Local Flavors
I’ve got three picks for how to celebrate Lower East Side History Month: Catch a movie at the Lower East Side Film Festival, which is screening at Village East Cinema through May 4. Sample pickles, pretzels and ice cream on the Tenement Museum’s Foods of the L.E.S. walking tour (May 15). Or take the kids to theLoisaida Festival, the annual celebration of Nuyorican heritage and culture along Avenue C (May 24).
Mother’s Day
Your mother or the mother figure in your life could be a heathen at heart, but she can still feel uplifted at McDonald’s Gospelfest at the Palladium Times Square on Mother’s Day weekend (May 9-10). The powerhouse lineup of singers includes the Clark Sisters, Jennifer Holliday and Le’Andria Johnson.
Comedy
I first fell hard for the comedian Michelle Buteau when she was the hostess on Netflix’s naughty catfish competition series “The Circle.” She brings her unapologetically cheeky brand of humor to the Beacon Theater on May 16 and 17.
Cabaret
Most singers would die if they sang off-key or flubbed lyrics during their shows at the upscale Café Carlyle on the Upper East Side. But most singers are not Dina Martina. The malaprop-prone experimental drag performer, whose sense of humor seems to come from the darkest corners of Mars, is at the Carlyle from May 19 to 21.
Art
Several high-profile exhibitions are vying for your eyeballs: the Whitney Biennial, the big Duchamp show at the Museum of Modern Art and, starting on May 10, “Costume Art,” the annual sartorial survey from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.
But don’t sleep on “Here You Are,” the under-the-radar Staten Island Triennial. Curated by Rylee Eterginoso and featuring works from seven Staten Island artists, it’s on view at the Staten Island Museum at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden through Oct. 18.
Magic Makers
The 117th Annual Salute to Magic, the oldest continuous magic show in the country, is at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center for two performances on May 9. While there, check out the exhibition “Mystery and Wonder: A Legacy of Golden Age Magicians in New York City,” on view through July 11.
Free Theater
InScena!, New York’s Italian theater festival, takes over performance spaces in all five boroughs from May 5 to 19. Short on time? You’re in luck: None of the shows are over 80 minutes. Admission to each is free with an R.S.V.P.
Tickets are also free for the Public Theater’s new Shakespeare in the Park production of “Romeo and Juliet,” in which the eponymous young lovers speak to each other only in Spanish, while the rest of the play is delivered in English. Performances begin May 22 at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.
Jazz
Jazz at Lincoln Center celebrates the great Oscar Peterson, the Montreal-born piano virtuoso who died in 2007, with two shows at the Rose Theater on the Upper West Side (May 8 and 9). Performers include the singer Dee Dee Bridgewater and, on May 9 only, the bassist Christian McBride.
Classical
On May 9, Gustavo Dudamel takes his baton uptown to conduct the New York Philharmonic and the Spanish Harlem Orchestra in a concert at the United Palace in Washington Heights that features works by Heitor Villa-Lobos and Leonard Bernstein.
On May 20, National Sawdust in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, hosts a sneak peek of “A River Runs Through It,” a new opera based on Norman Maclean’s 1976 novella, before it premieres at Opera Montana in September. The 8 p.m. performance is sold out, but tickets remain for 5:30 p.m. and there is a wait list.
Festival Fun
If you’re a parent looking for outdoor adventures, Queens and Brooklyn are the boroughs to be in on back-to-back Saturdays. On May 9, make a floating lantern and set it adrift at the Queens Water Lantern Festival at Flushing Meadows Corona Park, or catch a concert at a playground, on a stoop or at another unconventional locale during the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music’s free Open Stages festival in Park Slope.
On May 16, fly high at Brooklyn Bridge Park’s free Kite Festival or make crafts and dance at the free Queens International Children’s Festival at Rufus King Park in Jamaica.
Film
The Coney Island Film Festival (May 1-3) at Coney Island USA is a small but mightily comprehensive event that’s heavy on shorts, with programs dedicated to horror, animation and other genres. I’m looking forward to the documentary shorts program on May 2 that includes the film “Being Buble,” about a deeply unqualified Michael Bublé impersonator.
On May 27 at Film Forum in Greenwich Village, Howard Gutner, the author of a new biography of Travis Banton, one of the leading costume designers of Hollywood’s golden age, introduces a screening of the romantic drama “Sinners in the Sun” (1932). The movie was made in the freewheeling days before the Production Code Administration started regulating Hollywood films, and stars Carole Lombard and a pre-matinee idol Cary Grant.
Pop Music
A concert for every generation: Baby boomers, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are at Madison Square Garden (May 11 and 16). Gen X, the two-day Total Bummer festival at the Knockdown Center in Maspeth, Queens, features the headliners Dinosaur Jr. (May 30) and Jesus and Mary Chain (May 31). Millennials, Charlie Puth is at Madison Square Garden (May 29). Gen Z, Pink Pantheress is at the Brooklyn Storehouse at the Brooklyn Navy Yard (May 7).
Head Bangers
Metalheads, it’s a month of mayhem. There’s black metal from Behemoth at Palladium Times Square (May 2); punk chaos from Corrosion of Conformity at Le Poisson Rouge in the West Village (May 7); and a concert cruise around New York Harbor with the grindcore masters Napalm Death (May 22).
Dance
Thai folk dance, whaacking, the Lindy Hop and bachata are just some of the styles on display at the 20th annual Dance Parade on May 16. It kicks off at 11:45 a.m. at 17th Street and Sixth Avenue in Chelsea and ends at Tompkins Square Park in the East Village, where DanceFest continues the celebration with free performances and dance lessons from 3 to 7 p.m.
Steamy Sights
Calamity Chang, Felicia Oh and other come-hither hotties are among the performers at the NYC Asian Burlesque Festival. There are shows on May 16 at Le Poisson Rouge and the next night at the Red Pavilion in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
Last Call
The Macy’s Flower Show is in bloom through May 10 at the Macy’s flagship at Herald Square. It’s free and open to the public during store hours.
On May 17, it’s curtains for Darren Criss in the Tony-winning Broadway musical “Maybe Happy Ending” at the Belasco Theater.
“New York Days,” a decades-spanning exhibition of Maï Lucas’s photographs of “the block, the stoop, the corner, the car hood,” is at Dashwood Projects in the East Village through May 23.
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