
3:00 PM SATURDAY
Soho Rep.
46 Walker Street, Tribeca, Manhattan
$35-$65
https://sohorep.org/for-all-the-women-who-thought-they-were-mad
New York is getting a taste of Zawe Ashton's amazing acting chops in Betrayal; now we can sample her playwrighting as well. If someone this awesomely talented feels herself blocked because she's female, well . . . .
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Frenchette STILL roolz.
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Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Nov 24, 2019, 3:00 PM
Fornés: Fefu and Her Friends
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19 - 24, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 8)
7:30 PM TUESDAY - FRIDAY & SUNDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
7:00 PM SATURDAY
Theater for a New Audience
262 Ashland Place, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$70-$115
https://www.tfana.org/current-season/fefu/overview
Another step in the revival of the insufficiently remembered Off-Broadway titan Maria Irene Fornés. This 1977 piece (it's always fun to read gormless contemporaneous mainstream reviews of advanced artistic work) explores the way women thwart their lives by internalizing societal assumptions. Presaging "immerisive" theater, it involves, in presenting a reunion of old friends over the course of the day, the audience's moving around watching different actions set in different locations played in different areas of the theater. You shouldn't miss a chance to see this.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hop on the Korean fried chicken bandwagon with Korean chain Pelicana.
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Tuesday, November 19, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Philip Glass: Akhnaten
OPERA
TUESDAY & SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19 & 23, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 7)
7:30 PM TUESDAY
1:00 PM SATURDAY
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$30-$445
https://www.metopera.org/season/2019-20-season/akhnaten/
The List Event Of The Season, or something like it. This isn't Philip Glass's best opera, but it's pretty great. It's about an oddball Pharaoh who imposed monotheism on Ancient Egypt, apparently practiced androgyny, was married to Nefertiti, and sired King Tut (obviously all fodder for an opera — if not quite all in this opera). One problem with the original production back in the '80s was that the production itself was pretty lame, but that shouldn't be a problem here. Phelim McDermott, who did such a great job at the Met with Glass's Satyagraha (although a not-so-great job with Così fan Tutte) directs. And while you might cringe at the thought of jugglers in this opera, they're led by Sean Gandini, the best in the world (seriously). Starring are the knockout countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo (who might have been born to play Akhnaten) and rising-star mezzo J'Nai Bridges, making her Met debut. Karen Kamansek, another welcome Met debutante, conducts. You can't even think of missing this.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: All that will be open in the area when this is over is P.J. Clarke's.
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Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Nov 24, 2019, 8:30 PM
Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca: Entre Tu y Yo
DANCE
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19 - 24, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 1)
7:30 PM TUESDAY - WEDNESDAY & SUNDAY
8:00 PM THURSDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Avenue, Chelsea, Manhattan
$26-$66
https://www.joyce.org/performances/soledad-barrio-noche-flamenca-0
How great that one of the best Flamenco companies in the world resides here in New York. It might be best to see Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca in a club or smaller theater, but don’t let that stop you from seeing them anywhere. This program is a set of fierky solos and duos and a few ensemble pieces, dealing (as you might guess) with intimacy. Great dancing, great music, great choreography, oodles of personality. Not to be missed.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Jungle Bird, a brand-new Tiki-ish bar, just opened across the street!
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Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Nov 24, 2019, 4:00 PM
Tina Satter: Is This A Room
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19 - 24, 2019
7:00 PM TUESDAY - THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Half Straddle
Vineyard Theater
108 East 15th Street, Gramercy, Manhattan
$45-$100
https://www.vineyardtheatre.org/is-this-a-room/
How amazing is it that the Air Force linguist charged with leaking information of Russian interference with the 2016 election is named Reality Winner? You almost have to write a play about her. Tina Satter stages the verbatim transcript of the FBI's incursion into Winner's home and the ensuing interrogation. As anyone who saw this piece at The Kitchen in January will tell you, it's rather chilling.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Speaking for myself, I prefer the light snacks and great sherry list at Bar Jamon to the heavier-than-you'd-ever-see-in-actual-Spain fare at its next-door big brother Casa Mono.
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Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sat, Nov 23, 2019, 8:00 PM
-
Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Nov 24, 2019, 4:00 PM
Zoey Martinson: The Black History Museum . . . According to the United States of America
PERFORMANCE
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19 - 24, 2019
7:00 PM TUESDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
HERE
145 Sixth Avenue (entrance on Dominick Street), Hudson Square, Manhattan
$35-$50
https://here.org/shows/the-black-history-museum-according-to-the-united-states-of-america/
Both floors of HERE — theaters, lobby, dressing rooms — are devoted to an "theatrical museum" installation in which the audience is induced to reinvision the American notion of "Blackness". This looks spectacular.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Fresh Greek at Lola Taverna.
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Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Nov 24, 2019, 4:00 PM
Jeremy O. Harris: Slave Play
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19 - 24, 2019 (continuing through JANUARY 5)
7:00 PM TUESDAY & THURSDAY
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Golden Theater
252 West 45th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$39-$227
https://slaveplaybroadway.com/
Another corrosive play by an African-American playwright treating issues of race in a formally inventive, narratively skewed manner. It's amazing how much great theater has fit that description in the last couple of years — on the whole, the best American theater there's been. It's even more amazing to have something like this playing on Broadway. I'm skeptical of attempts to bring characteristically Downtown/Brooklyn stuff Uptown — but it would be nice for one of those attempts to succeed for once. Go.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Blue Ribbon was once exciting for re-introducing elemental brasserie-style dining to New York — and for staying open late. Now, when you can’t walk down the street without stepping in bone marrow, the menus seem kind of boring — but decently late hours are rarer than ever, even in even the putative Theater District. Perhaps the most exciting thing about the The Ribbon Midtown, though, is the fancy cocktail bar underneath.
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Tuesday, November 19, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Verdi: Requiem
MUSIC
TUESDAY, THURSDAY, SATURDAY & SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 21, 23 & 24, 2019
7:00 PM TUESDAY
7:30 PM THURSDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Teodor Currentzis / musicAeterna & Jonas Mekas
The Shed
545 West 30th Street, Hudson Yards, Manhattan
$45-$99
https://theshed.org/program/series/18-requiem
The great nonnarrative fillmmaker Jonas Mekas's last work before he died this year was this filmed accompaniment to the highly controversial Teodor Currentzis's performance of Verdi's Requiem (a work that sounds a lot more like an opera than a church service). Currentzis likes to clarify things as if you were looking at them through a lens, and then charge them up. These live performances (with Mekas's accompanying film) are undoubtedly among the musical events of the season. No surprise they're sold out.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Am I going to send you to the nosebleedingly expensive, retrograde TAK Room? I'm afraid I am: I like that retrograde food.
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Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Nov 24, 2019, 3:00 PM
Steven Adly Guirgis: Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19 - 24, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 22)
7:00 PM TUESDAY & SUNDAY
8:00 PM THURSDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Atlantic Theater Company/LAByrinth Theater
Linda Gross Theater
366 West 20th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$71.50-$91.50
https://atlantictheater.org/production/halfway-bitches-go-straight-to-heaven/
Steven Adly Guirgis is back, this time with a play set in women's halfway house. Expect a lot of expletives, a lot of laughs, and a lot of hidden truth.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Guirgis's plays can go on. So it's a good thing Momofuku Nishi stays open late (late for pathetic New York, that is).
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Tuesday, November 19, 2019, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Torkwase Dyson: I Can Drink the Distance: Plantationocene in 2 Acts
PERFORMANCE
TUESDAY & FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19 & 22, 2019
6:00 PM TUESDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY
Performa 19
Pace Gallery
540 West 24th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
Free (with R.S.V.P.)
http://performa19.org/tickets/i-can-drink-the-distance-plantationocene-in-2-acts
A performative installation dealing with black migration, in the creation of which Torkwase Dyson received input from scholars and thinkers in many pertinent fields.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Very hard to avoid sending you to El Quinto Pino for tapas and a legendary uni panino.
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Tuesday, November 19, 2019, 4:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Glendalys Medina: Dear Me
PERFORMANCE
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2019
4:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Performa 19
Participant Inc.
253 East Houston Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
Free (by appointement: email lia@participantinc.org)
http://performa19.org/tickets/dear-me
There are two kinds of people in the world: those to whom the opportunity to go into a pitch-black room and have an interdisciplinary artist recite to them a five-minute love lyric in a performance that, in its total all-day duration, mimics the duration of the love call of a Puerto Rican frog is attractive; and those to whom it isn't. Readers in the first camp now have their chance.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Famous ramen that live up to their reputation at Ivan Ramen.
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Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 1:00 PM – Sun, Nov 24, 2019, 2:00 PM
Éva Mag: Dead Matter Moves
PERFORMANCE / DANCE
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19 - 24, 2019
1:00 PM
Performa 19
The Gym, Judson Memorial Church
243 Thompson Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
Free
http://performa19.org/tickets/dead-matter-moves
Swedish multimedia artist Éva Mag goes to the birthplace of the Judson dance movement, which changed dance by relying on everyday motions, and transforms the space into a clay body factory. Over the course of this week of durational (six-hour) performances, Mag and her accomplices will manufacture clay bodies and create motion performances with them (reflective of the Judson aesthetic), culminating at the end of the week in a finished piece.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Totally not bad Cuban food (duh) in a festive atmosphere at Cuba.
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Monday, November 18, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Mon, Nov 18, 2019, 8:00 PM – Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 9:00 PM
-
Monday, November 18, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
-
Monday, November 18, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Pioneers Go East Collective: Virgo Star
THEATER
MONDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 18 & 22 - 24, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 1)
7:00 PM MONDAY & SUNDAY
10:00 PM FRIDAY
5:00 PM SATURDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25; $20 students/seniors; SUNDAY BENEFIT $50-$100
http://lamama.org/virgo-star/
Queer theater collective Pioneers Go East are back with another of their always-entertaining explorations of the gender implications of Western mythos.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hip Filipino at Ugly Kitchen — which will still be open after the late shows.
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Mon, Nov 18, 2019, 12:00 PM – Sun, Nov 24, 2019, 8:00 PM
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Sunday, November 17, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Matana Roberts: Coin Coin Chapter 4: Memphis
MUSIC
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2019
8:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$18 advance; $25 door
https://roulette.org/event/matana-roberts-coin-coin-chapter-iv-memphis/
Jazz avant-gutbucket saxophonist/composer/conceptualist Matana Roberts's Coin Coin project, tracing and reflecting on the roots and branches of African-American culture (she'd probably say American culture plain — and it's certainly true that you can't have one without the other) has produced some of the best, most thought-provoking music — that also makes you want to move — that's come along over the last several years. She's up to Chapter 4, focusing on Memphis, and there's no reason in the world to expect it to be any less great than the preceding three.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Under one name or another, 9 has been delighting the neighborhood for decades with some of the best pita you've ever tasted and toppings worthy of the bread.
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Sunday, November 17, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Anna Heflin: The Wonderland Series
MUSIC
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2019
7:00 PM
Areté Venue & Gallery
67 West Street #103, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
$15
https://www.aretevenue.com/events
Anna Heflin is mainly known as a violist, but she writes very attractive, dreamy music. Which makes her well-suited to tease out the various narrative, philosophical, and mathematical strains of Carroll/Dodgson's masterworks. Intrepid violinst Shannon Reilly performs words and music live, while encountering herself on pre-recorded audio and video.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Krolewskie Jadlo, the jewel in the crown of a trio of related Polish restaurants.
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Sunday, November 17, 2019, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Emi Ferguson & RUKUS: Flying the Coop: Bach Sonatas and Preludes
MUSIC
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2019
4:00 PM
Music Before 1800
Corpus Christi Catholic Church
529 West 121st Street, Morningside Heights, Manhattan
$10-$55
https://mb1800.org/concert/emi-ferguson-and-ruckus/#tab-id-3
Flautist Emi Ferguson, a delightful player, leads her band RUKUS in a set of performances of Bach's Flute Sonatas — some of the most sheerly enjoyable music that master ever wrote — and sometimes rather rambunctious arrangements of Bach keyboard preludes to introduce each of them.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hearty, delicious Lanzhou food at Dun Huang Upper West (they're kidding themselves about the location, though).
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Sunday, November 17, 2019, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
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Sunday, November 17, 2019, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Éliane Radigue: Triloge de la Mort
MUSIC
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2019
3:00 PM
Éliane Radigue: Intermediate States
Blank Forms
Bartolami, Andrew Kreps, and Kaufman Repetto
55 Walker Street, Tribeca, Manhattan
$25
https://blankforms.org/events/eliane-radigue-trilogie-de-la-mort/
More Éliane Radigue, this time her magnum opus. Triloge de la Mort was composed after her conversion to Tibetan Buddhism, and comprises six sections each representing the six bardos, the intermediate states between life and death and rebirth. You don't have to be Buddhist to love this music, which over its three hours will take you somewhere entirely different from where you started whether you believe in liminal states between death and rebirth or not. It's sold out, so you will be in a liminal state between going and not going until you score a cancellation.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Well, my very favorite restaurant is STILL right nearby . . . .
