Thanksgiving Tradition
My man Santa is among the marquee names at the 99th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, which kicks off at 8:30 a.m. Watch in person at designated spots along the route, which runs from Central Park West near 77th Street to the Macy’s flagship store at Sixth Avenue and 34th Street. Or do what I do: Make someone in your family get bagels, park yourself on the couch and watch the parade on NBC or Peacock starting at 9 a.m.
Jog It Off
Melt away that pumpkin pie in the 10th annual New York City Turkey Trot half-marathon and 5K at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens (Nov. 29). Then reward yourself with doughnuts waiting for you at the finish line.
Theater
It would take precision planning, quickie stops for coffee and slices, and a lot of money, but seeing multiple shows in one day is a marathon I could actually finish.
On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I would begin at the Broadhurst Theater with an 11 a.m. matinee of “Rob Lake Magic,” a kid-friendly show from the illusionist Rob Lake featuring the Broadway debuts of Kermit the Frog and his main squeeze, Miss Piggy.
Then I would stick around Times Square for a twofer of new Broadway musicals: “The Queen of Versailles,” starring Kristin Chenoweth, at the St. James Theater, and a revival of “Chess,” with Aaron Tveit, Lea Michele and Nicholas Christopher, at the Imperial Theater. My nightcap? “Midnight Show,” a burlesque-act-meets-dance-party at the Slipper Room on the Lower East Side.
Comedy
The New York Comedy Festival (Nov. 7-16) is back with over 100 shows in clubs across the five boroughs. The who’s-who lineup includes Louis C.K., Margaret Cho, Morgan Jay and Alex Edelman. The “Strangers With Candy” reunion (Nov. 8) with Stephen Colbert, Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris sounds like a hoot.
Art
Performa, New York City’s biennial performance art festival, returns with three weeks of out-there, interdisciplinary live spectacles and public art installations (Nov. 1-23). Highlights include Lina Lapelyte’s “The Speech (NYC),” with a cast of 100 cooing, howling and roaring children, and Lucinda Childs’s “Street Dance,” the choreographer’s 1964 site-specific work that turns a city sidewalk into an otherworldly stage.
Drag
“Two Nights of Drag, Wrestling, and Chaos” is a suitable tagline for “Armageddon,” at Pioneer Works in Red Hook, Brooklyn (Nov. 11-12). This multimedia extravaganza from Chokehole, a New Orleans-based queer performance collective, blends club-kid drag with W.W.E.-style wrestling and takes place within “In Light of Innocence” (through Dec. 14), an exhibition by the artist Raúl de Nieves that transforms the main hall at Pioneer Works into an immersive makeshift cathedral.
Film
Fifty years ago, Albert and David Maysles startled (and uneasily amused) audiences with “Grey Gardens,” their cinéma vérité documentary about two relatives of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis — Edith Bouvier Beale and her adult daughter, also named Edith, but known as “Little Edie” — and the decrepit East Hampton estate where they lived. On Nov. 23, the film has a homecoming of sorts: It is showing at the Maysles Documentary Center, a movie theater and nonprofit in Harlem that Albert Maysles founded in 1985. Fans of nonfiction films should also check out the hundreds of screenings and other events at DOC NYC, the annual documentary festival, at the IFC Center, the Village East and the SVA Theater in Manhattan (Nov. 12-20).
Dance
The Paul Taylor Dance Company’s fall season at Lincoln Center features premieres from Lauren Lovette and Robert Battle and the return of Taylor favorites “Company B” and “Esplanade” (Nov. 4-23). On Nov. 15 and 22, the company offers 75-minute “Family Express” matinees, tickets to which include a coupon for free class at the Taylor Center for Dance Education.
Rock and Pop
It’s been 50 years since Patti Smith released her surrealistic and confrontational album “Horses.” On Nov. 21 and 22, Smith and her band will perform the record in its entirety at Beacon Theater.
Other concerts, by generation: For baby boomers, Stevie Nicks is at Barclay’s Center (Nov. 19); Gen X-ers, the Stray Cats at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, N.Y. (Nov. 9); millennials, Maroon 5 at Madison Square Garden (Nov. 19-20); Gen Z punk rats, Die Spitz at Bowery Ballroom (Nov. 18).
Jazz
The pianist Sean Mason is a Juilliard graduate and a vet of Broadway pit bands, and counts Branford and Wynton Marsalis as his champions. On Nov. 15, Mason brings his jazz quartet — with Felix Moseholm (bass), Anthony Hervey (trumpet) and Hank Allen-Barfield (drums) — to Columbia University’s Miller Theater for a night of original music and throwbacks.
Classical
Fort Greene Orchestra suggests you wear black to its performances of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony, a dark, twisty work that premiered just days before the composer’s death in 1893. The concerts are on Nov. 20 and 22 at the Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.
Take a Hike
The 500-acre Storm King Art Center, in the Hudson Valley town of New Windsor, N.Y., is best known as an outdoor museum-campus where arresting sculptures by Ellsworth Kelly, Lee Ufan and others dot the landscape like a giant’s toys. The center also hosts hikes, like on Nov. 15, when the geologist Kim Fendrich leads a three-hour tour focusing on the various geological features within the artworks and throughout the grounds. The hike is free with admission, but registration is required.
Kids
On Nov. 15, the Bronx Museum offers a free afternoon of art making with clay. The event is inspired by sculptures in “Ministry,” the museum’s exhibition devoted to the work of the artist-activist Rev. Joyce McDonald.
If any classical work can keep young ones rapt it’s Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.” On Nov. 22, it’s the centerpiece of “Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall …,” a free family-friendly concert presented by Musica Reginae Productions at Church-in-the-Gardens in Forest Hills, Queens.
Listen Up
The monologuist Mike Daisey and the comedians Gabe Mollica and Bailey Swilley are among the raconteurs at Frigid New York’s Gotham Storytelling Festival, taking place mostly at the Wild Project and Under St. Marks in the East Village (Nov. 3-16).
Potatoes — that’s the theme of this month’s Lower East Stories, a storytelling salon hosted by the comedian Matt Storrs. The tater tales will be told on Nov. 7 at the Lower East Side bookstore P & T Knitwear.
Last Call
Nov. 16 is the final day to see “Touching the Earth,” an installation of eight abstract bronze works by the acclaimed Pennsylvania sculptor Thaddeus Mosley at City Hall Park.
The curtain is closing on two critic’s picks: Ivo van Hove’s production of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” — “stark and sexy,” wrote Joshua Barone — is at the Metropolitan Opera through Nov. 22. And Jordan Tannahill’s gay dramedy “Prince Faggot” — Jesse Green called it “thrilling” — concludes its run at Studio Seaview in Midtown West on Nov. 30.
The post 28 Things to Do in N.Y.C. in November appeared first on New York Times.
