Things to do in New York this Friday
It’s time to punch out, wind down and start your weekend off right with the best things to do in New York this Friday

Don’t blow your weekend by spending Friday night on the couch—there are too many incredible things to do in New York this Friday. Whether you want to rage at one of the best parties in NYC or if you’re interested in checking out free comedy shows, you have unlimited options. That’s why we decided to make the planning process easier for you by selecting the very best events that are guaranteed to show you a good time. Forget road trips, the best way to spend your Friday night is right here in NYC.
RECOMMENDED: Full guide to things to do in NYC this weekend
Featured things to do this Friday
Accomplice
Tom and Betsy Salamon’s unique adventure—part interactive theater, part scavenger hunt, part walking tour—draws participants into an amusing web of puzzles and intrigue. You can choose between the three-hour New York tour, which takes participants through various neighborhoods of lower Manhattan, or the two-hour Village tour, which travels through quirky Greenwich Village on Saturdays. Groups of as many as 11 are booked every half hour.
Never Sleep Alone
Grand mistress of getting you laid Dr. Alex Schiller (conceived and played by Roslyn Hart) calls you onstage to complete matchmaking challenges, kiss strangers and drop your inhibitions at this live musical comedy seminar. Bring your A-game for the after-party.
"The Jim Henson Exhibit"
Can you imagine how grim our world would be without the influence of Jim Henson? For those of us who learned comedy, whimsy and even literacy from Sesame Street and the Muppet franchise, Museum of Moving Image has provided the ultimate treat: a permanent exhibition featuring more than 47 Muppet and puppet characters; 27 screens of archival footage from The Dark Crystal, The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock and beyond; and stories of how the great genius and his architects brought to life some of our favorite characters.
Hot Rabbit
One of our favorite parties in NYC continues its total domination of Friday nightlife with a twice-monthly residency at Drom. Step into a wicked, wild arena for women-identifying revelers and their queer buddies, featuring aerialists, dope DJs, late-night food and drink specials and go-go dancers of different genders ready to entice you.
Lesbo-a-GoGo
Gay ladies pack the upstairs dance floor at Stonewall for this Friday night party featuring cheap drinks with visiting guests rotating on the decks.
Megan Hilty
Broadway bombshell Hilty (Wicked, 9 to 5) returns to the Carlyle, where she is rapidly becoming a welcome fixture, with a set of tunes by modern musical-theater composers including Alan Menken, Jeanine Tesori and the Stephens Sondheim and Schwartz. Combining warmth, good humor and sterling technique, the Smash survivor knows how to put on a great nightclub show. Let her be your star!
John Lloyd Young
The Tony-winning star of Jersey Boys, both the Broadway musical and the Clint Eastwood film, brings his musical highs and puppyish eyes back to Feinstein's/54 Below in a new set that focuses on material from his 2012 album, My Turn.
Karrin Allyson
Over the course of her lengthy recording career, singer Allyson has released albums devoted to jazz standards, the Great American Songbook, Rodgers and Hammerstein show tunes, Brazilian fare and Coltrane classics.
The Butterfly Conservatory
There are more than 18,000 known species of butterflies and five families. Meet gems from three of those families, including Pieridae (white and sulphur), Papilionidae (black and yellow swallowtails) and Nymphalidae (psychedelic-colored longwings) as they fly around in a vivarium compound.
Popular things to do this Friday
Hester Street Fair
This Lower East Side flea hosts one of Manhattan’s best collections of vendors, with more upstarts joining the fray every week. Standouts from recent years that have gotten their start at the fair include Macaron Parlour, Petee’s Pie Company, Melt Bakery, La New Yorkina, Arancini Bros and Cheeky Sandwich.
Accomplice
Tom and Betsy Salamon’s unique adventure—part interactive theater, part scavenger hunt, part walking tour—draws participants into an amusing web of puzzles and intrigue. You can choose between the three-hour New York tour, which takes participants through various neighborhoods of lower Manhattan, or the two-hour Village tour, which travels through quirky Greenwich Village on Saturdays. Groups of as many as 11 are booked every half hour.
Dear Evan Hansen
In this captivating original musical, Hello, Dolly! scene-stealer Taylor Trensch now plays the title role of a high school student thrust into social relevance after a classmate's suicide. Benj Pasek and Justin Paul's score combines well-crafted lyrics with an exciting pop sound, and Steven Levenson’s book gives all the characters shaded motives. Read the full review.
