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Photograph: Shutterstock
Photograph: Shutterstock

Things to do in New York this Saturday

The best things to do in New York this Saturday include amazing shows and parties to keep you going all day and night.

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It’s the weekend, you’re in the greatest city in the world, and its time to get wild—but what are the best things to do in NYC this Saturday exactly? We’ll tell you!

Hit up some of the best New York attractions and events and be sure to fit in time to check out the best museum exhibits.

Strapped for cash? Fear not! We’ve picked out some of the city’s top free things to do so that you’re not broke by Sunday.

RECOMMENDED: Full guide to things to do in NYC this weekend and on Sunday

Popular things to do this Saturday

  • Musicals
  • Hell's Kitchen
  • price 3 of 4
Before Mean Girls there was Heathers, a pitch-black comedy about how high-school popularity can be murder. Kevin Murphy and Laurence O'Keefe'S 2014 musical based on that film now returns Off Broadway in a revised version, directed by the U.K.'s Andy Fickman, that is likely to appeal to newcomers as well as to the show's loyal fans (known as Corn Nuts, after one character's dying words). Heathers tells the story of a nice girl named Veronica who falls into the bad company of three cruel student dictators and a sociopathic newcomer who wants to rid the school of their ilk. The impressive cast includes Lorna Courtney (& Juliet), Casey Likes (Back to the Future), McKenzie Kurtz (Frozen), Olivia Hardy, Elizabeth Teeter and Broadway comic treasure Kerry Butler (Xanadu).
  • Interactive
  • Midtown West
  • price 3 of 4
Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More gave up the ghost last fall after 14 years, but fans of that immersive theatrical experience have a new show to tide them over: a smaller-scale work by Punchdrunk founder Felix Barrett that invites audience members to move barefoot through a labyrinthine installation inspired by Barry Pain’s 1901 gothic short story “The Moon-Slave," as adapted by the acclaimed British writer Daisy Johnson. Participants wear headphones and are guided through the 50-minute experience at the Shed via narration in the voice of Helena Bonham Carter. 
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  • Comedy
  • Midtown West
  • price 3 of 4
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • Recommended
Broadway review by Adam Feldman  [Note: Tituss Burgess takes over the role of Mary Todd Lincoln starting June 23, followed by Jinkx Monsoon starting August 4.] Cole Escola’s Oh, Mary! is not just funny: It is dizzyingly, breathtakingly funny, the kind of funny that ambushes your body into uncontained laughter. Stage comedies have become an endangered species in recent decades, and when they do pop up they tend to be the kind of funny that evokes smirks, chuckles or wry smiles of recognition. Not so here: I can’t remember the last time I saw a play that made me laugh, helplessly and loudly, as much as Oh, Mary! did—and my reaction was shared by the rest of the audience, which burst into applause at the end of every scene. Fasten your seatbelts: This 80-minute show is a fast and wild joy ride. Escola has earned a cult reputation as a sly comedic genius in their dazzling solo performances (Help! I’m Stuck!) and on TV shows like At Home with Amy Sedaris, Difficult People and Search Party. But Oh, Mary!, their first full-length play, may surprise even longtime fans. In this hilariously anachronistic historical burlesque, Escola plays—who else?—Mary Todd Lincoln, in the weeks leading up to her husband’s assassination. Boozy, vicious and miserable, the unstable and outrageously contrary Mary is oblivious to the Civil War and hell-bent on achieving stardom as—what else?—a cabaret singer.      Oh, Mary! | Photograph: Courtesy Emilio Madrid  Described by the long-suffering...
  • Dance
  • Ballet
  • Upper West Side
  • price 3 of 4
  • Recommended
The venerable American Ballet Theatre celebrates its 85th birthday with six weeks of full-length ballets at the Met. The summer season begins and ends with the beloved Tchaikovsky bird calls of Swan Lake (June 10–14 and July 14–19) and also features the New York premiere of Christopher Wheeldon's The Winter's Tale (July 1–5), adapted from Shakespeare's bittersweet play and set to an original score by Joby Talbot. Also on the schedule are Wayne McGregor’s Woolf Works (June 17–20)—a 2015 triptych inspired by the Virginia Woolf novels Mrs. Dalloway, Orlando and The Waves—and the time-honored classics Giselle (June 23–28) and Sylvia (July 8–12). The current roster of ABT principals comprises Joo Won Ahn, Aran Bell, Isabella Boylston, Skylar Brandt, Daniel Camargo, Misty Copeland, Herman Cornejo, Thomas Forster, Isaac Hernández, Catherine Hurlin, Chloe Misseldine, Gillian Murphy, Calvin Royal III, Hee Seo, Christine Shevchenko, Cory Stearns, Devon Teuscher, Cassandra Trenary, James Whiteside and Roman Zhurbin.
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  • Musicals
  • Midtown WestOpen run
  • price 3 of 4
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • Recommended
Broadway review by Adam Feldman  Try to imagine this: a family-friendly Broadway musical based on a beloved cartoon character from the Great Depression. Maybe she has distinctive hair and a signature red dress. Maybe she’s looking to find out who she is, so she runs away and gets dazzled by the bright lights and bustle of NYC. Her best friends could be, I don’t know, a dog and an orphan girl. And this may sound crazy, but: What if her sunniness and can-do optimism had the power to inspire progressive political change?  It’d never work. Just kidding, just kidding! It worked like the dickens in the 1977 moppet musical Annie, and it works again—minus Annie’s more Dickensian elements—in Boop! The Musical. Directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell, this is an old-fashioned candy shop of a show, where tasty confections are sold in bulk. When Boop! is corny, it’s candy corn. Gorge on the multicolor gumdrops of its high-energy production numbers; chew the jelly beans of its gentle social-mindedness; let the caramel creams of its love story melt slightly oversweetly in your mouth. And above all, savor this show’s red-hot cinnamon heart: Jasmine Amy Rogers, making a sensational Broadway debut as the 1930s animated-short icon Betty Boop.   Boop! The Musical | Photograph: Courtesy Evan Zimmerman In our world, Betty is the quintessential cartoon jazz baby, a Fleischer Studios flapper inspired by singer Helen Kane (famous for her "boop-oop-a-doop" tag in songs like “I Wanna Be Loved...
