-
Tuesday, December 31, 2019, 9:30 PM – 10:30 PM
Priests
MUSIC
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2019
9:30 PM
Rough Trade
64 North 9th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$25 advance; $30 day of show
https://www.roughtrade.com/events/rough-trade-nyc-priests
This punk-into-post-punk band has great songs, great playing, great politics. And they made one of the better pop-music albums of 2019.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: After the show, I'd advise running home and hiding. Before, Xi'an Town (does anyone in New York still need to be told what Xian food is?) should be safe.
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Tuesday, December 31, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Monday, December 30, 2019, 9:00 PM – 9:30 PM
Tom Rainey Trio feat. Ingrid Laubrock & Mary Halovorson
MUSIC
MONDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2019
9:00 PM
LunÀtico
486 Halsey Street, Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn
$10 suggested donation
https://www.barlunatico.com/calendar/2019/12/30/tom-rainey-trio-wmary-halvorson-amp-ingrid-laubrock
Tom Rainey is really one of the best drummers in jazz: he always hits the right beats, but gets to them in interesting and unexpected ways. And wouldn't you know it, he's married to a similarly imaginative and accomplished saxophonist, Ingrid Laubrock. Add guitarist Mary Halvorson, one of the ablest and most consistently intriguing musicians now playing in any genre, and you have a jazz trio of the very first rank. Expect music that doesn't usually go where you think it will.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The convenient play would be to grab some food (and certainly some drink) here at LunÀtico. But for the solid component of your comestion, you might prefer to stop in at Saraghina for some very good pizza or some tapas before the show.
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Monday, December 30, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Jeremy O. Harris: Slave Play
THEATER
MONDAY & WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2019 & JANUARY 2 - 5, 2020 (continuing through JANUARY 19)
8:00 PM MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY & SATURDAY
7:00 PM THURSDAY & SUNDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & 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 (not to mention our old friends sex and gender — but in relation to 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 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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Monday, December 30, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Bernstein: West Side Story
THEATER
MONDAY & THURSDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2019 & JANUARY 2 - 5, 2020 (indefinite run currently scheduled through SEPTEMBER 6, 2020)
8:00 PM MONDAY & THURSDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM THURSDAY, SATURDAY & SUNDAY
7:00 PM SUNDAY
Broadway Theater
1681 Broadway, Midtown, Manhattan
$39-$229
https://westsidestorybway.com/
When the world's leading avant-garde theater director, Ivo van Hove, teams up with the world's leading avant-garde choreographer, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, for a Broadway production of West Side Story, there are only two possible (and mutually consistent) responses: what the fuck?????????????, and "I need to see this!"
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Russian Samovar: more fun that a barrel full of matryoskas.
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Monday, December 30, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
David Byrne: American Utopia
MUSIC / DANCE / THEATER
MONDAY & WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2019 & JANUARY 1 - 5, 2020 (continuing through FEBRUARY 16)
8:00 PM MONDAY & 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 Sarah Krasnow, James Ilgenfritz, and Angelica Olstad for $10? 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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Monday, December 30, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Horváth / Christopher Shinn: Judgment Day
THEATER
MONDAY & THURSDAY - SATURDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2019 & JANUARY 2 - 4, 2020 (continuing through JANUARY 10)
7:30 PM MONDAY & THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
Wade Thompson Drill Hall, Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$55-$195
http://www.armoryonpark.org/programs_events/detail/judgment_day
Ödön von Horváth is one of those endlessly sardonic Central European writers from between the two World Wars whose works are so completely compelling. This play, his last (in an irony right out of one of his writings, having fled the Nazis, he died in Paris in a freak accident when struck by a falling tree branch during a thunderstorm) — adapted by Christopher Shinn — explores moral and social issues centering on guilt in the context of a sort of thriller. It's set in a train station, and you can bet director Richard Jones — he did the spectacular Hairy Ape here a few years ago — will make apt use of the cavernous Drill Hall in recreating that space.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: '50s throwback Donahue's Steak House really is the most entertaining place to eat around here.
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Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 7:00 PM – Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 8:00 PM
Steven Adly Guirgis: Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven
THEATER
MONDAY - TUESDAY & THURSDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 30 - 31, 2019 & JANUARY 2 - 5, 2020
7:00 PM MONDAY
7:30 PM THURSDAY & FRIDAY
8:00 PM SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Atlantic Theater Company / LAByrinth Theater
Linda Gross Theater
366 West 20th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$61.50-$101.50
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, December 30, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
30-30-30
DANCE
MONDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2019
7:00 PM
Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$30
http://dixonplace.org/performances/30-30-30-2019/
Dixon Place's annual dance half-marathon, where 30 local companies each presents a piece of 3 minutes' duration. A good chance to catch up with the local dance scene.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It just feels like a good time for hot pot, right? Zhen Wei Fang.
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Monday, December 30, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
-
Saturday, December 28, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Fri, Dec 27, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Dec 28, 2019, 9:00 PM
-
Friday, December 27, 2019, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
-
Thu, Dec 26, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 29, 2019, 9:00 PM
Arthur Miller: The Crucible
THEATER
MONDAY & THURSDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 23 & 26 - 29, 2019
8:00 PM MONDAY & THURSDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Bedlam
The Connelly Theater
220 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$10-$115https://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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Thu, Dec 26, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 29, 2019, 9:00 PM
David Byrne: American Utopia
THEATER
MONDAY & THURSDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 23 & 26 - 29, 2019 (continuing through FEBRUARY 16)
8:00 PM MONDAY & THURSDAY - FRIDAY
5:30 & 9:00 PM SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Hudson Theatre
141 West 44th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$86-$449https://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 Frank London and Deep Singh for $18? 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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Thu, Dec 26, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Dec 29, 2019, 9:00 PM
Horváth / Christopher Shinn: Judgment Day
THEATER
MONDAY & THURSDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 23 & 26 - 29, 2019 (continuing through JANUARY 10)
7:30 PM MONDAY & THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
7:00 PM SUNDAY
Wade Thompson Drill Hall, Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$55-$195http://www.armoryonpark.org/programs_events/detail/judgment_day
Ödön von Horváth is one of those endlessly sardonic Central European writers from between the two World Wars whose works are so completely compelling. This play, his last (in an irony right out of one of his writings, having fled the Nazis, he died in Paris in a freak accident when struck by a falling tree branch during a thunderstorm) — adapted by Christopher Shinn — explores moral and social issues centering on guilt in the context of a sort of thriller. It's set in a train station, and you can bet director Richard Jones — he did the spectacular Hairy Ape here a few years ago — will make apt use of the cavernous Drill Hall in recreating that space.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: '50s throwback Donahue's Steak House really is the most entertaining place to eat around here.
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Thursday, December 26, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
-
Thu, Dec 26, 2019, 12:00 PM – Sun, Dec 29, 2019, 6:00 PM
Cirque Mechanics: 42FT
PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 26 - 29, 2019 (continuing through JANUARY 5)
12:00 & 5:00 PM THURSDAY, FRIDAY & SUNDAY
2:00 & 7:00 PM SATURDAY
The New Victory Theater
209 West 42nd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$22-$69
https://tickets.newvictory.org/single/PSDetail.aspx?psn=10030#Order
Why does this Nouvelle Cirque show look so inviting when most of the genre is totally played out? Because these guys don't look like they take it with even a smidgen of seriousness — or slickness, either.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Go to Los Tacos No. 1 around the block. You won't be sorry.
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Wed, Dec 25, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 29, 2019, 9:00 PM
Jeremy O. Harris: Slave Play
THEATER
MONDAY & WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 23 & 25 - 29, 2019 (continuing through JANUARY 5)
8:00 PM MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY & SATURDAY
7:00 PM THURSDAY & SUNDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Golden Theater
252 West 45th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$39-$227https://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 the putative Theater District. Perhaps the most exciting thing about the The Ribbon Midtown, though, is the fancy cocktail bar underneath. On Wednesday, China Xiang. Duh.
-
Tuesday, December 24, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
-
Tuesday, December 24, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
-
Monday, December 23, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
David Byrne: American Utopia
THEATER
MONDAY & THURSDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 23 & 26 - 29, 2019 (continuing through FEBRUARY 16)
8:00 PM MONDAY & THURSDAY - FRIDAY
5:30 & 9:00 PM SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Hudson Theatre
141 West 44th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$86-$449https://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 Frank London and Deep Singh for $18? 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.
-
Monday, December 23, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Jeremy O. Harris: Slave Play
THEATER
MONDAY & WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 23 & 25 - 29, 2019 (continuing through JANUARY 5)
8:00 PM MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY & SATURDAY
7:00 PM THURSDAY & SUNDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Golden Theater
252 West 45th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$39-$227https://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 the putative Theater District. Perhaps the most exciting thing about the The Ribbon Midtown, though, is the fancy cocktail bar underneath. On Wednesday, China Xiang. Duh.
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Monday, December 23, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Jeff Rosenstock: Night 4
MUSIC
MONDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2019
8:00 PM
Trans-Pecos
915 Wyckoff Avenue, Ridgewood, Queens
Donation discretionary
https://www.thetranspecos.com/cal/2019/12/23/jeff-rosenstock-at-trans-pecos-night-4
Jeff Rosenstock isn't so much post-Punk as after Punk. If you like that kind of music, you owe his spin on it a listen. This is the final night of a four-night residency, each a benefit for a different worthy organization (tonight it's Black Lives Matter). You go to the venue at 6 PM, make a donation, and get a wristband for subsequent entry — but there are only 200 wristbands per show.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Between buying your wristband and showtime, stroll over to Porcelain for gorgeous Austro-German café food and excellent wine.
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Monday, December 23, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Arthur Miller: The Crucible
THEATER
MONDAY & THURSDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 23 & 26 - 29, 2019
8:00 PM MONDAY & THURSDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Bedlam
The Connelly Theater
220 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$10-$115https://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.
-
Monday, December 23, 2019, 7:30 PM – 9:00 PM
Horváth / Christopher Shinn: Judgment Day
THEATER
MONDAY & THURSDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 23 & 26 - 29, 2019 (continuing through JANUARY 10)
7:30 PM MONDAY & THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
7:00 PM SUNDAY
Wade Thompson Drill Hall, Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$55-$195http://www.armoryonpark.org/programs_events/detail/judgment_day
Ödön von Horváth is one of those endlessly sardonic Central European writers from between the two World Wars whose works are so completely compelling. This play, his last (in an irony right out of one of his writings, having fled the Nazis, he died in Paris in a freak accident when struck by a falling tree branch during a thunderstorm) — adapted by Christopher Shinn — explores moral and social issues centering on guilt in the context of a sort of thriller. It's set in a train station, and you can bet director Richard Jones — he did the spectacular Hairy Ape here a few years ago — will make apt use of the cavernous Drill Hall in recreating that space.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: '50s throwback Donahue's Steak House really is the most entertaining place to eat around here.