Hamilton
Hamilton: Theater review by David Cote What is left to say? After Founding Father Alexander Hamilton’s prodigious quill scratched out 12 volumes of nation-building fiscal and military policy; after Lin-Manuel Miranda turned that titanic achievement (via Ron Chernow’s 2004 biography) into the greatest American musical in decades; after every critic in town (including me) praised the Public Theater world premiere to high heaven; and after seeing this language-drunk, rhyme-crazy dynamo a second time, I can only marvel: We've used up all the damn words. Wait, here are three stragglers, straight from the heart: I love Hamilton. I love it like I love New York, or Broadway when it gets it right. And this is so right. A sublime conjunction of radio-ready hip-hop (as well as R&B, Britpop and trad showstoppers), under-dramatized American history and Miranda’s uniquely personal focus as a first-generation Puerto Rican and inexhaustible wordsmith, Hamilton hits multilevel culture buttons, hard. No wonder the show was anointed a sensation before even opening. Assuming you don’t know the basics, Hamilton is a (mostly) rapped-through biomusical about an orphan immigrant from the Caribbean who came to New York, served as secretary to General Washington, fought against the redcoats, authored most of the Federalist Papers defending the Constitution, founded the Treasury and the New York Post and even made time for an extramarital affair that he damage-controlled in a scandal-stanching pamp
Say Something Bunny!
Theater review by Helen Shaw When you walk into Say Something Bunny!, you enter another time. You might not notice that at first, because the brick office space where it takes place is so determinedly ordinary-looking. The small audience sits around a doughnut-shaped conference table, and as Alison S.M. Kobayashi begins her multimedia docuplay, some spectators are already paging through the scripts that have been placed in front of each chair. The text turns out to be the full transcript of a real, unlabeled 65-year-old recording that Kobayashi found hidden in an antique wire recorder: the audio relic of a teenage boy in Woodmere, Queens, enthusiastically taping two dozen family members and neighbors. Kobayashi has listened to the recording hundreds of times and has a seemingly boundless interest in the people whose voices it preserves, including amateur recordist David, mother Juliette and neighbor Bunny. She conducts us through a pair of after-dinner conversations, the first in 1952—she deduced the date from song lyrics mentioned on the wire—and the second in 1954. Aided by coauthor Christopher Allen, she pursues hints and half-heard jokes to determine who these people were and what befell them; she shows us the census records she used to find their old houses. The play unspools unhurriedly, leaving space for Kobayashi to make jokes, play short films and highlight points of historical interest. It takes a while for it to sink in that—of course—many of these vibrant people
Come from Away
One of the more unlikely musicals on Broadway this season, Come from Away is the tense but humane story of an airport in Gander, Newfoundland, where 38 planes and more than 6,000 passengers were forced to land on September 11, 2001. The book, music and lyrics are by the Canadian team Irene Sankoff and David Hein. Read the full review.
Hot Rabbit
One of our favorite parties in NYC continues its total domination of Friday nightlife with a twice-monthly residency at Drom. Step into a wicked, wild arena for women-identifying revelers and their queer buddies, featuring aerialists, dope DJs, late-night food and drink specials and go-go dancers of different genders ready to entice you.
