The Culture Calendar (Published 2019)

Sep 23 -

Sep 29

Hilary Swift for The New York Times

At MoMA PS1. Back in January, PS1 closed James Turrell’s sublime open-air installation indefinitely, when its view of sky was partially blocked by a construction hoist. Now the view is clear and Turrell is now allowing “Meeting” to be seen at sunset. Open until 6pm, Thursday through Monday. Free for New York City residents.

Opens Monday, Sept. 23 at the Metropolitan Opera. Last performed at the Met in 1990, the Gershwins’ classic folk opera, set in a poor African-American community in early 20th-century South Carolina, arrives to open the company’s 2019-20 season at a very different moment for racial representation in theater. Tickets and more info here.

Tuesday, Sept. 24 at Rumsey Playfield. Georgia’s world-renowned (and wildly influential) party band brings their distinctive sound, free-spirited style and hits like “Rock Lobster,” “Roam” and “Love Shack,” to Summerstage. OMD and Berlin are special guests. More info here; tickets available here.

Tess Mayer for The New York Times

Tuesday, Sept. 24 through Sunday, Sept. 29 at the Joyce Theater. This collaboration between the exceptional tap choreographer and dancer Ayodele Casel and the Grammy Award-winning musician Arturo O’Farrill draws on a musical language that takes its vocabulary from modal jazz, stride piano, danzón, salsa and rhumba. Tickets and more info here.

Tuesday, Sept. 24 through Saturday, Oct. 5 at New York Live Arts. The accomplished Belgian choreographer returns to Live Arts with a pair of exceptional early works: “Fase, Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich” and “Rosas Danst Rosas.” More information and tickets available here.

Craig Schwartz

“Soft Power” opens Tuesday, Sept. 24 at the Public. The Public Theater presents a provocative musical-within-a-play about geopolitics, race, guns, television and Hillary Clinton, from the Tony Award winners David Henry Hwang (who wrote the book and lyrics) and Jeanine Tesori (who composed the music). Leigh Silverman directs. Tickets and more information here.

Wednesday, Sept. 25. Jon Pareles called Michael Kiwanuka’s second album, “Love & Hate,” “a sustained, stylized plunge into despair.” His third, “Kiwanuka,” finds the British soul singer drawing inspiration from everyone from Fela Kuti to Bobby Womack. Tickets available here.

Wilson Webb/Netflix

Friday, Sept. 27 through Sunday, Oct. 13. This year’s highlights include the world premiere of Martin Scorsese’s much-anticipated “The Irishman,” a gangster epic starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel; Pedro Almodóvar’s “Pain and Glory”; Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story” (pictured above); Bong Joon-ho’s Palme d’Or winner “Parasite”; and Edward Norton’s adaptation of “Motherless Brooklyn.” Ticket information available here.

Simon Annand

Opens Friday, Sept. 27 at the Ethel Barrymore Theater. Matthew Lopez’s two-part, six-and-a-half-hour drama earned rave reviews (our critic said it “hits a playgoer in the gut”) and “Angels in America” comparisons when it opened in London last year. Stephen Daldry directs the play, which re-envisions E.M. Forster’s “Howard’s End” as an interlinking story of three generations of gay men. More info and tickets here.

Through Sunday, Sept. 29 at the Met Breuer. NYT Critic’s Pick. The first U.S. retrospective of the late Mumbai-born artist collects 57 of her works of sculpture, often crafted in fiber, alongside her significant later forays into ceramic and bronze. Holland Cotter calls it “an astonishment” and “one of the most arresting museum experiences of the season.” More information here.

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Through Sunday, Sept. 29. NYT Critic’s Pick. In a tender pair of monologues, Tom Sturridge and Jake Gyllenhaal portray young fathers shaken out of complacency. Our critic calls it “a quiet spectacle.” Tickets available here.