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Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Dec 29, 2019, 8:30 PM
Yo La Tengo: The 8 Nights of Hannukah
MUSIC
MONDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 23 - 29, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 29)
7:30 PM
Bowery Ballroom
6 Delancey Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$50http://www.mercuryeastpresents.com/boweryballroom
Interesting how things shake out: it's now clear that modest indies Yo La Tengo, of all people, with their distinctive if not unique blend of melodic songcraft and noise, are one of the great White Rock Guitar Bands. We also now know that Hoboken has become too boojie for the band's annual eight-night Hannukah party, which has migrated to a regrettably mainstream venue on the Lower East Side. Nobody's going to prefer this to Maxwell's — but you've got to take what you can get. Expect special guests, etc.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Congee Village. Duh.
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Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Dec 29, 2019, 8:00 PM
Steven Adly Guirgis: Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven
THEATER
MONDAY & THURSDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 17 - 22, 2019 (continuing through JANUARY 5)
7:00 PM MONDAY
7:30 PM THURSDAY, FRIDAY & SUNDAY
8:00 PM SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Atlantic Theater Company / LAByrinth Theater
Linda Gross Theater
366 West 20th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$61.50-$101.50https://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).
-
Sunday, December 22, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Yo La Tengo: The 8 Nights of Hannukah
MUSIC
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 29)
7:30 PM
Bowery Ballroom
6 Delancey Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$50http://www.mercuryeastpresents.com/boweryballroom
Interesting how things shake out: it's now clear that modest indies Yo La Tengo, of all people, with their distinctive if not unique blend of melodic songcraft and noise, are one of the great White Rock Guitar Bands. We also now know that Hoboken has become too boojie for the band's annual eight-night Hannukah party, which has migrated to a regrettably mainstream venue on the Lower East Side. Nobody's going to prefer this to Maxwell's — but you've got to take what you can get. Expect special guests, etc.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Keeping up the Jewish theme, Congee Village should be open after these shows finish, and even open the day of next Wednesday's show.
-
Sunday, December 22, 2019, 6:30 PM – 7:30 PM
The Eyes of Chile
MUSIC
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2019
6:30 PM
Jazz Gallery
1160 Broadway, NoMad, Manhattan
$25-$35http://jazzgallery.nyc/shows/
It's interesting that three of the best jazz bandleaders in New York right now are Chilean — and they're all women. This evening, saxophonist Melissa Aldana, vocalist Claudia Acuña, and vocalist/guitarist Camila Meza will each lead their combos in a fundraiser for an organization aiding Chileans who have suffered severe eye injury at the hands of the police during mass protests.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Atoboy's Korean food is just terrific.
-
Sunday, December 22, 2019, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Blue Heron: Christmas in Baroque Germany: Praetorius, Scheidt, Schein
MUSIC
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2019
4:00 PM
Music Before 1800
Corpus Christi Catholic Church
529 West 121st Street, Morningside Heights, Manhattan
$10-$55https://mb1800.org/concert/blue-heron-4/
This stuff is some of the best Christmas music ever written (I'm mean, who's gonna nail Christmas if not the German Baroque?). And Blue Heron is as splendid an Early Music vocal ensemble as you could hope to hear (even if this music is a little late for them). God bless us everyone!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Nothing says "Christmas" like the hearty cumin-scented food of Northwestern China: Dun Huang Upper West.
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Saturday, December 21, 2019, 10:00 PM – 11:00 PM
Aurora Halal / Umfang / Auspex
MUSIC
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2019
10:00 PM DOORS
Basement
52-19 Flushing Avenue, Maspeth, Queens
$10-$20https://basementny.net/event/aurora-halal-auspex-fadeface/
A really good night at Basement. Aurora Halal is one of my very fave DJs in New York, with a relaxed (except when it isn't) spaced-out style that takes you on a journey that actually merits the overused term "psychedelic". The others on the bill are also really good.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Before the show, Vietnamese with a DJ at Bunker.
-
Saturday, December 21, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
-
Saturday, December 21, 2019, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Phil Niblock: 6 Hours of Music and Film
MUSIC
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2019
6:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$18 advance; $25 doorhttps://roulette.org/event/phill-niblock-6-hours-of-music-and-film-4/
Phil Niblock's annual six-hour solstice music-film-and-video extravaganza (if you can call something based on proto-Minimalist drones an extravaganza).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Clover Club is a bit of a trek. But not only are the cocktails non pareil, but the kitchen will still be operating after this show.
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Saturday, December 21, 2019, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Kayleigh Butcher / Adam Marks / Adam Tendler: A Very George Crumb Christmas 2
MUSIC
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2019
5:00 PM
Areté Venue & Gallery
67 West Street #103, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
$10https://www.aretevenue.com/events
Lest you think they're just joking, this all-Crumb recital includes an actual Christmas piece. Truly excellent performers playing music by one of the great outliers of late-20th Century modernism (not that he hasn't kept writing into this decade), whose fascinating, surprising, welcoming music exhibits exactly none of the tendencies that people who think they don't like late-20th Century modernism try to avoid (or maybe it's just that he makes those tendencies sound inviting!).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Fresh Vietnamese in fresh surroundings at the delightful Di An Di.
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Saturday, December 21, 2019, 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Saint-Saëns: The Carnival of the Animals
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2019
1:00 PM & 4:00 PM
Miller Theater at Columbia University
2960 Broadway, Morningside Heights, Manhattan
$15-$30; $13-$25 seniors; $9-$18 students and under age 25
https://www.millertheatre.com/events/carnival-of-the-animals-12-21-2019-1pm
What, you may ask, is Saint-Saëns's (concededly delightful) (and French!) warhorse doing on this List? Well, how about a puppet production directed by the excellent Lake Simons? With music direction by the invaluable Laura Barger (of Yarn/Wire), leading a squad of faves from the NYC alt classical scene? Also, the piece is delightful — and French!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Well, day. I can't imagine anything nicer, either before or after, than the Hungarian Pastry Shop.
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Saturday, December 21, 2019, 12:30 PM – 4:30 PM
David Lang: The Little Match Girl Passion
MUSIC
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2019
12:30 & 3:30 PM
The Crossing
The Cloisters
99 Margaret Corbin Drive, Fort Tryon Park, Manhattan
$65; $1 accompanying children aged 6-16
https://rsecure.metmuseum.org/event/ticket/514899
The Little Match Girl Passion is the great choral work that was the breakout piece that transformed David Lang from a very good composer to one of the greats of his (OK, his and my) generation. It sounds at least as wonderful now — haunting, moving, seemingly spare but not really — as it did when it blew everybody away more than a decade ago. The Crossing choir will do it full justice.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I am such a happy subject of Elsa la Reina del Chicharron (Broadway & Academy Street branch) that I can't dream of sending you elsewhere.
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Fri, Dec 20, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 9:00 PM
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Fri, Dec 20, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Dec 22, 2019, 4:30 PM
Handel: Messiah
MUSIC
FRIDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 20 - 22, 2019
7:30 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
The Choir of Trinity Wall Street & Trinity Baroque Orchestra
St. Paul's Chapel
209 Broadway, FiDi, Manhattan
$25-$100https://www.trinitywallstreet.org/music-arts/2019-2020/messiah
Everyone agrees that Trinity at St. Paul's is the best Christmas Messiah in New York. So widespread is this agreement that these shows are long sold out. And, without spoiling the ending of the piece, it suggests that even if anything happens to any ticketholders, you can't count on their staying dead.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It's been a long time since FiDi had one of the best restaurants in New York, but now there's Crown Shy.
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Fri, Dec 20, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Dec 22, 2019, 6:00 PM
Cirque Mechanics: 42FT
PERFORMANCE
FRIDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 20 - 22, 2019 (continuing through JANUARY 5)
7:00 PM FRIDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
12:00 & 5:00 PM SUNDAY
The New Victory Theater
209 West 42nd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$22-$69
https://tickets.newvictory.org/single/PSDetail.aspx?psn=10030#Order
Why does this Nouvelle Cirque show look so inviting when most of the genre is totally played out? Because these guys don't look like they take it with even a smidgen of seriousness — or slickness, either.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Go to Los Tacos No. 1 around the block. You won't be sorry.
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Friday, December 20, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
-
Friday, December 20, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Brandon Lopez Presents
MUSIC
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2019
7:00 PM
Spectrum
70 Flushing Avenue, Garage A, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$15; $10 students/seniors
http://www.spectrumnyc.com/site/calendar.php
No info yet on who Brandon Lopez will be presenting, but one can trust in this sterling jazz+ bassist/composer's taste.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: American bistro done just about perfectly at Walter's.
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Friday, December 20, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Fri, Dec 20, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 8:00 PM
Terry Riley: Live at 85
MUSIC
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, DECEMBER 20 & 21, 2019
7:00 PM
Pioneer Works
159 Pioneer Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn
$35 single night advance; $40 single night day of show; $50 both nights advance; $60 both nights day of showhttps://pioneerworks.org/programs/terry-riley-live-at-85/
The father of West Coast Minimalism in a two-night stand. The expansive Friday night program includes, among many other things, a set by Riley with John Zorn. The Saturday program includes an all-star interpretation of Your Compiler's personal favorite Riley composition, A Rainbow in Curved Air.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The cocktails at Fort Defiance will be superb regardless, but for solid food I only hope you can get there before the kitchen closes.
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Thursday, December 19, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Thursday, December 19, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Thursday, December 19, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Thursday, December 19, 2019, 5:30 PM – 6:30 PM
Britten: A Ceremony of Carols
MUSIC
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2019
5:30
The Boys of the Saint Thomas Choir & Sarah Cutler
Saint Thomas Church
1 West 53rd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$20-$40https://www.saintthomaschurch.org/event/a-ceremony-of-carols/
You really ought to hear Britten's A Ceremony of Carols every Christmas season. It has all the characteristics that make Britten so compelling: the constant harmonic surprises within the tonality he adheres to, the little touches that are always perfect to what he's trying to convey, the almost fanatical (in an understated British way) desire to communicate while being constantly inventive and original. All that and: Christmas! While The Boys of the Saint Thomas Choir aren't quite the OG Thomanerchor, they're splendid indeed. Making the program even more appealing, Sarah Cutler, the harpist in the Britten, is showcased in a piece I'll bet you've never heard that I'll bet you'll absolutely love: Granjany's gorgeous Aria in Classical Style (also showcased will be Saint Thomas's magnificent new organ). With that and other appealing stuff, we can forgive them Sleigh Ride (if it's not by the Ronettes, I don't want it).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Can't do better around there than The Bar Room at The Modern.
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Wednesday, December 18, 2019, 8:30 PM – 9:30 PM
Annual End of the Year Improv Night
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2019
8:30 PM
The Stone at the New School
Glass Box Theater, The New School
55 West 13th Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$30http://www.thestonenyc.com/calendar.php
John Zorn leads just about every improvising musician on the New York scene that you could think of in a rent party for The Stone.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Incredibly enticing baked pasta (from timballi on down) in a counter-service storefront at Pasta al Forno.