  • Musicals
  • Midtown WestOpen run
  • price 3 of 4
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • Recommended
Broadway review by Adam Feldman  Oliver (Darren Criss) is a Helperbot, and he can’t help himself. A shut-in at his residence for retired androids in a near-future Korea, he functions in a chipper loop of programmatic behavior; every day, he brushes his teeth and eyes, tends to his plant and listens to the retro jazz favored by his former owner, James (Marcus Choi), who he is confident will someday arrive to take him back. More than a decade goes by before his solitary routine is disrupted by Claire (Helen J Shen), a fellow Helperbot from across the hall, who is looking to literally connect and recharge. Will these two droids somehow make a Seoul connection? Can they feel their hearts beep? That is the premise of Will Aronson and Hue Park’s new musical Maybe Happy Ending, and it’s a risky one. The notion of robots discovering love—in a world where nothing lasts forever, including their own obsolescent technologies—could easily fall into preciousness or tweedom. Instead, it is utterly enchanting. As staged by Michael Arden (Parade), Maybe Happy Ending is an adorable and bittersweet exploration of what it is to be human, cleverly channeled through characters who are only just learning what that entails. Maybe Happy Ending | Photograph: Courtesy Evan Zimmerman In a Broadway landscape dominated by loud adaptations of pre-existing IP, Maybe Happy Ending stands out for both its intimacy and its originality. Arden and his actors approach the material with a delicate touch; they...
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  • Musicals
  • Midtown West
  • price 3 of 4
The story of Joy Mangano, a young single mother who cleaned up as the inventor and entrepreneur of a self-wringing mop, already inspired a 2015 film that earned Jennifer Lawrence an Oscar nomination. Now it is the subject of an original musical with a book by producer Ken Davenport and a score by AnnMarie Milazzo (with additional material by Amanda Yesnowitz), starring Betsy Wolfe (& Juliet) in the title role. Lorin Lotarro, best known as the accomplished Broadway choreographer of shows including Tommy and The Heart of Rock and Roll, takes on directing duties here and leaves the dances to Smash man Joshua Bergasse; the large cast also includes Jill Abramovitz, Charl Brown, Adam Grupper, Brandon Espinoza, Honor Blue Savage, Paul Whitty, Gabriela Carrillo and Jaygee Macapugay.
  • Drama
  • Midtown West
  • price 3 of 4
Journalist-playwright Sophie Treadwell's expressionist 1928 drama stars Katherine Winter as a woman whose attempts to escape society's gears result in madness and homicide. Amy Marie Seidel directs a revival that prominently features tap dance and other stylized movement by choreographer Madison Hilligoss; the production marks the Off Broadway debut of the socially conscious classics troupe New York Theatre Company. 
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  • Things to do
  • Midtown West
Hundreds of items have been pulled from the New York Public Library's expansive and centuries-spanning archive to be put on display—many of them for the first time—in a permanent exhibition called "The Polonsky Exhibition of The New York Public Library’s Treasures." Inside the NYPL's Stephen A. Schwarzman Building and its beautiful Gottesman Hall, are more than 250 unique and rare items culled from its research centers: the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, the Library for the Performing Arts and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The exhibit, which opens to the public on Friday, September 24, spans 4,000 years of history and includes a wide range of history-making pieces, including the only surviving letter from Christoper Columbus announcing his "discovery" of the Americas to King Ferdinand’s court and the first Gutenberg Bible brought over to the Americas. We visited the stunning collection this week to find the top 10 must-see items at the NYPL Treasures exhibit so when you go, you can make sure to see them for yourself: 1. Thomas Jefferson’s handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence Photograph: Max Touhey / NYPL Only six manuscript versions of the Declaration of Independence are known to survive in the hand of Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson made this copy for a friend shortly after the July 4th, 1776, ratification of the Declaration, which announced to the world the American colonies’ political separation from Great Britain. He underlined...
  • Circuses & magic
  • FlatironOpen run
  • price 4 of 4
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • Recommended
Review by Adam Feldman  The low-key dazzling Speakeasy Magick has been nestled in the atmospheric McKittrick Hotel for more than a year, and now it has moved up to the Lodge: a small wood-framed room at Gallow Green, which functions as a rooftop bar in the summer. The show’s dark and noisy new digs suit it well. Hosted by Todd Robbins (Play Dead), who specializes in mild carnival-sideshow shocks, Speakeasy Magick is a moveable feast of legerdemain; audience members, seated at seven tables, are visited by a series of performers in turn. Robbins describes this as “magic speed dating.” One might also think of it as tricking: an illusion of intimacy, a satisfying climax, and off they go into the night. The evening is punctuated with brief performances on a makeshift stage. When I attended, the hearty Matthew Holtzclaw kicked things off with sleight of hand involving cigarettes and booze; later, the delicate-featured Alex Boyce pulled doves from thin air. But it’s the highly skilled close-up magic that really leaves you gasping with wonder. Holtzclaw’s table act comes to fruition with a highly effective variation on the classic cups-and-balls routine; the elegant, Singapore-born Prakash and the dauntingly tattooed Mark Calabrese—a razor of a card sharp—both find clever ways to integrate cell phones into their acts. Each performer has a tight 10-minute act, and most of them are excellent, but that’s the nice thing about the way the show is structured: If one of them happens to...