Sunday, Sept. 29. Riding the wave of “Oasis,” his surprise collaborative album with fellow Latin music superstar Bad Bunny, J Balvin brings his distinctive Spanish-language, speed-rap reggaeton sound to the Garden, with special guests Lyanno and Eladio Carrión. Tickets available here.

Sep 30 -

Oct 6

Tuesday, Oct. 1 through Sunday, Oct. 13. For $15 a ticket, dance fans will find much to enjoy at this “eclectic, wildly popular” two-week festival, featuring five impressive programs of commissions, premieres and old favorites from a global selection of dancers and companies. More information and tickets available here.

“Freestyle Love Supreme” opens Wednesday, Oct. 2 at the Booth Theater. NYT Critic’s Pick. Created by Lin-Manuel Miranda, the mastermind of “Hamilton,” in collaboration with Thomas Kail and Anthony Veneziale, “Freestyle Love Supreme” fuses improvisational theater and hip-hop as audience members toss out ideas that immediately become songs. The production features a core of regular performers with surprise special guests stopping in. Tickets and info here.

Niko Tavernise/Warner Bros.

Opens Friday, Oct. 4. The director Todd Phillips (“The Hangover”) takes a turn to the dark side, and brings the comic book villain with him, in this R-rated take on the Joker’s origin story, inspired by such dark, gritty New York movies as “Taxi Driver” and “The King of Comedy.” As if to bestow his blessing, Robert De Niro appears in a supporting role. Watch the trailer here.

Sam Gilliam/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; via Dia Art Foundation; Bill Jacobson Studio

Marian Zazeela opens Saturday, Oct. 5. Head upstate to the former Nabisco factory in Beacon, N.Y., for this special exhibition spotlighting the handsome, low-key works on paper by Ms. Zazeela — a sharp, striking contrast from the large-scale sight and light installations that she’s best known for. More info here.

“Drawing the Curtain: Maurice Sendak’s Designs for Opera and Ballet,” through Sunday, Oct. 6. NYT Critic’s Pick. Sendak remains renowned for children’s books like “Where the Wild Things Are” and “Outside Over There,” but many fans of those works are unaware of his second career as a set and costume designer. Our critic writes, “the succinct yet bountiful exhibition offers an overview of a dense, underappreciated period in this artist’s career.” More information here.

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Opens Sunday, Oct. 6 at the Golden Theater. NYT Critic’s Pick. When Jeremy O. Harris’s powerful exploration of race and sexuality played off Broadway late last year, Jesse Green called it “willfully provocative, gaudily transgressive and altogether staggering.” In his review, Wesley Morris said “‘Slave Play’ is the single most daring thing I’ve seen in a theater in a long time.” Runs through Jan. 5, 2020; more info here.

Premieres Sunday, Oct. 6 on the CW. The CW adds to its “Arrowverse” with this series centered on Kate Kane, cousin of Bruce Wayne, who takes up his mission of vigilante justice. The series has already attracted some controversy for its emphasis on gender fluidity and recoding old norms. Watch the trailer here.

Oct 7 -

Oct 13

Tickets on sale Tuesday, Oct. 8. This annual event offers curious New Yorkers the opportunity to satisfy the real estate itch — with official spaces and private residences in all five boroughs, not customarily available to the public, opening their doors for just one weekend, Saturday, Oct. 19 and Sunday, Oct. 20. More information here.

Burak Cingi/Redferns, via Getty Images

Tuesday, Oct. 8. It’s a big year for Chance the Rapper, thanks to his participation in the “Lion King” remake, his judging gig on Netflix’s “Rhythm + Flow,” and most importantly, his new album “The Big Day,” which Jon Caramanica compares to “the tightly wound thrill ride of musical theater.” Tickets available here.

“Linda Vista” opens Thursday, Oct. 10. The Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright Tracy Letts (“August: Osage County”) returns to Second Stage Theater with a new drama, first presented at Steppenwolf in 2017. Dexter Bullard, the director, and Ian Barford, the lead actor of that production, are also making the transition to Broadway. Tickets and more info here.

