Fleet Week is upon us, so, attached is a drawing I did of Channing Tatum a few years ago for The Los Angeles Times. This was done for Hail Caesar! choreographed by Christopher Gattelli.

Hail Caesar!  is by Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men, Fargo), starring Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Alden Ehrenreich, Ralph Fiennes, Jonah Hill, Scarlett Johansson, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, and Channing Tatum, Hail, Caesar! follows a single day in the life of a studio fixer who is presented with plenty of problems to fix.

Here is a video with Channing and the rest of the cast. Talk about a great Happy Memorial Day!

On going is still  Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature, is at The Morgan Library & Museum through 6/9.Florals in Fashion highlights the work of designers Hilary Taymour (Collina Strada), Olivia Cheng (Dauphinette) and Kristen Alpaugh, aka FLWR PSTL Also Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz’s “Giants,”is at the Brooklyn Museum until 7/7. The exhibition features artists who have made and continue to make a significant impact on the art world and contemporary culture. The show features 98 artworks by Black American, African, and African artists including Gordon Parks, Kehinde Wiley, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Mickalene Thomas, Hassan Hajjaj, Barkley L. Hendricks, Lorna Simpson, and Amy Sherald. Until 8/11 the Whitney Biennial, this happens every two years.  This year, the theme is “Even Better Than The Real Thing” and features the work of 71 artists and collectives. Also on display is Apollo: When We Went to the Moon at The Intrepid Museum. The exhibit is included with museum admission and goes until 10/2. The Rubin Museum, is permanently closing its physical space later this year and is open until October. If you’ve never been time to go. Until 10/27: The New York Botanical Garden is getting in on the Mad Hatter fun with a new, garden-wide exhibition for 2024 titled “Wonderland: Curious Nature.”

6/1 -23: How Long Blues at Little Island. Twyla Tharp featuring live music by T Bone Burnett and David Mansfield.

6/6 – 16: Tribeca Film Festival

6/7 – 9: Governors Ball

6/7 – 24: River to River Festival 50th anniversary has celebrations of dance, music, video, installation, and exhibitions. Featuring 13 projects of live art, performances, and participatory events in public spaces throughout Downtown New York, the 2024 River To River Festival explores themes of resonance, reconsideration, and resistance.  All events are free and open to all. Reservations are requested for some performances and events with limited capacity reserve here.

6/9: National Puerto Rican Day Parade

6/10: Movie nights in Bryant Park Forrest Gump (1994)

6/12: The Tony Awards

6/12: NY Philharmonic Concerts in the Parks

6/12 – 30: Summer for the City The Dream Machine Experience and The Bridge Lincoln Center Presents Time travel through an immersive AR experience across our outdoor spaces led by Cyboracle, the larger-than-life virtual avatar portrayed by Nona Hendryx.

6/12: The third annual Summer for the City festival. Over 200 free or choose-what-you-pay events that span a variety of topics, genres and  locations.

6/13 – 16: Juneteenth New York Festival

6/13: Summer for the City The Outdoor Film Series Black Swan Natalie Portman gives an Oscar-winning turn as a sheltered but driven young dancer with a ballet company in NYC who begins to buckle under pressure

6/17: Movie nights in Bryant Park The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)

6/18 and 20: SummerStage The Metropolitan Opera Summer Recital featuring Leah Hawkins, Mario Chang, Michael Sumuel

6/19 – 30: Black Restaurant Week up to 80 participating venues, including Red Rooster Harlem, Cascade Jerk, Twins BBQ Co., Collective Fare, Tamarind Island, Voila Afrique, Misfits Nutrition, Brooklyn Blend, Negril Village, Lee Lee’s Baked Goods, The Real Mothershuckers and many more.

6/20: Summer for the City The Outdoor Film Series Before Sunrise Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Céline (Julie Delpy) meet on a cross-Europe train. In Vienna, they walk, talk, look around—and fall unexpectedly in love. Damrosch Park

6/21: Summer for the City Social Dance Abaddón Tango. Get swept up in the majesty and beauty of Argentinian tango at this social dance night featuring the Abaddón Tango sextet.

6/21: 125th birthday of the Bronx Zoo 

6/21: Summer for the City The Outdoor Film Series Before Sunset. Nine years after Before Sunrise’s open-ended finale, Before Sunset’s immediate question—did Jesse and Céline reunite in Vienna—soon gets eclipsed.

6/21: Summer for the City Silent Disco. Strut your stuff under the stars as our popular Silent Disco series returns to NYC’s largest outdoor dance floor with a ten-foot disco ball.

