Best things to do in nyc tomorrow

Looking for something to do in New York? Follow the antics of sentient footwear in “Simon and His Shoes,” or celebrate the career of Isabelle Huppert at Film Forum.

Comedy | Music | Kids | Film |Theater | Art

Comedy

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‘Dumb People Town’

Oct. 16 at 7:30 p.m. at the Bell House, 149 Seventh Street, Brooklyn; thebellhouseny.com.

When life seems like a dumpster fire, sometimes you need to laugh at arsonists who unwittingly set themselves ablaze. That’s what Randy Sklar and Jason Sklar do with Daniel Van Kirk in each episode of their podcast, “Dumb People Town.” With the help from their funny friends, the trio dissect tales of astoundingly hilarious stupidity (often submitted by fans) — from a waitress suing a Hooters franchise for promising her a new Toyota for selling the most beer and instead giving her a new toy Yoda to a bride who sought revenge on her fiancé by planning a fake bachelor party that bilked him and his friends of thousands of dollars.

For their live podcast recording in Brooklyn on Sunday, they’ll be joined by Andrew Dismukes, a cast member on “Saturday Night Live,” and Roy Wood Jr., a correspondent for “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah.” Max Clarke (a.k.a. Cut Worms) will also perform. Tickets are $20 and available at Eventbrite. SEAN L. McCARTHY

Music

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Pop & Rock

Black Coffee

Oct. 14-15 at 10 p.m. and Oct. 16 at 6 p.m. at Brooklyn Mirage, 140 Stewart Avenue, Brooklyn; avant-gardner.com.

This summer, releases from A-listers like Beyoncé and Drake signaled a mainstream resurgence of dance music. Drake, looking to remake his sound in the spirit of the club for his seventh album, “Honestly, Nevermind,” turned to Black Coffee for guidance. The South African D.J., who produced three songs on the record, has long been a global ambassador for Afro house, a subgenre from his home country that accents house’s standard four-on-the-floor beat with African polyrhythms and vocal samples. His sounds will fill the air this weekend at Brooklyn Mirage as he helps conclude the outdoor club’s season with three back-to-back performances.

In addition to headlining, Black Coffee invited a roster of openers — including Karizma, Marshall Jefferson and D.J. Pierre — who will bring their own spins on house. Friday and Saturday are officially sold out, though tickets can be found on the resale market. Tickets for Sunday start at around $82 and are available at dice.fm. OLIVIA HORN

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Jazz

Robert Glasper

Through Nov. 5 at the Blue Note, 131 West Third Street, Manhattan; bluenotejazz.com.

Robert Glasper is one of the most accomplished jazz pianists of his generation. He’s also one of the most well connected, having worked with Kendrick Lamar, Erykah Badu, Snoop Dogg and many other marquee names, which helps make his monthlong fall Blue Note residency an annual highlight of the New York club calendar. Surprise drop-ins are a frequent feature of the run — which started last week and comprises 48 sets across 24 nights — but even the announced schedule promises a genre-blurring musical feast. This weekend, at 8 and 10:30 p.m., he’s teaming up with the producer and multi-instrumentalist Terrace Martin, his collaborator on Lamar’s landmark 2015 LP, “To Pimp a Butterfly,” and the “Dinner Party” EP from 2020. Expect a groove-conscious swirl of jazz, R&B and hip-hop from the duo, who will appear with the bassist Burniss Travis, the drummer Justin Tyson and the D.J. Jahi Sundance.

Thursday’s 8 p.m. performance is sold out; tickets are available for that night’s 10:30 p.m. show at TicketWeb for $75. Both sets on Friday and Saturday are also sold out, but there will be an informal standby line at the door for any spots that may become available. HANK SHTEAMER

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Classical

‘Medea’

Through Oct. 28 at the Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center, Manhattan; metopera.org.

