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!
I recently had the good fortune to tag along with a friend of mine to see her friend star in Chicago on Broadway. I hadn’t been back to the Ambassador since I last saw the show in, oh, 2003 (if you don’t count the times I used to deliver LaDuca shoes there and then loiter backstage in hopes that they might need an extra Cell Block Tango gal ☠️), and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from a show that’s been chilling for over two decades. Well, let me tell you — IT WAS A GREAT F***** TIME!!!!! That cast was giving you the kind of energy reserved for Tony voter performances. So take this as your sign to revisit an old favorite and see what it’s been up to…and yes, you might still find me loitering in fishnets backstage.
…when you can only think as far ahead as Monday!
🚢 on the town
Continuing to embarrass myself on weekly basis here by mentioning that you can watch the Fleet Week episode of Sex and the City for a few lols and then go out into the real world and celebrate Fleet Week around Hell’s Kitchen — which includes everything from performances from the Marine Corps Band to the annual Parade of Ships to Intrepid’s Free Friday showing of Top Gun!
🎺 march on
If you’re spending the weekend wandering the other boroughs, why not stop by the Brooklyn Memorial Day Parade May 29, where veterans groups and local community orgs will march and maybe do my favorite thing about parades, which is throw candy at the crowd lol. Catch some for me!!
🌳 the trolley tour
Honor Memorial Day and learn more about the historic Green-Wood Cemetery and its many notable residents by taking the historian-led Veterans of World War II Trolley Tour May 27 or the Green-Wood Cemetery Memorial Day concert May 29, which features works that commemorate service members as well as many of the famous composers buried at the cemetery, including Fred Ebb, James Weldon Johnston and Leonard Bernstein.
🎭 celebrating latine artistry
Paying tribute to the Areyto, an ancient song and dance ceremony performed by the indigenous Taino people of the Caribbean, the Actors Studio hosts a free Areyto-Latine Celebration this Friday and Saturday May 25-26 featuring scenework, songs and dance from the studio’s Latine artists.
🎭 put your trust in him
A play about “new beginnings, old friends, and seeing the world for the first time,” Primary Trust at Roundabout stars William Jackson Harper as a laid off bookstore worker finding new meaning in his unexpected circumstances. Given how truly fantastic Harper was in The Good Place, I have high hopes for this. It plays now through July 2!
🖼️ seeing red
Examining the emotions that arise from “experiencing this controversial hue,” Fountain House Gallery’s newest exhibition RED features works from dozens of artists and is holding a opening reception tonight!
🎶 astonishing
Were you really a musical theater major in the 2000s if you didn’t get vocal nodes while trying desperately to emulate Sutton Foster’s belt? Pay homage to the Queen of Forward Placement when she plays Cafe Carlyle now through June 10.
🎬 welcome to the jam
DID YOU KNOW THAT Space Jam’s website remains as it was in 1996??? NOW YOU KNOW! The beloved Michael Jordan/Looney Tunes star vehicle (featuring Bill Murray??? This movie is kind of trippy lol) plays the Midtown Rooftop Cinema Club this Saturday May 27.
🎭 new work alert!!
Pulitzer Prize finalist and Signature resident playwright Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins premieres his new play, The Comeuppance at the West Side venue now through June 25 in which “a self-proclaimed ‘Multi-Ethnic Reject Group’ reconvenes for the first time in years to pregame for their 20th high school reunion. Over alcohol and other such substances, they try to reconnect who they once were with who they’ve each become.”
🎬 ny onscreen
It’s true: the mold leaking down the walls of the subway station is much more glamorous when you’re watching it in a movie. Check out a full film festival of Big Apple-centric movies at The City: Real and Imagined playing now through June 8 at Film Forum and featuring classics like The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, Rear Window, The French Connection, The Landlord, Taxi Driver and The Sweet Smell of Success. And for a guide to movies set in Hell’s Kitchen, check out our list here!
because that metlife stadium concert is sold out lol
Reminder!! You can see Taylor Swift’s costumes up close and personal at the Museum of Arts and Design’s Taylor Swift: Storyteller exhibit now showing through September!! We got a chance to chat the collection with curator Alexandra Schwartz and it’s not to be missed!!
…what’s happening before and just after I hit your inbox next!
🎤 baby j speaks
It’s safe to say that John Mulaney has had an interesting couple of years — and I won’t lie, the gossip in me is very curious about what his panel conversation at the 92n Street Y with Alex Timbers, David Byrne and Fred Armisen on May 31 will be like!!!
🎶 sun set fun set
Kick off a summer of classy rooftop hangs at Sun Sets at the Met June 1 where Brazilian born New Yorker and drummer Elle Dee plays a live concert that straddles between disco, house and techno!
🎬 cher in a wig
The world is semi-constantly on fire, therefore we deserve a campy movie night at which to properly dissociate. Enter: Cher and company at Midtown Rooftop Cinema’s screening of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again on May 30.
…for when you need to secure those hot tickets before they sell out!!!
🎶 an invite to the ball
Want to skip the drama of say, Coachella? It’s as easy as taking the 7 train to Governors Ball Music Festival June 9-11 to see headliners like Lizzo, Odesza, Kendrick Lamar and many, many more!
🎭 cool commedia
Catch recent graduates of the Yale School of Drama in a vibrant new commedia dell’arte piece, for the honey, you gotta say when which plays New York Theatre Workshop June 1-10, where “you may feel your heart grow a little, the strings of it gently tugged by the outrageous commedia inspired shenanigans,” according to its creators, who add, “You may even be provoked into astonishing giddiness and wonder when you stumble back out onto the streets of the East Village.”
🎤 relatively speaking
I’ll admit that my first exposure to veteran actor John Turturro was in Mr Deeds, but he’s also been in a few things over the years like Do the Right Thing, O, Brother, Where Art Thou?, Summer of Sam and Danny and the Deep Blue Sea lol. Head to the City Museum of New York for An Evening with John Turturro, where the Brooklyn native discusses his wide-ranging body of work and you can drink wine!!
🔥 Hot tip
When you want to host a birthday party but you don’t want to HoSt a bIrThDaY pArTy that includes $80 million tables at Tao or whatever, head to Goldie’s Bar in Greenpoint, where you can rent a Vegas-lounge-looking private karaoke room and bring your own pizza for like $150. All credit for this hot tip goes to my BFF Liz who did this for her bday and it was a rockin’ good time (if you didn’t mind my questionable ABBA harmonies).
⚠️ Omg I forgot to tell you
Live Music in Times Square next Wednesday May 31 presented by Hell’s Kitchen’s own Jasmine’s Caribbean Cuisine!!
Sister Act is screening on the rooftop of Green Room 42 May 28
Rebecca Minkoff sample sale now through May 28
There’s a David Bowie dance party at the Bell House May 26
That’s it for now! Call me beep me if you want to reach me! (sarah@w42st.com)
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