With 4/20, Easter and Earth Day all approaching back-to-back, I’m sure everyone’s weekend schedules are packed. But on the off chance you have some free time in the next few days, here are some affordable arts and entertainment events to keep you busy!
“Red Ink Series: Authenticity” at Books Are Magic, April 19
“Red Ink” is a quarterly series of readings at Books Are Magic, a local bookstore, that focuses on women writers, co-sponsored by Literary Hub. The next installment will feature great writers like Deborah Landau, director of NYU’s Creative Writing Program, and Mira Jacob and Hannah Tinti, members of the CWP’s faculty.
Time: 7-8:30 p.m.
Location: 225 Smith St., Brooklyn [Carroll Gardens]
Price: free
“Hot Brown Honey” at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, April 19 – 20
This weekend, Skirball hosts the U.S. debut of this radical and dazzling cabaret featuring six femme performers of color. Blending hip-hop, dance, poetry, comedy, circus, striptease and song, “Hot Brown Honey” is “equal parts theatrical spectacular and social activism,” and urges us to “#DecolonizeAndMosturize.” Presented as a part of NYU’s Stonewall 50 celebrations.
Time: 7:30-9:30 p.m.
Location: 556 LaGuardia Pl., Manhattan [Greenwich Village]
Price: $10 for NYU students with NYU ID
“BAMcafé Live: April + VISTA and Deem Spencer” in BAM’s Lepercq Space, April 19-20
Brooklyn Academy of Music is putting on two free nights of live music. On Friday visitors can hear the “quirky beats, old school soul vocals, and multi-layered, lush soundscapes” of duo April + VISTA, and on Saturday, the “unique style of introspective hip-hop” of rapper Deem Spencer. Co-presented by indie music site Okayplayer.
Time: 9 p.m.
Location: 30 Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn [Fort Greene]
Price: free
Reading of “The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda” at The Center at West Park Sanctuary Theater, April 20
In response to the smashing success of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton,” the playwright, novelist and poet Ishmael Reed has written his own play, which scathingly castigates Miranda for glossing over Alexander Hamilton’s slave-owning past. This event is one in a series of readings that Reed is putting on with director Rome Neal, in hopes of eventually staging a full production.
Time: 7 p.m.
Location: 165 W. 86th St., Manhattan (entrance on Amsterdam Avenue) [Upper West Side]
Price: $15 plus fees
Meisner Studio and Atlantic Acting School productions at the Tisch School of the Arts, through April 20
As part of the month-long Tisch Drama Stage All Department Festival, ending May 4, each Tisch Drama studio stages multiple productions with free admission. This weekend, Atlantic will put on “Beer Play,” “Three Women in Four Chairs,” and Bertolt Brecht’s “The Good Person of Setzuan.” Meisner, after last weekend’s production of “The Wolves,” will put on “Time and a Half” through this Saturday, and will also stage “Blue Stockings” April 24-27 and “Daisy” May 1-4. ETW, Strasberg and Playwrights Horizons will stage their productions between April 23 and May 4.
Time: various
Location: various theaters, 721 Broadway, Manhattan [Greenwich Village]
Price: free
Anna Drezen at Union Hall, April 21 (21+)
The beloved comedian and writer — she writes for Saturday Night Live and is the author of two books, “How to Win at Feminism” and “How May We Hate You” — will perform stand-up this Sunday night at the storied Brooklyn venue.
Time: doors at 6:30 p.m., show at 7-8:30 p.m.
Location: 702 Union St., Brooklyn [Park Slope]
Price: $10 plus fees
“Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular Misogyny” at Bluestockings, April 21
Sarah Banet-Weiser, author of “Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular Misogyny,” will give a presentation examining “how contemporary popular feminism reimagines and redirects what ‘empowerment’ means for women.” Banet-Weiser is head of Department if Media and Communications at the London School of Economics.
Time: 7-9:30 p.m.
Location: 172 Allen St., Manhattan [Lower East Side]
Price: free
Email Alex Cullina at [email protected].