Friday, Oct. 11 through Sunday, Oct. 13. Set an alarm if you want tickets; they often sell out the moment they’re available. Among this year’s highlights: Zadie Smith and Teju Cole teach a master class, Mayor Pete Buttigieg talks with David Remnick and Dua Lipa performs live. More information available here.

Gus Stewart/Redferns, via Getty Images

Friday, Oct. 11 at Barclays Center. In “i,i,” Justin Vernon builds “snippets of sounds into intricate songs about a host of anxieties,” writes Jon Pareles. Yo La Tengo is a special guest, touring their latest, “There’s a Riot Goin’ On.” Tickets here.

Saturday, Oct. 12. The Chicago-based group brings its North American tour — the band’s first in two years — back to New York in support of their new album, “Ode to Joy.” Jon Pareles praised the “self-doubt” and “ambivalence” of the lead-off single, “Love Is Everywhere (Beware).” Tickets available here.

Oct 14 -

Oct 20

Monday, Oct. 14 and Tuesday, Oct. 15. “Hollywood’s Bleeding,” Post Malone’s third LP, opened with the biggest streaming number of the year. “If Drake has been the architect of the last decade’s pop evolution, Post Malone has been its savviest adopter,” writes Jon Caramanica. Swae Lee and Tyla Yaweh open. Tickets available here.

Daniel Rader

“The Rose Tattoo” opens Tuesday, Oct. 15. A reclusive widow finds hope in the arms of a sexy truck driver in this Tennessee Williams play, last seen on Broadway more than 20 years ago. The Oscar winner Marisa Tomei has played the role before; she starred in Roundabout’s revival, staged in Williamstown three summers ago. Tickets and more information here.

Tuesday, Oct. 15 at the Joyce. Kyle Abraham and his talented company return to the Joyce with a fresh and exciting program, plus an opening night treat: a special performance by the American Ballet Theater’s Misty Copeland. Tickets and more information here.

Wednesday, Oct. 16 through Sunday, Oct. 27 at Lincoln Center. ABT’s annual two-week program of performances begins with a new ballet by Twyla Tharp, who also choreographed a piece for Herman Cornejo, a dancer Gia Kourlas has described as at times “miraculous,” now celebrating his twentieth anniversary with the company. More tickets and information here.

Opens Thursday, Oct. 17 at Poster House. Poster House, a new art space devoted to posters, presents a celebration of unofficial film art from Ghana’s “golden age,” in which American films were only available on the black market and via illegal video clubs. Their advertisements were created by local artists who often hadn’t seen the films in question, drawing from stills, posters and their own notions of what these taboo movies might look like. More information here; tickets available here.

Opens Thursday, Oct. 17 at Studio 54. NYT Critic’s Pick. Mary Louise-Parker revisits the role she played to acclaim at the Williamstown Theater Festival last year: a writing professor with cancer who develops a complex relationship with one of her students (Will Hochman). Our critic called it “a sensationally controlled performance.” Tickets and more information here.

Disney

Opens Friday, Oct. 18. 2014’s “Maleficent” gave Angelina Jolie an opportunity it felt like we’d waited her entire career for: the chance to play a full-on purring, scheming, wicked Disney queen. Much of the original cast returns, along with new additions Michelle Pfeiffer and Chitwetel Ejiofor. Watch the trailer here.

Opens Sunday, Oct. 20 at the Hudson Theater. The former Talking Heads frontman adapts his 2018 album “American Utopia” (and its supporting concert tour) into a unique theatrical event — neither play nor musical nor concert, but a staged and choreographed narrative musical experience. Tickets and more information here.

Artwork via Amy Sherald and Hauser & Wirth

Through Sunday, Oct. 20 at Hauser & Wirth. NYT Critic’s Pick. After her famous portrait of Michelle Obama, Amy Sherald arrives in New York with “a magnificent, stirring show.” “Every painting is a kind of communion,” Roberta Smith writes. Free. More information here.