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Wed, Dec 18, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 22, 2019, 4:00 PM
David Byrne: American Utopia
THEATER
WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 18 - 22, 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-$449https://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 thingNY for $15? 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.
-
Wednesday, December 18, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Wednesday, December 18, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Wed, Dec 18, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 8:30 PM
T. Adamson: The Straights
THEATER
WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY, DECEMBER 18 - 21, 2019
7:30 PM
JACK
18 Putnam Avenue, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn
$20
http://www.jackny.org/
Road trip! Gone crazy! Emerging playwright T. Adamson's gonna have his breakout piece one of these days: will this be it?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: OG Mekelburg's Clinton Hill: the pub grub is GREAT, and there is no place more fun.
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Wednesday, December 18, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
thingNY: Hello. My Name Is Is ThingNY
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2019
7:30 PM
Areté Venue & Gallery
67 West Street #103, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
$15 advance; $20 door
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/thingny-tickets-76286048625
My favorite band. Among the gems on the bill this night of audio-visual chamber music and sonic theatrics — involving one-count-it-one costume change! — is the U.S. premiere of a Robert Ashley piece that the artistes explain conveys "the bilingual oracular statements of Hector Berlioz, as played by Alvin Lucier imitating Dr. Chicago, 'translated' into the creamy poetry and instrumental lilts of Robert Ashley". What could be better than THAT?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Barcelona-style wine, cocktails, and tapas at El Born.
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Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 22, 2019, 3:00 PM
Arthur Miller: The Crucible
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 17 - 22, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 29)
8:00 PM TUESDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM WEDNESDAY, SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Bedlam
The Connelly Theater
220 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$10-$115https://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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Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 8:00 PM – Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 9:00 PM
Daniel Kitson: Keep
THEATER
TUESDAY - THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17 - 19, 2019
8:00 PM
Saint Ann's Warehouse
45 Water Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn
$25https://stannswarehouse.org/show/keep/
The first time I saw a piece by British monologuist Daniel Kitson, I loved it: funny, self-deprecating, interesting, self-aware, dark. By the fourth time around, his shtick was beginning to wear thin for me (for one thing, if he were really so self-deprecating, he wouldn't be standing up there on stage talking about himself for more than an hour, would he?). So the intensity of my recommendation of this new piece might depend on how many times you've seen Kitson before. If you never have, go for it.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hard now to believe that Superfine was once the best dining spot in DUMBO this side of River Café. Go now for old times' sake.
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Tuesday, December 17, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Dec 22, 2019, 3:00 PM
Steven Adly Guirgis: Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 17 - 22, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 29)
7:00 PM TUESDAY
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY
7:30 PM THURSDAY & FRIDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Atlantic Theater Company / LAByrinth Theater
Linda Gross Theater
366 West 20th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$61.50-$101.50https://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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Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Dec 22, 2019, 4:00 PM
Jeremy O. Harris: Slave Play
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 17 - 22, 2019 (continuing through JANUARY 5)*
7:00 PM TUESDAY & THURSDAY
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY & 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 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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Monday, December 16, 2019, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
False Harmonics #6: Fly or Die / Irreversible Entanglements
MUSIC
MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2019
9:00 PM
Pioneer Works
159 Pioneer Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn
$15 advance; $25 day of showhttps://pioneerworks.org/programs/false-harmonics-6-jaimie-branchs-fly-or-die-irreversible-entanglements
Two bands at the forefront of alt jazz. Trumpeter Jamie Branch — the Chicago jazz scene's gift to Brooklyn — leads a band that draws on punk, noise, rock, psych, Rock en Español, electronica, hip-hop, what have you (but, for all my ranting about the death of genre, sounds decidedly like jazz). The fabulous Moor Mother sings with the highly political free jazz aggregation Irreversible Entanglements. Should be a great.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Mexican food at San Pedro Inn isn't bad. And it'll be open after the show.
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Monday, December 16, 2019, 8:30 PM – 9:30 PM
MANAS / Aki Onda
MUSIC
MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2019
8:30 PM
JACK
18 Putnam Avenue, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn
$10http://www.jackny.org/outlier-2.html
Spacey guitar/drums from Asheville's Manas (who'd have thought a progressive arts scene would spring up in Asheville?). Actually, electronicist (I so want to say "electrician")/visual artist Aki Onda's music is pretty spacey, too.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Nice Nigerian at Buka.
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Monday, December 16, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Brandon Lopez: sun burns out your eyes
MUSIC
MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2019
8:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$18 advance; $25 door
https://roulette.org/event/brandon-lopez-sun-burns-out-your-eyes/
The amazingly good jazz+ (another challenger to the notion that genre even matters) bassist/composer Brandon Lopez kicks off a startlingly active week (see below) with a trio/quartet show in which he's backed by amazingly good confreres.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It is obviously this List's mission to make sure that all readers visit the excellent new soul-food spot around the corner from Roulette, Kind of Soul.
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Monday, December 16, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Jeff Rosenstock: Night III
MUSIC
MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2019 (appearing also on DECEMBER 23)
8:00 PM
Trans-Pecos
915 Wyckoff Avenue, Ridgewood, Queens
Donation discretionaryhttps://www.thetranspecos.com/cal/2019/12/2/jeff-rosenstock-at-trans-pecos-night-1
Jeff Rosenstock isn't so much post-Punk as after Punk. If you like that kind of music, you owe his spin on it a listen. This is the third of a four-night stand, each a benefit for a different worthy organization (tonight it's the Educated Little Monsters youth group). You go to the venue at 6 PM, make a donation, and get a wristband for subsequent entry — but there are only 200 wristbands per show.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Between buying your wristband and showtime, stroll over to Porcelain for gorgeous Austro-German café food and excellent wine.
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Monday, December 16, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 9:30 PM
Horváth / Christopher Shinn: Judgment Day
THEATER
MONDAY - SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16 - 22, 2019 (continuing through JANUARY 10)
7:30 PM MONDAY - THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
Wade Thompson Drill Hall, Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$55-$195 thereafterhttp://www.armoryonpark.org/programs_events/detail/judgment_day
Ödön von Horváth is one of those endlessly sardonic Central European writers from the second quarter of the last century whose works are so completely compelling. This play, his last (in an irony right out of one of his writings, having fled the Nazis, he died in Paris in a freak accident when struck by a falling tree branch during a thunderstorm) — adapted by Christopher Shinn — explores moral and social issues centering on guilt in the context of a sort of thriller. It's set in a train station, and you can bet director Richard Jones — he did the spectacular Hairy Ape here a few years ago — will make apt use of the cavernous Drill Hall in recreating that space.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: '50s throwback Donahue's Steak House really is the most entertaining place to eat around here.
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Monday, December 16, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
-
Sunday, December 15, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
-
Sunday, December 15, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Lucy Shelton
MUSIC
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2019
7:00 PM
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$29
https://nationalsawdust.org/event/lucy-shelton
Lucy Shelton, a veteran in the absoulte elite of American New Music vocalists, presents what she calls a "tasting menu" of composers she's specialized in during the course of her brilliant career. You just have to list them to see how essential this recital is: John Cage, Elliott Carter, Igor Stravinsky, Ruth Crawford, George Rochberg, Miriam Gideon, Jacob Druckman, and Shulamit Ran.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The flavors are clearer and the food seems fresher at Xi'An Town than at the run of Xi'an spots overruning the City.
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Sunday, December 15, 2019, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Kathleen Supové
MUSIC
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2019
3:00 PM
Second Annual Modern Piano (+) Festival
Spectrum
70 Flushing Avenue, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$15; $10 students/seniorshttp://www.spectrumnyc.com/site/calendar.php
Explosive pianist Kathleen Supové presents a world premiere by her house composer, Randall Woolf, for piano — and banjo and shakuhachi!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Before the show, Russ & Daughters at the Navy Yard (MANDATORY). After, Vinegar Hill House for dinner, perhaps with a stop along the way at the Kings County Distillery Gatehouses for housemade whiskey.
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Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 9:00 PM – Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 9:00 PM
-
Saturday, December 14, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Saturday, December 14, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
The Tallis Scholars: Sacred Interpretations
MUSIC
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2019
8:00 PM
Church of St. Mary the Virgin
145 West 46th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$40-$75; $34-$64 seniors; $24-$54 students
https://www.millertheatre.com/events/tallis-scholars-sacred-Interpretations
In this potentially fascinating concert, the sterling Tallis Scholars contrast Renaissance settings with settings of the same sacred texts by two very great but very different 20th Century French composers of religious music, Messiaen and Poulenc. Some complain that the Tallis Scholars' performances are too perfect: they can stay home and leave the very few remaining seats to the rest of us.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: When I was 13 or 14, you couldn't tell me that Tad's Steaks wasn't the best restaurant(s) in the world. I'm not sure I would dare test that now.
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Saturday, December 14, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Constellation Chor: An Immersion in Voice, Movement, and Spirit
MUSIC / DANCE/ PERFORMANCE
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2019
8:00 PM
Spectrum
70 Flushing Avenue, Garage A, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$15; $10 students/seniorshttp://www.spectrumnyc.com/site/calendar.php
You worry that the work of this "immersive" vocal/dance/acting collective, incorporating "mindfullness practice", will lack rigor — but then you notice that Oxford comma they inserted into the program title. I've got to say that when I saw these guys they were kind of sensational.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Rhodora: natural wine, conservas, and ZERO WASTE.
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Saturday, December 14, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Ricardo Romaneiro X Liquid Light Lab: A Christmas Past
MUSIC
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2019
8:00 PM
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$25
https://nationalsawdust.org/event/ricardo-romaneiro-a-christmas-past
Electronic/classical composer Ricardo Romaneiro does another of these shows where he writes music to accompany silent films as well as in between-films light shows. In this case, the films are very early Christmas movies from a compendium of those produced at the Edison Studios, with electrified hymns and carols and such in between. Some might complain that Romaneiro's music is a little lightweight — but not in programs like this, where it's just about perfect.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Let's try National Sawdust's new on-site Latin-oriented wine bar, Cosmico, from the team behind the appealing Fort Greene Pan-Latin eatery Colonia Verde.
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Saturday, December 14, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Saturday, December 14, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
OM / Emel Mathlouthi
MUSIC
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2019
7:00 PM
Pioneer Works
159 Pioneer Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn
$25 advance; $28 day of show
https://pioneerworks.org/programs/om/
Headliners OM are too prog-metal for me. But opener Emel Mathlouni: not only does this Tunisian singer-songwriter make really good electronic Middle Eastern/Maghrebi dance/pop music, but her songs are meaningful enough to have played an inspirational role in the Arab Spring.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Tacos and stuff at San Pedro Inn.