Kinky Boots
Theater review by Adam Feldman. The Al Hirschfeld Theatre (Broadway). Book by Harvey Fierstein. Music and lyrics by Cyndi Lauper. Dir. Jerry Mitchell. With Stark Sands, Billy Porter, Annaleigh Ashford. 2hrs 20mins. One intermission. [Note: The cast of Kinky Boots has changed since this review was first published. Currently, American Idol winner David Cook plays straight man to Wayne Brady's high-heeled Lola.] The kicky crowd-pleaser Kinky Boots is the very model of a modern major musical. Adapted from a 2005 English indie film, Harvey Fierstein and Cyndi Lauper’s fizzy pop tuner tells of Charlie (the capable Sands) and his Northampton footwear factory, Price & Son—a family business in danger of closing down. Hope arrives in the unlikely form of Lola (Porter), a self-possessed drag queen with ideas for a niche product line: knee-high, skin-tight, stiletto-heeled sheaths of ostentatious color, strong enough for a man who’s made up like a woman. (Gay style and consumer dollars to the rescue! The shoe must go on!) Directed with verve by Jerry Mitchell, Kinky Boots feels familiar at every step, down to its messages about individuality, community, pride and acceptance; it could have been cobbled together from parts of The Full Monty, Billy Elliot and Fierstein’s La Cage aux Folles, and it culminates in a feel-good finale so similar to Hairspray’s (which Mitchell choreographed) that it might as well be called “You Can’t Stop the Boot.” Yet the musical holds up for the same reason
A Spirited History of Drinking: The Musical Comedy
[Note: The review below is for a 2014 version of this show, which was then titled The Imbible. A revised version now plays at New World Stages. A different, brunch-theater edition, titled Day Drinking, plays on weekend matinees.] Remember Bill Nye the Science Guy? Great! Now imagine him as a bartender who is deeply interested in the history of ethanol alcohol, really likes wigs and costumes, and just joined a coed barbershop quartet. That description of Anthony Caporale’s The Imbible: A Spirited History of Drinking may sound far-out, but the show is both educational and entertaining. (It's also a fine showcase for a cappella classics arranged by Josh Ehrlich and performed by a gifted ensemble that includes the show's director, soprano Nicole DiMattei.) Mixing whimsy and information, Caporale makes the story of our relationship with alcohol remarkably compelling. And the show's lessons—on subjects like the drinks served at Prohibition-era speakeasies, the origin of the gin and tonic, and the difference between a cocktail and a mixed drink—can be washed down with complimentary, thematically appropriate beverages. As Caporale says, “Trust me, I get funnier with every sip.” That makes the show a must-see for anyone who enjoys free booze, which is probably nearly everyone.—Amelia Bienstock
The Book of Mormon
If theater is your religion and the Broadway musical your sect, you've been woefully faith-challenged of late. Venturesome, boundary-pushing works such as Spring Awakening, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and Next to Normal closed too soon. American Idiot was shamefully ignored at the Tonys and will be gone in three weeks. Meanwhile, that airborne infection Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark dominates headlines and rakes in millions, without even opening. Celebrities and corporate brands sell poor material, innovation gets shown the door, and crap floats to the top. It's enough to turn you heretic, to sing along with The Book of Mormon's Ugandan villagers: "Fuck you God in the ass, mouth and cunt-a, fuck you in the eye." Such deeply penetrating lyrics offer a smidgen of the manifold scato-theological joys to be had at this viciously hilarious treat crafted by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, of South Park fame, and composer-lyricist Robert Lopez, who cowrote Avenue Q. As you laugh your head off at perky Latter-day Saints tap-dancing while fiercely repressing gay tendencies deep in the African bush, you will be transported back ten years, when The Producers and Urinetown resurrected American musical comedy, imbuing time-tested conventions with metatheatrical irreverence and a healthy dose of bad-taste humor. Brimming with cheerful obscenity, sharp satire and catchy tunes, The Book of Mormon is a sick mystic revelation, the most exuberantly entertaining Broadway musical in years. The high
Free things to do this Friday
Hester Street Fair
This Lower East Side flea hosts one of Manhattan’s best collections of vendors, with more upstarts joining the fray every week. Standouts from recent years that have gotten their start at the fair include Macaron Parlour, Petee’s Pie Company, Melt Bakery, La New Yorkina, Arancini Bros and Cheeky Sandwich.
Hot Rabbit
One of our favorite parties in NYC continues its total domination of Friday nightlife with a twice-monthly residency at Drom. Step into a wicked, wild arena for women-identifying revelers and their queer buddies, featuring aerialists, dope DJs, late-night food and drink specials and go-go dancers of different genders ready to entice you.
Lesbo-a-GoGo
Gay ladies pack the upstairs dance floor at Stonewall for this Friday night party featuring cheap drinks with visiting guests rotating on the decks.
Week at the Creek: Brandon Collins
Comedy's Jack-of-all-trades Brandon Collins gets a full week to shine in Queens, performing nightly sets on his suburban childhood in Michigan, his schooling in Newark and a lifelong devotion to Harry Potter. He's joined for the mini-residency by Bryan Yang, Ariel Elias and Dan DelColle.
