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(Photo: Courtesy of IFC (Brockmire); OlIvia Malone (Charli XCX); KingArthur_aus/Flickr (Father John Misty); Hairweavekiller/Instagram (2chainz); Courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera (Der Rosenkavalier)) |
TV
1. Watch Brockmire
There’s no crying in baseball.�
Hank Azaria plays a sports announcer recovering from an infamous on-air episode. It’s refreshing to hear someone on the brink who will say anything, consequences be damned.
IFC, April 5.
Pop
2. Listen to Pure Comedy
A Holden Caulfield moment.�
Indie-rock wiseguy Father John Misty can be prickly almost for the sheer sport of it, but his wounded new studio album has zero irony, as if all the tiny absurdities of life had snapped into focus and one man got up and asked for the check. —Craig Jenkins
Sub Pop/Bella Union, April 7.
Art
3. See March Madness
Game, set, match.�
Visual artists have always loved sport. Here, in photographs, paintings, sculptures, and whatnot, 31 artists make good art out of boxing, basketball, and world-record fingernail growing. Action mingles with portraiture, ideas of masculinity and femininity intertwine, and banal side scenes take on pathos. —Jerry Saltz
Fort Gansevoort, 5 Ninth Avenue, through May 6.
Theater
4. See The Antipodes
Mystery play.�
Here’s what we know about Annie Baker’s new play: nothing. Still, with a knockout ensemble cast including Josh Charles, Josh Hamilton, Phillip James Brannon, and Danny Mastrogiorgio, even a mystery work by the author of The Flick stands out as the biggest Off Broadway must-see. —Jesse Green
Signature Center, through May 21.
Books
5. Read Grace Notes
The woman under the red bouffant.�
Those who know actress Katey Sagal only from her Peg Bundy role on Married With Children might be surprised to learn she’s something of a feminist hero. Sagal’s memoir, a raw detailing of her body-image struggles, the stillbirth of her first daughter, and her journey to become a mother again at 52, will leave you poised for your own reinvention.
Gallery Books.
Opera
6. See Der Rosenkavalier
Aging in place, gracefully.�
In Strauss’s ravishingly melancholy opera, the Marschallin is an “older woman” of 32, wise, beautiful, and exquisitely aware of time’s cruelty. Most sopranos are still singing ingénues at that age, and Renée Fleming was in her early 40s by the time she first sang the role in 2000. Now she returns in a new production by Robert Carsen. —Justin Davidson
Metropolitan Opera, opens April 13.
Movies
7. See The Films of Martin Brest
The heat is on.
Zach Braff’s remake of the 1979 geriatric caper film Going in Style (opening April 7) is an occasion to celebrate the original’s director and writer, Martin Brest (Beverly Hills Cop, Midnight Run), who quietly left the business after his 2003 disaster Gigli. Much worse directors have stuck around after much worse films, and Brest’s mix of Hollywood studio smarts and New York street smarts is much missed. —David Edelstein
Amazon Prime.
Pop
8. See Charli XCX
Radiant hooks abound.�
The British pop dynamo just released Number 1 Angel, a mixtape full of ebullient R&B and electronic music that showcases her excellent ear for off-kilter production. Expect a celebration of the new release and a dip through her terrific back catalogue. —C.J.
(Le) Poisson Rouge, April 12.
TV
9. Watch The Get Down
Appealing actors, killer soundtrack.
The epic urban melodrama returns to complete its first-season run with a set of six episodes. Not many TV series would dare mix gangster violence, pie-eyed teenage love stories, and references to kung fu cinema, but this one has that swing-for-the-fences mentality. —Matt Zoller Seitz
Netflix, April 7.
Books
10. Read American War
The new dystopian novel in town.�
Told through the lens of a young refugee from the second American Civil War (which erupts in 2074), this is a debut novel of terrifying portents from Omar El Akkad, a reporter who has covered the Black Lives Matter movement and Guantánamo Bay trials.
Knopf.
TV
11. Watch The White Princess
Blood and roses.�
It’s uncanny how this post–War of the Roses period piece can be seen as a counterpart to Game of Thrones. Sub Lancasters and Yorks for Lannisters and Starks, add GoT alumni Michelle Fairley and Essie Davis as scheming queen mothers, and watch the women wage war behind the scenes.
Starz, April 16.
Classical
12. Hear Three Generations: David Lang, Julia Wolfe, and Michael Gordon
Celebrating the shock of the ever new.
Thirty years ago, a trio of young composers arrived in New York determined to knock down the stylistic barricades separating uptown from downtown music. Now the organization they founded, Bang on a Can, practically defines the Establishment, and none other than Steve Reich has put together a concert in its honor.������
Zankel Hall, April 19.