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Sunday, November 17, 2019, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Mozart: Così fan Tutte
OPERA
WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY & SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 15 & 17
7:30 PM WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY
2:00 PM SUNDAY
Peter Jay Sharp Theater, The Juilliard School
155 West 65th Street, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$40; $20 students
https://www.juilliard.edu/event/140021/juilliard-opera-presents-mozarts-cosi-fan-tutte
https://www.juilliard.edu/event/140026/juilliard-opera-presents-mozarts-cosi-fan-tutte
https://www.juilliard.edu/event/140036/juilliard-opera-presents-mozarts-cosi-fan-tutte
Juilliard Opera continues to be one of the best deals in town: generally excellent performances by stars of the future. Now they're doing Così, a hard opera to pull off: the music can drag if the conductor doesn't keep it moving; and the plot requires a deft directorial hand if it isn't to seem repellent. This production is set in contemporary America, during the last year of high school; sexual/emotional immaturity makes the plot make sense (come to think of it, LoftOpera did something vaguely similar shortly before its untimely demise). I can guarantee you that this will be better than the Met's current brain-dead production, which attempts to elide the problems posed by the libretto by pretending its just a light comedy. Some light comedy.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Leopard at des Artistes: not only is the food good, not only is the room spectacular — but it'll still be open after the show.
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Saturday, November 16, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Wavefield: The Story of One of My Follies
MUSIC
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2019
8:00 PM
Speyer Hall at University Settlement
184 Eldridge Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$20; $10 students
https://www.wavefieldensemble.org/future-events/the-story-of-one-of-my-follies
Wavefield conistently finds ways to make gnarly modernist music sound fresh and, dare I say, actively enjoyable. Here they play a bunch of new pieces (except for the newly arranged piece by the exquisite Renaissance composer Gombert) exploring transgression and redemption.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Attaboy — which for years has occupied the legendary old Milk & Honey space — remains one of the very best cocktail bars in New York. It accordingly is not easy to get into: good luck!
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Sat, Nov 16, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Nov 17, 2019, 6:00 PM
Puppet Slam
PERFORMANCE / THEATER
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 16 & 17, 2019
8:00 PM SATURDAY
5:00 PM SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$20; $15 students/seniors
http://lamama.org/puppet-slam/
This year's anthology of short pieces of puppet theater was such a smash that La MaMa has commissioned two more nights.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Before the Saturday show, before or after the Sunday show, absurdly great sandwiches at Foxface.
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Saturday, November 16, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
C4: Cycle 1: Connections
MUSIC
THURSDAY & SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14 & 16, 2019
8:00 PM
SATURDAY: St. Luke in the Fields
487 Hudson Street, West Village, Manhattan
$20 advance; $25 door; $5 ages 11-17; $4 ten "Rush" tickets at door
http://www.c4ensemble.org/connections-cycle-1.html
A particularly appealing program by the Choral Composer/Conductor Collective. The lead piece is a collaboration with the piano/violin duo aTonalHits, a piece by the duo presenting humorous miscommunications with Apple AI ("Siri, are you eavesdropping on me and transmitting my private conversations to marketers?" "I haven't dropped anything."). The duo will also join the chorus for (among others) a Reena Esmail piece; and the rest of program includes a piece by, among others, the luscious Caroline Shaw (I mean her music is luscious).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Thursday, nice bistro at Little Frog. Saturday, MEAT at Hudson & Charles Dinette.
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Saturday, November 16, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
The Magentic Fields
MUSIC
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2019
8:00 PM
From 69 to 50: A Stephin Merritt / Magnetic Fields Residency
Peter Sharp Theater, Symphony Space
2537 Broadway, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$45-$65; $30-$65 age 30 and under
https://www.symphonyspace.org/events/magnetic-fields-residency-1
Stephin Merritt, the Cole Porter of the Lower East Side (actually, he now lives in the Village), begins a four-concert residency at Symphony Space with a show by his main band, The Magnetic Fields. If you like pop music with earburrowing tunes and wickedly clever lyrics, Merritt's your man and the Fields are your band.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Let's grab some good slice pizza at Mama's TOO!
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Saturday, November 16, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
JACK Quartet / Colin Currie
MUSIC
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2019
8:00 PM
92nd Street Y
1395 Lexington Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$53
https://www.92y.org/event/jack-quartet-and-colin-currie
It's percussion week at the Y, as master percussionist Colin Currie joins the redoubtable JACK Quartet for pieces played separately and together. Among the pieces played separately is Currie's performance of Xenakis's Rebonds B, which manages to simultaneously be rigorous High Modernism and a barrel of fun. JACK will return the favor by playing Xenakis's stunning string quartet Tetras, a signature piece of theirs that they play better than just about anybody. Then, speaking of fun, a new quintet by Andy Akiho, one of the grooviest composers around. And one by Suzanne Farrin, who's extremely vivid if not groovy.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Sfoglia is not quite as good an Italian spot as it once was. But it's still plenty good — have some of that bread — and it's still right across the street.
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Sat, Nov 16, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Nov 17, 2019, 8:30 PM
Fornés: Fefu and Her Friends
THEATER
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 16 & 17, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 8)
7:30 PM
Theater for a New Audience
262 Ashland Place, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$70-$115
https://www.tfana.org/current-season/fefu/overview
Another step in the revival of the insufficiently remembered Off-Broadway titan Maria Irene Fornés. This 1977 piece (it's always fun to read gormless contemporaneous mainstream reviews of advanced artistic work) explores the way women thwart their lives by internalizing societal assumptions. Presaging "immerisive" theater, it involves, in presenting a reunion of old friends over the course of the day, the audience's moving around watching different actions set in different locations played in different areas of the theater. You shouldn't miss a chance to see this.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hop on the Korean fried chicken bandwagon with Korean chain Pelicana.
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Saturday, November 16, 2019, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Gobby
MUSIC
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2019
6:00 PM
H0L0
1099 Wyckoff Avenue, Ridgewood, Queens
$5
https://www.h0l0.nyc/
New York electronic music producer Gobby is just terrific. His music is off-kilter, unexpected, all-over-the-place — but slobberingly friendly like a big dog. Sometimes you think there's nothing you'd rather be hearing. He'll have plenty of company on the bill in this marathon show lasting till 10.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Sheer fun at Nowadays.
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Saturday, November 16, 2019, 5:30 PM – 6:30 PM
Rebecca Richardson & Felix Jarrar: Will Sing for Wine . . . Live!
MUSIC
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2019
5:30 PM
Areté Venue and Gallery
67 West Street #103, Greeenpoint, Brooklyn
$20
https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4339737.
A soprano and pianist perform classics and obscurities from the art song repertoire. And each grouping is paired with a wine from the composer's homeland!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Soak up all that wine with a slice or four at Paulie Gee's Slice Shop.
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Saturday, November 16, 2019, 5:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Bunny Rogers: Sanctuary
PERFORMANCE
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2019
5:00 PM
8:00 PM
Performa 19
Essex Street Academy
350 Grand Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$15
http://performa19.org/tickets/sanctuary
You'd think that high school is surreal enough as it is. But multimedia artist Bunny Rogers transforms the common spaces of a public high school to examine the pop cultural media detritus of her own youth in the late '90s and 2000s.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Wonderful Japanese snacks and sake at Rabbit House.
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Friday, November 15, 2019, 8:30 PM – 9:30 PM
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Friday, November 15, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Philip Glass: Akhnaten
OPERA
TUESDAY & FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12 & 15, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 7)
7:30 PM TUESDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$30-$445
https://www.metopera.org/season/2019-20-season/akhnaten/
The List Event Of The Season, or something like it. This isn't Philip Glass's best opera, but it's pretty great. It's about an oddball Pharaoh who imposed monotheism on Ancient Egypt, apparently practiced androgyny, was married to Nefertiti, and sired King Tut (obviously all fodder for an opera — if not quite all in this opera). One problem with the original production back in the '80s was that the production itself was pretty lame, but that shouldn't be a problem here. Phelim McDermott, who did such a great job at the Met with Glass's Satyagraha (although a not-so-great job with Così fan Tutte) directs. And while you might cringe at the thought of jugglers in this opera, they're led by Sean Gandini, the best in the world (seriously). Starring are the knockout countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo (who might have been born to play Akhnaten) and rising-star mezzo J'Nai Bridges, making her Met debut. Karen Kamansek, another welcome Met debutante, conducts. You can't even think of missing this.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: All that will be open in the area when this is over is P.J. Clarke's.
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Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Nov 16, 2019, 9:00 PM
Jerron Herman & Molly Joyce: Breaking and Entering
DANCE
TUESDAY & FRIDAY - SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 12 & 15 - 16, 2019
8:00 PM
Danspace Project
St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery
131 East 10th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$22
http://www.danspaceproject.org/calendar/herman-joyce/
Dancer/performance artist Jerron Herman and composer/performer Molly Joyce want you to think that what's signficant about this show is that they're both disabled. But what's really important here is that they're both compelling, interesting, and (bad word, but I can't think of better one) entertaining performers. I'd go to this show for that reason. Oh, and for the post-show dance parties each night.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: There are lots of places for Yunnan rice noodles opening up in New York City. But Dian Kitchen has to be one of the best.
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Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Nov 16, 2019, 9:00 PM
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Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Nov 16, 2019, 9:00 PM
Radiohole: Now Serving: A Guide to Aesthetic Etiquette in Four Courses
PERFORMANCE
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15 & 16, 2019
8:00 PM
The Collapsable Hole
155 Bank Street, West Village, Manhattan
$25-$50
http://radiohole.com/
The theatrical madmen and women of Radiohole revive their epic send-up of a panoply of things, starting and staying with 1950s dinner-party etiquette but not stopping there. I strongly recommend you spring for a seat at the dinner table so you can participate in the dinner party rather than watch it from the gallery. Prepare, however, to get mussed. I'm still assuming (hoping?) (praying?) the purported vaginal yeast baked goods aren't really made that way.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Even if you sit at the table and eat their food, you'll still be hungry (if slightly revolted) afterward. You can avail yourself of one of the great unacknowledged facts of New York City dining: Austrian charmer Wallsé is still very good.
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Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Nov 16, 2019, 9:00 PM
FOR / WITH Festival
MUSIC
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15 & 16, 2019
8:00 PM
ISSUE Project Room
22 Boerum Place, Downtown, Brooklyn
$15
https://issueprojectroom.org/event/works-eva-maria-houben-katherine-young-ryoko-akama
Questing trumpeter Nate Wooley curates a festival of iconoclastic new music. Both nights feature pieces by Wandelweiser minimalist Eva-Maria Houben, a favorite composer of mine, for one, if there are any. Another favorite, Sarah Hennies (I really like her rock band, too) shows up on Saturday. But it'll all be good. Other performers, beside Wooley, include such stalwarts of the New York scene as Lea Bertucci, Weston Olencki, and Mariel Roberts. So this is pretty major.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Let's go eating and drinking at The Long Island Bar.
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Friday, November 15, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Ekmeles: In the Sky I Am Walking
MUSIC
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2019
7:30 PM
Crypt of the Church of the Intercession
550 West 155th Street, Hamilton Heights, Manhattan
$20
http://ekmeles.com/wp/2019/09/in-the-sky-i-am-walking/
The core female singers of the Ekmeles vocal ensemble — Elisa Sutherland and the ab fab Charlotte Mundy — perform a Stockhausen piece setting Native American texts and a newish Raven Chacon piece exploring Chacon's own Native American heritage.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It's a little bit of a walk, but if I told you that two alumni of Angel's Share started a cocktail bar in Hamilton Heights that also features good oysters, ramen, and Japenese snacks, you'd want to go when you were in the neighborhood, right? ROKC (standing for ramen, oysters, kitchen, and cocktails, duh).
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Friday, November 15, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Pedrito Martinez
MUSIC
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2019
7:30 PM
92nd Street Y
1395 Lexington Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$20-$55
https://www.92y.org/event/pedrito-martinez-group
Cuban-born, New York-based Pedrito Martinez is not only an unbelievable percussionist and a great bandleader — he's also one of the most exuberant performers you'll ever see, moreover combining that exuberance with immense complexity. Here he'll put the African into Afro-Cuban by opening with a set of Yoruba cermonial music for bata drums and voices. Then it's back to his combo (augmented tonight with a couple of extra horns) for a trip to timba heaven.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Turkish standby Peri Ela is a perennial favorite of 92nd Street Y audiences.
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Friday, November 15, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Mozart: Così fan Tutte
OPERA
WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY & SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 15 & 17
7:30 PM WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY
2:00 PM SUNDAY
Peter Jay Sharp Theater, The Juilliard School
155 West 65th Street, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$40; $20 students
https://www.juilliard.edu/event/140021/juilliard-opera-presents-mozarts-cosi-fan-tutte
https://www.juilliard.edu/event/140026/juilliard-opera-presents-mozarts-cosi-fan-tutte
https://www.juilliard.edu/event/140036/juilliard-opera-presents-mozarts-cosi-fan-tutte
Juilliard Opera continues to be one of the best deals in town: generally excellent performances by stars of the future. Now they're doing Così, a hard opera to pull off: the music can drag if the conductor doesn't keep it moving; and the plot requires a deft directorial hand if it isn't to seem repellent. This production is set in contemporary America, during the last year of high school; sexual/emotional immaturity makes the plot make sense (come to think of it, LoftOpera did something vaguely similar shortly before its untimely demise). I can guarantee you that this will be better than the Met's current brain-dead production, which attempts to elide the problems posed by the libretto by pretending its just a light comedy. Some light comedy.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Leopard at des Artistes: not only is the food good, not only is the room spectacular — but it'll still be open after the show.