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Saturday, December 14, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
-
Saturday, December 14, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
-
Saturday, December 14, 2019, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Lindsay Packer feat. Fan Letters: ECHOLATION: Call and Response
PERFORMANCE / MUSIC
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2019
8:00 PM
ISSUE Project Room
22 Boerum Place, Downtown, Brooklyn
Free ($10 suggested donation) (YOU BETTER)
https://issueprojectroom.org/event/lindsay-packer-call-and-response-echolocation-fan-letters
Visual/installation color-and-light artist Lindsay Packer brings in the visual/music duo Fan Letters to help out on a new piece. What you need to know about Lindsay Packer is that her work is immersive and extremely beautiful. What you need to know about Fan Letters is that the music side is very much on listenable end of avant-electronics, and the visuals are similarly playful. So this is an avant-garde show for people who think they hate the avant-garde, as well as those who know they love it.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: HiHi Room just looks like it's more fun than a barrel of monkey bread. They take vernacular American dishes and run with them.
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Friday, December 13, 2019, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
-
Friday, December 13, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Messiaen: Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus
MUSIC
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2019
8:00 PM
Gabriel Zucker
Modern Piano (+) Festival
Spectrum
70 Flushing Avenue, Garage A, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$15; $10 students/seniors
http://www.spectrumnyc.com/site/calendar.php
Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jesus (which, despite what you might think, does NOT mean "Give My Regards to Baby Jesus") is one of Messiaen's greatest works, a solo piano piece meditating at length (like, for two hours) on the infancy of Jesus. It sounds like absolutely nothing else (except other Messiaen). Even non-believers will be transported. One is eager to hear what jazz/classical/pop composer Gabriel Zucker will sound like in this.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: After all that time contemplating the infant Jesus, stop into Walter's for some American food and drink.
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Fri, Dec 13, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 9:00 PM
-
Friday, December 13, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Wet Ink Collaborations: Huddersfield Composers / Charmaine Lee
MUSIC
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2019
8:00 PM
St. Peter's Church
346 West 20th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$10; students free
http://wetink.org/pages/events.html
This show by this estimable ensemble mainly focuses on instrumental sextets from this year's Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in England. But let's root root root for the home team: there's a new piece by and featuring local vocal sensation Charmaine Lee, who can and does do anything with her voice.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Spanish Salinas is good enough that you wish it could be that touch better that would take it to great. But we're not so spoiled for Spanish choice in New York that we can disregard "very good".
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Friday, December 13, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
-
Fri, Dec 13, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 8:30 PM
Mx. Oops: Plasma
DANCE / PERFORMANCE
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13 & 14, 2019
7:30 PM
Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$18 advance, $21 door; $15 advance students/seniors/idNYC, $18 door students/seniors/idNYChttp://dixonplace.org/performances/plasma-2019/
Examining the Eternal Femme through ritualistic voguing, breakdancing, and club ecstatics.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Unbelievably, there's a restaurant virtually right next door that's just as bizarre and amusing (and ritualistic) as this show promises to be: Sammy's Roumanian Steakhouse.
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Friday, December 13, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
-
Fri, Dec 13, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 8:00 PM
Éliane Radigue: Occam Ocean
MUSIC
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13 & 14, 2019
7:00 PM
Éliane Radigue: Intermediate States
Blank Forms at Pace Gallery
540 West 25th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
Free (with R.S.V.P.)
https://blankforms.org/events/eliane-radigue-occam-ocean/
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 selections from a huge set of pieces Radigue has written over the past decade that uncharistically are purely acoustic, featuring solo instrumentalists or ensembles. The pieces were written for specific musicians, who will be those performing at these shows. Each night's program is different.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You're so close to the great El Quinto Pino/Txikito tapas/pinxtos double play.
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Fri, Dec 13, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 6:00 PM
Cirque Mechanics: 42FT
PERFORMANCE
FRIDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13 - 15, 2019 (continuing through JANUARY 5)
7:00 PM FRIDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
12:00 & 5:00 PM SUNDAY
The New Victory Theater
209 West 42nd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$22-$69
https://tickets.newvictory.org/single/PSDetail.aspx?psn=10030#Order
Why does this Nouvelle Cirque show look so inviting when most of the genre is totally played out? Because these guys don't look like they take it with even a smidgen of seriousness — or slickness, either.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Go to Los Tacos No. 1 around the block. You won't be sorry.
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Fri, Dec 13, 2019, 6:30 PM – Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 7:30 PM
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Fri, Dec 13, 2019, 5:00 PM – Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 6:00 PM
Young World
MUSIC
FRIDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13 - 15, 2019
5:00 PM
Abrons Arts Center
466 Grand Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$5-$20https://www.abronsartscenter.org/program/young-world/
A three-night exploration of coming of age as told through hip-hop, curated by that wonderful young rapper MIKE. Different lineup each night; I'll just note that Friday's features Your Compiler's personal fave Quelle Chris.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Nothing completes a night of hip-hop like Russian tapas: Tzarevna.
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Thursday, December 12, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Jeff Rosenstock: Night II
MUSIC
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2019 (appearing also on DECEMBER 16 & 23)
8:00 PM
Trans-Pecos
915 Wyckoff Avenue, Ridgewood, Queens
Donation discretionary
https://www.thetranspecos.com/cal/2019/12/2/jeff-rosenstock-at-trans-pecos-night-1
Jeff Rosenstock isn't so much post-Punk as after Punk. If you like that kind of music, you owe his spin on it a listen. This is the first of a four-night stand, each a benefit for a different worthy organization (tonight it's the victim assistance organization Safe Horizon). You go to the venue at 6 PM, make a donation, and get a wristband for subsequent entry — but there are only 200 wristbands per show.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Between buying your wristband and showtime, stroll over to Porcelain for gorgeous Austro-German café food and excellent wine.
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Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 6:00 PM
@GARYXXXFISHER: Black Exhibition
THEATER
TUESDAY & THURSDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 10 & 12 - 15, 2019
8:00 PM TUESDAY & THURSDAY
5:00 & 9:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
5:00 PM SUNDAY
Bushwick Starr
207 Starr Street, Bushwick, Manhattan
$20
https://www.thebushwickstarr.org/black-exhibition
Now that word is out that the mysterious @GARYXXXFISHER is really Jeremy O. Harris, author of Slave Play, Bushwick Starr has had to extend the run of this exploration of queer experience (and of writing!) (and of self-exposure through writing!) — suddenly the hottest ticket in town. Good luck (I don't think I've ever failed to get into Bushwick Starr off the wait list)!
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 top Middle Easter-themed supper club in Hayward, Wisconsin. If only the food were as great as the room . . . .
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Thursday, December 12, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Thursday, December 12, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 4:30 PM
Gandini Juggling & Alexander Whitley: Spring
PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 12 - 15, 2019
7:30 PM THURSDAY & FRIDAY
8:00 PM SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Peak Performances
Alexander Kasser Theater, Montclair State University
1 Normal Avenue, Montclair, New Jersey
$30
https://www.peakperfs.org/event/spring/2019-12-12/
Having triumphantly sold out the Met with Akhnaten (OK: they had some help), the world's greatest avant-juggling company takes their show to Montclair. This piece is choreographed by Alexander Whitley, a Londoner who knows how to create striking (and meaningful and involving) visual tableaus, to music by Gabriel Prokofiev,* who writes electronica-inflected classical pieces that one can't help but think his grandfather Serge would have been delighted by.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: These are the burbs: you're not going to find anything within walking distance. But make your way somehow to Turtle + The Wolf, a Brooklyn-style New American/Mediterranean meatery as good as any in Brooklyn.
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Thursday, December 12, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
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Thursday, December 12, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
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Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 4:00 PM
Weber: Die Freischütz
OPERA
WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11 - 15, 2019
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Heartbeat Opera
Baruch Performing Arts Center
55 Lexington Avenue (entrance on East 25th Street), Rose Hill, Manhattan
$16-$116; $251 Sunday benefit performance
https://www.heartbeatopera.org/der-freischutz
Heartbeat Opera does contemporary, highly politicized updates of classic operas (employing miraculously acceptable reductions of their orchestrations). In this case, they dig into an early Romantic German opera — enormously popular in its home country — whose failure to catch on over here is mystifying. It has it all: great tunes, dramatic and atmospheric music, and a nutso Gothic story that's actually kind of compelling. And that story should be even more compelling when it's interpreted as an account of misguided social rot. Also on hand: electronics and a Butoh dancer!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: We're getting to just the right season for O:N's seasonal Korean hot-pot cuisine.
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Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 9:00 PM
Lauren Bakst: after summer, or not (in the bed, the bathroom, the dance floor and other spaces)
PERFORMANCE
WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY, DECEMBER 11 - 14, 2019
8:00 PM
Queenslab
1611 Cody Street, Ridgewood, Queens
$20; $16 students/seniors
https://thekitchen.org/event/lauren-bakst-after-summer
Performance artist Lauren Bakst mines past encounters to create a love story between desire and abjection (I'm always abjection, myself — but enough about me) (well, I guess the abjection comes after desire) (OK, I get Lauren's point) (see? I told you this piece was central to this List's esthetic).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I've perpetually underrated Houdini Kitchen Laboratory, but that's stopping now. Good pizza. Great space.
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Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 4:00 PM
David Byrne: American Utopia
THEATER
WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11 - 15, 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 M. Lamar's new opera at the Microscope Gallery for $10? 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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Wednesday, December 11, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Hannah Lash: The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep
OPERA
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2019
7:30 PM
Loadbang
The Crypt at the Church of the Intercession
550 West 105th Street, Hamilton Heights, Manhattan
$25; $15 students/seniors
https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4444261
Hannah Lash's new Hans Christian Andersen opera will be performed — and I mean performed, not just played — by the composer (also an accomplished harpist — and, it says here in the promotional materials, dancer) and the exciting voice-reeds-and-wind quartet loadbang. Lash writes music that is utterly fresh yet utterly accessible — and let's face it, anything is better in a crypt.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Just has to be ROKC, for first-rate ramen, oysters, Japanese snacks, and cocktails.
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Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 8:30 PM
T. Adamson: The Straights
THEATER
WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11 - 15, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 21)
7:30 PM
JACK
18 Putnam Avenue, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn
$20
http://www.jackny.org/
Road trip! Gone crazy! Emerging playwright T. Adamson's gonna have his breakout piece one of these days: will this be it?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: OG Mekelburg's Clinton Hill: the pub grub is GREAT, and there is no place more fun.
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Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 6:00 PM
Euripides: The Trojan Women
THEATER
WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11 - 15, 2019
7:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
5:00 PM SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$26; $21 students/seniors
http://lamama.org/the-trojan-women/
Some of us remember the shattering impact of Andrei Serban's production of Eurpides's searing The Trojan Women in 1974. (Some of us will even admit it.) Serban is bringing it back. Like the original, it will feature an international cast and music by the late Elizabeth Swados. The recent controversy involving Serban notwithstanding, it is very hard to communicate what a major event this is.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I can't remember if I went to Phebe's for a burger and a beer after seeing this in 1974. But I well might have.
