this week in theater

OTHELLO

Iago (Daniel Craig) makes his case to Othello (David Oyelowo) in gripping NYTW production (photo by Chad Batka)

New York Theatre Workshop
79 East Fourth St. between Second & Third Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 18, $129
Thursday, January 12 benefit, $1,500 – $2,500
www.nytw.org

“Were I the Moor I would not be Iago. In following him, I follow but myself. Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,” Iago (Daniel Craig) says in the first scene of William Shakespeare’s Othello. “I am not what I am.” What he is is a villain, one of the most devious in the Bard’s canon, and in Sam Gold’s captivating, intense production at New York Theatre Workshop, the audience is also Iago’s judge. Set designer Andrew Lieberman has transformed NYTW into a plywood-encased military barracks where the audience sits on benches on three sides of the action, the main sections holding rows of twelve people, like courtroom juries. The soliloquies are delivered as if closing statements in a trial, the characters trying to convince the audience of their innocence — or guilt. Reminiscent of Nicholas Hytner’s 2013 National Theatre production set in a contemporary military base (among other locations), NYTW’s version is sparer, the long, narrow stage area featuring mattresses and lights on the floor. Iago, ensign to military hero and Moor Othello (David Oyelowo), is determined to exact revenge on Othello for an unproved slight by sabotaging his marriage to Desdemona (Rachel Brosnahan), the daughter of Venetian senator Brabantio (Glenn Fitzgerald). With the help of his naïve friend Roderigo (Matthew Maher), Iago concocts a plan to drive Othello mad with jealousy, trying to convince him that Desdemona is in love with Michael Cassio (Finn Wittrock), Othello’s dedicated captain. “Thou art sure of me. I have told thee often, and I retell thee again and again, I hate the Moor,” Iago says to Roderigo. “My cause is hearted; thine hath no less reason. If thou canst cuckold him, thou dost thyself a pleasure, me a sport,” he adds, explaining how he will get even with Othello, believing that the Moor might have bedded his wife, Emilia (Marsha Stephanie Blake). After Roderigo exits, Iago states his case to the audience-jury: “And it is thought abroad that ’twixt my sheets ’has done my office. I know not if ’t be true, but I, for mere suspicion in that kind, will do as if for surety. He holds me well. The better shall my purpose work on him.” As Othello falls for the ruse, tragedy awaits.

New York Theatre Workshop is transformed into military barracks in Sam Gold’s OTHELLO (photo by Chad Batka)

Royal Shakespeare Company veteran Oyelowo (Volpone, Prometheus Bound) and Craig (A Steady Rain, Casino Royale) make a formidable duo as Othello and Iago, roles previously played by such pairs as Paul Robeson and José Ferrer, Richard Burton and John Neville (alternating parts), Laurence Olivier and Frank Finlay, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Ewan McGregor, and Laurence Fishburne and Kenneth Branagh. Craig is tough and determined as Iago, dead-set on succeeding in his evil goal, while Oyelowo combines an engaging ardor with a heartbreaking vulnerability. Emmy nominee Brosnahan (The Big Knife, House of Cards) plays Desdemona with a strong independence, Blake (Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Hurt Village) brings depth to Emilia, and Wittrock (Death of a Salesman, American Horror Story) is firm and solid as the loyal Cassio. Through much of the play, other soldiers (Blake DeLong, Anthony Michael Lopez, Kyle Vincent Terry, Slate Holmgren) roam the stage, carrying machine guns, as if violence can explode at any moment, always on the verge of war, keeping things tense as well as frighteningly contemporary, given the state of the world today. Tony winner Gold (Fun Home, The Flick) keeps the racial aspect of Othello simmering just below the surface, ever-present but not overwhelming, casting a black Othello and Emilia and a white Iago and Desdemona among the multiracial cast. (Surprisingly, for most of the twentieth century, Othello was played by white men in major productions, sometimes in blackface.) Gold occasionally breaks the tension with drinking songs led by DeLong on guitar, the characters declaring at one point, “We are, we are, we are, we are the Engineers. / We can, we can, we can demolish forty beers. / Drink up, drink up, drink up and come along with us / ’Cause we don’t give a damn about any old man who don’t give a damn about us.” They’re odd but necessary sidebars in this powerful and intimate three-hour show that grabs you and never lets you go.