Shakespeare's Birthday Sonnet Slam
Shakespeare lovers gather for the eighth annual Shakespeare's Birthday Sonnet Slam, produced by Willful Pictures, in which 154 readers recite the Bard’s prose at the bandshell in Central Park. Watch some of your favorite NYC performers—starting with the great Kathleen Chalfant—take on the immortal poems of love.
Big Green Theater Festival
Professional actors and directors mount plays written by fourth- and fifth-graders in the eighth annual edition of this eco-conscious festival.
Flamingo Live
Every Friday night, live musicians take the stage at this South Williamsburg haunt to perform in support of a good cause. The inaugural edition features singer-songwriter Yaya Bey and blues artist Ajene. Proceeds go to the Bowery Mission, an organization that's been helping the homeless in NYC since 1879.
Arkham
Ring in a truly dark Black Friday at this divine dungeon rave going down every month at Bizarre. Resident DJ Cyclonus and guest DJ James David spin a lurid mix of ’80s synth, postpunk, death-rock and goth music. While you dance to Siouxsie and the Banshees, Adam and the Ants and Depeche Mode, you can catch glimpses of horror movies projected on the walls and take your night to the next level with absinthe cocktails. Partygoer beware: you’re in for a scare.
Movies to see this Friday
You Were Never Really Here
British filmmaker Lynne Ramsay returns with this poetic and violent drama in which Joaquin Phoenix plays a troubled hit man
Lean on Pete
It's a gentle, tender story of a young boy in trouble who finds comfort in an unwanted racehorse
Love, Simon
Sensitive and sharp, it’s the high-school drama you wish had been around decades ago
The Death of Stalin
Spreading out a feast of verbal backbiting, writer-director Armando Iannucci trades Veep’s Beltway barbs for Soviet power grabs
Thoroughbreds
A film about extremely wealthy Connecticut teens with bad impulses, this comedy has a steely sheen
Black Panther
Surprising at every turn, Marvel’s new spinoff throws shade at the white-bread business of blockbustering
Annihilation
Natalie Portman squares off against an alien presence in a rare example of Hollywood sci-fi-horror thoughtfulness
Paddington 2
This bearish sequel will leave you with a heart so warmed, you could trek across the Antarctic in shorts.
Phantom Thread
Paul Thomas Anderson’s borderline-sick romance waltzes toward a riveting tale of obsession
Concerts to see this Friday
Never Sleep Alone
Grand mistress of getting you laid Dr. Alex Schiller (conceived and played by Roslyn Hart) calls you onstage to complete matchmaking challenges, kiss strangers and drop your inhibitions at this live musical comedy seminar. Bring your A-game for the after-party.
Megan Hilty
Broadway bombshell Hilty (Wicked, 9 to 5) returns to the Carlyle, where she is rapidly becoming a welcome fixture, with a set of tunes by modern musical-theater composers including Alan Menken, Jeanine Tesori and the Stephens Sondheim and Schwartz. Combining warmth, good humor and sterling technique, the Smash survivor knows how to put on a great nightclub show. Let her be your star!
John Lloyd Young
The Tony-winning star of Jersey Boys, both the Broadway musical and the Clint Eastwood film, brings his musical highs and puppyish eyes back to Feinstein's/54 Below in a new set that focuses on material from his 2012 album, My Turn.
Okkervil River
While frontman Will Sheff's last album, Away, was a personal, threadbare and unhurried exploration of the sweeping terrain of death and adversity, he promises his upcoming In the Rainbow Rain to be "hopeful, healing and uplifting"—a positive shift that's an effect, he says, of a combination of weekly Quaker meetings, counseling sessions and therapeutic microdosing on psychedelics.
Karrin Allyson
Over the course of her lengthy recording career, singer Allyson has released albums devoted to jazz standards, the Great American Songbook, Rodgers and Hammerstein show tunes, Brazilian fare and Coltrane classics.
Friday April 14, 10pm - the all request, rock n roll party
SHAKE RATTLE & ROLL Dueling Pianos
continues at The Pennsy (7th Av & 33rd St.)
http://www.ShakeRattleRollPianos.com for tickets and info!
And We McDonald of season 11 The Voice in concert at the Highline Ballroom - How cool is that.
The lower east side festival of the arts does not have a show on Friday. It's on Saturday.
You say kayak on the Hudson on Friday, but it says it's ONLY available on SATURDAYS in August!!!!!! Please fix!!!!