Oct 21 -

Oct 27

Jeenah Moon for The New York Times

Open to the general public Monday, Oct. 21. After a $450 million overhaul and a four-month renovation, the Museum of Modern Art, we are told, will be physically more comfortable, allow better traffic flow, offer free access to the ground floor and add about 40,000 square feet for the permanent collection. But most important, Roberta Smith writes, “the story of modernism as we know it — linear and dominated by European male geniuses — will be radically revised, expanded and rendered more inclusive.” Stay tuned for the reviews. Tickets and info here.

Opens Tuesday, Oct. 22 at the Public Theater. Leah C. Gardiner directs the Public’s major revival of Ntozake Shange’s 1976 play “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf,” about a group of women of color telling their stories of endurance. Back then, Clive Barnes wrote that its original production had “those insights into life that make the theater such an incredible marketplace for the soul.” Tickets and more info here.

Thursday, Oct. 24 through Saturday, Oct. 26 at City Center. The renowned Texas company returns for the first time in more than 30 years, with an ambitious program featuring two New York premieres (including Mark Morris’s “The Letter V,” set to Haydn). Tickets and more info here.

Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Friday, Oct. 25 and Saturday, Oct. 26. Put on a coat for a candlelit journey through the winding paths of Green-Wood cemetery, encountering performers, musicians and storytellers along the way. More information and tickets here

Friday, Oct. 25 through Monday, Oct. 28. Ta-Nehisi Coates’s award-winning bestseller has been adapted into a thought-provoking stage play, in which Coates’s searching prose is brought to vivid life by a talented cast, augmented with music and projections. “Between the World and Me” was originally presented in 2018 for sold-out runs at the Apollo and the Kennedy Center; it now returns to Harlem for an encore engagement. Tickets and info here.

Opens Friday, Oct. 25. Ira Sachs (“Love is Strange”) directs the Oscar-nominated actress Isabelle Huppert in this intergenerational comedy-drama. Marisa Tomei and Jérémie Renier also star. Watch the trailer here.

Emily Andrews for The New York Times

Open through Sunday, Oct. 27 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. NYT Critic’s Pick. This year’s outdoor installation, “ParaPivot,” was commissioned from Berlin-based Alicja Kwade, who uses steel and stone to evoke a “miniature solar system.” Jason Farago calls it “precise, spare, elegant,” praising the work’s ability to “evoke the instability, and the unknowability, of our place in the world.” Plus views of Central Park. More info here.

Oct 28 -

Nov 3

Opens Tuesday, Oct. 29 at the Public Theater. Tony Kushner’s first play, a pre-“Angels in America” examination of the rise of authoritarianism in Reagan-era America, gets its first major New York revival under the direction of Public Theater artistic director Oskar Eustis. More information and tickets here.

Wednesday, Oct. 30 at Lincoln Center. The Paul Taylor American Modern Dance company returns to Lincoln Center with a tribute Taylor, who died in 2018. Highlights of the season, which runs Tuesday, Oct. 29 through Sunday, Nov. 17, include a premiere by the choreographer Kyle Abraham and recent works by Margie Gillis and Pam Tanowitz. For the opening? Misty Copeland, a principal with the American Ballet Theater, will perform Taylor’s “Black Tuesday” set to songs from the Great Depression. More information and tickets here.

Friday, Nov. 1 and Saturday, Nov. 2 at Jazz at Lincoln Center. The German jazz label ECM Records marks its 50th anniversary with a pair of concerts featuring an all-star line-up of artists from around the globe, many of them headliners in their own right (including Jack DeJohnette, Egberto Gismonti, Vijay Iyer and Enrico Rava). Want a taste? Our essential ECM streaming guide here. Information and tickets here.

