Good afternoon, this is W42ST Lifestyle Editor Sarah Beling with “Make Way For The Weekend” — your curated guide to the best of New York events in one convenient newsletter!
Baby, it’s not just cold outside — it’s also ice-cold inside my heart (thanks, wide variety of apocalyptic happenings!!). I don’t know about you, but this week seems like a good one to warm up, literally and figuratively, by gathering with your nearest and dearest at an indoor activity (movies! the ballet! a museum!) and also a good one to be warm and kind to your fellow humans.
Have a wonderful weekend and bundle up!!!
…when you can only think as far ahead as Monday!
🎭 national lampoon’s goopy vacation
Given how talented G-unit’s lawyers are, you wouldn’t catch me putting up Gwyneth Goes Skiing — a chaotic, 80-minute parody of the infamous Gwyneth Paltrow Ski Trial at the Soho Playhouse now through January 26, written by Linus Karp and Joseph Martin with music by Drag Race’s Leland, a video performance by Trixie Mattel and vocals by Darren Criss and Cat Cohen (!!) — but I’d sure as hell go see it. And maybe I’m scared for nothing, because as the creators told Gothamist, her lawyers went and loved it!!!!
🎞️ check in to the overlook
Pop over to the Museum of the Moving Image for a screening of all-time Stanley Kubrick classic The Shining January 25-26 and pay homage to the line that freelancers everywhere use to justify their procrastination. All work and no play makes Sarah a dull girl!!!
🎞️ the film bros i actually want to talk to
It’s cold and the world is crumbling, but in good news — if you’re in town you can take but one short subway ride to see Martin F****** Scorsese live and in person in conversation with TCM Host Ben Mankiewicz January 25 at the 92Y where the two will chat about “his storied career, the films that inspire him, and why he’s TCM’s biggest fan” (and since I found out that TCM broadcast nothing but explicitly anti-fascist movies the day after the inauguration, I’m also their biggest fan).
🎶 a chorus of lols
Anyone who’s been here for more than one newsletter knows that the title of this alone got me, but I’m still sure that comedian Eliot Glazer: Songs in the Key of LOLOL show tonight January 23 at Club Cumming, where “the opera school dropout shows off his pipes performing genre-hopping mashups and original songs”, will be fun even — if you don’t have a compulsion to add lol to the end of every sentence.
🎭 free theater alert!!
Budgeting babes, bop your way over to Playwrights Horizons to catch a free performance of Many Happy Returns now through January 25 as Monica Bill Barnes and Company craft a “dance version of a memory play” depicting “a woman in the middle of her life who moves with total clarity but can’t stop revealing the doubt she’s desperate to dance over.”
🎶 the third act
Yes, the Broadway Rave at Le Poisson Rouge January 25 starts at ELEVEN THIRTY PM. But weren’t we once people who would finish their pregame and grab their Blackberries on the way out the door at 11:30??? Let’s caffeinate and go into a trance during a dubstep remix of A Real Nice Clambake.
🎶 slightly earlier
And if the thought of starting your night at 11:30 is past your January tolerance, you can still party from 5-10pm at a 90s vs 00s dance party from Matinee Social Club January 25. If you’re feeling particularly lively/are on uppers lmao you could go from this directly to the Broadway Rave.
🍿 sing happy
As someone who sometimes cheers myself up by watching absolutely iconic old clips of Liza on the Home Shopping Network I’m very invested in the new documentary on her life, Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story premiering January 24-25 at IFC (with a Q&A with director Bruce David Klein at the 7pm showings) and running all week — ring them bells and head over!!!
🎭 celebrating broadway’s black artists
Get a head start on Black History Month and learn more about the Black theatermakers who have changed the industry for good at Crafting Excellence: Black Storytellers of Broadway showing now through March 16 at the Museum of Broadway!
🎭 grab that thesaurus
Though I haven’t yet seen Gary Gulman’s new Off-Broadway show, Grandiloquent — now through February 8 at the Lucille Lortel and chronicling Gulman’s journey to self-acceptance after his father made him repeat the first grade, we are both from Massachusetts and are both “most comfortable in a large room where a thousand strangers are laughing” at us — so, I’m intrigued! Follow me for more erudite theatrical criticism lmao.
🦗 a bug’s life
PSA: you have from now through February 4 to Name a Roach at the Bronx Zoo after anyone you want in time for Valentine’s Day — that’s right, anyone you want!!! So pull up that “Do Not Call” contact in your phone who broke your heart and get ready to send a certificate telling them that you named a roach in their honor.