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Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 6:00 PM – Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 8:00 PM
Kate McIntosh: In Many Hands
DANCE
WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11 - 15, 2019
6:00 & :30 P9M WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 & 7:00 PM SUNDAY
BAM Fisher
321 Ashaland Place, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$25
https://www.bam.org/inmanyhands
Instead of there being an audience, the small group of ticket-holders sits with performance artist Kate McIntosh for guided explorations of tactile sensations. Too hands-on for me, but maybe not for you.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You can probably think of better Ethiopian places in Brooklyn than Bathi Ethiopian Kitchen — but not nearer to BAM. And really, it's good.
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Tuesday, December 10, 2019, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Battles / Guerilla Toss
MUSIC
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2019
9:00 PM
Music Hall of Williamsburg
66 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$25
https://www.musichallofwilliamsburg.com/shows/detail/379883-battles
Battles are hands-down the best of the Math Rock bands, hiding good melodies underneath all those complex time changes and writing songs and creating arrangements that are compelling rather than just complicated. They haven't been the same to this listener since Tyondai Braxton left, but what can you do? I'm really Listing this show, though, for Guerilla Toss, a personal fave band that recurs to the arty Post-Punk Dance Rock ascendant in New York when the '70s turned into the '80s. The show is sold out, but there are ways.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Before or after, beer and the Germanish food that loves it at Radegast Hall.
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Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 8:30 PM – Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 9:30 PM
Ikue Mori
MUSIC
TUESDAY - SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10 - 14, 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
Ikue Mori started out as a drummer in a No Wave band. She soon revealed that her real genius was for electronics, and she's been Downtown's electronics diva ever since. Even more than usual, it's hard to pick out a single show in the residency: they all look great.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Strip House is a lot people's favorite steak house.
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Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 3:00 PM
Arthur Miller: The Crucible
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 10 - 15, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 29)
8:00 PM TUESDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM WEDNESDAY, SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Bedlam
The Connelly Theater
220 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$10-$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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Tuesday, December 10, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
@GARYXXXFISHER: Black Exhibition
THEATER
TUESDAY & THURSDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 10 & 12 - 15, 2019
8:00 PM TUESDAY & THURSDAY
5:00 & 9:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
5:00 PM SUNDAY
Bushwick Starr
207 Starr Street, Bushwick, Manhattan
$20
https://www.thebushwickstarr.org/black-exhibition
Now that word is out that the mysterious @GARYXXXFISHER is really Jeremy O. Harris, author of Slave Play, Bushwick Starr has had to extend the run of this exploration of queer experience (and of writing!) (and of self-exposure through writing!) — suddenly the hottest ticket in town. Good luck (I don't think I've ever failed to get into Bushwick Starr off the wait list)!
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 top Middle Easter-themed supper club in Hayward, Wisconsin. If only the food were as great as the room . . . .
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Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 9:00 PM
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Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 6:00 PM
Daniel Kitson: Keep
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 10 - 15, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 19)
8:00 PM TUESDAY - SATURDAY
5:00 PM SUNDAY
Saint Ann's Warehouse
45 Water Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn
$25
https://stannswarehouse.org/show/keep/
The first time I saw a piece by British monologuist Daniel Kitson, I loved it: funny, self-deprecating, interesting, self-aware, dark. By the fourth time around, his shtick was beginning to wear thin for me (for one thing, if he were really so self-deprecating, he wouldn't be standing up there on stage talking about himself for more than an hour, would he?). So the intensity of my recommendation of this new piece might depend on how many times you've seen Kitson before. If you never have, go for it.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hard now to believe that Superfine was once the best dining spot in DUMBO this side of River Café. Go now for old times' sake.
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Tuesday, December 10, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Judith Berkson & Ordinary Affects
MUSIC
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2019
8:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$18 advance; $25 door
https://roulette.org/event/judith-berkson-and-ordinary-affects/
Judith Berkson: avant-garde vocalist and composer, pianist/accordionist/multi-instrumentalist, cantor. Tonight she joins forces with the chamber ensemble Ordinary Affects. Also on the bill is avant-shredder Mick Barr doing a solo set on guitar.
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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Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 3:30 PM
Pam Tanowitz & Simone Dinnerstein: New Work for Goldberg Variations
DANCE
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 10 - 15, 2019
7:30 PM TUESDAY & WEDNESDAY
8:00 PM THURSDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM SUNDAY
Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Avenue, Chelsea, Manhattan
$61-$90
https://www.joyce.org/performances/pam-tanowitz-simone-dinnerstein
It's always great to watch an artist hit her stride, and that's what's happened with Pam Tanowitz. She's always been very good, but suddenly, over the last couple of years, she's been pretty consistently great — and, best of all, the world has noticed. Her quirky and eccentric but beatifully realized dances have been poppping up on the programs of august ballet companies as well as Tanowitz's usual modern dance precincts, to great acclaim. This is the long way of saying that this new piece, an exploration of Bach's seemingly bottomless Goldberg Variations, is something of an event. That Tanowtiz made this piece in colloboration with Simone Dinnerstein, one of the most thought-provoking Bach-on-piano players around — with a mind as idiosyncratic as Tanowitz's (I'd have loved to be a fly on the wall at their work sessions) — who will accompany Tamowitz's wonderful company live, seals the deal.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: When a first-rate Tiki bar opens across the street from the Joyce, you've just got to hit it for all it's worth: Jungle Bird.
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Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 4:00 PM
Jeremy O. Harris: Slave Play
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 10 - 15, 2019 (continuing through JANUARY 5)*
7:00 PM TUESDAY & THURSDAY
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY & 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 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, December 10, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 3:00 PM
Steven Adly Guirgis: Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 10 - 15, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 29)
7:00 PM TUESDAY
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY
7:30 PM THURSDAY & FRIDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Atlantic Theater Company / LAByrinth Theater
Linda Gross Theater
366 West 20th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$61.50-$101.50
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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Tuesday, December 10, 2019, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Bridget Kibbey
MUSIC
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2019
6:00 PM
Pop-Up Concerts
Miller Theater at Columbia University
2960 Broadway, Morningside Heights, Manhattan
Free
https://www.millertheatre.com/events/bridget-kibbey
Either you love solo harp or you don't (I have to confess I don't understand the people who don't). Bridget Kibbey is New York's leading current proponent of the instrument, assembling interest eclectic, interesting programs and playing them beautifully. This is free; it's fun (you grab a free wine or beer and sit on the stage with Bridget); and there's no conceivable reason to skip it, if you're free at the time.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I'm going to continue pushing the unorthodox Chinese at Atlas Kitchen.
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Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 2:30 PM – Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 3:30 PM
Fornés: Fefu and Her Friends
THEATER
TUESDAY - THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10 - 12, 2019
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 "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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Monday, December 9, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Monday, December 9, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Anagram Ensemble
MUSIC
MONDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2019
8:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$18 advance; $25 door
https://roulette.org/event/the-anagram-ensemble-i-looked-at-the-eclipse-by-james-ilgenfritz-sarah-krasnow/
James Ilgenfritz, a sort-of-jazz bassist/composer, deals a blow to genre with his Anagram Ensemble, on this night composed of a rather awesome assemblage of first-rank players and singers on the New York alt-classical scene. They perform, among other things, a new opera by Ilgenfritz that promises "a surreal vision of self-regulation in a society obsessed with shifting culpability and consequence". Death to genre, life to great shows like this one.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Some of the best pita you've ever had at Bedouin Tent — and toppings/fillings worthy of the pita.
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Mon, Dec 9, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 9:00 PM
Horváth / Christopher Shinn: Judgment Day
THEATER
MONDAY - SATURDAY, DECEMBER 9 - 15, 2019 (continuing through JANUARY 10)
7:30 PM MONDAY - THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
Wade Thompson Drill Hall, Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$35-$175 Monday & Tuesday; $55-$195 thereafter
http://www.armoryonpark.org/programs_events/detail/judgment_day
Ödön von Horváth is one of those endlessly sardonic Central European writers from the second quarter of the last century whose works are so completely compelling. This play, his last (in an irony right out of one of his writings, having fled the Nazis, he died in Paris in a freak accident when struck by a falling tree branch during a thunderstorm) — adapted by Christopher Shinn — explores moral and social issues centering on guilt in the context of a sort of thriller. It's set in a train station, and you can bet director Richard Jones — he did the spectacular Hairy Ape here a few years ago — will make apt use of the cavernous Drill Hall in recreating that space.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: '50s throwback Donahue's Steak House really is the most entertaining place to eat around here.
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Sunday, December 8, 2019, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Nicole Brancato
MUSIC
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2019
5:00 PM
Second Annual Modern Piano (+) Festival
Spectrum
70 Flushing Avenue, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
This marvelous pianist takes a look at music and the natural world. So Cage, yeah; and yeah, in a different way, Rautavaara. As for such other favorites as Cowell and Berio and the insufficently played (because impossible to pigeonhole) Christopher Fox . . . well, it's great to hear them regardless. The pianist will also play some of her own stuff, some of it improvised.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Before the show, Russ & Daughters at the Navy Yard. After, Vinegar Hill House for dinner, perhaps with a stop along the way at the Kings County Distillery Gatehouses for housemade whiskey.
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Sunday, December 8, 2019, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Second Sunday
PERFORMANCE / MUSIC
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2019
3:00 PM
Pioneer Works
159 Pioneer Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn
Free
https://pioneerworks.org/programs/second-sundays-december-2019/
An afternoon and evening of art, talk, exhibitions, performance, and music. Ethiopian jazz legend Hailu Mergia will play a set at 7 PM.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I'm so funny I'm going to recommend you grab a burger at the perpetually slammed Red Hook Tavern. As if.
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Saturday, December 7, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
The Magentic Fields
MUSIC
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 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), continues a four-concert residency at Symphony Space with another 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, December 7, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Gamelan Kusama Laras feat. I.M. Harjito: Music and Dance of Java
MUSIC / DANCE
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2019
8:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$30
https://roulette.org/event/rba-gamelan-kusuma-laras-with-i-m-harjito-music-and-dance-of-java/
Like Ravel and Debussy before me (there aren't many sentences I get to begin like that), I'm a sucker for Gamelan, the shimmering Indonesian percussion-orchestra music that manages to be (I'm quoting a friend here) both kinetic and serene. Gamelan Kusama Laras is about the best the local area has to offer.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Generic bistro done very well at French Louie.
