Tag Archives: summerstage

FREE SUMMER EVENTS JULY 15-22

come out and play

The free summer arts & culture season is under way, with dance, theater, music, art, film, and other special outdoor programs all across the city. Every week we will be recommending a handful of events. Keep watching twi-ny for more detailed highlights as well.

Sunday, July 15
Harlem Meer Performance Festival: Keith “the Captain” Gamble and the NU Gypsies, Charles A. Dana Discovery Center, Central Park, 2:00

Monday, July 16
Piano in Bryant Park: Daryl Sherman, July 16-20, Bryant Park, 12:30

Tuesday, July 17
High Line Art: Kerry Tribe Artist Talk, panel discussion with Kerry Tribe, moderated by Melanie Kress and Ana Traverso-Krejcarek, about Tribe’s Exquisite Corpse film, the High Line at Fourteenth St., 7:00

Black Mother will be shown in Socrates Sculpture Park on July 19

Wednesday, July 18
Outdoor Cinema: Black Mother (Khalik Allah, 2018) and Symphony of a Sad Sea (Carlos Morales Mancilla, 2018), Socrates Sculpture Park, with live performance at 7:00, film at sunset

Thursday, July 19
Shakespeare in the Parking Lot: Hamlet, starring Jane Bradley and directed by Karla Hendrick, Clemente Parking Lot, 114 Norfolk St., July 19-21 & 26-28, 6:30

Piano in Bryant Park continues weekdays at 12:30

Friday, July 20
BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival: Anoushka Shankar, Land of Gold, My Brightest Diamond, Prospect Park Bandshell, 7:30

Saturday, July 21
Come Out & Play, Manhattan Bridge Archway Plaza, DUMBO, family-friendly activities 1:00 – 5:00, adult games 7:00 – 10:00

Sunday, July 22
SummerStage: Ginuwine, the Ladies of Pink Diamonds, and DJ Stacks, Corporal Thompson Park, Staten Island, 5:00

FREE SUMMER EVENTS JULY 1-8

Joey Chestnut and Miki Sudo will defend their hot-dog-eating titles at Nathan’s on July 4

Sunday, July 1
SummerStage: Northern Beat: Broken Social Scene, Melissa Laveaux, and the East Pointers, Rumsey Playfield, Central Park, 3:00

Monday, July 2
Movies Under the Stars: Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan, 2017), Walt Whitman Park, Cadman Plaza East, blankets and chairs permitted, no alcohol, 8:30

Tuesday, July 3
Lincoln Sessions at Pier 17: Atlas Genius, free with advance RSVP, Seaport Square at Pier 17, South Street Seaport, 5:00

Wednesday, July 4
The Hot Dog Eating Contest, Nathan’s Famous, Surf Ave. at Stillwell Ave., Coney Island, women’s competition (four-time defending champion Miki Sudo) at 10:50 am, men’s (defending champion Joey Chestnut) at 12 noon

Peridance moves from Bryant Park [above] to Union Square Park for July 5 performance (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Thursday, July 5
Summer in the Square: including yoga at 7:00, cardio at 8:00, Art Farm in the City at 9:00, Hopalong Andrew at 11:00, the New School Jazz Trio at 12 noon, Dueling Performances with Peridance Contemporary Dance Company at 5:00, and Sunset Vinyasa Yoga at 7:30, Union Square Park, 7:00 am – 8:30 pm

Friday, July 6
Bryant Park Picnics: Contemporary Dance, with Steps on Broadway Summer Study NYC Theater/Jazz Intensive, Monteleone Dance, Tiffany Mills Company, and Jennifer Muller/The Works, Bryant Park Fountain Terrace, 6:00

Saturday, July 7
Rite of Summer Music Festival: Dither Quartet, Colonels Row, Governors Island, 1:00 & 3:00

Sunday, July 8
Laughter in the Parks, with Dean Edwards and others, Garibaldi Plaza, Washington Square Park, 2:00