There are several inductive methods you can use to discover the presence of an authentic diva soprano. Here’s one that’s tried and true: Can she carry an entire opera production, just with her voice? Judged that way, Sondra Radvanovsky can lay claim to being one of the Met’s leading contemporary divas. When she sings Tosca, it’s her show (as it was at the Met in 2018).

Currently, she’s driving a rarity — Cherubini’s “Medea” — though one that is no less demanding than other vocal endurance courses. Reviewing the premiere of David McVicar’s new production for the Met, Zachary Woolfe, The New York Times’s classical music critic, wrote that Radvanovsky’s performance was “impressive and enjoyable, if not quite crushing.” On Tuesday at 7 p.m., audiences will have a chance to discover whether Radvanovsky can kick into crushing mode, as she settles into the season’s run. Tickets start at $37. SETH COLTER WALLS

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classical

‘Fire Shut Up in My Bones’

Available on demand at metopera.org.

As the city’s classical calendar takes an early July sabbatical, it’s a fine time to check in on archived concerts from the just-concluded season. In recent weeks, the Metropolitan Opera has added some of its Live in HD cinema simulcasts to its on-demand web platform. (One month of streaming access costs $14.99.)

The most newsworthy addition is the composer Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones.” In the recorded version, you can hear even more clearly some of the jazz influences that Blanchard, a celebrated trumpeter, included in his score. Subtle, propulsive swing from the drummer Jeff Watts, known as Tain, is more prominent in the mix, compared with the live sound in the Met’s large auditorium. Complexities of Blanchard’s choral writing hit with new force, too. SETH COLTER WALLS

Kids

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‘Simon and His Shoes’

Through Oct. 30 at the Tank, 312 West 36th Street, Manhattan; thetanknyc.org.

Who among us, at some point, hasn’t failed to find a particular item of footwear? But the adolescent hero of this hourlong musical hasn’t just temporarily lost his shoes; his shoes have lost him. Deliberately.

Stephanie Singer and Laurel Haines created this charming, witty and slightly macabre comedy, which plays Saturdays and Sundays at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. The shoes, Bud and Beedle, fed up that Simon prefers to play video games in his stocking feet rather than wear his loyal lace-ups outdoors, learn that fleeing alone can be dangerous. And when Simon (Sammy Pignalosa) and his more outgoing little sister, Izzy (Sadie Jayne Kennedy), follow the runaways to a mysterious, highly arty funeral home, they all risk being confined to the kind of box neither humans nor sentient shoes enjoy.

Directed by Meghan Finn, the entire cast is appealing. But it’s Bud, Beedle and the other ingenious puppets onstage — all designed by the collective the Ladies of Mischief — that really walk away with the show.

Tickets start at $35. LAUREL GRAEBER

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Fall-O-Ween

Through Oct. 30 at the New York Botanical Garden, 2900 Southern Boulevard, the Bronx; nybg.org.

If Halloween is so much fun, why limit it to just one day? That seems to be the philosophy behind Fall-O-Ween, which offers harvest and haunted revelry throughout October, including Pumpkin Carving Face-Off Weekend, on Saturday and Sunday; Pumpkin Parade Weekend, on Oct. 23 and 24; and Halloween at the Garden, on Oct. 29 and 30. Two Spooky Pumpkin Garden Nights are on the calendar, too. (A full schedule is on the garden’s website.) Tickets start at $15. LAUREL GRAEBER

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‘Wake Up, Daisy!’

Through Dec. 31 at the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theater, 79th Street and West Drive, Central Park, Manhattan; cityparksfoundation.org.