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Saturday, December 7, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Sō Percussion and Friends: A Percussion Century
MUSIC
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2019
7:30 PM
Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall
881 7th Avenue, Midtown, Manhattan
$38-$48
https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2019/12/07/S333-Percussion-and-Friends-0730PM
A real Percussion's Greatest Hits night. Sō Percussion, on of the best bands in the U.S. if you ask me, and a gaggle of musician friends play an intriguing program of percussion-based music starting with Varèse in the 1920s to Chávez in the early-mid 20th Century and moving through Cage and Xenakis to Steve Reich to David Lang and Julia Wolfe to the wonderful young composer Dan Trueman. Also in the mix from the earlier part of the last century is Johanna Beyer, who almost never gets played — but mark my words, that's gonna change.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: There'll be a party going on at Cuban favorite Guantanamera.
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Saturday, December 7, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Blackbox Ensemble
MUSIC
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2019
7:00 PM
Spectrum
70 Flushing Avenue, Garage A, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$15; $10 students/seniors
http://www.spectrumnyc.com/site/calendar.php
Blackbox Ensemble is another great new New Music ensemble, focussing on the social implications of the music they perform (so it's no surprise that on the composers list tonight is not only Frederic Rzewski but a gender-fluid Andean [and he's really good, too!]). Speaking of that composers list, is this good enough for you: Anna Thorvaldsdottir, inti figgis-vizueta, Rzewski, and Katherine Balch?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I've lived on its street for nearly 35 years, but I've never been to the extremely inviting pizza/pasta spot Graziella's even once. Is that nuts?
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Saturday, December 7, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Lightning Bolt / USAISAMONSTER / Animental / Baby, Baby: Explores the Reasons Why the Gum Is Still on the Sidewalk
MUSIC
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2019
7:00 PM
Pioneer Works
159 Pioneer Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn
$20 advance; $25 day of show
https://pioneerworks.org/programs/lightning-bolt/
Is it time for an '00s revival yet? Underground rock from noise punk to psych-prog to theatrical to garage/conceptual.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Tacos and stuff at San Pedro Inn.
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Saturday, December 7, 2019, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Hospital Fest
MUSIC
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2019
4:00 PM
Market Hotel
1140 Myrtle Avenue, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$40 early session & late session; $75 both sessions
https://www.markethotel.org/calendar/2019/12/7/hospital-fest-2019
South London powerhouse Drum 'n' Bass label Hospital Records presents one of its epic 24-hour festivals, featuring everyone from Andy Stott on.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Up until 4 AM, and then again from 9 AM, you can pop into Regalo de Juquila for some Mexican snacks.
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Saturday, December 7, 2019, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Eli Marshall: Mila
OPERA
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2019
3:00 PM
Angel Orensanz Center
172 Norfolk Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$50; $40 students/seniors
https://asiasociety.org/new-york/events/mila
A new (to New York) chamber opera about the plight of Hong Kong's foreign domestic workers. Eli Marshall is an American composer long resident in China and now resident in Hong Kong. Librettist Candace Chong, a Hong Kong native, is familiar to local audiences for her libretto to Huang Ruo's splendid opera Dr. Sun Yat-Sen.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Before or after: great ramen at Nakamura.
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Saturday, December 7, 2019, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Philip Glass: Akhnaten
OPERA
WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4 & 7, 2019
7:30 PM WEDNESDAY
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 happen 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. (These performances seem 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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Friday, December 6, 2019, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Ethan Iverson
MUSIC
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2019
9:00 PM
Second Annual Modern Piano (+)
Spectrum
70 Flushing Avenue, Garage A, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$15; $10 students/seniors
http://www.spectrumnyc.com/site/calendar.php
Having music-directed the Mark Morris Dance Group and co-founded The Bad Plus, the endlessly surprising jazz/classical pianist Ethan Iverson is now turning his attention to solo music.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: New England take on Cajun crab boil (it's all really Vietnamese) at Cap't Loui.
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Fri, Dec 6, 2019, 9:00 PM – Sat, Dec 7, 2019, 10:00 PM
Cirque Mechanics: 42FT
PERFORMANCE
FRIDAY - SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6 & 7, 2019 (continuing through JANUARY 5)
7:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
The New Victory Theater
209 West 42nd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$22-$69
https://tickets.newvictory.org/single/PSDetail.aspx?psn=10030#Order
Why does this Nouvelle Cirque show look so inviting when most of the genre is totally played out? Because these guys don't look like they take it with even a smidgen of seriousness — or slickness, either.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Go to Los Tacos No. 1 around the block. You won't be sorry.
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Friday, December 6, 2019, 8:30 PM – 9:30 PM
No Signal: Album Release Party
MUSIC
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2019
8:30 PM
Areté Venue & Gallery
67 West Street #103, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
$15
https://www.aretevenue.com/events
The incredibly inventive formerly-in-SF clarinetist/composer Aaron Novik shows how firmly ensconsed he now is in New York by showcasing an ensemble that draws on both 1980s Downtown noise rock and 1980s Downtown free/experimental jazz.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Stylish food and drinks in stylish surroundings at Madre.
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Fri, Dec 6, 2019, 8:30 PM – Sun, Dec 8, 2019, 5:00 PM
The Cloudbusters: MEDEA/BRITNEY
THEATER
FRIDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6 - 8, 2019
8:30 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
4:00 PM SUNDAY
HERE
145 Sixth Avenue, Hudson Square, Manhattan
$20
https://here.org/shows/medea-britney/
A potentially interesting juxtaposition of Medea and Britney Spears, putting Medea into the bathroom Britney locked herself into with her children, leading to a conservatorship being imposed on Britney in favor of her father. The point here is to compare Medea's killing her children with Britney's giving hers up.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Piccolo Cucina Sicilian Osteria is both self-describing and extremely pleasant.
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Friday, December 6, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Opera On Tap New Brew: Global Warming: A Hot, HOT Holiday Show
MUSIC
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2019
8:00 PM
Barbès
376 9th Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn
Free (but if you don't put at least $10 into the donations bucket, you're a very bad person)
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/oot-new-brew-presents-global-warming-hot-hot-holiday-show-tickets-76269226309?aff=efbeventtix
Believe it or not, an unlame Christmas show. Featuring seasonal songs by composers living and dead.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You'll do your drinking at Barbès. For your eating, guess which South American country's food is spotlighted at Colombia in Park Slope.
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Friday, December 6, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Essential Repertoire: The Music of Sylvano Bussotti
MUSIC
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2019
8:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$18 advance; $25 door
https://roulette.org/event/essential-repertoire-the-music-of-sylvano-bussotti/
Continuing the two-night exploration of composer Sylvano Bussotti, who has had his greatest success in Europe, but in the early '60s he hung with John Cage and the New York School, his music representing a kind of fusion of the determinedly avant-garde New York School with the European High Modernism of the time. He had what might have been the most visually striking graphic scores out of all of them — but tonight we'll get a chance to hear how intriguing, and sometimes spectacular, his music sounds. Speaking of spectacular, the players include the cellist Frances-Marie Uitti, along with pianist Luciano Chessa and bass-baritone Nicholas Isherwood.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Great great beer at St. Gambrinus. The food is, um, there.
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Fri, Dec 6, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Dec 7, 2019, 9:00 PM
The Stone Series: Jen Shyu
MUSIC
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6 & 7, 2019
8:00 PM
Happylucky No. 1
734 Nostrand Avenue, Crown Heights, Brooklyn
$20
https://www.happyluckyno1.com/happenings/2019/8/17/the-stone-series-tim-berne-2hwag-xmt87-gmpy4-t2cbm-elzlk-dkr3w-wacj2-bet8d-5nzcp-erd7b-x5cl2-tjbyg-ak9d3-2gmrj-a2pjc-9tfla-adnpe-w3r7w-fwhkk-mghm6-b87m3-6rzdn-7sp7g-s6dkn-lkpzl-rnxs5-w4ybw
https://www.happyluckyno1.com/happenings/2019/8/17/the-stone-series-tim-berne-2hwag-xmt87-gmpy4-t2cbm-elzlk-dkr3w-wacj2-bet8d-5nzcp-erd7b-x5cl2-tjbyg-ak9d3-2gmrj-a2pjc-9tfla-adnpe-w3r7w-fwhkk-mghm6-b87m3-6rzdn-7sp7g-s6dkn-lkpzl-rnxs5-w4ybw-7xl2x
Jen Shyu, mistress of the piano, various Asian string instruments, and her own voice, is one of the more consistently interesting performers on the New York scene. Well worth attending.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Credentialed New Southern at The Ryerson.
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Friday, December 6, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
M. Lamar: The Lynching Suite
OPERA / PERFORMANCE
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2019
8:00 PM
Microscope Gallery
1329 Willoughby Avenue, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$10; $8 students
https://microscopegallery.com/mlamar-the-lynching-suite/
An opera for male soprano voice and synthesized strings exploring the legacy of lynching in the United States. M. Lamar is one of the most magnetic performers out there. Expect dirges and black metal.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Does Tortilleria Mexicanas Los Hermanos deserve its golden reputation as one of the absolute top NYC taco spots? I don't see it myself. But that's not to say it isn't very, very good.
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Friday, December 6, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Charmaine Lee feat. Tyshawn Sorey & Ikue Mori: Liminals III
MUSIC
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2019
8:00 PM
ISSUE Project Room
22 Boerum Place, Downtown, Brooklyn
Free ($10 suggested donation)
https://issueprojectroom.org/event/charmaine-lee-laminals-iii-tyshawn-sorey-ikue-mori
This counts as a real supergroup for ISSUE: fearless avant-vocalist Charmaine Lee; genius percussionist Tyshawn Sorey; and Downtown electronics goddess Ikue Mori. Be there or be square.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I guess we should recognize Saint Julivert Fisherie as it was just named Best New Bistro Of The Year or some such.
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Fri, Dec 6, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sat, Dec 7, 2019, 8:30 PM
Mx. Oops: Plasma
DANCE / PERFORMANCE
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6 & 7, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 14)
7:30 PM
Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$18 advance, $21 door; $15 advance students/seniors/idNYC, $18 door students/seniors/idNYC
http://dixonplace.org/performances/plasma-2019/
Examining the Eternal Femme through ritualistic voguing, breakdancing, and club ecstatics.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Unbelievably, there's a restaurant virtually right next door that's just as bizarre and amusing (and ritualistic) as this show promises to be: Sammy's Roumanian Steakhouse.
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Friday, December 6, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Britten: Folk Song Arrangements
MUSIC
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2019
7:30 PM
Brooklyn Art Song Society
Old Stone House, Washington Park
336 Third Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn
$30
https://m.bpt.me/event/427732
More Benjamin Britten: his folk song arrangements are really great. And, having had a chance to hear Britten's work in a crypt two days ago, tonight you'll get to hear the folk song arrangements in the building that served as the first clubhouse of the Brooklyn Dodgers, when this park housed a pro ball field. English and American vernacular culture, all in one night.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hurry across the street to New/Old American Stone Park Cafe, which as befits a dining spot in Park Slope closes stupid early.