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Friday, November 15, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Nov 17, 2019, 8:00 PM
Yvonne Rainer: Parts of Some Sextets, 1965 / 2019
DANCE
FRIDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15 - 17, 2019
7:00 PM
Performa 19
Gelsey Kirkland Dance Center
29 Jay Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn
$25-$75
http://performa19.org/tickets/parts-of-some-sextets-1965
Post-Modern dance pioneer Yvonne Rainer recreates some pieces from her Judson heyday. Essentially umissable.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The utterly pleasant Mediterranean Celestine is right around the corner.
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Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 5:00 PM – Sat, Nov 16, 2019, 5:00 PM
Jazz on a High Floor in the Afternoon: Cecil McBee
MUSIC
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15 & 16, 2019
5:00 & 7:00 PM FRIDAY
2:00 & 4:00 PM SATURDAY
Whitney Museum of American Art
99 Gansevoort Street, Meatpacking District, Manhattan
$25; $18 students/seniors/disabled; Friday 7:00 PM pay what you wish
https://whitney.org/events/cecil-mcbee
Another of a series of jazz sets performend in the installations evoking classic NYC jazz venues created by jazz conceptualist Jason Moran for his current Whitney exhibition. Cecil McBee is one of the great jazz bassplayers, period.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Argentine fantasia on pan-Jewish food at the Mishiguene residency at Intersect by Lexus.
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Thu, Nov 14, 2019, 10:00 PM – Sun, Nov 17, 2019, 8:00 PM
Pioneers Go East Collective: Virgo Star
THEATER
THURSDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 14 - 17, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 1)
10:00 PM THURSDAY & FRIDAY
5:00 PM SATURDAY
7:00 PM SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25; $20 students/seniors; SUNDAY BENEFIT $50-$100
http://lamama.org/virgo-star/
Queer theater collective Pioneers Go East are back with another of their always-entertaining explorations of the gender implications of Western mythos.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hip Filipino at Ugly Kitchen — which will still be open after the show.
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Thu, Nov 14, 2019, 8:30 PM – Sat, Nov 16, 2019, 9:30 PM
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Thursday, November 14, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Thursday, November 14, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Composer Portrait: Annea Lockwood
MUSIC
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2014
8:00 PM
Miller Theater at Columbia Univeristy
2960 Broadway, Morningside Heights, Manhattan
$20-$30; $17-$25 seniors; $12-$18 students and under age 25
https://www.millertheatre.com/events/annea-lockwood
Annea Lockwood specializes in turning sounds you don't usually think of as music into compelling, enjoyable music — often in the interest of environmental awareness. At this showcase, her work will be performed by the unique piano/percussion quartet Yarn/Wire (a world premiere!) as well as questing trumpeter Nate Wooley and Roomful of Teether Estelí Gomez.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Absolutely delicious food from the Cote d'Ivoire (and a lively scene!) at Assinie.
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Thursday, November 14, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
C4: Cycle 1: Connections
MUSIC
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 14, 2019
8:00 PM
THURSDAY: St. Joseph's Church
404 East 87th Street, Yorkville, Manhattan
$20 advance; $25 door; $5 ages 11-17; $4 ten "Rush" tickets at door
http://www.c4ensemble.org/connections-cycle-1.html
A particularly appealing program by the Choral Composer/Conductor Collective. The lead piece is a collaboration with the piano/violin duo aTonalHits, a piece by the duo presenting humorous miscommunications with Apple AI ("Siri, are you eavesdropping on me and transmitting my private conversations to marketers?" "I haven't dropped anything."). The duo will also join the chorus for (among others) a Reena Esmail piece; and the rest of program includes a piece by, among others, the luscious Caroline Shaw (I mean her music is luscious).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Thursday, nice bistro at Little Frog. Saturday, MEAT at Hudson & Charles Dinette.
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Thu, Nov 14, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Nov 17, 2019, 8:00 PM
Steven Adly Guirgis: Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven
THEATER
THURSDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 14 - 17, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 22)
8:00 PM THURSDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM & 7:00 PM SUNDAY
Atlantic Theater Company/LAByrinth Theater
Linda Gross Theater
366 West 20th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$71.50-$91.50
https://atlantictheater.org/production/halfway-bitches-go-straight-to-heaven/
Steven Adly Guirgis is back, this time with a play set in women's halfway house. Expect a lot of expletives, a lot of laughs, and a lot of hidden truth.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Guirgis's plays can go on. So it's a good thing Momofuku Nishi stays open late (for pathetic New York).
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Thu, Nov 14, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Nov 17, 2019, 4:30 PM
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Thursday, November 14, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
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Thursday, November 14, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Loadbang: Premieres Vol. 13
MUSIC
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2019
7:30 PM
Opera America
330 Seventh Avenue, Chelsea, Manhattan
Ticket price unavailable
https://www.loadbang.com/events.html
The exciting brass/wind/voice quartet loadbang presents an evening of world premieres or just recent pieces by composers like the volcanic Alex Mincek.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It would just be silly to be over there and not go around the corner to the endlessly delicious West African steam table at B&D Halal.
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Thu, Nov 14, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Nov 17, 2019, 6:30 PM
Untitled Projects/Unicorn Theatre, UK: The End of Eddy
THEATER
THURSDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 14 - 17, 2019 (continuing through NOVEMBER 24)
7:30 PM THURSDAY - SATURDAY
5:00 PM SUNDAY
Next Wave Festival
BAM Fisher
$25
https://www.bam.org/endofeddy
A stage adaptation of Édouard Louis's stunning powerful autobiographical coming-of-age novel, imbued as a Bordieu scholar's work should be by a clear sense of how socioeconomic structures dictate life experiences. (An adaptation of Louis's follow-up autobiographical novel is now playing at St. Ann's.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Really marvelous Persian food at Sofreh — if you can get in.
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Thu, Nov 14, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Nov 17, 2019, 4:00 PM
Clowns Ex Machina: The Bad'uns: Clown Acts of Contagion
PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 14 - 17, 2019
7:00 PM THURSDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25; $20 students/seniors
http://lamama.org/the-baduns/
Women clowns behaving badly!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: While we wait for their new Adriatic wine bar to get its food menu settled, let's revisit the wonderful natural wine bar Ruffian.
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Thursday, November 14, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Thursday, November 14, 2019, 6:30 PM – 7:30 PM
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Thu, Nov 14, 2019, 12:00 PM – Sun, Nov 17, 2019, 7:00 PM
Yu Cheng-Ta: Fameme
PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 14 - 17, 2019 (continuing through NOVEMBER 24)
12:00 - 7:00 PM
Performa 19
Wallplay 321 Canal
321 Canal Street, Soho, Manhattan
Free
http://performa19.org/tickets/fameme
Taiwanese media artist Yu Cheng-Ta explores the cultural phenomena of social media influencers and food trends by tracing, through live and video performances, the attempts of a fictional Taiwanese farmer to promote durian in New York (good luck!).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: How nice that the tres lovely all-day café La Mercerie is right around the corner. To my taste, their Crêpe Complète is one of the best dishes in New York.
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Wednesday, November 13, 2019, 9:30 PM – 10:30 PM
Karen Levitt: On Hollywood and Weimar
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2019
9:30 PM
Feinstein's / 54 Below
254 West 54th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$25-$60 advance; $31-$66 door
https://54below.com/events/on-hollywood-and-weimar-karyn-levitt/
Karen Levitt, who's not only a very good singer but also a leading performing expert on Weimar culture, brings back her cabaret exploration of the enormous influence early-20th-Century European emigrée composers (gee, wonder why they left?) had on Golden Age Hollywood music. This is great stuff. Levitt also brings back accompanist Jed Distler on piano, an excellent player who's also a valuable critic.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: As usual at places like this, I'd advise you to drink your $25 minimum and go elsewhere for food. Like, for example, Your Compiler's (and Philip Roth's) beloved Russian Samovar, where the Russian food is actually good. (Try to leave room for at least one glass of the supernal infused vodka, though.) (I favor the dill myself.)
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Wednesday, November 13, 2019, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Chastity Belt
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2019
9:00 PM
Elsewhere
599 Johnson Avenue, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$16
https://www.elsewherebrooklyn.com/events/2019-11-13-chastity-belt/
In between songs at the Chastity Belt show, you can wonder why almost all of the valid guitar-rock music still being made is being made by women. Sold out — but as always, there are ways.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Do I have to name my knee-jerk Elsewhere recommendation?
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Wed, Nov 13, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Nov 17, 2019, 4:00 PM
David Byrne: American Utopia
THEATER
WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13 - 17, 2019 (continuing through FEBRUARY 16)
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY - FRIDAY
5:30 & 9:00 PM SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Hudson Theatre
141 West 44th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$86-$449
https://americanutopiabroadway.com/
I suppose it's time to remove the stick from my ass about this show. If David Byrne and Annie-B Parson were collaborating on an extravaganza production at, say, Skirball Center, or Peak Performances in Montclair, I'd almost certainly List it. So just because this is on Broadway, that's no reason to disregard it, right? OTOH, although I try to keep my recommendations price-blind, if this were at Skirball or Peak Performances, the prices wouldn't hover around $300 for decent but not top tickets. Is it worth paying $300 to see this when you can see something like The Black History Museum . . . at HERE for $35? I certainly wouldn't have dreamed of spending whatever the then-equivalent of $300 was to see the Talking Heads when they were in their absolute prime. I'm on the fence, then. But if you want to spend a few hundred dollars to see superannuated '70s/'80s pop avant-garde, don't let me stop you.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It's surprising how good Theater District Italian standby Osteria del Doge is, considering how bad you'd assume it to be.
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Wed, Nov 13, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Nov 17, 2019, 4:00 PM
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Wednesday, November 13, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Wed, Nov 13, 2019, 8:00 PM – Thu, Nov 14, 2019, 9:00 PM
Folly Systems: A Real-Time Media Festival
PERFORMANCE
WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13 & 14, 2019
8:00 PM
Roultette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$15 each night advance; $20 each night door; $25 two-night Festival Pass
https://roulette.org/event/folly-systems/
Two nights of artists using media and technologies — both advanced and stunningly simple — not as ends in themselves, but as means to create what are at least hoped to be compelling, meaningful pieces.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Cap it off with great cocktails and good food at Grand Army Bar.
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Wed, Nov 13, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Nov 17, 2019, 3:30 PM
Kate Wallich + The YC X Perfume Genius
DANCE
WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13 - 17, 2019
7:30 PM WEDNESDAY
8:00 PM THURSDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM SUNDAY
Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Avenue, Chelsea, Manhattan
$31-$71
https://www.joyce.org/performances/kate-wallich-yc-x-perfume-genius
Kate Wallich, star of the Seattle dance scene, teams up with LA pop singer-songwriter Perfume Genius (performing live) for a piece promising a "spiritual unraveling of romantic decay."
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Jungle Bird, a brand-new Tiki-ish bar, just opened across the street!
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Wednesday, November 13, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Ensemble Basiani: Unifying Voices
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2019
7:30 PM
White Light Festival
Church of St. Mary the Virgin
145 West 46th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
Ticket price unavailable
http://www.lincolncenter.org/white-light-festival/show/unifying-voices-ensemble-basiani
Georgian choral music is something else: they really put the poly in polyphony. Indeed, the title of this program is somewhat misleading, in that what's remarkable about Georgian choral music isn't how united the voices are, but rather how so many disparate strands can somehow manage to end up in the same place. Ensemble Basiani are the preeminent exponents of this repertoire. I'd say that if you've never seen them, you must — except this show's sold out.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Head over to Emporium Brasil (but hurry to make the closing!). And be sure to have some of the delectable salgados, Brazilian savory pastries.
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Wed, Nov 13, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Nov 17, 2019, 6:30 PM
Thomas Ostermeier / Schaubünhe Berlin: History of Violence
THEATER
WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13 - 17, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 1)*
7:30 PM WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
5:00 PM SUNDAY
St. Ann's Warehouse
45 Water Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn
$56-$66
https://stannswarehouse.org/show/history-of-violence/
A stage adaptation of Édouard Louis's fist-to-the-gut autobiographical novel, which is both savage and intellectual. Adapter/director Thomas Ostermeier's work is also both save and Intellectual, so this might just be a match made in theater heaven. (A stage adaptation of an earlier Louis audiobiographical novel, to which this was the follow-up, is playing at BAM.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: After all that sex and savagery, it's very hard not to send you to the exceedingly pleasant River Café. At least you could grab a drink at their exceedingly pleasant bar. (Better be wearing a suitjacket if you identify as male, however.)