6/22: The Coney Island The Mermaid Parade kicks off at 1pm.

6/22: Summer for the City Mykal Kilgore a concert for all ages featuring GRAMMY-nominated performing artist Mykal Kilgore!

6/22 -23: SailGP (Sail Grand Prix) will bring 10 international teams to the waters to race turbocharged F50 catamarans at more than 60 miles per hour. Fans can watch the action in stadium-style seats close to shore along Governors Island.

6/23: Summer for the City Rosanne Cash.  one of America’s leading songwriters and creative voices, performs a live set on the 30th anniversary of her classic album, The Wheel.

6/24 and 26: SummerStage The Metropolitan Opera Summer Recital featuring Brittany Olivia Logan, Hannah Jones, Matthhew Cairns

6/26: Summer for the City ABT Silent Disco With DJ Remeice and Connor Holloway. Celebrate Pride Week with American Ballet Theatre in a silent disco spun by DJ Remeice and co-

6/24: Movie nights in Bryant Park Boomerang (1992)

6/26-29: Robeson at Little Island.

6/29: SummerStage Pride Disco: DJ Trixie Mattel + Amanda Lepore + Jess King

6/30: Pride Fest, The March

6/30: SummerStage Dreamland: Pride In Central Park With John Summit

New York City Center ‘s programing is a series of dance, musical theater, and community events that will have everyone and their friends coming back to see it all.

FALL 2024

New York City Center’s 2024 – 2025 Season opens with the Fall for Dance Festival from September 18 through 29. An essential part of New York’s fall dance season, this annual showcase features an eclectic array of international dance artists and companies in five unique programs. In keeping with City Center’s mission of accessibility, all tickets for Fall for Dance remain at $20 (plus $10 in fees). Highlights on the 2024 line-up include Boston Ballet, Italy’s CCN/Aterballetto (FFD debut), Dutch National Ballet,Chicago’s M.A.D.D. Rhythms, New York-based collective Roderick George | kNoname Artist, and New York City Ballet principal dancer Sara Mearns.

On October 30, the Annual Gala Presentation Ragtime opens with a benefit performance followed by a gala dinner at the Ziegfeld Ballroom. Led by Tony-nominee and Encores! Artistic Director Lear deBessonet with Music Director James Moore, Ragtime follows three fictional families in pursuit of the American Dream: Black pianist Coalhouse Walker Jr. (Joshua Henry) and his sweetheart Sarah; Latvian immigrant Tateh (Brandon Uranowitz) along with his Little Girl; and a wealthy white family led by Mother (Caissie Levy). This sweeping, powerful musical adaptation of E.L. Doctorow’s novel of the same name with music by Stephen Flaherty, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, and a book by Terrence McNally won four Tony Awards in 1998. Presented in a special two-week run through November 10, funds raised by all 14 performances allow City Center to continue to expand access to the performing arts by subsidizing education programs and affordable tickets throughout the year.

Award-winning tap dance artist Michelle Dorrance returns to City Center with her Company in a joyful program featuring live music from November 22 through 24. Hailed for their ingenuity and expanding the boundaries of tap dance while also honoring its roots, Dorrance Dance has been a Fall for Dance favorite since 2013.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, New York City Center’s Principal Dance Company and a beloved cultural ambassador, returns December 4 – January 5 for a five-week holiday season celebrating a lineage and legacy that continues to open doors and break new ground. Ailey’s extraordinary dancers will bring to life world premieres and new productions by a number of choreographers for whom Alvin Aileypaved the way, including the 25th anniversary return of Ronald K. Brown’s blockbuster Grace, a rapturous work in which the secular and sacred meet, connecting African and American dance.

Winter | Spring 2025

Led by Music Director Mary-Mitchell Campbell, Artistic Director Lear deBessonet, and Creative Producing Director Clint Ramos, the Tony-honored Encores! series returns in 2025 with a season of musical theater revivals to captivate both seasoned enthusiasts and newcomers alike. The series opens with Urinetown from February 5 through 16. Directed by Teddy Bergman with Encores! Music Director Mary-Mitchell Campbell, this side-splitting satire takes place in a dystopian city on the brink of dehydration where all citizens must pay a fee for “The Privilege to Pee” at one of the public facilities controlled by a selfish tycoon. With an incisive and clever score by Tony winner Mark Hollmann, fourth-wall-breaking humor by Hollman and Tony winner Greg Kotis, and a plot of thrilling twists and turns, Urinetown examines the darkest dilemmas of humanity—skewering everything from capitalism to environmental activism with irreverent charm and razor-sharp wit.