🩰 strike a passé
Get gussied up in your finest Carrie-at-the-ballet-wear (weeks at this workplace without an SATC reference: 0) and celebrate the work of Munich-based photographer and artist Elizaveta Porodina at the New York City Ballet Elizaveta Porodina Art Series January 24, 31 and February 8 which includes a performance, exhibition viewing and DJ-backed after-party!
👯♂️ january at the joyce
Check out the Havana-based Malpaso Dance Company’s residency at the Joyce Theater now through January 26. It’s an evening of works by Cuban choreographers, accompanied by live music from the Alma String Quartet, Aldo López-Gavilán and Ilmar Gavilán!
🧧 lunar new dance
Ring in Lunar New Year (which begins January 29!) with an all-AAPI DJ-ed dance party from Asian queer-led collective Bubble T January 25 at Elsewhere, featuring DJ sets by Ly Tran, p41dz, Kim Ahn, misquared and naja as well as a special appearance by SNL star Bowen Yang!
…what’s happening before and just after I hit your inbox next!
🀄 masters of mahjong
The Ace Hotel Brooklyn’s Mahjong tournament January 31 (featuring an evening of live music, mask crafting, food and mahjong, of course) sold out super quick but there is a waitlist and I do bet that our current Arctic freeze gives you a better chance at getting in!
🎭 new play alert!
“What happens when you love someone, but you hate the things they believe?” is the logline of Lia Romeo’s Still, running January 28-March 23 at The Sheen Center for Thought and Culture and starring Melissa Gilbert (Little House on the Prairie!!) and Mark Moses (Desperate Housewives, Mad Men). The whirlwind comedy explores “getting older and roads not taken” and if I was a betting person I’d guess Mark Moses’s character is the one who believes iffy shit (no hate Mark, but you generally play villains lol??? But maybe I’m wrong?? Guess we’ll need to go and find out!).
🇵🇷 the troubadour of puerto rico
Puerto Rican actor, writer, professor, and author Teófilo Torres performs selections from his latest satirical book Décimas por Sacos, “a unique record and reflection of the Puerto Rican spirit” and a collection of over a decades-worth of writing January 31 at the Loisaida Center!
…for when you need to secure those hot tickets before they sell out!!!
🎭 new samuel d hunter drop
I know I’ve said this before, but Samuel D Hunter’s A Case for the Existence of God truly gutted me and so I must go check out his latest work, Grangeville a new play about “the fallibility of memory, the stories we tell to make sense of our suffering, and the complexity of forgiveness” February 4-March 16 at Signature Theatre!
🎤 i bet this will sell out
In my ever-continuing effort to get ahead of these sold out shows, I recommend you book your tickets to see acclaimed standup Ramy Youssef’s Bell House residency February 10-12 now!! Nobody does the marriage of hilarity and pathos better!
🎭 it’s a privilege
There was a time that Urinetown, playing New York City Center Encores February 5-16 was EVERYWHERE. You couldn’t hit up a high school, community or regional theatre without seeing it, and for good reason — it’s a satire about a dystopian world where you have to pay to use the bathroom and HMMM maybe we should heed its warning!! Good thing it’s back!!!
🔥 Hot tip
Thanks to the New Yorker, I learned that you can learn to knit your very own chunky velvet bag that looks close enough to much more expensive designer versions at The Crafty Lounge on The Upper East Side! Sounds like a thrifty hack for us broke fashion fiends!!
⚠️ Omg I forgot to tell you
The corpse flower is blooming at Brooklyn Botanic Gardens
You can pet puppies at the Javits Center this weekend
Know all of the inside jokes in this newsletter? Head to MT Trivia with Chris Timson at VERS January 27
There’s an all-ages Lunar New Year celebration at the Brooklyn Museum January 26
Training for the next Olympics? You can practice your curling skills at Edge now through March 16
🕵️ special end-of-the-newsletter song lyric reveal
First and foremost: bless all of you who do make it all the way to the end of my musings — you’re deeply appreciated!! If you were wondering, this week’s subject line is from Stephen Sondheim’s Company and YES I use Sondheim a lot and YES he has a lyric for every occasion/mood/world event — ok that’s it see ya soon!!
That’s it for now! Call me beep me if you want to reach me! (sarah@w42st.com)
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