THE BABYLON LINE

Teacher Aaron Port (Josh Radnor) and student Joan Dellamond (Elizabeth Reaser) get on board THE BABYLON LINE at Lincoln Center

Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse
150 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Tuesday – Saturday through January 22, $87
212-362-7600
www.lct.org

The first words of Richard Greenberg’s latest play, The Babylon Line, are “The End,” referencing both the end of life and what might be the end of the literary dreams of Aaron Port (Josh Radnor), who then quotes Walter Benjamin: “Death sanctions all stories.” Unfortunately, the end of The Babylon Line can’t come quite soon enough. It’s 1967, and the thirty-eight-year-old Aaron, who has had one short story published, has been reduced to teaching an adult education Creative Writing class in Levittown for a trio of yentas who were disappointed that Contemporary Events and Politics, Flower Arranging, and French Cooking were already full, plus a drug-addled former valedictorian, a shell-shocked Korean War veteran, and a woman who apparently has stepped right out of a Tennessee Williams play. A reverse commuter who lives in Greenwich Village, Aaron takes the train from Penn Station to Wantagh for the class, managing to net fifteen bucks a week. At first he has little interest in teaching or in his odd students until southern belle Joan Dellamond (Elizabeth Reaser), who like him feels like an outsider, awakens a long-subdued passion in him. While Jack Hassenpflug (Frank Wood) keeps reworking his brief war memory and Marc Adams (Michael Oberholtzer) can’t say much more than hello, Frieda Cohen (Randy Graff), Midge Braverman (Julie Halston), and Anna Cantor (Maddie Corman as a character who has previously appeared in Greenberg’s Everett Beekin and Our Mother’s Brief Affair) gossip about the other students and Mr. Levitt, the founder of Levittown, forming a kind of Hadassah chorus. “I’m very excited about your potential,” Aaron hesitatingly tells the class, but not only doesn’t he mean it, he’s also sarcastically referring to his own potential, which he sees fading away fast. As Joan later remarks, “Levittown is not where people generally come seeking opportunities.”

Aaron (Josh Radnor) faces his creative writing class, and himself, in new Richard Greenberg play

Just as Aaron is bored with what his life has become, it’s hard to get excited about The Babylon Line. The format, framed by the memories of eighty-six-year-old Aaron examining a major part of his life nearly half a century earlier, plays out more like a short story than a fully realized theatrical work; it has some intriguing elements and a handful of fine moments, but it can’t sustain its 140-minute length (with intermission). Coincidentally, Greenberg (Take Me Out, The Assembled Parties), who was raised in East Meadow, has recently released Rules for Others to Live By: Comments and Self-Contradictions, a book that consists of fifty short stories, most of which run fewer than ten pages. Awkwardly directed by Terry Kinney (One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, reasons to be pretty) on Richard Hoover’s basic schoolroom set, the play also never quite captures the Long Island feel of the title; while there are references to suburbia, it lacks the rhythm of that oft-heard poem: “Rockville Centre, Baldwin, Freeport, Merrick, Bellmore, Wantagh, Seaford, Massapequa, Massapequa Park, Amityville, Copiague, Lindenhurst, and Babylon.” Originally produced by New York Stage and Film in 2014 and running at Lincoln Center Theater’s Mitzi E. Newhouse, The Babylon Line is one class, or train, you won’t mind missing.

RIDE THE CYCLONE

Six recently deceased characters battle over a possible return to life in RIDE THE CYCLONE (photo by Joan Marcus)

MCC Theater at the Lucille Lortel Theatre
121 Christopher St. between Bleecker & Hudson Sts.
Tuesday – Sunday through December 29, $69-$125
212-352-3101
www.mcctheater.org