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Wednesday, November 13, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Mozart: Così fan Tutte
OPERA
WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY & SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 15 & 17
7:30 PM WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY
2:00 PM SUNDAY
Peter Jay Sharp Theater, The Juilliard School
155 West 65th Street, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$40; $20 students
https://www.juilliard.edu/event/140021/juilliard-opera-presents-mozarts-cosi-fan-tutte
https://www.juilliard.edu/event/140026/juilliard-opera-presents-mozarts-cosi-fan-tutte
https://www.juilliard.edu/event/140036/juilliard-opera-presents-mozarts-cosi-fan-tutte
Juilliard Opera continues to be one of the best deals in town: generally excellent performances by stars of the future. Now they're doing Così, a hard opera to pull off: the music can drag if the conductor doesn't keep it moving; and the plot requires a deft directorial hand if it isn't to seem repellent. This production is set in contemporary America, during the last year of high school; sexual/emotional immaturity makes the plot make sense (come to think of it, LoftOpera did something vaguely similar shortly before its untimely demise). I can guarantee you that this will be better than the Met's current brain-dead production, which attempts to elide the problems posed by the libretto by pretending its just a light comedy. Some light comedy.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Leopard at des Artistes: not only is the food good, not only is the room spectacular — but it'll still be open after the show.
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Wed, Nov 13, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sat, Nov 16, 2019, 8:00 PM
Tiffany Mills Company: Not then, not yet
DANCE
WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13 - 16, 2019
7:00 PM
The Flea
20 Thomas Street, Tribeca, Manhattan
$20
http://theflea.org/shows/not-then-not-yet/
A dance piece about liminality, initially inspired by early Mary Shelley but seen through a 21st-Century lens. But forget that. You should go to this because choreographer Tiffany Mills is exciting AF. And the music is by Angélica Negrón, one of the best — and quirkiest — composers on the Brooklyn scene, sung by the rather amazing Muriel Louveau.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Good food, GREAT wine (and, in Pasqualine Lepeltier, a great somm) at Racine's.
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Tue, Nov 12, 2019, 8:30 PM – Sat, Nov 16, 2019, 9:30 PM
Aruán Ortiz
MUSIC
TUESDAY - SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 12 - 16, 2019
8:30 PM
The Stone Residencies
Glass Box Theater, The New School
55 West 13th Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$20
http://www.thestonenyc.com/calendar.php
The stylish, thought-provoking young Cuban jazz pianist/composer Aruán Ortiz in a variety of compelling ensemble settings.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Victoria Blamey's revivification of the Gotham Bar & Grill remains the place to eat around here. I continue to prefer the bar menu to the dining room menu — and also continue to urge you look at the end of the wine list for the natural wines section instead of at the preceding pages of overpriced and underaged unnatural wines.
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Tue, Nov 12, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Nov 17, 2019, 9:00 PM
Arthur Miller: The Crucible
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 12 - 17, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 29)
8:00 PM MONDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM SUNDAY
Bedlam
The Connelly Theater
220 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$59-$115
https://bedlam.org/the-crucible/
We're not supposed to look at art as competition, but it's hard for fans of progressive theater to avoid looking at the now-concurrent productions by Bedlam and spin-off company The COOP as a kind of Stripped-Down Progressive Theater Battle Of The Bands. Bedlam's direct cut-out-the-fat approach would seem perfect for Arthur Miller's allegory of McCarthyism — if Ivo van Hove hadn't done such a stunning treatment a few years ago. Nevertheless, as I said, we're not supposed to look at art as competiton. (Note that holders of the most expensive tickets will be moved around to be kept closest to the stage action.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Everybody loves the sparkling Vietnamese food at Van Da — and it's practically next door.
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Tuesday, November 12, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Neil Rolnick: Journey's End
MUSIC
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2019
8:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$18 advance; $25 door
https://roulette.org/event/neil-rolnick-journeys-end/
Neil Rolnick composes some of the most sheerly listenable and enjoyable, even tuneful — and relatable and human — electronic and electroacoustic music you've ever heard. Maybe it's because his pieces are almost always about something. As, in the lead pieces tonight, the recent death of Rolnick's wife and the peace she found before dying (a subject of immense interest to Your Self-Pitying Compiler) — with additional interest supplied for all you non-self-pitiers by the participation of the fabulous pianist Kathleen Supové and dancers Julia Bengtsson and Mauricio Vera (as well as Rolnick's late wife herself, captured on voicemail messages). Other pieces on the program feature video projections with the electronics, singers with the electronics, various instrumentalists with the electronics, and Rolnick playing piano along with the electronics. I urge you to attend.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Been to the new soul food restaurant around the corner yet?
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Tue, Nov 12, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Nov 16, 2019, 9:00 PM
Lap-See Lam: Phantom Bouquet
PERFORMANCE
TUESDAY - SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 12 - 16, 2019
8:00 PM
9:00 PM
10:00 PM
Performa 19
Jeffrey Duetsch
18 Wooster Street, Soho, Manhattan
$25; $15 student
http://performa19.org/tickets/phantom-banquet
Multi-media artist Lap-See Lam recreates and deconstructs an Old Skool Swedish Chinese restaurant — her family ran one in Stockholm — as the genre dies out. Live music, narration, animation, virtual reality, 3D scanning: the works. Of course, it all comes down to cultural identity in a diaspora.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Of course you're going to want to walk over to Great New York Noodletown for some celestial Cantonese food after this.
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Tuesday, November 12, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Jerron Herman & Molly Joyce: Breaking and Entering
DANCE
TUESDAY & FRIDAY - SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 12 & 15 - 16, 2019
8:00 PM
Danspace Project
St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery
131 East 10th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$22
http://www.danspaceproject.org/calendar/herman-joyce/
Dancer/performance artist Jerron Herman and composer/performer Molly Joyce want you to think that what's signficant about this show is that they're both disabled. But what's really important here is that they're both compelling, interesting, and (bad word, but I can't think of better one) entertaining performers. I'd go to this show for that reason. Oh, and for the post-show dance parties each night.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: There are lots of places for Yunnan rice noodles opening up in New York City. But Dian Kitchen has to be one of the best.
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Tue, Nov 12, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Nov 16, 2019, 9:00 PM
Dante or Die: User Not Found
THEATER
TUESDAY - SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 12 - 16, 2019
8:00 PM TUESDAY - THURSDAY
6:00 PM & 8:30 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
Next Wave Festival
Greene Grape Annex
653 Fulton Street, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$65
https://www.bam.org/theater/2019/user-not-found
You walk into a café, you're given a smartphone and a headset, and you gradually realize that someone sitting a few tables away is going through something deeply private. Except not private from you and everyone else in the café who's connected to the internet.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: There'll be a cafe menu at the venue before the show. But I say go to beerhall DSK Brooklyn afterward.
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Tue, Nov 12, 2019, 8:00 PM – Wed, Nov 13, 2019, 9:00 PM
Korakrit Arunanondchai, Boychild & Alex Gvochik: Together
PERFORMANCE
TUESDAY & WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12 & 13, 2019
8:00 PM TUESDAY
6:00 PM WEDNESDAY
Performa 19
Harlem Parish
258 West 118th Street, Harlem, Manhattan
$25-$40
http://performa19.org/tickets/together
A team led by Bangkok-New York installation/video artist Korakrit Arunanondchai explores the fascinating phenomenon of Ghost Cinema: American GIs posted in Thailand would arrange outdoor movie showings by projecting films on trees in forests; locals attributed the fragmented images to ghosts, and appropriated the practice for their own ritual uses.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Cheerful Caribbean/New England mashup at Lalo's Seafood Shack.
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Tuesday, November 12, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Daedalus Quartet: Music from Exile
MUSIC
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2019
7:30 PM
Baruch Performing Arts Center
55 Lexington Avenue (entrance on 25th Street), Rose Hill, Manhattan
$36; $16 students
https://www.baruch.cuny.edu/calendar/EventList.aspx?=&eventidn=70584&view=EventDetails&information_id=937496&utm_source=Homepage&utm_campaign=DaedalusQuartet&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
The expert Daedalus Quartet offers in an interesting program that seems rather depressing in theory, but won't be so in practice. There's Viktor Ullman's Third String Quartet, a bright Neo-Classical work that was written in Theresienstadt (the bright pieces stopped coming when Ullman was moved on to Auschwitz). There's a recent quartet by Gabriel Bolaños, who often uses electroacoustic combinations to create compelling textures, but here will use the forces of a good old string quartet. And the quartet will be joined on piano by Renana Gutman for the monumental Piano Quintet of Shostakovich protegé Mieczyslaw Weinberg (when I was learning music he was called Moishe Vainberg), as engrossing a piece of 20th-Century post-Romanticism as you could hope to hear.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: OK, it's a little bit of a walk. But Shanghainese charmer Little Alley is just such a treat.
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Tue, Nov 12, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Nov 17, 2019, 8:30 PM
Zawe Ashton: for all the women who thought they were Mad
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 12 - 17, 2019 (continuing through NOVEMBER 24)
7:30 PM TUESDAY - SUNDAY
3:00 PM SATURDAY
Soho Rep.
46 Walker Street, Tribeca, Manhattan
$35-$65
https://sohorep.org/for-all-the-women-who-thought-they-were-mad
New York is getting a taste of Zawe Ashton's amazing acting chops in Betrayal; now we can sample her playwrighting as well. If someone this awesomely talented feels herself blocked because she's female, well . . . .
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Frenchette STILL roolz.
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Tuesday, November 12, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Philip Glass: Akhnaten
OPERA
TUESDAY & FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12 & 15, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 7)
7:30 PM TUESDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$30-$445
https://www.metopera.org/season/2019-20-season/akhnaten/
The List Event Of The Season, or something like it. This isn't Philip Glass's best opera, but it's pretty great. It's about an oddball Pharaoh who imposed monotheism on Ancient Egypt, apparently practiced androgyny, was married to Nefertiti, and sired King Tut (obviously all fodder for an opera — if not quite all in this opera). One problem with the original production back in the '80s was that the production itself was pretty lame, but that shouldn't be a problem here. Phelim McDermott, who did such a great job at the Met with Glass's Satyagraha (although a not-so-great job with Così fan Tutte) directs. And while you might cringe at the thought of jugglers in this opera, they're led by Sean Gandini, the best in the world (seriously). Starring are the knockout countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo (who might have been born to play Akhnaten) and rising-star mezzo J'Nai Bridges, making her Met debut. Karen Kamansek, another welcome Met debutante, conducts. You can't even think of missing this.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: All that will be open in the area when this is over is P.J. Clarke's.
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Tue, Nov 12, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Nov 17, 2019, 8:00 PM
Tina Satter: Is This A Room
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 12 - 17, 2019 (continuing through NOVEMBER 24)
7:00 PM TUESDAY - THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Half Straddle
Vineyard Theater
108 East 15th Street, Gramercy, Manhattan
$45-$100
https://www.vineyardtheatre.org/is-this-a-room/
How amazing is it that the Air Force linguist charged with leaking information of Russian interference with the 2016 election is named Reality Winner? You almost have to write a play about her. Tina Satter stages the verbatim transcript of the FBI's incursion into Winner's home and the ensuing interrogation. As anyone who saw this piece at The Kitchen in January will tell you, it's rather chilling.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Speaking for myself, I prefer the light snacks and great sherry list at Bar Jamon to the heavier-than-you'd-ever-see-in-actual-Spain fare at its next-door big brother Casa Mono.
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Tue, Nov 12, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Nov 17, 2019, 4:00 PM
Jeremy O. Harris: Slave Play
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 12 - 17, 2019 (continuing through JANUARY 5)
7:00 PM TUESDAY & THURSDAY
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Golden Theater
252 West 45th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$39-$227
https://slaveplaybroadway.com/
Another corrosive play by an African-American playwright treating issues of race in a formally inventive, narratively skewed manner. It's amazing how much great theater has fit that description in the last couple of years — on the whole, the best American theater there's been. It's even more amazing to have something like this playing on Broadway. I'm skeptical of attempts to bring characteristically Downtown/Brooklyn stuff Uptown — but it would be nice for one of those attempts to succeed for once. Go.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Blue Ribbon was once exciting for re-introducing elemental brasserie-style dining to New York — and for staying open late. Now, when you can’t walk down the street without stepping in bone marrow, the menus seem kind of boring — but decently late hours are rarer than ever, even in even the putative Theater District. Perhaps the most exciting thing about the The Ribbon Midtown, though, is the fancy cocktail bar underneath.
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Tue, Nov 12, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Nov 17, 2019, 5:00 PM
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Tue, Nov 12, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Nov 17, 2019, 4:00 PM
Zoey Martinson: The Black History Museum . . . According to the United States of America
PERFORMANCE
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 12 - 17, 2019 (continuing through NOVEMBER 24)*
7:00 PM TUESDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
HERE
145 Sixth Avenue (entrance on Dominick Street), Hudson Square, Manhattan
$35-$50
https://here.org/shows/the-black-history-museum-according-to-the-united-states-of-america/
Both floors of HERE — theaters, lobby, dressing rooms — are devoted to an "theatrical museum" installation in which the audience is induced to reinvision the American notion of "Blackness". This looks spectacular.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Fresh Greek at Lola Taverna.
