‘The Ultimate Improv Show’
Jan. 24-25 on the Bell House, 149 Seventh Street, Brooklyn; thebellhouseny.com.
In the late 2000s, you might catch a lot of right now’s prime sitcom stars and character actors honing their expertise at low-cost (or free) improvisational exhibits within the basement of a Gristedes in Manhattan that the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater was calling house on the time.
The constructing that housed the venue was razed to make means for luxurious condos, however you may nonetheless see these comics in Dan Black’s “The Ultimate Improv Show,” which is coming to New York this weekend. Joining Black on the Bell House are Nicole Byer (“Nailed It!” and “Wipeout”), D’Arcy Carden (“The Good Place”), Neil Casey, Jon Gabrus, Bobby Moynihan (“Saturday Night Live”), Brandon Scott Jones (“Ghosts”) and Paul Welsh (“Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”). They’ll be making up scenes impressed by tales from their visitor monologuists: Joe Gatto from “Impractical Jokers” on Friday at 7:30 p.m., Abbi Jacobson from “Broad City” on Friday at 10 p.m., and Janeane Garofalo on Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets are $30.25 on Live Nation. If these exhibits promote out, you may head to the UCB’s present house on 14th Street to catch the subsequent nice improvisers. SEAN L. McCARTHY
Pop & Rock
Ground Control Touring Presents: Third Annual Abortion Access Benefit
Jan. 25 at 6 p.m. at Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, Manhattan; mercuryeastpresents.com.
The packed invoice of the Third Annual Abortion Access Benefit represents a compelling cross-section of New York’s music neighborhood, bringing scene veterans along with relative upstarts.
High power and danceability are widespread floor for the fund-raiser’s performers. Among them are Guerilla Toss, which brings a punk spirit and surrealistic bent to frenetic noise pop; and Dazegxd, a producer from Canarsie, Brooklyn, whose catalog contains each blown-out rap beats and wafty, eclectic dance music. The psych-rock band Gift and the latest New York transplant Cherry Glazerr are additionally on the invoice. Other artists, together with members of the commercial pop trio Kassie Krut and the noise-rock group Model/Actriz, will tackle D.J. duties.
Tickets are $25, with the choice to make a further donation, on Ticketmaster. Proceeds will probably be distributed to grass-roots reproductive justice efforts by the nonprofit Noise for Now. OLIVIA HORN
Jazz
Takuya Nakamura Presents Cosmic Jungle
Jan. 25 at 7 p.m. at Public Records, 233 Butler Street, Brooklyn; publicrecords.nyc.
As heat and alive as blood pulsing from the guts, the trumpet of Takuya Nakamura, a D.J. and multi-instrumentalist, snakes via his shifting digital textures, his stressed tangles of beats, his booming moments of dance-floor transcendence. Born in Tokyo and based mostly in Brooklyn, Nakamura thrives within the fertile territory between the digital and natural, conjuring from his sequencers and turntables dub and jungle beats that skitter and construct with a bracing human logic.
As Nakamura splices genres and approaches, knowledgeable by his work with innovators like George Russell (on the jazz aspect) and Helio Parallax (on the genre-free experimentation aspect), he achieves a heartening fusion. In a second dominated by synthetic intelligence and algorithms, his is future-minded beat music with an pressing wet-ware metabolism, particularly when joined by collaborators like those he has assembled for this evening of “Cosmic Jungle” jazz: Currency Audio on drums and J. Albert on electronics and guitar.
A D.J. set from Amita opens the present, which is bought out; you may be part of the wait record at cube.fm. ALAN SCHERSTUHL
A.Ok.C. Meet the Breeds
Jan. 25-26, 9 a.m.-4 p.m., on the Jacob Ok. Javits Convention Center, 429 eleventh Avenue, Manhattan; akc.org/meetthebreeds.
New York City is stuffed with canine and the kids who love them. Getting the 2 collectively, nonetheless, isn’t all the time straightforward. Many residence buildings don’t permit canine residents, and dog-walking homeowners could also be too busy to cease for his or her pets’ adoring followers.
But A.Ok.C. Meet the Breeds encourages such encounters. Presented by the American Kennel Club, this annual occasion options examples of greater than 150 canine breeds, from tiny Chihuahuas to huge Leonbergers, for lovers to pet and play with. Although the furry ambassadors aren’t up on the market or adoption, every embellished sales space offers data for households curious about pet possession.
The festivities embody demonstrations — canine working agility programs, catching flying discs and performing stunts — in addition to applications on veterinary care, obedience coaching and tips on how to educate methods. A children’ zone will supply face portray, a scavenger hunt and an agility course for frisky little people. (A full schedule is on the web site.)
Tickets begin at $10.
Children may also catch some cuddly creatures on the large display this weekend throughout L’Alliance New York’s Animation First competition. A cat, as an illustration, stars within the prizewinning movie “Flow,” and a mouse within the free characteristic “Yuku and the Himalayan Flower.” Information is at lallianceny.org. LAUREL GRAEBER
Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company
Jan. 25-26 at 3 p.m. on the Kupferberg Center for the Arts at Queens College, 53-49 Reeves Avenue, Queens; nainichen.org.