The long-awaited Love Life takes the City Center stage March 26 through 30. Originally scheduled as part of the 2019 – 2020 season, the performances were cancelled at the start of the Covid-19 shutdown. The only collaboration between Kurt Weill and Alan Jay Lerner, this rarely staged 1948 musical depicts a love story that takes place over 200 years of American history, seen through the eyes of a family who never ages. Directed by Tony winner Victoria Clark with Guest Music Director Rob Berman, the musicalexplores the epic and intimate aspects of a marriage through a juxtaposition of heartfelt scenes and satirical vaudeville acts. Considered by some to be the first concept musical, Love Life is an inspiration for musical theater favorites such as Cabaret, Chicago, and Company.

Closing out the 2025 Encores! series from April 30 through May 11 is The Wild Party. With music and lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa and book by LaChiusa and George C. Wolfe, The Wild Party brings Joseph Moncure March’s notorious poem to life in this vivid musical adaptation. What happens when a night of debauchery leads to a morning of sobering truths? Directed by Saheem Ali with Encores! Music Director Mary-Mitchell Campbell, this “dangerous, seedy, fantastic” (The Observer) gin-soaked party is full of jazz-age indulgence and Vaudeville stars letting loose off-the-clock.

Spring 2025 Dance

For more than 20 years, Flamenco Festival has brought Spain’s greatest flamenco dancers and musicians to City Center. This “beloved, yearly spectacle” (Time Out) returns from March 6 through 9 with a line-up that includes the “visionary, magisterial dancer” (The Guardian) Eva Yerbabuena, and more to be announced.

The legendary Twyla Tharp also returns from March 12 through 16 celebrating the Diamond Jubilee of Twyla Tharp Dance with a program of two New York premieres. Set to Beethoven’s masterpiece of the same name, the Olivier-nominated Diabelli Variations makes visible the elegant humor and depth of the composer’s layered genius as Tharp’s movement effortlessly shifts from ballet to jazz, to modern, and even unexpected bits of social dance, accompanied by live piano. Combined with a new work set to a reimagining of Philip Glass’s iconic Aguas da Amazonia, arranged and performed live on a collection of custom-designed instruments by Third Coast Percussion, these two premiere works guarantee an evening of stellar dancing and phenomenal musicianship.

Celebrated New York City Ballet principal dancer Sara Mearns has a long artistic relationship with City Center including eight performances in the Fall for Dance Festival, starring in Matthew Bourne’s The Red Shoes, and making her musical theater debut in Encores! I Married an Angel as part of the 75th Anniversary Season (2018 – 2019). This season, Mearns makes her curatorial debut as part of the ongoing Artists at the Center series. From April 3 through 5, Mearns expands the boundaries of the balletic form as both a dancer and curator in this annual series.

Bringing their bold vision for the world of classical ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem returns April 10 through 13 with an exciting season of new works and fan favorites. And from May 29 through June 1, the nation’s largest Latinx cultural organization Ballet Hispánico returns with a gala performance, their signature En Familia/Family Matinee, and CARMEN.maquia. Choreographed by Gustavo Ramírez Sansano, CARMEN.maquia is a bold and electrifying reimagining of Bizet’s timeless tale with costumes by fashion designer David DelfÍn and set designed by Luis Crespo.

Studio 5

The Studio 5 series of conversations and performances offer an opportunity to hear from today’s great dance artists in the intimate setting of City Center’s historic studios, moderated by leading scholars and writers in the dance world. Events include 80 Years of Fancy Free (Nov 25), George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker® (Dec 9), Celebrating Black History Month | Street Dance Edition (Feb 24) with Ephrat Asherie and Adesola Osakalumi, and Sara Mearns | Artist at the Center (Mar 17). Select Studio 5 programs will again be offered as on-demand, live-streamed events this season.

Education & Community Engagement

City Center’s Education & Community Engagement expanding programs provide pathways to and through the arts for thousands of students and New Yorkers across the city with workshops, residencies, performances, apprenticeships, and high school externships. The Lynne & Richard Pasculano Student Matinees provide access to over 10,000 students, offering subsidized tickets to performances. Student matinees can be combined with In-School Workshops or Residencies that enrich students’ learning experience, helping them to prepare and reflect on the performance. Student Matinees for the 2024 – 2025 Season include Ragtime on November 7 (Grades 6 – 12), Dorrance Dance on November 22 (Grades 3 – 12), Ailey II on December 10 and 12 (Grades 3 – 12), Encores! Urinetown on February 13 (Grades 6 – 12), and Ballet Hispánico on May 3 (Grades 3 – 12). For more information on attending a Lynne & Richard Pasculano Student Matinee, email Education@NYCityCenter.org or call 212.763.1221.