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Monday, November 11, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Monday, November 11, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Euripides: The Trojan Women
THEATER
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2019
7:00 PM
The Resident Acting Company
The Players Club
16 Gramercy Park South, Gramercy, Manhattan
$35
https://www.artful.ly/store/events/18973
The big news — which for some reason The Resident Acting Company isn't heavily promoting — is that this is a translation of Euripides's searing account of the subjugation of women in war by Emily Wilson, whose Odyssey translation has blown so many minds over the last couple of years. An unstaged, script-in-hand reading — but of an Emily Wilson translation (if they won't push it, I will)!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Whenever I think of my favorite dining spots in New York, I always forget about Roman mainstay Maialino. But there it is, with its beautiful location right on Gramercy Park, serving persuasive versions of the the kind of hearty food I love — and with a great wine program.
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Monday, November 11, 2019, 5:30 PM – 6:30 PM
Paul Pfeiffer: University of Georgia Redcoat Band Live
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2019
5:30 PM
Performa 19
Apollo Theater
253 West 125th Street, Harlem, Manhattan
$38.50; $13.50 community offer
http://performa19.org/tickets/university-of-georgia-redcoat-band-live
Fifty members of the University of Georgia marching band come to the Apollo and play a two-and-a-half hour score from a typical football game. Simultaneously, the remaining 350 members of the band perform the same score in their school's football stadium, with that performance live-streamed into the Apollo. Video artist Paul Pfeiffer hopes thereby to contrast the architectures of the stadium and the Old Skool theater — and to explor the jumpy, start-and-stop, no-song-is-ever-finished nature of the band's performances.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Might as well stroll over the Fieldtrip, ace Chef J.J. Johnson's fast-casual celebration of rice and its usages in African-American cookery.
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Mon, Nov 11, 2019, 12:00 PM – Sun, Nov 17, 2019, 8:00 PM
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Sunday, November 10, 2019, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Beth Anne Hatton & Brian Mountford: Beyond the Fair
MUSIC
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2019
4:00 PM
Vertical Player Repertory
Behind the Door
219 Court Street, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn
$15
https://mailchi.mp/vpropera.org/gmwv35kf6k-3012881?e=e8677ccc95
This song recital simply has an incredibly appealing playlist. From the sheer German Romantic sublimity of Schubert and Schumann (I can take or leave most of his piano pieces — but his songs . . . .) to the late Romantic complications of Schoenberg and Sibelius to the hyper-sophisticated simplicity of Satie (when Barbara Hannigan did a set of Satie and a set of Schoenberg and his crew at the Armory last year, it occurred to me that now, a century after the fact, Satie has pretty decisively prevailed — and I'm happy for it) and Mompou (the Catalán Satie) to the post-Fauré 20th Century obscurity of Beydts (you are not readily going to get another chance to hear his stuff) to the forthright American neo-Romanticism of Barber. List bud Brian Mountford on piano!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: La Vara may or may not be the best Spanish restaurant in New York (I think it is). But it is indisputably the best Hispano-Judeo-Moorish restaurant.
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Sunday, November 10, 2019, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice
OPERA
MONDAY, THURSDAY & SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 7 & 10, 2019
8:00 PM MONDAY & THURSDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$30-$445
https://www.metopera.org/season/2019-20-season/orfeo-ed-euridice/
Gluck's reform opera is genuinely touching (even if he forces on a stupid happy ending) and has at least one really great aria — and Gluck's rather hieratic style is perfect for retelling of timeless myth. Mark Morris's whimsical-but-stark-when-it-needs-to-be production is one of the Met's current best (not the competition is fierce). Bi heroine and rising-star mezzo Jamie Barton assumes the role of Orfeo; fan favorite Hei-Kyong Hong is Euridice.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Best of all, this opera is SHORT; for once you don't have to worry about finding someplace to eat and drink afterward. Let's celebrate by going to Boulud Sud for pan-Mediterranean.
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Sunday, November 10, 2019, 2:30 PM – 2:30 PM
Aaron Novik: 0+0+ Ensemble Album Release
MUSIC
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2019
2:30 PM
Spectrum
70 Flushing Avenue, Garage A, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$15; $10 students/seniors
http://www.spectrumnyc.com/site/calendar.php
Reeds-player/composer Aaron Novik, who recently moved to New York from the Bay Area (yay!), is one of those musicians who on any given day could be classified as jazz, classical, or avant-pop. This new New York ensemble, indulging his jazz side, plays what he describes as "minimalist atonal dixieland". Sounds great to me.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You simply MUST go to Russ & Daughters in the Brooklyn Navy Yard before the show, for the best appetizing in the entire world. Afterward, housemade whiskey at the Kings County Distillery Gatehouse.
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Saturday, November 9, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
New York Polyphony: Gothic Polyphony
MUSIC
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2019
8:00 PM
Church of St. Mary the Virgin
145 West 46th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$30-$45; students & under age 25 $18-$27; seniors $25-$38
https://www.millertheatre.com/events/new-york-polyphony-gothic
New York Polyphony is a really terrific local four-person early music vocal ensemble. It may be that the best thing they'll ever do was naming their first album Tudor City — but they have plenty to offer beyond that. This attractive program starts in the High Middle Ages with extremely short (and extremely interesting) pieces from the Worcestor Fragments, then straddles the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in England with John Dustaple (a fabulous composer, internationally popular in his day, whom you should really get to know), and eventually moves on to the glories of the Spanish Renaissance.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: DB Bistro Moderne is not as good as it once was. But for the Theater District, it's still pretty good.
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Saturday, November 9, 2019, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
William Basinski: Durational Performance for Suzanne
MUSIC
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2019
6:00 PM
ISSUE Project Room
22 Boerum Place, Downtown, Brooklyn
$50
https://issueprojectroom.org/event/sold-out-william-basinski-durational-performance-suzanne
One of the major names in experimental electronic music in America, William Basinski specializes in the manipulation of taped materials — with a specialization in decaying taped materials (sort of a more interventionist version of what Bill Morrison does with film). His work is fascinating — luckily so, because this show is an eight-hour marathon, exploring Basinski's old and new works with a dedicated sound-and-light show. It's sold out, so keep checking if you want to go.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Grab a slice or two at Norm's Pizza before the show. At 2:00 AM in the new pathetic early-closing New York, you're on your own.
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Fri, Nov 8, 2019, 9:00 PM – Sun, Nov 10, 2019, 10:00 PM
Ed Adkins: A Catch Upon the Mirror
PERFORMANCE
FRIDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8 - 10, 2019
9:00 PM
Performa 19
Abrons Arts Center
466 Grand Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$25
http://performa19.org/tickets/a-catch-upon-the-mirror
The extremely famous (for a multimedia artist) British multimedia artist Ed Atkins revives his only performance piece, in which he attempts to recite a poem by Gilbert Sorrentino (how many of us can remember with great precision our first reading of his great meta-novel Mulligan Stew?), with songs and histrionics interrupting throughout.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I was just thinking how absolutely delightful I continue to think the sort-of-Portugues Cervo's is.
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Fri, Nov 8, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Nov 9, 2019, 9:00 PM
Esa-Pekka Salonen / New York Philharmonic
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY & SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 8 & 9, 2019 (continuing through NOVEMBER 12)
7:30 PM WEDNESDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
David Geffen Hall
10 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$34-$99
https://nyphil.org/concerts-tickets/1920/salonen-bach-hindemith?clicklocation=hp_ue_1
It's always great when Esa-Pekka Salonen, a composer/conductor par excellence, deigns to visit the Philharmonic. This time, he brings a new piece of his own, which will no doubt display his usual imaginative surprises in orchestral color and texture. But I'm excited about the Hindemith on this program. To be sure, you don't usually see "excited" and "Hindemith" in the same sentence. But for all his repute as a composer of dry ugly music, there's a whole lot to like in his output. (Now Reger, OTOH . . . .) Early on in his career, he was even something of an enfant terrible, injecting "hot jazz" elements into his Germanic music like Kurt Weill. We'll hear the first New York performances of one of those pieces, mashing up Bach and ragtime — and some roughly contemporary arrangements of Bach organ preludes by Schoenberg. And then we'll hear Hindemith's mature 'Mathis der Maler' Symphony, which (I'm sorry) I just find hugely appealing (although not as appealing as the later Symphonia Serena: somebody program that PLEASE) — and which incorporates at least the feel of the Lutheran chorales at the root of the Bach pieces arranged by Schoenberg. Great music, great programming.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I know several people who like the Lincoln Center fishhouse Atlantic Grill. I don't see it myself.
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Fri, Nov 8, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Nov 10, 2019, 9:00 PM
Arthur Miller: The Crucible
THEATER
FRIDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8 - 10, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 29)
8:00 PM
Bedlam
The Connelly Theater
220 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$59-$115
https://bedlam.org/the-crucible/
We're not supposed to look at art as competition, but it's hard for fans of progressive theater to avoid looking at the now-concurrent productions by Bedlam and spin-off company The COOP as a kind of Stripped-Down Progressive Theater Battle Of The Bands. Bedlam's direct cut-out-the-fat approach would seem perfect for Arthur Miller's allegory of McCarthyism — if Ivo van Hove hadn't done such a stunning treatment a few years ago. Nevertheless, as I said, we're not supposed to look at art as competiton. (Note that holders of the most expensive tickets will be moved around to be kept closest to the stage action.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Everybody loves the sparkling Vietnamese food at Van Da — and it's practically next door.
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Friday, November 8, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Philip Glass: Akhnaten
OPERA
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 7)
8:00 PM
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$30-$445
https://www.metopera.org/season/2019-20-season/akhnaten/
The List Event Of The Season, or something like it. This isn't Philip Glass's best opera, but it's pretty great. It's about an oddball Pharaoh who imposed monotheism on Ancient Egypt, apparently practiced androgyny, was married to Nefertiti, and sired King Tut (obviously all fodder for an opera). One problem with the original production back in the '80s was that the production itself was pretty lame, but that shouldn't be a problem here. Phelim McDermott, who did such a great job at the Met with Glass's Satyagraha (but a not-so-great job with Cosi Fan Tutte) directs. And while you might cringe at the thought of jugglers in this opera, they're led by Sean Gandini, the best in the world (seriously). Starring are the knockout countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo (who might have been born to play Akhnaten) and rising-star mezzo J'Nai Bridges, making her Met debut. Karen Kamansek, another welcome Met debutante, conducts. You can't even think of missing this.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: All that will be open in the area when this is over is P.J. Clarke's.
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Fri, Nov 8, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Nov 9, 2019, 9:00 PM
Radiohole: Now Serving: A Guide to Aesthetic Etiquette in Four Courses
PERFORMANCE
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8 & 9, 2019 (continuing through NOVEMBER 16)*
8:00 PM
The Collapsable Hole
155 Bank Street, West Village, Manhattan
$25-$50
http://radiohole.com/
The theatrical madmen and women of Radiohole revive their epic send-up of a panoply of things, starting and staying with 1950s dinner-party etiquette but not stopping there. I strongly recommend you spring for a seat at the dinner table so you can participate in the dinner party rather than watch it from the gallery. Prepare, however, to get mussed. I'm still assuming (hoping?) (praying?) the purported vaginal yeast baked goods aren't really made that way.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Even if you sit at the table and eat their food, you'll still be hungry (if slightly revolted) afterward. You can avail yourself of one of the great unacknowledged facts of New York City dining: Austrian charmer Wallsé is still very good.
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Fri, Nov 8, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sat, Nov 9, 2019, 8:30 PM
Big Dance Theater: The Road Awaits Us
DANCE
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8 & 9, 2019
7:30 PM
Skirball Center, NYU
566 LaGuardia Place, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$35-$45
https://nyuskirball.org/events/big-dance-theatre-road-awaits-us/
It's a credit to just how great Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar's Big Dance Theater is that no one takes them for granted, no matter how many years they've been putting on genuinely provocative, genuinely hilarious dance-theater pieces. This is a triple bill including Lazar reciting John Cage, Parson taking off on classic ballet, and a Ionesco-inspired birthday party of a passle of senior figures on the New York modern dance scene that I promise you you've heard of.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Let's have more of Joaquim Baca's Southern U.S.-inflected izakaya grub at Būmu.
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Friday, November 8, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Victoria Bond: Clara
OPERA
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2019
7:00 PM
Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater, Symphony Space
2537 Broadway, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$30
https://www.symphonyspace.org/events/vp-clara-an-opera-by-victoria-bond
We've heard plenty of music by Clara Schumann in this bicentennial year; now let's hear something about her. Her story is interesting enough: tumultous battle with her father to marry the man she loved; subsequent marriage to a mentally ill musical genius; a career (thwarted by marriage, motherhood, gender expectations, etc.) as one of the leading piano virtuosi in Europe during a time when giants roamed the earth; service as muse to two of the leading lights of German Romantic music — and an almost secret career (thwarted by marriage, motherhood, gender expectations, etc.) as an excellent composer herself. Let me be honest: I find Victoria Bond's instrumental music kind of ordinary. But when it comes to opera and music-theater, she reveals herself to be a natural musical dramatist, which many composers aren't, with the ability to construct a dramatic arc and tell a story through music. This will be a concert performance, conducted by the composer.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: There's a reason why Malecon is generally considered to be one of the very best (well, two as it has two locations) Dominican restaurants in New York.