FREE SUMMER EVENTS JUNE 24 – JULY 1

Roger Guenveur Smith will perform Frederick Douglass Now at BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival on June 28

Sunday, June 24
Porch Stomp, with more than seventy bands on sixteen stages, Nolan Park, Governors Island, 12 noon – 5:00 pm

Monday, June 25
Movie Nights in Bryant Park: The Philadelphia Story (George Cukor, 1940), Bryant Park, lawn opens at 5:00, film begins at sunset

Tuesday, June 26
Washington Square Music Festival, with Kuumba Frank Lacy Sextet and vocalist, Washington Square Park, 8:00

The Metropolitan Summer Recital Series comes to Jackie Robinson Park on June 28

The Metropolitan Summer Recital Series comes to Jackie Robinson Park on June 27

Wednesday, June 27
SummerStage: The Metropolitan Summer Recital Series, with Gerard Schneider, Gabriella Reyes de Ramírez, and Adrian Timpau performing arias and duets, Jackie Robinson Park, 7:00

Thursday, June 28
Live at the Archway: Grupo Rebolu, with DJ Dan Edinberg and live art experience by Catherine Haggarty, Water St. between Anchorage Pl. & Adams St., DUMBO, 6:00

Friday, June 29
BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival: Branford Marsalis / Roger Guenveur Smith: Frederick Douglass Now, Prospect Park Bandshell, 7:30

Sunday, July 1
Shell-ebrate Oysters, Hudson River Park, Pier 25, registration recommended, 4:00

FREE SUMMER EVENTS: JUNE 17-24

The Breakfast Club screens for free in Bryant Park on Monday night

Sunday, June 17
New York Philharmonic Concerts in the Parks: Free Indoor Concert in Staten Island, Music Hall, Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden, free, 3:00

Monday, June 18
Movie Nights in Bryant Park: The Breakfast Club (John Hughes, 1985), Bryant Park, lawn opens at 5:00, film begins at sunset

Tuesday, June 19
Night at the Museums, with free admission to and special programs at African Burial Ground National Monument, China Institute, Federal Hall National Memorial, Fraunces Tavern Museum, Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, National Archives at New York City, National Museum of the American Indian — Smithsonian Institution, National September 11 Memorial & Museum, 9/11 Tribute Museum, NYC Municipal Archives, Poets House, the Skyscraper Museum, and South Street Seaport Museum, 4:00 – 8:00

Big Daddy Kane celebrates thirty years since his debut record in Coney Island on June 20

Wednesday, June 20
City Parks Foundation SummerStage: Big Daddy Kane: Long Live the Kane 30th Anniversary, with Big Daddy Kane and the Finisher Mister Cee, hosted by Doug E Fresh, Ford Amphitheater at Coney Island, 3052 West Twenty-First St., 7:00

Thursday, June 21
Smith Street Stage: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Jonathan Hopkins, continues Wednesday – Sunday through July 1, Carroll Park, Brooklyn

Friday, June 22
Films on the Green: La Bûche (Danièle Thompson, 1999), Transmitter Park, West St. between Kent St. and Greenpoint Ave., 8:30

Saturday, June 23
and
Sunday, June 24
Figment Festival, participatory arts activities, Governors Island, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

SUMMERSTAGE: BOWIE SYMPHONIC

Ensemble LPR, led by Evan Ziporyn (left) and featuring Maya Beiser (right) and the Donny McCaslin Group, will play David Bowie’s Blackstar at free Central Park show