Although fairy tale heroines are notoriously unassertive, you don’t get much more passive than Sleeping Beauty. Marcus Stevens and Sam Willmott, however, have given their version of that character far more agency in “Wake Up, Daisy!” This modern-day reinterpretation transports the action to Manhattan, where Daisy Greene lives in the landmark building the El Dorado. Cursed on her third birthday in a credibly New York manner — by a resentful neighbor rather than a disgruntled fairy — she finally leaves her apartment at 16, only to prick her finger on a rosebush. Directed by Bruce Cannon, the theater’s artistic director, and playing Thursdays through Sundays at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., this charming and richly imaginative 45-minute puppet musical sends the slumbering Daisy wandering through a dream version of Central Park. Embarking on a perilous quest, she doesn’t need a prince — or even a ranger — to help her rise and shine. Tickets, which must be bought online, start at $8. LAUREL GRAEBER

Film

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Isabelle Huppert

Through Oct. 27 at Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, Manhattan; filmforum.org.

In a career that has now spanned a half-century, Isabelle Huppert has been so prolific and worked with so many notable directors (Claire Denis, Michael Haneke, Bertrand Tavernier, Hong Sang-soo, Paul Verhoeven, etc.) that distilling her body of work into a six-week retrospective would be difficult. Film Forum is gamely trying to do it in three.

As the series heads into its second week, the theater will show 35-millimeter prints of two films Huppert made with Jean-Luc Godard (“Every Man for Himself,” on Thursday, Friday, Monday and Oct. 22; and “Passion,” on Sunday and Oct. 22). Elsewhere, Huppert roller-skates and waltzes in Michael Cimino’s not-at-all-bad “Heaven’s Gate” (on Saturday and Oct. 20); plays characters inspired by infamous French crime cases for Claude Chabrol (“La Cérémonie,” on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Oct. 26 and 27; and “Violette Nozière,” on Saturday and Tuesday); and experiences a whirlwind of middle-age drama in Mia Hansen-Love’s lovely “Things to Come” (on Tuesday). BEN KENIGSBERG

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New York Film Festival Revivals

Through Oct. 16 at Film at Lincoln Center, 165 West 65th Street, Manhattan; filmlinc.org.

While the New York Film Festival’s main slate brings together acclaimed contemporary titles from around the globe, its less-buzzy revivals section highlights adventurous new reissues and restorations, often of underseen films. In “The Long Farewell” (showing on Saturday), a 1971 Odesa Film Studio production buried until perestroika, the director Kira Muratova uses a daringly fragmented style to explore the growing distance between a mother and her teenage son. From Brazil, the Cinema Novo filmmaker Glauber Rocha’s austere, folkloric western “Black God, White Devil” (also on Saturday) touches on issues of class, faith and revolution. “Standby only” screenings often have tickets released, and there are also usually rush lines at the theater. BEN KENIGSBERG

Theater

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Critic’s Pick

‘A Strange Loop'

At the Lyceum Theater, Manhattan; strangeloopmusical.com. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes.

In Michael R. Jackson’s surreal and comic Pulitzer Prize winner, which won the 2022 Tony Award for best musical, a young, Black, queer artist working as a Broadway usher wrestles with the myriad thoughts in his head — about sex and acceptance, religion and identity — as he tries to write what he calls a self-referential musical. Starring an endearing Jaquel Spivey in his Broadway debut. Read the review.

Critic’s Pick

‘Hadestown’

At the Walter Kerr Theater, Manhattan; hadestown.com. Running time: 2 hrs. and 30 min.

Anaïs Mitchell’s jazz-folk musical about the mythic young lovers Eurydice and Orpheus won eight Tonys in 2019, including best musical, and picked up a cult following along the way. Rachel Chavkin’s splendidly designed production takes audiences on a glorious road to hell. Read the review.

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Critic’s Pick

‘Six’

At the Brooks Atkinson Theater, Manhattan; sixonbroadway.com. Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes.

The half-dozen wives of Henry VIII recount their marriages pop-concert style — divorces, beheadings and all —in Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss’s upbeat musical, which has an all-female cast and an all-female band. It also now has a 2022 Tony Award for best original score, and another for Gabriella Slade’s instantly iconic costumes. Read the review.

Critic’s Pick

‘Into the Woods’

Through Jan. 8 at the St. James Theater, Manhattan; intothewoodsbway.com. Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes.