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Fri, Dec 6, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Dec 8, 2019, 8:00 PM
Euripides: The Trojan Women
THEATER
FRIDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6 - 8, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 15)
7:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
5:00 PM SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$26; $21 students/seniors
http://lamama.org/the-trojan-women/
Some of us remember the shattering impact of Andrei Serban's production of Eurpides's searing The Trojan Women in 1974. (Some of us will even admit it.) Serban is bringing it back. Like the original, it will feature an international cast and music by the late Elizabeth Swados. The recent controversy involving Serban notwithstanding, it is very hard to communicate what a major event this is.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I can't remember if I went to Phebe's for a burger and a beer after seeing this in 1974. But I well might have.
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Fri, Dec 6, 2019, 5:00 PM – Sat, Dec 7, 2019, 5:00 PM
Michela Marino Lerman
DANCE
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6 & 7, 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 7 PM pay what you wish
https://whitney.org/events/michela-marino-lerman
The last of a series of jazz sets performend in the installations created by jazz conceptualist Jason Moran for his current Whitney exhibition. This one is different, as it's dance — albeit dance with a band. Periodically, a new performer pops up who is anointed The Savior Of Tap. Michela Marino Lerman is, if not The One right now, one of The Ones. Let's see what she can do.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You walk into Santina for its coastal Italian and the first thing you get is a strong whiff of garlic. That's a very good sign.
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Thursday, December 5, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Momenta Quartet: Interpretations: Frances White / Elizabeth Brown
MUSIC
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2019
8:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$20
https://roulette.org/event/interpretations-francis-white-elisabeth-brown/
Frances White and Elizabeth Brown are two composers who both have Japanese influences and who both are unafraid to be sensually appealing — even, at least in White's case, conventionally beautiful. An evening of their respective works should be balm for the soul indeed. The Momenta Quartet can, of course, play anything beautifully. One of the composers is married to visual artist Lothar Osterburg, who provides a video/sculptural installation.
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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Thursday, December 5, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Composer Portrait: Bright Sheng
MUSIC
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2019
8:00 PM
Miller Theater at Columbia University
2960 Broadway, Morningside Heights, Manhattan
$20-$30; $17-$25 seniors; $12-$18 students & under age 25
https://www.millertheatre.com/events/bright-sheng
Composer Bright Sheng is a little Mainstream Modern for me. Still, there's no denying the seamlessness of his fusion of Chinese and Western musical elements. And: this concert features a marimba concerto! I'm a sucker for those.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It's not out of profiling that I'm sending you to pan-regional Chinese Atlas Kitchen. It's really good.
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Thu, Dec 5, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 8, 2019, 3:00 PM
Ryan William Downey: Sleeping Car Porters
THEATER
THURSDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 5 - 8, 2019
8:00 PM THURSDAY - SUNDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Title:Point
The Brick
579 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$20
http://titlepoint.org/project/titlepoint-presents-sleeping-car-porters/
Title:Point's comic exploration of western masculine mythos made a good impression at this year's Exponential Festival — and here it is back again. Title:Point's pieces tend to be, um, Far Out.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hanon: almost certainly the only ramen spot in New York co-owned by a condom manufacturer.
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Thu, Dec 5, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sat, Dec 7, 2019, 9:00 PM
Horváth / Christopher Shinn: Judgment Day
THEATER
THURSDAY - SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5 - 7, 2019 (continuing through JANUARY 10)
7:30 PM THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
Wade Thompson Drill Hall, Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$35-$175
http://www.armoryonpark.org/programs_events/detail/judgment_day
Ödön von Horváth is one of those endlessly sardonic Central European writers from the second quarter of the last century whose works are so completely compelling. This play, his last (in an irony right out of one of his writings, having fled the Nazis, he died in Paris in a freak accident when struck by a falling tree branch during a thunderstorm) — adapted here by Christopher Shinn — explores moral and social issues centering on guilt in the context of a sort of thriller. It's set in a train station, and you can bet director Richard Jones — he did the spectacular Hairy Ape here a few years ago — will make apt use of the cavernous Drill Hall in recreating that space.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: '50s throwback Donahue's Steak House really is the most entertaining place to eat around here.
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Thursday, December 5, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Giacomo Baldelli
MUSIC
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2019
7:30 PM
Areté Venue & Gallery
67 West Street #103, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
$15
https://www.aretevenue.com/events
The most fun thing in expert guitarist Giacomo Baldelli's program is his interpretation of 1980s David Byrne/Brian Eno piece. But the rest should be just fine.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: If there's a more sheerly enjoyable place in New York than the English/Quebecois Chez Ma Tante, I don't know about it.
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Thu, Dec 5, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sat, Dec 7, 2019, 9:00 PM
Steve Reich: Music for Ensemble and Orchestra
MUSIC
THURSDAY - SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5 - 7, 2019
7:30 PM THURSDAY
11:00 AM FRIDAY
8:00 PM SATURDAY
10:30 PM NITECAP SATURDAY
New York Philharmonic
David Geffen Hall
10 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$32-$168
https://nyphil.org/concerts-tickets/1920/bronfman-and-beethoven
A new concerto grosso by Steve Reich: a big deal. Also, not-quite-first-string Beethoven's sunny firecracker of a Symphony No. 2 and the best of all piano concertos?, Beethoven's Fourth — the latter played by no less than Yefim Bronfman. (Jaap conducts.) On Saturday, the concert is followed by a separately-ticketed ($40) Nitecap in the Kaplan Penthouse curated by Reich, featuring Reich's own music, a piece by Nico Muhly, and a world premiere by Gabriella Smith, quickly becoming everybody's new favorite. It's $40 – and sold out.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: For the nighttime concerts, Boulud Sud. In the inconceivable event you're going to the morning concert (it's not even a matinée!), Épicere Boulud. For the nightcap, P.J. Clarke's.
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Thursday, December 5, 2019, 6:30 PM – 7:30 PM
Notte Sylvano: Music and Film by Sylvano Bussotti
MUSIC
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2019
6:30 PM
Instituto Italiano di Cultura
686 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Free (with registration)
https://iicnewyork.esteri.it/iic_newyork/en/gli_eventi/calendario/2019/12/notti-sylvane-due-serate-con-la.html
The first of two nights devoted to the work of composer Sylvano Bussotti, who has had his greatest success in Europe, but in the early '60s he hung with John Cage and the New York School, his music representing a sort of fusion of the determinedly avant-garde New York School with the European High Modernism of the time. Tonight features a silent nonnarrative film made by Bussotti in the late '60s featuring luminaries of the New York and Italian underground scenes. There will also be a taste of the music by Bussotti that will be plalyed at tomorrow's full-scale concert at Roulette.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Mariella Pizza will still be open after the show. It's good.
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Wed, Dec 4, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 8, 2019, 4:00 PM
David Byrne: American Utopia
THEATER
WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4 - 8, 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 M. Lamar's new opera at the Microscope Gallery for $10? 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, Dec 4, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 8, 2019, 6:00 PM
Daniel Kitson: Keep
THEATER
WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4 - 8, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 19)
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY
5:00 PM SUNDAY
Saint Ann's Warehouse
45 Water Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn
$25
https://stannswarehouse.org/show/keep/
The first time I saw a piece by British monologuist Daniel Kitson, I loved it: funny, self-deprecating, interesting, self-aware, dark. By the fourth time around, his shtick was beginning to wear thin for me (for one thing, if he were really so self-deprecating, he wouldn't be standing up there on stage talking about himself for more than an hour, would he?). So the intensity of my recommendation of this new piece might depend on how many times you've seen Kitson before. If you never have, go for it.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hard now to believe that Superfine was once the best dining spot in DUMBO this side of River Café. Go now for old times' sake.
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Wed, Dec 4, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Dec 7, 2019, 9:00 PM
Tess Dworman: A Child Retires
DANCE
WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4 - 7, 2019
8:00 PM
Chocolate Factory
5-49 49th Avenue, Long Island City, Queens
$20
https://chocolatefactorytheater.org/tess-dworman/
The collapse of the artist's maturity — now there's a topic that I, for one, can relate to — explored by means of standup, Irish step dancing, performance art, and a tape of the Beach Boys rehearsing "Good Vibrations".
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Manducatis Rustica, the cadet branch of LIC Red Sauce classic Manducatis.
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Wednesday, December 4, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
DuoSG / Luke Schwartz & Greg McMullen: 24 Strings
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2019
8:00 PM
Areté Venue & Gallery
67 West Street #103, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
$15
https://www.aretevenue.com/events
Actually, since it's a guitar/bass duo and a guitar/guitar duo, isn't it 22 strings? Anyway, the guitar/bass duo, DuoSG, plays stately, slightly mysterious music; they say it evokes urban decay, but I'll go with just decay. Luke Schwartz & Greg McMullen first played together in Glenn Branca's band, and they take it from there.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Geez, why does everywhere in Greenpoint close so early during the week? The wonderful California wine bar (don't worry, there's plenty to eat as well) Coast and Valley will still be open after this show.
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Wed, Dec 4, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 8, 2019, 4:00 PM
Weber: Die Freischütz
OPERA
WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4 - 8, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 15)
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Heartbeat Opera
Baruch Performing Arts Center
55 Lexington Avenue (entrance on East 25th Street), Rose Hill, Manhattan
$16-$116; $251 Sunday benefit performance
https://www.heartbeatopera.org/der-freischutz
Heartbeat Opera does contemporary, highly politicized updates of classic operas (employing miraculously acceptable reductions of their orchestrations). In this case, they dig into an early Romantic German opera — enormously popular in its home country — whose failure to catch on over here is mystifying. It has it all: great tunes, dramatic and atmospheric music, and a nutso Gothic story that's actually kind of compelling. And that story should be even more compelling when it's interpreted as an account of misguided social rot. Also on hand: electronics and a Butoh dancer!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: We're getting to just the right season for O:N's seasonal Korean hot-pot cuisine.
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Wed, Dec 4, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sat, Dec 7, 2019, 8:30 PM
Kyle Marshall Choreography: A.D. & Colored
DANCE
WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4 - 7, 2019
7:30 PM WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
BAM Fisher
321 Ashaland Place, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$25
https://www.bam.org/colored
Trisha Brown alum Kyle Marshall, an excellent dancer and excellent choreographer, explores being black in Colored and being Christian in A.D.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You can probably think of better Ethiopian places in Brooklyn than Bathi Ethiopian Kitchen — but not nearer to BAM. And really, it's good.
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Wednesday, December 4, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Aizuri Quartet
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2019
7:30 PM
Weill Recital Hall
154 West 57th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$30
https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2019/12/04/Aizuri-Quartet-0730PM
The draw from this List's perspective is a delightful string quartet by Paul Wiancko, known around town as an excellent cellist but also a fine, entertaining composer (I'm sure it didn't hurt in getting this piece programmed that he's the partner of the Aizuri's violist — but trust me, he didn't need it). But the rest of the program from this unstoppable quartet is all good: Komitas's always-compelling Armenian folk song realizations, and an always welcome chance — you can't hear too many — to experience one of Haydn's life-affirming quartets (in this case, from the mid-period Tost sets).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Down the street to the Burger Joint hidden in the lobby of the Parker New York Hotel.