Who: Ensemble LPR
What: Tribute performance of David Bowie’s final album, Blackstar
Where: City Parks SummerStage, Rumsey Playfield, enter at 72nd St. & Fifth Ave.
When: Saturday, June 9, free, 7:00 – 10:00
Why: Ensemble LPR, a classical music assemblage based at (Le) Poisson Rouge on Bleecker St., will be at Rumsey Playfield on June 9 for “Bowie Symphonic,” a free performance of Blackstar, the surprise album David Bowie released on January 8, 2016, his sixty-ninth birthday, two days before his death from liver cancer. Ensemble LPR will be led by clarinetist Evan Ziporyn, joined by cello soloist Maya Beiser, a founding member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, and the Donny McCaslin Group. Saxophonist McCaslin and his band played on Blackstar. “It was like a dream except it was something I never could have dreamed of,” McCaslin says of working with the Thin White Duke, which inspired his latest album, Beyond Now. “David Bowie was a visionary artist whose generosity, creative spirit, and fearlessness will stay with me the rest of my days. Beyond Now is dedicated to him and to all who loved him.” Doors open at six for the seven o’clock concert, which is part of (Le) Poisson Rouge’s tenth anniversary celebration, LPR X, which continues at the Greenwich Village institution with performances by Deerhoof, Of Montreal, the Horrors, Marc Ribot, Stew & the Negro Problem, Blonde Redhead, Bill Frisell, Justin Vivian Bond, and others.

SUMMERSTAGE — THE NUYO PRESENTS: STACEYANN CHIN / NTOZAKE SHANGE / SARAH KAY

Ntozake Shange (photo © Adger Cowans 2015)

Who: Staceyann Chin, Ntozake Shange, Sarah Kay
What: SummerStage program with Nuyorican Poets Cafe
Where: East River Park, FDR Drive between Jackson & Cherry Sts.
When: Wednesday, August 9, free, 7:00
Why: Any chance to see poet, playwright, activist, novelist, children’s book writer, and feminist Ntozake Shange is a special opportunity, so don’t miss her on August 9 when she comes to East River Park in a spoken-word SummerStage program held in conjunction with the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Winner of Obie Awards for Mother Courage and Her Children and for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf, the Pushcart Prize, and a Guggenheim fellowship and nominated for a Tony, a Grammy, and an Emmy, Shange changed her given name from Paulette Williams while in graduate school, choosing one that means “she who comes with her own things” (Ntozake) and “who walks like a lion” (Shange), which represents her quite well. She’ll be joined at East River Park by Brooklyn-based, Jamaica-born Staceyann Chin, a self-described “out poet and political activist” and single mother who has appeared on and off Broadway and written a memoir, The Other Side of Paradise, as well as New York poet and Project VOICE founder and codirector Sarah Kay, who began reading her poetry publicly in the city when she was fourteen, has published such books as No Matter the Wreckage, b, and The Type, and gave the extremely popular TED talk “If I should have a daughter . . .” in 2011.

SUMMERSTAGE: MAVIS STAPLES / TOSHI REAGON & BIGLovely

Mavis Staples will perform a free concert in Central Park with Toshi Reagon & BIGLovely on June 3

Who: Mavis Staples, Toshi Reagon & BIGLovely
What: Free SummerStage concert
Where: Rumsey Playfield, Central Park, 72nd St. & Fifth Ave.
When: Saturday, June 3, free, doors at 6:00, show at 7:00
Why: Chicago-born legend Mavis Staples has become somewhat of a, well, summer staple in New York City. This year the seventy-seven-year-old R&B singer will headline a free show in Rumsey Playfield on June 3, highlighting her remarkable history as a member of the Staples Singers and as a solo artist, including songs from her most recent album, last year’s Livin’ on a High Note. Her sets regularly feature such classic songs as “I’ll Take You There,” “Let’s Get Together,” and “Freedom Highway” as well as such covers as “The Weight,” “Slippery People,” and “For What It’s Worth,” charming audiences with her golden voice and fab stories. Opening up will be the amazing Toshi Reagon & BIGLovely; Reagon is “a one-woman celebration of all that’s dynamic, progressive, and uplifting in American music”; now entering its third decade, BIGLovely consists of Judith Casselberry, Ganessa James, Juliette Jones, Stephanie McKay, Josette Newsam Marchak, Allison Miller, and Alex Nolan.