When I first heard that the new musical Ride the Cyclone was coming to New York City, I could not have been more excited. I’ve been riding the 1927 Coney Island landmark for decades and still make sure to go at least once every summer. But as I sat in the Lucille Lortel Theater one recent Saturday afternoon, it quickly became apparent that this show has nothing to do with the Brooklyn seaside wooden roller coaster that Charles Lindbergh claimed was more thrilling than flying across the Atlantic. However, I very shortly found myself fully immersed in this MCC production — only the third musical in the company’s thirty-year history — about five members of the Saint Cassian High School Chamber Choir from Uranium, Saskatchewan, who are killed in a tragic accident while riding a roller coaster known as the Cyclone at an unnamed Canadian amusement park. Caught up in a kind of purgatorial way station, Ocean (Tiffany Tatreau), Noel (Kholby Wardell), Constance (Lillian Castillo), Misha (Gus Halper), and Ricky (Spring Awakening’s Alex Wyse, the only cast member not part of the original Chicago Shakespeare Theater production) are not sure what happened to them, but they are assured by mechanical fortune-teller Karnak (Karl Hamilton) that they are indeed dead, and that because he did not warn them of the impending danger, he will offer one of them the chance to return to life. They are joined by Jane Doe (Emily Rohm), a creepy, ghostly girl who is more like her doll than a human; meanwhile, Karnak is counting down the hours of his own existence, as a rather large rat is gnawing through his electrical wiring. Each of the youngsters get their moment to shine, performing a solo that reveals their problems along with their hopes and dreams, dealing with such teen angst as homosexuality, overcoming physical disabilities, being a compulsive overachiever, shame, and finding one’s place in the world, each song delivered in a different genre, from glam rock to hip-hop to sentimental balladry. The cast might sing, “It’s just a ride,” but it’s so much more than that.

The Saint Cassian High School Chamber Choir look to the light in MCC production at the Lucille Lortel (photo by Joan Marcus)

The show has been around since 2008, when it was a cabaret song cycle inspired by mass shooting deaths, including the murder of show cocreator Jacob Richmond’s sister, Rachel, while she was trying to protect a teenager outside a Vancouver club; it is now a multimedia extravaganza, with Scott Davis’s haunted, abandoned amusement park set, Theresa Ham’s spot-on appropriate costumes, Mike Tutaj’s intimate, tongue-in-cheek projections, Greg Hofmann’s blazing lighting, and Garth Helm’s all-pervasive sound. Director and choreographer Rachel Rockwell never lets things slow down, as if the audience is riding a psychological roller coaster, while Brooke Maxwell and Richmond’s book, music, and lyrics cleverly play with genre clichés, avoiding turning the plot into The Breakfast Club while beautifully defining each character with such numbers as “This Song Is Awesome,” “What the World Needs Is People Like Me,” “Space Age Bachelor Man,” and “Take a Look Around.” The energetic cast is a delight, each actor glorying in their spotlight, but additional kudos go to Rohm, whose operatic voice soars throughout the theater. (The musical supervision is by Doug Peck, with musical direction by Remy Kurs.) MCC has extended Ride the Cyclone through December 29, but Richmond is considering keeping it going, perhaps transferring to another theater. As Ocean sings, “I know this dream of life is never-ending / It goes around and round and round again.” It might not be about the Coney Island Cyclone, but this ride is still one well worth taking.

IN TRANSIT

A cappella musical IN TRANSIT has pulled into Circle in the Square for its Broadway bow (photo by Joan Marcus)

Circle in the Square Theatre
1633 Broadway at 50th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 25, $89-$159
www.intransitbroadway.com

In the fall of 2010, Primary Stages premiered the a cappella In Transit at 59E59, nabbing a special Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble and earning a nomination for Outstanding Musical, losing out to a little show called The Book of Mormon. A new production of In Transit has now pulled into the Circle in the Square, where it has its ups and downs, stops and starts, just like the New York City subway system. The show is set in an imaginary train station watched over by Boxman (Chesney Snow and Steven “HeaveN” Cantor alternate in the role), a subway beatboxer with a speaker and a microphone who serves as a kind of Greek chorus / narrator, dishing out advice as well as beats. “Really, how you gonna get where you’re going if you don’t know how to be where you are?” he asks. Over the course of ninety-five minutes and sixteen a cappella songs — there are no instruments used; every sound is made by the human voice — various straphangers take stock of their lives while in transit or at their destinations, their stories rooted in genre clichés that seem tailored more for tourists than New Yorkers yet delivered with energetic charm by a very likable cast. Jane (Margo Seibert) is working as a temp while going on auditions, looking for her big acting break. At a bar, she hits it off with Nate (James Snyder), who recently lost his job because of a major “reply all” faux pas. Nate’s sister, Ali (Erin Mackey), has just taken up running to deal with her breakup with Dave (David Abeles), the doctor she moved cross-country to join in New York. Trent (Justin Guarini) and Steven (usually played by Telly Leung, but we saw understudy Arbender Robinson), are planning their wedding, but Steven insists that Trent must stop hiding his sexual orientation from his Bible-thumping mother (Moya Angela) in Texas. The excellent cast also includes Gerianne Pérez, Mariand Torres, and Nicholas Ward; all of the actors except for Snow play multiple roles.