Niko Tavernise/Netflix

Opens Friday, Nov. 1. Possibly the most anticipated movie of the season, and for good reason: Martin Scorsese reunites with a cast of his all-stars (including Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel) and directs Al Pacino for the first time in this sprawling historical gangster epic based on Charles Brandt’s nonfiction book, “I Heard You Paint Houses.” Watch the trailer here.

Opens Friday, Nov. 1. After several ill-advised sequels (remember “Genysis”?), the “Deadpool” director Tim Miller tries to craft a worthy successor to 1991’s “T2: Judgment Day.” Arnold Schwarzenegger returns, as do Linda Hamilton and Edward Furlong. Watch the trailer here.

Glen Wilson/Focus Features

“Harriet” opens Friday, Nov. 1. Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou”) directs this feature-length biopic, a portrait of the heroic abolitionist, played by the Tony Award-winning Cynthia Erivo. Watch the trailer here.

Previews begin Sunday, Nov. 3. Oscar-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody (“Juno”) adapts Alanis Morissette’s 1995 power-pop album into a musical examination of issues like gender identity and rape culture. Of its Cambridge tryout last year, Jesse Green writes, the show “takes on the good work we are always asking new musicals to do: the work of singing about real things.” Information and tickets here.

Nov 4 -

Nov 10

Richard Hubert Smith/English National Opera

Opens Friday, Nov. 8 at the Metropolitan Opera. Phelim McDermott follows up his affecting production of Mr. Glass’s “Satyagraha” with this stylized reflection on the Egyptian pharaoh who pioneered monotheism, brought to life by the countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, painted entirely (yes, entirely) in gold. Tickets and more information here.

Nov 11 -

Nov 17

François Duhamel/Lucasfilm and Disney

New Star Wars series premieres Tuesday, Nov. 12 on Disney Plus. This space-western from Jon Favreau (director of the studio’s “Jungle Book” and “Lion King” remakes) stars Pedro Pascal as a Boba Fett-style bounty hunter. Giancarlo Esposito, Nick Nolte and Werner Herzog are among the supporting cast. Watch the trailer here.

Premieres in Nov. on Apple TV. Jennifer Aniston unites with “Friends” Reese Witherspoon for this inside-showbiz comedy/drama from Apple TV Plus. Aniston plays a TV morning show mainstay whose job security is threatened when her long-time co-host (Steve Carell) is fired for sexual misconduct; Witherspoon is an up-and-comer who becomes a rival. Watch the trailer here.

Des Willie/Netflix

Premieres Sunday, Nov. 17 on Netflix. The Oscar winner Olivia Colman will take over for the Emmy winner Claire Foy for the next two seasons of Peter Morgan’s ongoing chronicle of the life and times of Queen Elizabeth II. Meanwhile, Tobias Menzies takes over as Prince Philip, and Helena Bonham Carter steps into the role of Princess Margaret. Watch the trailer here.

Nov 18 -

Nov 24

Tuesday, Nov. 19 through Sunday, Nov. 24 at the Shed. The galvanizing Teodor Currentzis leads Aeterna, his 105-member orchestra and 80-member chorus, in a special performance of Verdi’s “Requiem” in its North American debut. Tickets and more information here.

Opens Friday, Nov. 22. Disney revisits its highest-grossing animated feature to date, as sisters Anna and Elsa seek out the source of Elsa’s strange powers. Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff and Josh Gad return; Evan Rachel Wood and Sterling K. Brown are among the additions to the voice cast. Watch the trailer here.

Lacey Terrell /TriStar Pictures

“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” opens Friday, Nov. 22. Hard on the heels of last year’s documentary sensation “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” the two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks dons the comfy cardigans of the beloved Fred Rogers, with Matthew Rhys as a skeptical journalist profiling the children’s television host. Watch the trailer here.

Saturday, Nov. 23. Angel Olsen hits Brooklyn in support of her new album “All Mirrors.” “Her power is there,” writes Jon Caramanica of the album’s first single, “but coated in swelling synths that convey terror just on the horizon.” Tickets here.