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Wednesday, December 4, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Philip Glass: Akhnaten
OPERA
WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4 & 7, 2019
7:30 PM WEDNESDAY
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 happen 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. (These performances seem 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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Wednesday, December 4, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Salon Séance for Benjamin Britten
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2019
7:00 PM
Crypt Sessions
Church of the Intercession
550 West 155th Street, Hamilton Heights, Manhattan
$80
https://www.deathofclassical.com/cryptsessions/salon-seance
Here on the anniversary of Benjamin Britten's death (the 43rd, to be precise), an attractive program of chamber music for strings by the great decedent.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: ROKC – ramen, oysters, kitchen, cocktails — towers over the rest of the Hamilton Heights dining scene, with it's Japanese-oriented food and (great!) cocktails.
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Wednesday, December 4, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Elliott Sharp / Frances-Marie Uitti
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2019
7:00 PM
Spectrum
70 Flushing Avenue, Garage A, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$15; $10 students/seniors
http://www.spectrumnyc.com/site/calendar.php
Two boundary-smashing instrumentalists: guitarist Elliott Sharp, one of the signal musicians of Downtown New York and its international offshoots, and cellist Frances-Marie Uitti, who in technique, conceptions, and influence are simply staggering.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Natural wine, conservas and other snacks, and zero waste at Rhodora.
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Tue, Dec 3, 2019, 8:30 PM – Sat, Dec 7, 2019, 9:30 PM
Mary Halvorson
MUSIC
TUESDAY - SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3 - 7, 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
Guitarist Mary Halvorson has graduated from being one of the most stimulating, surprising, and technically accomplished young players in jazz to being one of the most stimulating, surprising, and technically accomplished players period. My favorite of her current ensembles is the Code Girl band playing Friday and Saturday — but you can't go wrong any night.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Strip House is a lot people's favorite steak house.
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Tue, Dec 3, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 8, 2019, 3:00 PM
Arthur Miller: The Crucible
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 3 - 8, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 29)
8:00 PM TUESDAY - 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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Tuesday, December 3, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Messiaen: Quartet for the End of Time / Shulamit Ran / Bach
MUSIC
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2019
7:30 PM
Ensemble Connect
Weill Recital Hall
154 West 57th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$32-$38
https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2019/12/03/Ensemble-Connect-0730PM
Chances to hear a live performance of Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time aren't so rare anymore. Maybe because it's ONE OF THE GREATEST PIECES OF MUSIC EVER WRITTEN. Here the handpicked crack musicians of Ensemble Connect will play this magnficent, ethereal, unique, utterly transporting work along with some stuff by the Israeli Shulamit Ran and, um, Bach — who also wrote some of the greatest music ever written.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Friends have told me that Modern Indian showcase Indian Accent — which I've always considered just excellent — has gone downhill. Only one way to find out.
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Tuesday, December 3, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
György Kurtág: Kafka Fragments
MUSIC
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2019
7:30 PM
Ah Young Hong & Jacob Ashworth
Spectrum
70 Flushing Avenue, Garage A, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$15; $10 students / seniors
http://www.spectrumnyc.com/site/calendar.ph
Nonagenarian György Kurtág is the greatest living composer. His works are aphoristic, but their brevity contains multitudes: you can't believe how much musical information a little snatch can contain nor how much thought and feeling it can convey. The Kafka Fragments, for voice and violin, are up there with his best. No one who saw soprano Ah Young Hong in Michael Hersch's On the Threshold of Winter at BAM a few years ago will forget that searing performance — nor want to miss her in this. Jacob Ashworth, a very fine violinist, takes some time off from co-running Heartbeat Opera (which has its own major thing going on this week) and that marvelous vocal-instrumental ensemble Cantata Profana to play a work he has previously performed to great effect.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Back to LaRina Pastificio e Vino, cuz it's just so nice.
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Tue, Dec 3, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Dec 8, 2019, 3:00 PM
Fornés: Fefu and Her Friends
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 3 - 8, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 12)
7:30 PM TUESDAY - 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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Tue, Dec 3, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Dec 8, 2019, 4:00 PM
Inua Ellems: Barber Shop Chronicles
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 3 - 8, 2019
7:30 PM TUESDAY - SUNDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Fuel / National Theater / Leeds Playhouse
BAM Harvey
651 Fulton Street, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$35-$125
https://www.bam.org/barbershopchronicles
An exploration/celebration of barber shops as cultural safe spaces in Africa and the African diaaspora. What's calling out to me is the Afrobeat score. There'll be DJs to carry that on post-show Friday and Saturday nights (and opportunities to hang out both before and after every performance).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Miss Ada, the most fun and delicious Modern Israeil in New York.
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Tuesday, December 3, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
David Adamcyk: Father, My Father
MUSIC
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2019
7:00 PM
Talea Ensemble feat. Lucy Dhegrae
Americas Society
680 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Free
https://www.as-coa.org/events/talea-ensemble-adamcyks-father-my-father
David Adamcyk, composer and sound artist — his works glisten — has prepared a composition/sound installation exploring how MeToo has impacted on his role as a father. The live portion of the accompanying sound couldn't be in better hands: the Talea Ensemble and the fabulous vocalist Lucy Dhegrae.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You can decide for yourself whether Majorelle is a welcome revival of dining norms of yore or stuffy, overpriced, and retrograde.
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Tue, Dec 3, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Dec 8, 2019, 3:00 PM
Steven Adly Guirgis: Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 3 - 8, 2019 (continuing through DECEMBER 29)
7:00 PM TUESDAY
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY
7:30 PM THURSDAY & FRIDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Atlantic Theater Company / LAByrinth Theater
Linda Gross Theater
366 West 20th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$61.50-$101.50
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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Tue, Dec 3, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Dec 8, 2019, 4:00 PM
Jeremy O. Harris: Slave Play
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, DECEMBER 3 - 8, 2019 (continuing through JANUARY 5)
7:00 PM TUESDAY & THURSDAY
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY & 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 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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Monday, December 2, 2019, 8:30 PM – 9:30 PM
James Romig: Still
MUSIC
MONDAY, DECEMBER 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
James Romig's well-received extended solo piano piece responding to the Abstract Expressionist work of painter Clyfford Still is back for a night, performed by Ashlee Mack.
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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Monday, December 2, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Jeff Rosenstock: Night I
MUSIC
MONDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2019 (appearing also on DECEMBER 12, 16, 23)
8:00 PM
Trans-Pecos
915 Wyckoff Avenue, Ridgewood, Queens
Donation discretionary
https://www.thetranspecos.com/cal/2019/12/2/jeff-rosenstock-at-trans-pecos-night-1
Jeff Rosenstock isn't so much post-Punk as after Punk. If you like that kind of music, you owe his spin on it a listen. This is the first of a four-night stand, each a benefit for a different worthy organization (tonight it's the victim assistance organization Safe Horizon). You go to the venue at 6 PM, make a donation, and get a wristband for subsequent entry — but there are only 200 wristbands per show.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Between buying your wristband and showtime, stroll over to Porcelain for gorgeous Austro-German café food and excellent wine.
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Monday, December 2, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Gaby Moreno feat. LADAMA & Metropolis Ensemble
MUSIC
MONDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2019
7:30 PM
Ecstatic Music
Merkin Hall
129 West 67th Street, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$25
https://www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/mch/event/gaby-moreno-with-ladama-spangled/
Guatemalan singer-songwriter Gaby Moreno is, to tell you the truth, a little conventional for my taste. But her last album — which she's performing tonight — was a collaboration with no less than Van Dyke Parks, which adds enormous interest for popsessives like me. The parts of the players Parks assembled will be played tonight by New York's own ace Metropolis Ensemble. Pan-Latin vocal/instrumental quartet LADAMA has more spunk than Moreno; they'll do an opening set as well as providing backup for the Moreno piece.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: What could be better after this exploration of Latin-American interface that a bowl of Tennessee Chili at Old John's Luncheonette across the street?
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Monday, December 2, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Jennifer Koh & Davóne Tines: Everything That Rises Must Converge
MUSIC
MONDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2019
7:30 PM
Music Mondays
Advent Lutheran Church
2504 Broadway, Upper West Side, Manhattan
Free
https://www.musicmondays.org/december-2019
Holy crap. Is this like the best-looking Music Mondays free concert of all time? Jennifer Koh is one of the most probing, adventurous, and adept violinists now before the public. Davóne Tines may be the most exciting baritone I know of (that sounds like hyperbole — but I swear that everybody I send to see him comes back totally blown away). They'll perform a set of pieces for violin and voice, or violin solo, by such composers as Missy Mazzoli, Du Yun, Julia Wolfe, Andrew Norman, and, oh yeah, Bach and (adulterated) Beethoven. Bang For The Buck with a bullet.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Peruvian-Japanese Nikkei food is getting SO much attention these days that I feel like I have to keep mentioning Peruvian-Chinese Chifa just out of fairness: Flor de Mayo.
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Mon, Dec 2, 2019, 7:00 PM – Tue, Dec 3, 2019, 7:59 PM
Winter Puppet Parlor
PERFORMANCE
MONDAY & TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2 & 3, 2019
7:00 PM
HERE
145 Sixth Avenue (entrance on Dominick Street), Hudson Square, Manhattan
$25
https://here.org/shows/2019-puppet-parlor/
Puppets! And the people behind them include such stars as Basil Twist and Julie Atlas Muz!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The very nice, very convenient Café Altro Paradiso: why not?
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Sunday, December 1, 2019, 5:30 PM – 6:30 PM
Feldman: Triadic Memories
MUSIC
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2019
5:30 PM
Taka Kigawa
Modern Piano (+) Festival
Spectrum
70 Flushing Avenue, Garage A, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$15; $10 students
http://www.spectrumnyc.com/site/calendar.php
Morton Feldman's music stops time. It's as if Bruckner were a secular Jew from 20th Century Queens who hung out with Cage instead of a devout Catholic from 19th Century Austria who worshiped Wagner. Or as if "Dark Star" were written by an intellectually rigorous guy from Queens instead of a buncha San Francisco hippies. Meaning, it's like nothing else at all. It's also extremely beautiful. To come off, this extended solo piano piece requires immense concentration from the player; Taka Kigawa's your man.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: If it's Sunday night at Spectrum, it's gotta be Vinegar Hill House.
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Sunday, December 1, 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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Sat, Nov 30, 2019, 11:00 PM – Sun, Dec 1, 2019, 12:00 AM
-
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 – 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.
-
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).
-
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.
-
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.