Characters share their hopes and dreams, trials and tribulations on the subway in IN TRANSIT (photo by Joan Marcus)

Directed and choreographed by three-time Tony winner Kathleen Marshall (The Pajama Game, Anything Goes), In Transit works best when it is taking place in the subway, on Donyale Werle’s set, which features familiar train seats and platform and a clever conveyer belt that suggests subway car movement while the characters share classic subway thoughts: “I should’ve hailed a cab.” “This aroma’s unique.” “Is that lady pregnant or fat?” “Crap, why is the seat all wet where I just sat?” “Did I just miss my stop?” When the location moves to Texas, to a bar, and to Jane’s office, it’s like someone pulled the emergency cord on the train and we did indeed get off on the wrong stop. The cast displays an endearing chemistry not only in the major storylines but in the playful subplot involving Trent and angry token clerk Althea (Angela). Overseeing it all like a mythological god is Snow, the only actor from the original 2010 production; the sounds that come out of his mouth are hard to believe, like a full band accompanying the rest of the cast’s lovely, soaring voices. The problem, however, is in the writing, which does not feel adult enough, unwilling to take any real risks, so it is not surprising that the book, music, and lyrics were written by a quartet — Kristen Anderson-Lopez, James-Allen Ford, Russ Kaplan, and Sara Wordsworth — whose resumes include Frozen, Finding Nemo: The Musical, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie & Other Story Books, and the NYC Children’s Theatre’s Dear Albert Einstein. It could have been a much-loved express train, but instead it’s merely a likable local.

ANNA KOHLER: MYTHO? LURE OF WILDNESS

Anna Kohler looks back at her life as both muse and model in MYTHO? at Abrons Arts Center (photo by Caleb Hammond)

Abrons Arts Center Experimental Theater
466 Grand St. at Pitt St.
Through December 22, $25
212-598-0400
www.abronsartscenter.org

The beginning of Anna Kohler’s Mytho? Lure of Wildness is promising. In the tiny Experimental Theater at Abrons Arts Center, Kohler and Katiana Rangel, playing a younger version of the German-American performance artist, are both naked as Kohler recalls her days modeling at L’Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris. “How am I able to stand it?” she asks. “How am I able to stand that way for so long? I guess it’s because I’m so young. I am deemed desirable to be a permanent model because I have the ideal body shape.” Soon Rangel is posing in the art class as Kohler details a particular session when she made lengthy eye contact with one of the students, directly challenging the male gaze of artmaking and taking back control of her body, at least for that moment. And indeed, the first part of the show cleverly deals with aspects of aging, the creation of art, and the concept of woman as sensuous object, both muse and model. But it quickly devolves into chaotic self-indulgence, so when the opportunity arose during a set change, a handful of audience members went running for the exit. Developed at MIT, where Kohler, a ten-year veteran of the Wooster Group, is on the faculty, Mytho? turns into a bewildering muddle of didactic proclamations about Art (capitalization intended), incorporating Robert Bresson’s Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne and Au Hasard Balthazar and Henri Matisse at work in the south of France. Rangel and Alenka Kraigher take their clothes off, Pyramid Club legend Hapi Phace plays a donkey and Matisse (among other characters), Adam Strandberg looks adorable, scents are sprayed overhead, everyone belly-dances, and AutomaticRelease (Shaun Irons and Lauren Petty) projects awkward live video on multiple screens. Director Caleb Hammond can’t find a way in to make any sense of it. And then, after nearly two hours, the cast serves everyone a cup of juice into which Kohler threw raspberries she had just pulled from the pitcher with her bare hands. We were thirsty, but we chose not to partake.