Nov 25 -

Dec 1

Randy Harris for The New York Times

Open through Saturday, Nov. 30. The late architect, critic, collector and curator Philip Johnson made his home on this 49-acre estate in New Canaan, Conn. — the legendary Glass House. Now a popular weekend destination, it’s been open for tours since 2007; tickets are required and sell out for the season quickly. Watch our video tour here.

Dec 2 -

Dec 8

Premieres Sunday, Dec. 8 on Showtime. The six-season mid-2000s Showtime drama “The L Word” was a groundbreaker for LGBTQ representation on cable television. Its revival, titled “The L Word: Generation Q,” brings back three original cast members and shifts the show’s setting to Silver Lake. Watch the trailer here.

Jeffrey Sturges

Closes for the season Sunday, Dec. 8. Set in the Hudson Valley, about a two-hour drive from New York City, this outdoor museum features large-scale sculptures by Alexander Calder, Andy Goldsworthy and Maya Lin, among many others. Visiting info here.

Through Sunday, Dec. 8 at the Brooklyn Museum. Garry Winogrand is mostly remembered for his striking street photography, which captured the shifting looks and styles of Manhattan — usually in stark black and white. But in the 1950s and 1960s, he produced more than 45,000 color slides, and more than 400 of those rich images have been selected for discovery in “Garry Winogrand: Color.” More information here.

Philip Greenberg for The New York Times

Closes for the season Sunday, Dec. 8. Take one last hop on the ferry before the season ends at Governors Island, recently renovated and full of new attractions. It’s a choose-your-own adventure scene of art, sculpture and food trucks, all set in the parks around the island’s historic homes. More information here.

Dec 9 -

Dec 15

Tuesday, Dec. 10 through Sunday, Dec. 15 at the Joyce. Collaborations that look good on paper can fall apart onstage, but the evening-length “New Work for Goldberg Variations” Brian Schaefer writes, is “a riveting dialogue of movement and music.” Pam Tanowitz’s playful choreography blooms around Simone Dinnerstein, who performs the Bach score at the piano onstage. Tickets and more info here.

Dec 16 -

Dec 22

Tuesday, Dec. 17 through Sunday, Jan. 5, 2020 at the Joyce Theater. The award-winning tap dancer and choreographer Michelle Dorrance presents her latest work, set to Duke Ellington’s extraordinary interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker Suite.” Tickets and info here.

Lucasfilm/Disney

Opens Friday, Dec. 20. J.J. Abrams (“The Force Awakens”) returns to direct the concluding installment of the official “Star Wars” sequel trilogy, with Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver and Oscar Isaac reprising their roles. What is Rey’s past, what is her future — and does it include Kylo Ren? Watch the trailer here.

Universal Pictures

Opens Friday, Dec. 20. Tom Hooper (“Les Misérables”) helms this adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s long-running “Cats,” using the latest in “digital fur technology” to transform Jennifer Hudson, Taylor Swift and Judi Dench into… Well, watch the trailer.

Dec 23 -

Dec 29

Opens Wednesday, Dec. 25. Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh and Eliza Scanlen take on the title roles in the latest adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s classic, given a fresh coat of paint by the writer and director Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird”). Meryl Streep, Laura Dern and Timothée Chalamet also star. Watch the trailer here.

Dec 30 -

Jan 5

Through Jan. 4, 2020 at MoMA. One of the highlights of MoMA’s re-opening, this show of Betye Saar’s works on paper, hones in on the provocative artist’s transition from printmaking to assemblage with 1969’s “Black Girl’s Window.” More information here.

Sam Hodgson for The New York Times

At the New York Aquarium. The centerpiece of the Aquarium’s long-awaited new building, “Ocean Wonders” features 115 species of sealife, sharing 784,000 gallons of water. Michael Kimmelman writes, “Go see it. It’s edifying and fun, an ideal excuse, if you should need one, to grab the kids and head for the beach.” More information here.