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Friday, November 8, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Square Peg Round Hole / Angélica Negrón
MUSIC
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2019
7:00 PM
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$25
https://nationalsawdust.org/event/square-peg-round-hole/
There are, happily, any number now of excellent percussion ensembles playing music that flirts with with pop and classical. Square Peg Round Hole is one; it hews more to the pop side of things — and good for them! This is their first headling show — look who they have opening!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: And then let's go to Cheeseboat and eat some incredibly filling Modern Georgian food.
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Fri, Nov 8, 2019, 5:00 PM – Sat, Nov 9, 2019, 5:00 PM
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Thu, Nov 7, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Nov 10, 2019, 11:00 PM
Talib Kweli
MUSIC
THURSDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 7 - 10, 2019
8:00 & 10:30 PM
Blue Note
131 West 3rd Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$20-$35
http://www.bluenotejazz.com/newyork/schedule/moreinfo.cgi?id=17589
My first thought on seeing conscious rapper Talib Kweli playing the Blue Note was, how boojie, conscious rap's dead. But look: he's kept prices reasonable. He's playing with a live band, and promises a passle of special guests. Maybe his heyday's past — but his last album was very fine (if in no way pathbreaking), and anyone who's made music as great as Kweli has is worth a night out.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Peruvian Nikkei hotspot Llama San for food (and good cocktails). Existing Conditions for great cocktails.
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Thu, Nov 7, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Nov 9, 2019, 9:00 PM
Kia LaBeija: Untitled, The Black Act
DANCE / PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY - SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7 - 9, 2019
8:00 PM
Performa 19
Performance Space New York
150 1st Avenue, East Village, Manhattan
$25
http://performa19.org/tickets/untitled-the-black-act
A take-off on the third act of Oskar Schlemmer's seminal Bauhaus Triadic Ballet (each of the three acts having been assigned a color). The Triadic Ballet was notable for its entirely abstract, objective view of motion theater. This will be something else entirely: multidisciplinary artist Kia LaBeija refracting the piece through her black, queer, AIDS-positive lens.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You'd think Uluh Tea House would be Cantonese, but it's more pan-regional. Better than you'd expect a pan-regional Chinese place to be, though. Also: dim sum all day!
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Thursday, November 7, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice
OPERA
MONDAY, THURSDAY & SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 7 & 10, 2019
8:00 PM MONDAY & THURSDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$30-$445
https://www.metopera.org/season/2019-20-season/orfeo-ed-euridice/
Gluck's reform opera is genuinely touching (even if he forces on a stupid happy ending) and has at least one really great aria — and Gluck's rather hieratic style is perfect for retelling of timeless myth. Mark Morris's whimsical-but-stark-when-it-needs-to-be production is one of the Met's current best (not the competition is fierce). Bi heroine and rising-star mezzo Jamie Barton assumes the role of Orfeo; fan favorite Hei-Kyong Hong is Euridice.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Best of all, this opera is SHORT; for once you don't have to worry about finding someplace to eat and drink afterward. Let's celebrate by going to Boulud Sud for pan-Mediterranean.
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Thursday, November 7, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
James MacMillan: Stabat Mater
MUSIC
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2019
7:30 PM
Harry Christopers/The Sixteen & Britten Sinfonia
White Light Festival
Alice Tully Hall
1941 Broadway, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$50-$85
http://www.lincolncenter.org/white-light-festival/show/macmillan-stabat-mater
James MacMillan is one of the very best exponents of mainstream modern classical music currently composing — maybe because his militant Catholicism and militant Socialism animate his music with a passionate force often absent from the mainstream. MacMillan's take on the ancient Marian text Stabat Mater should be memorable indeed.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Boulud Sud for very nice pan-Mediterranean.
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Thu, Nov 7, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Nov 10, 2019, 3:30 PM
Ernst Toller: Hoppla, We're Alive!
THEATER
THURSDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 7 - 10, 2019
7:30 THURSDAY - SATURDAY
2:30 PM SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
Free
http://lamama.org/hoppla/
After helping invent Epic Theater along with Berthold Brecht in Weimar Germany — an acheivement of especial importance to the personal esthetic of Your Compiler (which is why friends shouldn't be surprised at my incredulity when they ask me if I want to see something like The Rose Tatoo) — director Erwin Piscator fled Germany (for obvious reasons) for Soviet Russia. Then (for obvious reasons), Piscator fled Russia, ending up in New York City, where he was asked to form a theater workshop (the famous Dramatic Workshop) at the New School. In the early '50s, Piscator fled the United States (for obvious reasons) for West Germany, where he died. On the occasion of the New School's centennial, its liberal arts school has mounted this revival/reinterpretation of what was perhaps Piscator's signal Weimar Epic Theater achievement (written by Ernst Toller) — and a massive hit on the scale of Brecht/Weill's Threepenny Opera. Epic Theater fans know what to do.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hip Filipino at Ugly Kitchen.
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Thu, Nov 7, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sat, Nov 9, 2019, 8:00 PM
-
Thu, Nov 7, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Nov 10, 2019, 8:00 PM
2019 Multichannel Music Festival
MUSIC
MONDAY - TUESDAY & THURSDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 4 - 5 & 7 - 10, 2019
8:00 PM MONDAY
7:00 PM TUESDAY, THURSDAY, FRIDAY & SUNDAY
8:30 PM SATURDAY
Spectrum
70 Flushing Avenue, Garage A, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$15; $10 students/seniors
http://www.spectrumnyc.com/site/calendar.php
Electroacoustic and other musics involving spacial processing.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: American bistro Walter's will be open after all these shows.
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Thu, Nov 7, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Nov 10, 2019, 4:00 PM
-
Thu, Nov 7, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Nov 10, 2019, 4:00 PM
Clowns Ex Machina: The Bad'uns: Clown Acts of Contagion
PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 7 - 10, 2019 (continuing through NOVEMBER 17)
7:00 PM THURSDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25; $20 students/seniors
http://lamama.org/the-baduns/
Women clowns behaving badly!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: While we wait for their new Adriatic wine bar to get its food menu settled, let's revisit the wonderful natural wine bar Ruffian.
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Thu, Nov 7, 2019, 12:00 PM – Sun, Nov 10, 2019, 7:00 PM
Yu Cheng-Ta: Fameme
PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 7 - 10, 2019 (continuing through NOVEMBER 24)
12:00 - 7:00 PM
Performa 19
Wallplay 321 Canal
321 Canal Street, Soho, Manhattan
Free
http://performa19.org/tickets/fameme
Taiwanese media artist Yu Cheng-Ta explores the cultural phenomena of social media influencers and food trends by tracing, through live and video performances, the attempts of a fictional Taiwanese farmer to promote durian in New York (good luck!).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: How nice that the tres lovely all-day café La Mercerie is right around the corner. To my taste, their Crêpe Complète is one of the best dishes in New York.
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Wed, Nov 6, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Nov 9, 2019, 9:00 PM
@GARYXXXFISHER: Black Exhibition
THEATER
WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6 - 9, 2019 (continuing through NOVEMBER 23)
8:00 PM
Bushwick Starr
207 Starr Street, Bushwick, Manhattan
$20
https://www.thebushwickstarr.org/black-exhibition
An exploration of the implications and consequences of self-exposure, which is certainly a major thing these days. (Once again, this piece promises to be a lot more fun than my rather dry description.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Very hard not to send you across the street to The Turk's Inn, a recreation in Bushwick of the best Middle Easter-themed supper club in Hayward, Wisconsin. If only the food were as great as the room . . . .
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Wednesday, November 6, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Esa-Pekka Salonen / New York Philharmonic
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY & SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 8 & 9, 2019 (continuing through NOVEMBER 12)
7:30 PM WEDNESDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
David Geffen Hall
10 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$34-$99
https://nyphil.org/concerts-tickets/1920/salonen-bach-hindemith?clicklocation=hp_ue_1
It's always great when Esa-Pekka Salonen, a composer/conductor par excellence, deigns to visit the Philharmonic. This time, he brings a new piece of his own, which will no doubt display his usual imaginative surprises in orchestral color and texture. But I'm excited about the Hindemith on this program. To be sure, you don't usually see "excited" and "Hindemith" in the same sentence. But for all his repute as a composer of dry ugly music, there's a whole lot to like in his output. (Now Reger, OTOH . . . .) Early on in his career, he was even something of an enfant terrible, injecting "hot jazz" elements into his Germanic music like Kurt Weill. We'll hear the first New York performances of one of those pieces, mashing up Bach and ragtime — and some roughly contemporary arrangements of Bach organ preludes by Schoenberg. And then we'll hear Hindemith's mature 'Mathis der Maler' Symphony, which (I'm sorry) I just find hugely appealing (although not as appealing as the later Symphonia Serena: somebody program that PLEASE) — and which incorporates at least the feel of the Lutheran chorales at the root of the Bach pieces arranged by Schoenberg. Great music, great programming.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I know several people who like the Lincoln Center fishhouse Atlantic Grill. I don't see it myself.
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Wednesday, November 6, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Angélica Negrón feat. Muriel Louveau & Emily Marie Pope: Isterica
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2016
7:30 PM
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$25
https://nationalsawdust.org/event/angelica-negron-presents-isterica/
Angélica Negrón — one of the most stimulating and enjoyable composer/performers on the New York scene* — teams up with singer/composer Muriel Louveau and dancer/choreographer Emily Marie Pope to explore and embody hysteria. Negrón and Louveau will improvise with voice, electronics, and the kind of unusual instruments and sound-producers that are Negrón's meat, and Pope will respond with improvised movement. Anything Angélica Negrón does is worth attending to.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: There are plenty of X'ian pulled-noodle shops in the City now — but the food at X'ian Town just seems that tad fresher that makes it stand out from the crowd. Try it and you'll see what I mean. A real keeper
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Wednesday, November 6, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Geneva Kamerata & Juan Kruz Díaz de Garaio Esnaolo: Dance of the Sun
MUSIC / DANCE
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2019
7:30 PM
92nd Street Y
1395 Lexington Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$25-$50
https://www.92y.org/event/geneva-camerata
This looks like it might be really great. A crack chamber orchestra (unfortunately I don't think those are orchestra members pictured on the landing page of their website), led by the splendid pianist and deep musical thinker David Greilsammer, plays some really good music while performing choreography created by counter-tenor-turned-dancer-turned-choreographer Juan Kruz Díaz de Garaio Esnaolo (yes, you read that right: the orchestral musicians perform the choreography while playing the music). First up is a suite of Lully's delightful incidental music for the initial production of Molière's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, which obviously cries out for dramatization and dance. Then, that most nervous of all major symphonies (except it's in minor) (we music nerds are a fucking scream!), Mozart's Great G Minor (No. 40), which can certainly stand having the musicians dancing around evoking life and mortality while playing it.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I'm so proud of having found South African Kaia Wine Bar that I'm gonna keep recommending it. (To avoid potential awkwardness, make sure you make it clear you're ordering the wild boar and not wild Boer.)
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Wed, Nov 6, 2019, 7:00 PM – Thu, Nov 7, 2019, 8:00 PM
Migguel Anggelo: LatinXoxo
PERFORMANCE
WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6 & 7, 2019
7:00 PM
Joe's Pub
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$20
https://publictheater.org/productions/joes-pub/2019/m/migguel-anggelo-latinxoxo/
Venezuelan (resident in the U.S.) performance artist Migguel Anggelo brings a revised version back to New York of a work exploring (or shattering, as he'd probably have it) Latino gender clichés by means of deconstructions of Latino musical artifacts. (Somehow, that doesn't sound as immensely entertaining as this show is.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Again: drink the minimum at Joe's Pub (the cocktails are fine), and eat elsewhere (the food at Joe's Pub, while perfectly edible, isn't really worth paying for). I'm pretty stoked to try the new Brasserie Saint Marc, serving mainly classic Brasserie food, with a few odd nods to the Ukrainian background of the neighborhood.
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Wed, Nov 6, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Nov 10, 2019, 8:00 PM
Nairi Baghramian / Maria Hassabi / Janette Laverrière / Carlo Mollino: Entre Deux Actes (Ménage à Quatre)
PERFORMANCE
WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6 - 10, 2019
7:00 PM WEDNESDAY - FRIDAY
5:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Performa 19
1014
1014 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Free (with R.S.V.P.)
http://performa19.org/tickets/entre-deux-actes-menage-a-quatre
When the great Swiss-French Modernist designer/activist Janette Laverrière was still alive, artist Nairi Bagrhamian worked with her to create an installation piece exploring the gender-political implications of a greenroom for female performers Laverrière had once designed, criticized at the time for being too "feminine". That was the ménage a deux. Then Bagrhamian decided to directly reference the female body (the inhabitants of the greenroom) by adding to the installation items from her collection of erotic photographs taken by the late Italian architecht Carlo Mollino. That was the ménage à trois. Now the artist/choreographer Maria Hassabi has added live movement elements to the piece. That's the ménage à quatre. It all takes place on two floors of a grand Fifth Avenue mansion. All available spaces are currently taken, so look sharp if you want to go.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: There are vats and vats of ramen places in New York these days. NR introduces a welcome additon: ramen and cocktails.