A BRONX TALE: THE NEW MUSICAL

Chazz Palminteri’s A BRONX TALE is now a Broadway musical (photo © Joan Marcus, 2016)

Longacre Theatre
220 West 48th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through November 19, $50-$187
abronxtalethemusical.com

Chazz Palminteri’s autobiographical A Bronx Tale started life as a one-man show in 1989, telling the story of a young Belmont boy, Calogero, who witnesses a murder involving local crime boss Sonny but keeps his mouth shut, earning Sonny’s respect and ultimately a job with the mobster, which deeply angers his bus driver father, Lorenzo. Four years later, the film version arrived, directed by Robert De Niro and starring Palminteri — whose real first name is Calogero — as Sonny, Francis Capra and Lilo Brancato Jr. as Calogero (at different ages), and De Niro as Lorenzo. The show made it to Broadway in the fall of 2007, directed by four-time Tony winner Jerry Zaks. At De Niro’s urging, A Bronx Tale has now been turned into a Broadway musical at the Longacre, codirected by Zaks and De Niro, who should have left well enough alone. The best parts of the new show, and they’re very, very good, are the spoken dialogue scenes, which book writer Palminteri has expanded from his solo show, making excellent use of the expanded cast. However, the musical numbers, by a pair of Disney veterans, bring the show to a screeching halt, filled with syrupy sentimentality that neither enhances the development of the characters nor forwards the plot, instead restating what the audience already knows and feels. Composer Alan Menken and lyricist Glenn Slater, who have previously collaborated on The Little Mermaid, Sister Act, and Leap of Faith, should have known better, too.

Ariana DeBose steals the show as Jane as a race war threatens in A BRONX TALE (photo © Joan Marcus, 2016)

Tony-winning designer Beowulf Boritt (Act One, The Scottsboro Boys) has created a cool, hip set, centered by a street sign that turns from Belmont Ave., where the Italians live, to Webster Ave., a black community, with storefronts and tenement buildings that also rotate to indicate a change of location; the two neighborhoods are close to each other but couldn’t be further apart. The show is narrated by Bobby Conte Thornton, in his engaging Broadway debut, as the adult Calogero, who looks back at the choices he and his father made; Hudson Loverro plays the nine-year-old Calogero, nicknamed “C” by Sonny. Tony nominee Nick Cordero (Bullets over Broadway, Rock of Ages) is impressive as Sonny, forming an intimate chemistry with both Calogeros while battling against Lorenzo (a rock-solid Richard H. Blake of Jersey Boys). The real stand-out is Ariana DeBose (Hamilton, Pippin) as Jane, an African American high school student whom Calogero is interested in, which threatens to set off a local race war. She has a mesmerizing stage presence, with the voice and moves to match. But the real problem is the music, a mix of doo-wop and ballads, and Sergio Trujillo’s (On Your Feet, Jersey Boys) choreography, which together range back and forth between pale imitations of Grease and West Side Story. The film featured classic songs by the Impressions, John Coltrane, the Beatles, Frank Sinatra, Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Dion, the Moonglows, and others, helping set the proper mood; in the musical, the orchestrations by three-time Tony winner Doug Besterman (Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Producers) are drab and dull, unfortunately matching the music and lyrics, sapping the energy out of the show. If one more song focused on the word “heart,” I might have had to run out of the theater screaming. Without the production numbers, A Bronx Tale is compelling and intriguing; with them, it embodies the critical advice Lorenzo gives young Calogero: “The saddest thing in life is wasted talent. Promise me you won’t waste yours.”

HOLIDAY MUSIC, COMEDY, AND THEATER

Ronnie Spector will celebrate the best Christmas ever at City Winery

New York City has tons of special programs during the holiday season, some well known and annual traditions, others more cutting edge and unique. Below is only a handful of seasonal recommendations, several of which are likely not to be on most people’s radar. Keep checking this space as more Christmas and Hanukkah celebrations are added.