Featured things to do this Saturday

  • Music
  • Cabaret and standards
  • Lower East Side
  • price 2 of 4
  • Recommended
PJ Adzima, who currently plays the hopeful but hopelessly repressed Elder McKinley in Broadway's The Book of Mormon, hosts a neovaudevillian monthly variety show at the Slipper Room that proffers an eclectic mix of musical-theater, comedy, drag, circus and burlesque performances. A down-and-dirtier version of the show also plays there every week on Saturdays at midnight.

Free things to do this Saturday

  • Shakespeare
  • Harlem
Classical Theatre of Harlem's annual series of free outdoor performances in Marcus Garvey Park—also known as Uptown Shakespeare in the Park—presents an original neoclassical work by playwright Will Power and director Carl Cofield, who also collaborated on CTH's 2021 summer offering, the Richard III riff Seize the King. The play focuses on a figure who is often overlooked in tales of the Trojan War: the Ethiopian king and demigod Memnon—not to be confused with the Greek king Agamemnon—who led a large contingent in Troy's defense before falling to that notorious heel Achilles. Eric Berryman essays the title role, flanked by a cast that includes Andrea Patterson, Jesse J. Perez as Priam, David Darrow and Jesse Corbin. Tickets are free but reservations are strongly suggested.
  • Outdoor theaters
  • Central Park
A determined young woman doggedly pursues the uninterested object of her affections—whose hand in marriage she has been granted by a grateful king—in Shakespeare's rarely produced comedy, a romance so problematic that its title verges on sarcasm. Stephen Burdman directs this peripatetic production for his industrious New York Classical Theatre; the cast of eight includes Anique Clements as the dauntless Helena, Paul Deo Jr. as the heedless Bertram, Karel Heřmánek Jr. as the feckless Parolles and Nick Salamone and Carine Montbertran as well-intentioned nobles. The show kicks off in Central Park (June 3–22) before moving east to Carl Schurz Park (June 24–29) and south to Battery Park (July 1–6). Attendance is free, but reservations are suggested.
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  • Classical
  • Upper West Side
For the middle show of its summer schedule, Hudson Classical Theater Company presents an outdoor production of Jane Austen's 1811 debut novel, in which sisters of meager fortune and markedly different temperaments seek husbands of suitable station. The adaptation is by the company's executive artistic director, Susane Lee, who has a penchant for 19th-century books. (She also adapted the company's suite of plays based on the adventure tales of Alexandre Dumas, père.) Attendance is free and reservations are not required.

Concerts to see this Saturday

  • Music
  • Cabaret and standards
  • Lower East Side
  • price 2 of 4
  • Recommended
PJ Adzima, who currently plays the hopeful but hopelessly repressed Elder McKinley in Broadway's The Book of Mormon, hosts a neovaudevillian monthly variety show at the Slipper Room that proffers an eclectic mix of musical-theater, comedy, drag, circus and burlesque performances. A down-and-dirtier version of the show also plays there every week on Saturdays at midnight.

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