Theater on Film
13. See Speech & Debate
Afterschool, special.�
Before The Humans, Stephen Karam wrote the smart, hilarious 2007 play Speech & Debate, about three adorkable teens banding together to out their possible-pedophile drama teacher. For the movie version, directed by Dan Harris, original star Sarah Steele re-creates her role as a talentless would-be musical-theater diva. —J.G.
iTunes VOD and in select theaters, April 7.
Pop
14. Listen to Pretty Girls Like Trap Music
Tight flow and sharp punch lines.
Atlanta rapper 2 Chainz is currently in the best shape of his career, with appearances on projects by Drake and Migos and his own singles “Good Drank” and “It’s a Vibe.” In a perfect world, this album brings him both commercial and critical solo success. —C.J.
April 7, Def Jam.
Opera
15. See ¡Figaro! (90210)
This mad day’s in L.A.�
The Marriage of Figaro has proved astonishingly adaptive over the centuries. Now it returns as timely satire, with Da Ponte’s libretto adapted into English and Spanglish by Vid Guerrerio: The count is a California plutocrat, Figaro and Susana the (undocumented) Mexican help. —J.D.
The Duke, opens April 7.
Movies
16. See Martin Scorsese: Great Restorations
“Oddballs” to auteurists.
The final program of this Scorsese series is its most unusual one: the avant-garde films that had a powerful influence on the budding auteur in the 1960s. Can you spot those influences in Black Is (Aldo Tambellini, 1965), Rabbit’s Moon (Kenneth Anger, 1950–1972), or Butterfly (Shirley Clarke and Wendy Clarke, 1967)? —D.E.
Museum of the Moving Image, April 9.
Art
17. See Emheyo Bahabba
Glowing color — and bright inner light.
Six gorgeously morphing visionary paintings by the late Trinidadian poet and self-taught artist Emheyo Bahabba, a.k.a. Embah (1937–2015), attest to a reverberating mystic imagination. The works echo Gauguin and also predict some of Chris Ofili’s paintings. The connections are enticing; the paintings worthy of museums. —J.S.
White Columns, 320 West 13th Street, through April 22.
Pop
18. See New Order
Tell me now, how do I feel?
It’s been almost four decades since the members of Joy Division molted into New Order. They’re still pretty innovative — time can’t dull synth masterworks like “Blue Monday.”
Radio City Music Hall, April 13.
TV
19. Watch The Beach Boys: Making Pet Sounds
Made for these times.
This documentary charts the production of the groundbreaking, protean album; Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, and Bruce Johnston are interviewed, as is David Marks, who left the group before recording started. —M.Z.S.
Showtime, April 7.
Classical
20. Hear The Music of Lisa Bielawa
The drama of her many selves.�
Soprano and composer Lisa Bielawa writes mini-dramas that are somehow simultaneously cool and intense. Fellow singer-composer Theo Bleckmann curates a full evening of her works, including one from 2000 in which she joins an ensemble of prerecorded Bielawas. —J.D.
National Sawdust, April 6.
Pop
21. See Tinariwen
Exiles take on mammoth forces.
Touring for new record Elwan (“Elephants”), the Tuareg collective turns increasingly political while hanging on to North African pop melodies and Mississippi Delta–style guitar lines.
Brooklyn Bowl, April 15 and 16.
Books
22. Read Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich
A new hit of Hitlerology.
Norman Ohler’s debut work of scholarship, about how the Nazi war machine ran on meth and Hitler lived on coke and opiates, is a German best seller. Mordant, casual, easy to mainline. —Boris Kachka
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Theater Music
23. Listen to Billy Porter Presents: The Soul of Richard Rodgers
A song in his heart.
Billy Porter is not just a singer but a kind of host on his new album of classics by musical theater’s Ur-composer, reinterpreted by a new generation, including Leslie Odom Jr. (“My Romance”) and Cynthia Erivo (“My Funny Valentine”). —J.G.
Bee & El /Sony Masterworks Broadway, April 14.
Book Talks
24. Hear Dani Shapiro
Sifting through the sands.
The memoirist launches Hourglass, an exploration of marriage, family, and the passage of time, in conversation with writer Maria Popova.
Powerhouse Arena, April 18.
Poetry
25. Go to Poetry in Motion: The Poet Is In
“O me! O life! O Metro-North delay!”
MTA Arts & Design celebrates National Poetry Month with this one-day poetry-meets-performance event. Noted poets, including Frost medalist Marilyn Nelson and former New York poet laureate Marie Howe, will sit in a booth and write an original poem for each visitor. Luddites, rejoice: They’ll be typewritten.
Vanderbilt Hall, Grand Central Terminal, April 7.