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Tue, Nov 5, 2019, 8:30 PM – Sun, Nov 10, 2019, 9:30 PM
Peter Evans
MUSIC
TUESDAY - SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5 - 10, 2019
8:30 PM
The Stone Residencies
Glass Box Theater, The New School
55 West 13th Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$20
http://www.thestonenyc.com/calendar.php
A week of varying ensembles led by questing trumpeter Peter Evans.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Victoria Blamey's revivification of the Gotham Bar & Grill remains the place to eat around here. I continue to prefer the bar menu to the dining room menu — and also continue to urge you look at the end of the wine list for the natural wines section instead of at the preceding pages of overpriced and underaged unnatural wines.
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Tuesday, November 5, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Tuesday, November 5, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Tuesday, November 5, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Fresh Squeezed Opera: 2019 Showcase
MUSIC
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2019
7:30 PM
National Opera Center
330 Seventh Avenue, Chelsea, Manhattan
$10
https://www.freshsqueezedopera.com/2019showcase
If you want to know why I keep saying we're living in a golden age of opera, go to this annual showcase of new chamber operas and see how good (and purely enjoyable) they are. People who are scared of New Classical Music (if any of them still bothers to read this List) should try this, and see how appealing this stuff is — both to listen to and to think about. I've never (knowingly) heard anything by any of the three composers on tonight's bill. I don't care.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: And then you can go around the corner and eat tons of delicious West African food for a pittance from the steam table at B&D Halal Food (NB: their online menu isn't like a tenth of it).
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Tue, Nov 5, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Nov 10, 2019, 4:30 PM
Zawe Ashton: for all the women who thought they were Mad
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5 - 10, 2019 (continuing through NOVEMBER 24)
7:30 PM TUESDAY - SUNDAY
3:00 PM SATURDAY
Soho Rep.
46 Walker Street, Tribeca, Manhattan
$35-$65
https://sohorep.org/for-all-the-women-who-thought-they-were-mad
New York is getting a taste of Zawe Ashton's amazing acting chops in Betrayal; now we can sample her playwrighting as well. If someone this awesomely talented feels herself blocked because she's female, well . . . .
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Frenchette STILL roolz.
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Tue, Nov 5, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sat, Nov 9, 2019, 8:30 PM
Marlene Montero Freitas: Bacchae: Prelude to a Purge
DANCE / THEATER
TUESDAY - SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5 - 9, 2019
7:30 PM
Next Wave Festival
Harvey Theater, BAM Strong
651 Fulton Street, Fort Green, Brooklyn
$28-$60
https://www.bam.org/bacchae
From Lisbon, a rollicking Brazilian-inflected Dadaist reinterpretation of Euripides's jolly play, which ends with a mother delusionally tearing her own son to bits.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: That should put you right in the mood for a cheesesteak: Tony Luke's.
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Tuesday, November 5, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Éliane Radigue: Triloge de la Mort
MUSIC
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2019 (also NOVEMBER 17)
7:00 PM
Éliane Radigue: Intermediate States
Blank Forms
Bartolami, Andrew Kreps, and Kaufman Repetto
55 Walker Street, Tribeca, Manhattan
$25
https://blankforms.org/events/eliane-radigue-trilogie-de-la-mort/
More Éliane Radigue, this time her magnum opus. Triloge de la Mort was composed after her conversion to Tibetan Buddhism, and comprises six sections each representing the six bardos, the intermediate states between life/death and rebirth. You don't have to be Buddhist to love this music, which over its three hours will take you somewhere entirely different from where you started whether you believe in liminal states between death and rebirth or not. It's sold out, so you will be in a liminal state between going and not going until you score a cancellation.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Well, my very favorite restaurant is STILL right nearby . . . .
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Tue, Nov 5, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Nov 10, 2019, 3:00 PM
Barbara Hammond: Terra Firma
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5 - 10, 2019
7:00 PM TUESDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM WEDNESDAY, SATURDAY & SUNDAY
The COOP
Baruch Performing Arts Center
55 Lexington Avenue (entrance on East 25th Street), Rose Hill, Manhattan
$36-$96; $16 students
https://www.thecoopnyc.org/terra-firma
The COOP, a spin-off company from Bedlam,* will further foster that company's stripped-down approach to staging and dedication to entertaining cultural progressivism. This piece portrays the building of a tiny tiny nation-state on an abandoned aircraft platform off Essex.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Charming Korean at Her Name Is Han.
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Tue, Nov 5, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Nov 10, 2019, 8:00 PM
Tina Satter: Is This A Room
THEATER
TUESDAY SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5 - 10, 2019 (continuing through NOVEMBER 24)
7:00 PM TUESDAY - THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Half Straddle
Vineyard Theater
108 East 15th Street, Gramercy, Manhattan
$45-$100
https://www.vineyardtheatre.org/is-this-a-room/
How amazing is it that the Air Force linguist charged with leaking information of Russian interference with the 2016 election is named Reality Winner? You almost have to write a play about her. Tina Satter stages the verbatim transcript of the FBI's incursion into Winner's home and the ensuing interrogation. As anyone who saw this piece at The Kitchen in January will tell you, it's rather chilling.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Speaking for myself, I prefer the light snacks and great sherry list at Bar Jamon to the heavier-than-you'd-ever-see-in-actual-Spain fare at its next-door big brother Casa Mono.
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Tue, Nov 5, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Nov 10, 2019, 4:00 PM
Jeremy O. Harris: Slave Play
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5 - 10, 2019 (continuing through JANUARY 5)
7:00 PM TUESDAY & THURSDAY
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Golden Theater
252 West 45th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$39-$227
https://slaveplaybroadway.com/
Another corrosive play by an African-American playwright treating issues of race in a formally inventive, narratively skewed manner. It's amazing how much great theater has fit that description in the last couple of years — on the whole, the best American theater there's been. It's even more amazing to have something like this playing on Broadway. I'm skeptical of attempts to bring characteristically Downtown/Brooklyn stuff Uptown — but it would be nice for one of those attempts to succeed for once. Go.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Blue Ribbon was once exciting for re-introducing elemental brasserie-style dining to New York — and for staying open late. Now, when you can’t walk down the street without stepping in bone marrow, the menus seem kind of boring — but decently late hours are rarer than ever, even in even the putative Theater District. Perhaps the most exciting thing about the The Ribbon Midtown, though, is the fancy cocktail bar underneath.
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Tue, Nov 5, 2019, 12:00 PM – Sun, Nov 10, 2019, 4:00 PM
Jonas Mekas: Requiem
MUSIC
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5 - 10, 2019
12:00 & 3:00 PM TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY & SUNDAY
12:00, 3:00 & 6:00 PM THURSDAY, FRIDAY & SATURDAY
Level 4 Gallery, The Shed
545 West 30th Street, Hudson Yards, Manhattan
$10; Free age 18 and under; free with concert ticket (see below)
https://theshed.org/program/132-requiem-film-screenings
I don't usually List films — even posthumous works by artists as in sync with this List's esthetic as Jonas Mekas. But this film treatment of Verdi's Requiem complements a can't-be-missed series of concert performances of that work later this month by maniac conductor Teodor Currentzis and his period-instruments orchestra MusicAeterna (indeed, concert tickets include an admission to the film — although you can also buy separate film tickets if you want). Mekas, who died early this year, was a giant of American non-narrative cinema, making films that are personal, reflective, utterly transporting if you go with them. I'm not really sure how or by whom this posthumous piece was assembled, but I can't imagine missing it (or the Currentzis concert, for that matter).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: During the day, Momofuku's Peach Mart, for Korean-inflected sandwiches and snacks. Evenings, Momofuku Kāwi, for nearly (but not quite) straight Korean.
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Monday, November 4, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Mon, Nov 4, 2019, 8:00 PM – Tue, Nov 5, 2019, 9:00 PM
2019 Multichannel Music Festival
MUSIC
MONDAY - TUESDAY & THURSDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 4 - 5 & 7 - 10, 2019
8:00 PM MONDAY
7:00 PM TUESDAY, THURSDAY, FRIDAY & SUNDAY
8:30 PM SATURDAY
Spectrum
70 Flushing Avenue, Garage A, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$15; $10 students/seniors
http://www.spectrumnyc.com/site/calendar.php
Electroacoustic and other musics involving spacial processing.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: American bistro Walter's will be open after all these shows.
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Monday, November 4, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice
OPERA
MONDAY, THURSDAY & SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 7 & 10, 2019
8:00 PM MONDAY & THURSDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$30-$445
https://www.metopera.org/season/2019-20-season/orfeo-ed-euridice/
Gluck's reform opera is genuinely touching (even if he forces on a stupid happy ending) and has at least one really great aria — and Gluck's rather hieratic style is perfect for retelling of timeless myth. Mark Morris's whimsical-but-stark-when-it-needs-to-be production is one of the Met's current best (not the competition is fierce). Bi heroine and rising-star mezzo Jamie Barton assumes the role of Orfeo; fan favorite Hei-Kyong Hong is Euridice.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Best of all, this opera is SHORT; for once you don't have to worry about finding someplace to eat and drink afterward. Let's celebrate by going to Boulud Sud for pan-Mediterranean.
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Monday, November 4, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Éliane Radigue: Vice-Versa, Etc. / Chry-ptus
MUSIC
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019
7:00 PM
Éliane Radigue: Intermediate States
Blank Forms
Bartolami, Andrew Kreps, and Kaufman Repetto
55 Walker Street, Tribeca, Manhattan
$25
https://blankforms.org/events/eliane-radigue-vice-versa-etc-and-chry-ptus/
The start of an ongoing retrospective of the music of French electronic composer Éliane Radigue (performed by the composer) that will continue into next year (so don't worry that this show is sold out). Radigué studied with the French inventors of electronic music; eventually she converted to Tibetan Buddhism, which added another layer to her work. This recitals features the last piece Radigue wrote before she switched from feedback-based music to synthesizer as the '60s turned to the '70s, and the first piece she then wrote for synthesizer. Radigue's work is endlessly fascinating — and surprisingly listenable to the unitiated. You really ought to try to see at least one of the shows in this series.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Well, my very favorite restaurant is right nearby . . . .
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Monday, November 4, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Mac Wellman: The Sandalwood Box / The Fez
THEATER
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019
7:00 PM
The Flea Theater
20 Thomas Street, Tribeca, Manhattan
$37-$102
http://theflea.org/shows/the-sandalwood-box-the-fez/
A double bill of new plays by Mac Wellman. The Sandalwood Box deals, if not with the end of the world, with catastrophes that could lead up to it. The Fez is the first production of a play that has heretofore only appeared on a tee shirt. It is a scream.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Odeon, for old times' sake.
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Monday, November 4, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Mon, Nov 4, 2019, 12:00 PM – Sun, Nov 10, 2019, 8:00 PM
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Sunday, November 3, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Sat, Nov 2, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Nov 3, 2019, 9:00 PM
Radiohole: Now Serving: A Guide to Aesthetic Etiquette in Four Courses
PERFORMANCE
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2 & 3, 2019 (continuing through NOVEMBER 16)
8:00 PM SATURDAY
7:00 PM SUNDAY
The Collapsable Hole
155 Bank Street, West Village, Manhattan
$25-$50
http://radiohole.com/
The theatrical madmen and women of Radiohole revive their epic send-up of a panoply of things, starting and staying with 1950s dinner-party etiquette but not stopping there. I strongly recommend you spring for a seat at the dinner table so you can participate in the dinner party rather than watch it from the gallery. Prepare, however, to get mussed. I'm still assuming (hoping?) (praying?) the purported vaginal yeast baked goods aren't really made that way.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Even if you sit at the table and eat their food, you'll still be hungry (if slightly revolted) afterward. You can avail yourself of one of the great unacknowledged facts of New York City dining: Austrian charmer Wallsé is still very good.
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Sat, Nov 2, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Nov 3, 2019, 8:00 PM
2019 Multichannel Music Festival
MUSIC
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2 & 3, 2019 (continuing through NOVEMBER 8)
7:00 PM
Spectrum
70 Flushing Avenue, Garage A, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$15; $10 students/seniors
http://www.spectrumnyc.com/site/calendar.php
Electroacoustic and other musics involving spacial processing.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Since this involves a Sunday night, obviously I'm going to pull out Sunday Night Special Vinegar Hill House.
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Sat, Nov 2, 2019, 5:00 PM – Sun, Nov 3, 2019, 8:00 PM
Samson Young: The Immortals
PERFORMANCE
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2 & 3, 2019
5:00 - 8:00 PM SATURDAY
4:00 - 7:00 PM SUNDAY
Performa 19
Castle Williams, Governors Island, Manhattan
$45; $25 students
http://performa19.org/tickets/the-eight-immortals
Hong Kong's Samson Young started out as a composer but moved on to (fascinating) multimedia pieces. Here, he turns the Chinese Tao myth of The Eight Immortals — eight godlike entities, each with its own power represented by a special tool (sounds like a Marvel movie!) — into a latent critique of the schizophrenic role of artists in a Capitalist society. Expect spectacle, though — and intriguing performances by the electric (in more ways than one) guitar quartet Dither, a Cantonese opera singer, and a jazz singer.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Governors Island is closed for the season; the start times listed above are the times special ferries leave Manhattan for the shows (and the end times are the times the return ferries depart). Afterward, stop for cocktails and snacks at Momofuku's Bar Wayō near the Manhattan ferry landing.