City Center Community Nights build common bonds around the power of performance. In a new format for the 2024 – 2025 season, these events will be held post-performance with concessions remaining open, inviting even more audience members to take part. Community Nights include Ragtime on Friday November 8; Encores! Urinetown on Friday, February 14; Flamenco Festival on Friday, March 7; and Encores! The Wild Party on Friday, May 9. Performances with ASL Interpretation will be held Thursday, November 7 (Ragtime); Thursday, February 13 (Encores! Urinetown); Sunday, March 30 at 2pm (Encores! Love Life); and Thursday, May 8 at 7:30pm (Encores! The Wild Party). And Dorrance Danceincludes Family Friendly Matinees on Saturday, November 23 at 2pm, and Sunday, November 24 at 2pm.

Tickets for the Annual Gala Presentation Ragtime go on sale at noon on May 16 to members and May 23 to the general public. Dorrance Dance and the Winter/Spring dance season go on sale to members on August 20 and to the general public on August 22. Fall for Dance Festival tickets are on sale Sunday, August 25 at 11am, with all tickets remaining at $20 (plus $10 in fees).  Tickets for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater go on sale September 10 to the general public.

Current subscribers may renew their Encores! subscriptions now through June 28. New Encores! subscriptions for members are available starting August 6 and for the general public starting August 20. Subscriptions may be purchased for the first week of two-week engagements. Encores! single tickets go on sale to members October 1 and to the general public on October 8.

Tickets can be purchased online at NYCityCenter.org, by calling 212.581.1212, or in person at the City Center Box Office. Access City Center Club is available to those 38 years of age and under and offers a limited number of $28 tickets (fees included) to City Center productions. For more information and to sign up, visit NYCityCenter.org/Access. New York City Center is located at 131 W 55th St between Sixth and Seventh avenues.

Casting and programming subject to change.

T2C was at the 2024 Chita Rivera Awards at NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. We got to interview some of the best in dance and look forward to sharing this with you.

On this video watch Michael-Demby Cain, Joe Lanteri, Bernadette Peters, Debbie Allen, Justin Peck, Norm Lewis, Rick and Jeff Kuperman, Chita’s daughter Lisa Mordente, Kenny Ortega, Serge Trujillo,  winners for Water For Elephants Jesse Robb and Shana Carroll, winner Camille A Brown Hell’s Kitchen, Marina Tamayo, Lorin Latarro, David Petersen, Bruce Robert Harris, Ali Louis Bourzgui, Huey Lewis, Phil LaDuca, Riki Kane Larimer, Grant Plotkin and highlights from the show with Ali Louis Bourgzgui, Kristin ZChenoweth, Norm Lewis, Wayne Brady and more.

This was one spectacular night.

Video by Magda Katz

“I never know how to start things,” reads the graphic journal that is stuffed inside the program of Broadway’s last-minute entry into the Tony Awards race, Illinoise. This dance show musical is meticulously based on Sufjan Stevens’2005 indie folk concept album “Illinois,” an album I must admit I never heard of until it opened earlier this year at Park Avenue Armory. The show is overflowing with talent, much like the journal, which is a captivating written celebration of the thought process behind this 90-minute dance and sung piece. It draws out the whimsical and earnest qualities that resonate throughout the album and the production, and is a welcome reminder of what makes this show tick, when it ticks well.

Directed and choreographed by the ingenious Justin Peck (Spielberg’s “West Side Story“; Broadway’s Carousel) and with a book written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury (Fairview; Marys Seacole), Illinoise dives forward with clever light and energy. It is a celebration and a release of pent-up sorrowful energy. It delights in its own storytelling abstractionisms, brought forth gloriously on the vocal wings of three butterflies; Shara Nova, Tasha Viets-Vanlear, and Elijah Lyons, and delivered into our hearts by a crew of expert dancers; Ricky Ubeda, Ahmad Simmons, Christine Flores, Bryon Tittle, Kara Chan, Ben Cook, Gaby Diaz, Rachel Lockhart, Alejandro Vargas, Jeanette Delgado, Brandt Martinez, and Craig Salstein.