Lear deBessonet’s buzzy revival of James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim’s fairy-tale mash-up was a triumph at New York City Center Encores! this spring. Its cast teems with Broadway stars, including Brian d’Arcy James as the Baker, Sara Bareilles as the Baker’s Wife, Phillipa Soo as Cinderella, Patina Miller as the Witch, Gavin Creel as the Wolf and Joshua Henry as Rapunzel’s Prince. Fan favorite in the making: the winsome cow puppet Milky White. (Onstage at the St. James Theater. Limited run ends Oct. 16.) Read the review.

Art & Museums

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Critic’s Pick

‘Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You.’

Through Jan. 2 at the Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, Manhattan; moma.org.

Since the late 1980s Barbara Kruger has parlayed her skills as an artist, feminist, writer and graphic designer into some of the most memorable, and resonant, public artworks of her era. And Kruger’s ideas have developed, while her use of language has become more fluid. She also makes expert use of the latest delivery systems, translating earlier works through digitalization, animation and sound. And yet, as this installation demonstrates, Kruger is continuing to work with words alone, on a very large scale and in dizzying amounts. It is an all-print, animation-free affair — also stripped of images, as are most of her big walk-in installations. The piece towers. It engulfs the three very high walls and floor of MoMA’s atrium with blocks and strands of black on white or white on black text in different sizes, with touches of green for crossing out pronouns. It feels emotional, volatile and even ominous — like these times. The shifting blocks of type can spin, Cubistically and vertiginously, if you move too fast. Slow down and the clashing subjects confront you. They posit the self as unstable and vulnerable, touch on love and war, and flirt with the end of the world. Read the review.

Critic’s Pick

‘New York: 1962-1964’

Through Jan. 8 at the Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan; jewishmuseum.org.

The early ’60s — a manic era and a hinge moment between the Cold War and Vietnam; Civil Rights and Black Power; repression and liberation; beatnik and hippie; Ab-Ex and Pop — is documented in this smart, split-level show. A survey of close to 300 works of art and ephemera, it starts by putting us smack in the middle of downtown Manhattan with a mural-size photo of foot traffic on West 8th Street. It becomes era-specific in the first gallery with a selection of shots by the early ’60s pavement prowlers: Diane Arbus on the city’s waterfront, Lou Bernstein on the Bowery, Leonard Freed in Harlem, Frederick Kelly on the subway, and Garry Winogrand at the Central Park Zoo. There’s a soundtrack here, too, emanating from a vintage jukebox featuring a selection of period cuts. The museum could easily have packaged the exhibition as a small, tight institutional tale. Instead, it makes the story part of a much larger history, which unfolds chronologically on the show’s second floor. Art in New York in the early 1960s made for a heady mix. Culturally, we were perched on the edge of something and leaning forward. And a fast flip through this show’s catalog gives a sense of a national and global teetering condition. Read the review.

Critic’s Pick

‘Water Memories’

Through April 2, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue; metmuseum.org.

This poetically faceted pocket-size exhibition about the material and symbolic role of water in Native American life combines traditional objects from the permanent collection with modern and contemporary loan pieces, including some by non-Native artists. Highlights among the 40 works are a miniature pre-1850 birchbark canoe, replete with bird-quill oars, silk sails and a tiny carved fish, the day’s catch; a 1970s denim jeans jacket embroidered with a bright red thunderbird, a longstanding emblem of Indigenous activism; and a ceramic bowl made by the great San Ildefonso Pueblo potter Maria Martinez (1887-1980), and painted with a swirling image of the Tewa Pueblo serpent deity Avanyu, the guardian of water. What anchors this time-traveling show in the present is a transfixing two-minute video of “water protectors” holding mirrored panels to protest the U.S. government’s plan to install a major oil pipeline on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. Several of those panels flank the Met gallery entrance, framing the art and history beyond, and reflecting us as we approach the show in a fragmented, multi-angled way, as moving water or memory might. Read the review.