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Saturday, November 2, 2019, 12:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Yu Cheng-Ta: Fameme
PERFORMANCE
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2019 (continuing through NOVEMBER 24)
12:00 - 3:00 PM
Performa 19
Wallplay 321 Canal
321 Canal Street, Soho, Manhattan
Free
http://performa19.org/tickets/fameme
Taiwanese media artist Yu Cheng-Ta explores the cultural phenomena of social media influencers and food trends by tracing, through live and video performances, the attempts of a fictional Taiwanese farmer to promote durian in New York (good luck!).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: How nice that the tres lovely all-day café La Mercerie is right around the corner. To my taste, their Crêpe Complète is one of the best dishes in New York.
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Saturday, November 2, 2019, 5:50 AM – 6:25 AM
Shu Lea Cheang: Sleep 1237
PERFORMANCE
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2019
5:50 PM - 6:25 AM SUNDAY
The Hub
47 Wooster Street, Soho, Manhattan
Free
http://performa19.org/tickets/sleep1237
A consortium of New York cultural figures reads the audience to sleep overnight. Anything that ends with my waking up at 6:25 in the morning in Manhattan on a Sunday is inherently unappealing — but that's just me.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It seems to me that the Mediterranean food at the charming Antique Garage is just the right weight for before going to sleep in public. At 6:30 in the morning in Soho on Sunday, I'm afraid you're on your own. It's been decades since I've known where the after-after-hours spots are.
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Fri, Nov 1, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Nov 3, 2019, 4:00 PM
Tina Satter: Is This A Room
THEATER
TUESDAY - WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY, OCTOBER 29 - 30 & NOVEMBER 1-3 2019 (continuing through NOVEMBER 10)
7:00 PM WEDNESDAY - THURSDAY & SUNDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Half Straddle
Vineyard Theater
108 East 15th Street, Gramercy, Manhattan
$45-$100
https://www.vineyardtheatre.org/is-this-a-room/
How amazing is it that the Air Force linguist charged with leaking information of Russian interference with the 2016 election is named Reality Winner? You almost have to write a play about her. Tina Satter stages the verbatim transcript of the FBI's incursion into Winner's home and the ensuing interrogation. As anyone who saw this piece at The Kitchen in January will tell you, it's rather chilling.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Speaking for myself, I prefer the light snacks and great sherry list at Bar Jamon to the heavier-than-you'd-ever-see-in-actual-Spain fare at its next-door big brother Casa Mono.
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Friday, November 1, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
JIJI
MUSIC
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2019
8:00 PM
92nd Street Y
1395 Lexington Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$25
https://www.92y.org/event/jiji-guitar
Rising-star classical guitarist JIJI really is all that. Here she plays a little bit of Old Music and a whole lot of New Music — including a brand-new piece by Molly Joyce, a composer who encapsulates Indie Classical's incorporation of pop textures, which you can only be intensely curious to hear.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: South African food and wine at Kaia Wine Bar.
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Friday, November 1, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice
OPERA
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 1, 2019 (continuing through NOVEMBER 10)
8:00 PM
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$30-$445
https://www.metopera.org/season/2019-20-season/orfeo-ed-euridice/
Gluck's reform opera is genuinely touching (even if he forces on a stupid happy ending) and has at least one really great aria — and Gluck's rather hieratic style is perfect for retelling of timeless myth. Mark Morris's whimsical-but-stark-when-it-needs-to-be production is one of the Met's current best (not the competition is fierce). Bi heroine and rising-star mezzo Jamie Barton assumes the role of Orfeo; fan favorite Hei-Kyong Hong is Euridice.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Best of all, this opera is SHORT; for once you don't have to worry about finding someplace to eat and drink afterward. Let's celebrate by going to Boulud Sud for pan-Mediterranean.
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Fri, Nov 1, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Nov 2, 2019, 9:00 PM
ECM at 50
MUSIC
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1 & 2, 2019
8:00 PM
Jazz at Lincoln Center
Rose Theater
10 Columbus Circle, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$40-$105
https://www.jazz.org/events/t-9056/ECM-Records-at-50/
I used to think the German ECM label's jazz recordings were too prissy, too pristine — but then I grew up. There's nothing wrong with meticulousness, if it's combined with chops, imagination, and a disinclination to recognize genre boundaries. The fact that these "jazz" concerts feature Meredith Monk is one sign of how far-ranging ECM's vision is (and how high the quality of its artists). It's almost wrong to give a partial listing of the participants in these concerts, because just about everyone is so awesome. But how about Joe Lovano, Wadada Leo Smith, Vijay Iyer, Bill Frisell, and Craig Taborn for starters?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Momofuku Noodle Bar, if you hurry.
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Fri, Nov 1, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Nov 2, 2019, 9:00 PM
-
Friday, November 1, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Friday, November 1, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Friday, November 1, 2019, 6:00 PM – 8:30 PM
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Fri, Nov 1, 2019, 5:00 PM – Sat, Nov 2, 2019, 5:00 PM
Onyx Collective
MUSIC
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1 & 2, 2019
5:00 & 7:00 PM FRIDAY
2:00 & 4:00 PM SATURDAY
Jazz on a High Floor in the Afternoon
Whitney Museum of American Art
99 Gansevoort Street, Meatpacking District, Manhattan
$25; $18 students/seniors/disabled; Friday night pay what you wish
https://whitney.org/events/onyx-collective
Onyx Collective — which sometimes seems to include anyone on the Lower East Side who can play an instrument, dance a step, or wield a brush — plays New York Jazz as that term can be understood in 2019. You never know what to expect from their shows (or who, for that matter) (or even where — but that seems pretty set this weekend, at least). But you can bet it will be fun.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Argentine fantasia on pan-Jewish food at the Mishiguene residency at Intersect by Lexus.
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Fri, Nov 1, 2019, 12:00 PM – Sun, Nov 3, 2019, 9:00 PM
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Fri, Nov 1, 2019, 12:00 PM – Sun, Nov 3, 2019, 4:00 PM
Jonas Mekas: Requiem
MUSIC
FRIDAY - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 1 - 3, 2019 (continuing through NOVEMBER 10)
12:00, 3:00 & 6:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
12:00 & 3:00 PM SUNDAY
Level 4 Gallery, The Shed
545 West 30th Street, Hudson Yards, Manhattan
$10; Free age 18 and under; free with concert ticket (see below)
https://theshed.org/program/132-requiem-film-screenings
I don't usually List films — even posthumous works by artists as in sync with this List's esthetic as Jonas Mekas. But this film treatment of Verdi's Requiem complements a can't-miss series of concert performances of that work later this month by maniac conductor Teodor Currentzis and his period-instruments orchestra MusicAeterna (indeed, concert tickets include an admission to the film — although you can also buy separate film tickets if you want). Mekas, who died early this year, was a giant of American non-narrative cinema, making films that are personal, reflective, utterly transporting if you go with them. I'm not really sure how or by whom this posthumous piece was assembled, but I can't imagine missing it (or the Currentzis concert, for that matter).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: During the day, Momofuku's Peach Mart, for Korean-inflected sandwiches and snacks. Evenings, Momofuku Kāwi, for nearly (but not quite) straight Korean.
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Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Nov 3, 2019, 4:00 PM
Mac Wellman: The Sandalwood Box / The Fez
THEATER
MONDAY & THURSDAY - SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28 & OCTOBER 31 - NOVEMBER 3, 2019 (continuing through NOVEMBER 4)
7:00 PM MONDAY & THURSDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
The Flea Theater
20 Thomas Street, Tribeca, Manhattan
$37-$102
http://theflea.org/shows/the-sandalwood-box-the-fez/
A double bill of new plays by Mac Wellman. The Sandalwood Box deals, if not with the end of the world, with catastrophes that could lead up to it. The Fez is the first production of a play that has heretofore only appeared on a tee shirt.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Odeon, for old times' sake.
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Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Nov 3, 2019, 4:00 PM
Ben Kidde & Bush Mukarzel: Hamnet
THEATER
WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, OCTOBER 30 - NOVEMBER 3, 2019
7:30 PM WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Dead Centre
Next Wave Festival
BAM Fisher
321 Ashland Place, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$25
https://www.bam.org/hamnet
This Irish play takes off on Hamnet, Shakespeare's only son, who died at age 11, and about whom virtually nothing is known. The catch is, these guys have to do it better than Neil Gaiman.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: This will end early enough to give you time to get to the marvelous Persian restaurant Sofreh — if you can snag a table.
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Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 8:30 PM – Sat, Nov 2, 2019, 9:30 PM
The Stone Residencies: Trevor Dunn
MUSIC
TUESDAY - SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29 - NOVEMBER 2, 2019
8:30 PM
Glass Box Theater, The New School
55 West 13th Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$20
http://www.thestonenyc.com/calendar.php
http://www.thestonenyc.com/calendar.php?month=1
Bassist Trevor Dunn started out playing avant-rock and then went outward from there. Any of these nights is worth your attention.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Victoria Blamey's revivification of the Gotham Bar & Grill remains the place to eat around here. I continue to prefer the bar menu to the dining room menu — and also continue to urge you look at the end of the wine list for the natural wines section instead of at the preceding pages of overpriced and underaged unnatural wines.
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Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Nov 3, 2019, 3:00 PM
Barbara Hammond: Terra Firma
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, OCTOBER 29 - NOVEMBER 3, 2019 (continuing through NOVEMBER 10)
8:00 PM TUESDAY
7:00 PM WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM WEDNESDAY, SATURDAY & SUNDAY
The COOP
Baruch Performing Arts Center
55 Lexington Avenue (entrance on East 25th Street), Rose Hill, Manhattan
$36-$96; $16 students
https://www.thecoopnyc.org/terra-firma
The COOP, a spin-off company from Bedlam, will further foster that company's stripped-down approach to staging and dedication to entertaining cultural progressivism. This piece portrays the building of a tiny tiny nation-state on an abandoned aircraft platform off Essex.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Charming Korean at Her Name Is Han.
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Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Nov 3, 2019, 2:00 PM
Desi Moreno-Penson: Ominous Men
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, OCTOBER 29 - NOVEMBER 3, 2019
7:30 PM TUESDAY - SATURDAY
1:00 PM SUNDAY
MultiStages
14th Street Y
344 East 14th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$35-$45; $15 students/seniors
https://14streety.secure.force.com/ticket/#details_a0S1R000009gYRPUA2
Race, class, and the toxic masculinity inequality engenders explored by means of Dark Gothic and Magical Realism — in the basement of a derilect abandoned Grand Concourse hotel in 1977!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hearty Albanian Dua Kafe is ready for its closeup.
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Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 7:30 AM – Sun, Nov 3, 2019, 8:30 AM
Zawe Ashton: for all the women who thought they were Mad
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, OCTOBER 29 - NOVEMBER 3, 2019 (continuing through NOVEMBER 24)
7:30 PM TUESDAY - SUNDAY
3:00 PM SATURDAY
Soho Rep.
46 Walker Street, Tribeca, Manhattan
$35-$65
https://sohorep.org/for-all-the-women-who-thought-they-were-mad
New York is getting a taste of Zawe Ashton's amazing acting chops in Betrayal; now we can sample her playwrighting as well. If someone this awesomely talented feels herself blocked because she's female, well . . . .
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Frenchette STILL roolz.
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Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Nov 3, 2019, 4:00 PM
Jeremy O. Harris: Slave Play
THEATER
MONDAY - WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28 - 30 & NOVEMBER 1 - 3, 2019 (continuing through JANUARY 5)
7:00 PM MONDAY & TUESDAY
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Golden Theater
252 West 45th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$39-$227
https://slaveplaybroadway.com/
Another corrosive play by an African-American playwright treating issues of race in a formally inventive, narratively skewed manner. It's amazing how much great theater has fit that description in the last couple of years — on the whole, the best American theater there's been. It's even more amazing to have something like this playing on Broadway. I'm skeptical of attempts to bring characteristically Downtown/Brooklyn stuff Uptown — but it would be nice for one of those attempts to succeed for once. Go.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Blue Ribbon was once exciting for re-introducing elemental brasserie-style dining to New York — and for staying open late. Now, when you can’t walk down the street without stepping in bone marrow, the menus seem kind of boring — but decently late hours are rarer than ever, even in even the putative Theater District. Perhaps the most exciting thing about the The Ribbon Midtown, though, is the fancy cocktail bar underneath.
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Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Nov 3, 2019, 8:00 PM
Kristen Kosmas & Leon Finley: The People's Republic of Valerie, Living Room Edition
THEATER
MONDAY - SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28 - NOVEMBER 3, 2019
TIME DISCLOSED UPON TICKETING
Location disclosed upon ticketing
Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$20
https://chocolatefactorytheater.org/kristen-kosmas-leon-finley/
Seattle multidisciplinary artists/theater-makers Kristen Kosmas and Leon Finley explore the horrible political state of the world in a Fort Greene living room. It's sold out — even in Fort Greene, living rooms have limited seating — but watch for cancellations and last-minute availability.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The good-time jolt of Modern Israeli Miss Ada might be just what you need.