Under a guiding billboard of epic informative dimensions, designed most beautifully by Adam Rigg (LCT/Broadway’s The Skin of Our Teeth), with dynamic lighting by Brandon Stirling Baker (New York City Ballet’s Dig the Say), and sound design by Garth MacAleavey (New York Philharmonic’s “Sound On: Leading Voices”), dancing fireflies gather around a lanterned fire pit to tell their stories, whether it’s about ghosts, UFO sightings, or zombies. We try to imagine what this is, these stars delivering signs emerging, quick and sharp, fast forwarding to the unveiling of their individual stories. “Are you writing from the heart?” they are asked, as we are guided through the entirety of Stevens’ album, with new arrangements by composer, pianist, and frequent Stevens collaborator Timo Andres (“The Blind Banister“).

The musical sounds range in style, dancing around the edges of folk, indie rock, and ambient electronic music, engagingly performed by an 11-member band, led by music director and supervisor Nathan Koci (Broadway’s Hadestown). It’s mysterious and captivating, tender and engaging, as the sound draws forth the exceptional dancers to explore the overwhelming condition of youth and “the sense of each other“. Finding emotional engagement within, on the road from childhood to adulthood, the dancers fly forward to the written word that hangs out center stage, and then leading us back to the tapping energy of Jacksonville, through the zombie nation, and the captivating unpacking tale of John Wayne Gracy Jr. “(or the damning cycle of exclusion borne of outcasts forced to sympathize with monsters).” The selections of journal entries are shared and engaged with, “in celebration of their memory and of our future.” And the allusions and feelings of shame and loss are not lost on me throughout.

The piece defies categorization, especially in the framing of “a new Broadway musical,” which is what the piece is being billed as. The entire show is sung by those butterfly-winged performers, costumed by Reid Bartelme & Harriet Jung (Broadway’s Dancin’). They feel forever disconnected from the movement, held up high like hummingbirds or fireflies looking for a place to land while watching those below engage in their storytelling with curiosity and admiration. They hover and sing most enchantingly, but the distance doesn’t bring forth a feeling of connection but rather emphasizes the opposite. Maybe I’ve been trained by the vast majority of musicals to find the song and the dance entwined within, but the separation of voice from the movement kept the piece removed from my soul, even when it occasionally connected to my heart. “It makes me want someone stronger to swoop in to save me from all of us.“

It’s a dance show, packaged in the vein of Broadway’s Moving Out, delivered with gentle promise and determination. Peck’s choreography is as exciting as it is moving and captivating, sometimes spinning out the abstract, symbolic, gesture, while sometimes gripping itself to realism and straightforwardness. Combining almost all of the 22 tracks on “Illinois”, the narrative is delivered in a physical formulation, showcasing all the different ways we can tell our stories to others and the complicated ways we can make ourselves vulnerable in that “seductive fiction of the individual hero“. The central figure is Henry, delivered strongly by Ubeda (Broadway’s On the Town), who has gathered together this group of young people to allow them the space and permission to deliver their stories outward into the night air and to each other. The emotional release is evident, and as each story unfolds, we know a larger tale is on the brink of being unpacked, unwrapped, and discovered.

“I know it will be easier for me, eventually, if I write it all down, but trying to put words to our whole…to put us to words, feels sort of impossible.” Those words aren’t exactly spoken out loud by Henry, but it is clearly present in his affect, as he begins to enter into the largest portion of the piece; his story, around his two deceased friends; Carl, portrayed tenderly by Ben Cook (Broadway’s Mean Girls), and Shelby, embodied by the wonderful Gaby Diaz (Off-Broadway’s Only Gold). And in their unveiling, we try to stay engaged. It is both easy, as it is well choreographed and emotionally delivered, yet also difficult as the structuring of the whole feels distant and detached.

I must admit that I’m not exactly the target audience, as I tend to veer away from dance and ballet shows and aim myself towards plays and musicals. That said, I’m always and totally astounded by the talent of bodies in motion, especially these dancers, and the intelligent way this particular show delivers on its desire to broadcast emotional and romantic ideals, matched most graphically to grief and sorrow. However, I have a harder time staying inside the piece, especially when there is a barrier between the voice and the body. All the dancers and singers are of the highest order, and even though I am sad that I missed Robbie Fairchild who danced the Henry role in the show’s previous run at the Park Avenue Armory, I was astounded by the effervescent energy and grace by each and every dancer of Illinoise, and the cathartic quality that floats out at the end of this show. If dance is your thing, I strongly suggest seeing this show. Even if dancing isn’t your vibe, it is still worth the introduction to the idea. “My heart keeps changing,” he writes. “I keep changing.” And isn’t that the point of theatre, to be forever curious and engage in something new to find change and enlightenment. Even if it isn’t your vibe, it will stay with you, opening yourself up to something truly unique and carefully constructed.