According to the Chinese calendar, the brand new yr begins on Wednesday and is ruled by the zodiac signal of the wooden snake, which represents traits equivalent to resourcefulness, intelligence and calm. As it has for years, the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company will rejoice with a collection of family-friendly performances comprising works that exemplify its acclaimed mix of cultural traditions and trendy dance.
The lineup contains “Tiger and Water Lillies,” incorporating modern ballet; “Unfolding,” which honors the ties between Chinese and Korean individuals; and “Lion within the City,” impressed by the normal Lion Dance, a staple of Lunar New Year celebrations, right here flavored with hip-hop. The firm may even introduce “Dances of the Golden Snake,” a festive new work by Ying Shi embodying the joyful spirit of this yr’s exalted animal.
Additional performances will probably be on the New Jersey Performing Arts Center on Feb. 1 and a couple of, and on the Hostos Center for the Arts and Culture within the Bronx on Feb. 11 and 16. Tickets for this weekend are $20 via kupferbergcenter.org. BRIAN SCHAEFER
Last Chance
‘Cult of Love’
Through Feb. 2 on the Helen Hayes Theater, Manhattan; 2st.com. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes.
Second Stage leans proper into holiday-season angst with this dramedy by Leslye Headland (“Russian Doll”) a few dysfunctional clan gathering for Christmas in Connecticut on the house of their mother and father (David Rasche and Mare Winningham), the place the one concord is within the carol singing. Trip Cullman, who staged the play final winter at Berkeley Rep, directs a powerful solid that features Zachary Quinto and Shailene Woodley. Read the evaluate.
Critic’s Pick
‘Oh, Mary’
Through June 28 on the Lyceum Theater, Manhattan; ohmaryplay.com. Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes.
Channeling the deliriously outrageous, emphatically queer downtown spirit of Charles Ludlam and his Ridiculous Theatrical Company, this comedy by Cole Escola (“Difficult People”) started as a fizzy Off Broadway hit. Escola stars as a sozzled, stage-struck Mary Todd Lincoln — a really free cannon largely ignored by her husband (Conrad Ricamora), the president, who’s in any other case occupied with assorted sexual exploits and the bothersome Civil War. Read the evaluate.
Critic’s Pick
‘Gypsy’
At the Majestic Theater, Manhattan; gypsybway.com. Running time: 2 hours 55 minutes.
Grabbing the baton first handed off by Ethel Merman, Audra McDonald performs the formidable Momma Rose within the fifth Broadway revival of Arthur Laurents, Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim’s exalted 1959 musical a few vaudeville stage mom and her daughters: June, the favourite youngster, and Louise, who turns into the burlesque stripper Gypsy Rose Lee. Directed by George C. Wolfe, with choreography by Camille A. Brown, the solid contains Danny Burstein, Joy Woods, Jordan Tyson and Lesli Margherita. Read the evaluate.
Critic’s Pick
‘Hell’s Kitchen’
At the Shubert Theater, Manhattan; hellskitchen.com. Running time: 2 hours half-hour.
Alicia Keys’s personal coming-of-age is the inspiration for this jukebox musical, which gained two Tonys. Studded with Keys’s songs, together with “Girl on Fire,” “Fallin’” and “Empire State of Mind,” it’s the story of a 17-year-old lady (Maleah Joi Moon, final yr’s winner for finest actress) within the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, rising into an artist. Directed by Michael Greif, the present has a e book by Kristoffer Diaz and choreography by Camille A. Brown. Read the evaluate.
Critic’s Pick
‘Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300-1350’
Through Jan. 26 on the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan; metmuseum.org.
This magnificent glow-in-the-dark exhibition is a visible occasion of pure 24-karat magnificence and a multileveled scholarly coup. On each counts, we’ll be fortunate if the season brings us something like its equal. It is uncommon in different methods too. As a significant survey of early Italian spiritual artwork, it’s a form of present we as soon as noticed routinely in our huge museums, however now not often do. Read the evaluate.
Critic’s Pick
‘Edges of Ailey’
Through Feb. 9 on the Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort Street, Manhattan; whitney.org.
A serious institutional tribute to the American choreographer and performer Alvin Ailey (1931-89), this present can be a comparatively uncommon instance of a historically object-intensive artwork museum giving full-scale therapy to the ephemeral medium of dance. But in case you anticipated, as I did, that this might imply a show of documentary images, some archival supplies (costumes, stage designs), and — finest — intensive examples of dance on movie, you’ve bought a shock in retailer. Read the evaluate.
Critic’s Pick
‘Flight Into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876-Now’
Through Feb. 17 on the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan; metmuseum.org.
This uncommon and audacious exhibition spotlights a propensity in American tradition hiding in plain sight: the attachment, amongst Black artists, musicians and intellectuals, to historical Egyptian tradition, fable and spirituality. Rambling throughout a century and a half, with practically 200 artworks, it explores the colonial roots of contemporary Egyptology, the Pharaonic motifs of the Harlem Renaissance, the Egyptian iconography of Black Power and different actions of the Nineteen Sixties and ’70s, and sphinxes and pyramids within the work of everybody from Kara Walker to Richard Pryor. Read the evaluate.