The Guide
Click a dot for venue details. Scroll-zoom activates after you click the map.
Books & readings
Bookstores with events
Author talks, launches, and readings. Some are free, some are ticketed or bundled with a book - check the listing.
Theatre
Broadway & off-Broadway, right now
Here There Are Blueberries
Based on real events: a mysterious album of Nazi-era photographs lands on a Holocaust Museum archivist's desk in 2007, and unraveling it becomes a story about what the pictures reveal about the perpetrators, and about us. By Moises Kaufman and Amanda Gronich. Limited to 80 performances.
Pre-Existing Condition
A New York Times Critics' Pick by Marin Ireland, directed by Maria Dizzia, on how violence imprints itself on the body and mind after a relationship ends. 75 minutes, no intermission. The central role rotates by the week: Lupita Nyong'o through 9/26, then Phillipa Soo, Susannah Flood, Hari Nef, Edie Falco and Whitney White into January - worth checking the casting calendar before you book.
How to get cheap theatre tickets
- Lucky Seat - tried and true. Digital lotteries for a lot of shows.
- TodayTix lottery - a strict 9 a.m. window and it may never hit, but it's worth a shot if you're consistent.
- TKTS in Times Square - same-day discounts, up to ~50% off. Never done it personally; the word is good.
- Morning box office - showing up when the box office opens can turn up same-day tickets or returns.
Venues
Most of these shows are discoverable on TodayTix, so you don't need to check every venue individually.
The Public Theater (NoHo) is the big one - Shakespeare in the Park and the Under the Radar festival, plus a year-round slate of new plays. The East Village holds New York Theatre Workshop and La MaMa, both reliably adventurous; Soho Rep does tiny, fierce new plays (currently sharing Playwrights Horizons' space). Lincoln Center Theater's Claire Tow stage keeps a low flat ticket price.
Music
Live music
Barbès (Park Slope) is the tiny back room for world, jazz and folk - Slavic Soul Party on Tuesdays, Brooklyn Maqam, Stephane Wrembel. Two or three sets most nights; bring cash for the door. Joe's Pub (NoHo), inside The Public Theater, is the city's home for songwriters, cabaret, and spoken word - usually an early show and a late show. Public Records (Gowanus) is a hi-fi listening bar and vegan cafe whose 200-capacity Sound Room runs DJ sets and live music on a serious sound system.
Comedy
Comedy clubs
Union Hall and The Bell House are sister venues in Brooklyn - reliably good line-ups of music, comedy, and quiz/live shows. On the comedy side in Manhattan, Sesh (LES) runs multiple shows a night, and Caveat (LES) does the nerdy end of things: science, history, and music explainers with comedians.
Wellness
Meditation, sound baths & breathwork
New York Insight Meditation Center (NoMad) is a Buddhist center - drop-in sittings, courses, and daylong retreats, many also offered online. Maha Rose (Columbia Waterfront) runs a deep calendar of reiki, sound baths, breathwork, and somatic and psychic-development workshops. Reforesters Laboratory (Williamsburg) is an adaptogen café and spatial-sound listening room that pairs ambient and experimental music with sound baths and breathwork.
Retreat centers, a day trip out
For when an evening class isn't enough. All four are reachable without staying overnight, though most people don't regret staying.
Cultural centers
Talks, readings, concerts
92NY (Upper East Side) has an enormous program - lectures, readings, concerts, and classes. Symphony Space (Upper West Side) is home to Selected Shorts and the Thalia film series. Think Olio (Prospect Heights) runs read-ins, seminars and concerts out of its Bergen Street lighthouse. Pioneer Works (Red Hook) puts art, science, and music in one building, with a free Second Sundays open house. The Greene Space (Hudson Square) is WNYC and WQXR's studio, open to an audience for live radio, interviews, and small concerts.
Film
Film
IFC Center (Greenwich Village) for arthouse releases, Q&As, and Waverly Midnights. Film at Lincoln Center runs the Walter Reade Theater year-round and hosts NYFF and the NY Jewish Film Festival (see Festivals).
New York classics
Classical & opera
Festivals
Through the year
The annual festivals worth planning around. Dates shift each year - confirm before booking travel or time off.