Wednesday, December 14
Ingrid Michaelson’s 10th Annual Holiday Hop, with Sugar and the Hi Lows, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey St., $40, 9:00

Kevin Geeks Out About Holiday Specials, with Kevin Maher, Erin Farrell, Wendy Mays, Paul Murphy, and Steve Flack, Nitehawk Cinema, 136 Metropolitan Ave. between Berry St. & Wythe Ave.$16, 9:30

Thursday, December 15
The Menorah: From the Bible to Modern Israel, with Steven Fine, Met Fifth Ave., Bonnie J. Sacerdote Lecture Hall, Uris Center for Education, 1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St., free with museum admission, 3:00

The Oh Hellos Present: The Oh Hellos Christmas Extravaganza, with Tyler and Maggie Heath, Music Hall of Williamsburg, 66 North Sixth St., $20-$22, 9:00

Thursday, December 15
through
Saturday, December 17
The 37th Annual Winter Solstice Celebration, with the Paul Winter Consort (soprano saxophonist Paul Winter, cellist Eugene Friesen, double-reed player Paul McCandless, keyboardist Paul Sullivan, bassist Eliot Wadopian, drummer Jamey Haddad, organist Tim Brumfield, Procol Harum singer Gary Brooker, and Forces of Nature Dance Theatre, Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, 1047 Amsterdam Ave. at 112th St., $35-$95

Friday, December 16, 23
Holiday Music in Gilbert Court, A Renaissance Christmas with My Lord Chamberlain’s Consort, Morgan Library, 225 Madison Ave. at 36th St., free with museum admission, 6:30

Saturday, December 17
Brandenburgers Holiday Concert, with the Brooklyn Brandenburgers performing music by Bach, Corelli, Dvorak, Glickman, Ostyn, and Piazzolla, Old Stone House, 336 Third St. in Washington Park, $10, 2:00 & 7:00

Karen Luschar Sings “Mistletoe and Holly,” New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Bruno Walter Auditorium, 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, free, 2:30

Saturday, December 17
Friday, December 23
Monday, December 26
A Darlene Love Christmas: Love for the Holidays, B. B. King Blues Club & Grill, 237 West 42nd St., $45-$82.50

Sunday, December 18
Latkepalooza!, with food, music, and family-friendly activities, Museum of Jewish Heritage, Edmond J. Safra Plaza, 36 Battery Pl., $10, 10:00 am

Hanukkah Family Day, Jewish Museum, Scheuer Auditorium, 1109 Fifth Ave. at 92nd St., free with museum admission, 12 noon – 4:00 pm

Karina Posborg is one of many filmmakers screening their Yule Log shorts at BRIC

Monday, December 19
Yule Log 2.016, fifty short films, the Stoop at BRIC Arts | Media House, 647 Fulton St., free, 1:00 – 6:00

Harmony for Peace Holiday Peace Concert, Carnegie Hall, Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage, 881 Seventh Ave. between 56th & 57th Sts., $21-$100, 8:00

Tuesday, December 20
MetLiveArts: The Little Match Girl Passion, directed by Rachel Chavkin and starring Ekmeles, Met Breuer lobby, 945 Madison Ave. at 75th St., $65, 7:00

Tuesday, December 20
and
Wednesday, December 21
Ronnie Spector’s Best Christmas Party Ever!, City Winery, 155 Varick St. between Spring & Vandam Sts., $55-$75, 8:00

Thursday, December 22
and
Friday, December 23
Yule Shul vs. Nutcracker: Rated R — A Love Show Holiday Extravaganza, (le) poisson rouge, 158 Bleecker St. between Thompson & Sullivan Sts., $15-$35, 8:00

christmas-for-the-jews

Thursday, December 22
through
Saturday, December 24
Merry Hanukkah with Judy Gold, Carolines on Broadway, 1626 Broadway between 49th & 50th Sts., $32.75

Saturday, December 24
A Very Jewish Christmas, with Modi, Gotham Comedy Club, 208 West 23rd St. between Seventh & 8th Aves., $25, 7:00 & 9:00

Sunday, December 25
Christmas for the Jews, with Joel Chasnoff, Dan Naturman, Cory Kahaney, and more, City Winery, 155 Varick St. between Spring & Vandam Sts., $25, 8:00

Friday, December 30
Kwanzaa 2016: Songs for the Soul, with Ruben Studdard, Dr. Linda H. Humes, and students from the Celia Cruz Bronx High School of Music, American Museum of Natural History, Milstein Hall of Ocean Life, Central Park West at 79th St., free with museum admission, 12 noon & 3:00