BRIC JazzFest @ BRIC House
Groove it out at the fifth-annual BRIC JazzFest, a week of movies, talks, and spoken-word poetry leading up to three nights of live music from 21 different groups. The fest opens with the Brooklyn Poetry Slam, hosted by activist and educator Mahogany L. Browne, and continues with the Jazz Film Series, screening Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes and the Aretha Franklin live performance film, Amazing Grace. Then there are the music marathons, with performers including Ravi Coltrane, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Makaya McCraven, Kneebody, and a supergroup featuring Joe Russo, Ben Perowsky, Josh Kaufman and Stuart Bogie.
Opens Monday, October 21st, 7 p.m. // BRIC House, 647 Fulton St., Brooklyn // Various prices
Franklin Park Reading Series @ Franklin Park
Head over to the always excellent Franklin Park Reading Series, which this month presents five powerhouse females. The readers include three novelists: Susan Steinberg, Mesha Maren, and Rachel Eve Moulton, as well as two authors from the anthology Indelible in the Hippocampus: Writings from the Me Too Movement: editor Shelly Oria and contributor Hafizah Geter. Get there early to grab $5 drafts and to enter a raffle to win some of the presenters’ books.
Tuesday, October 22nd, 8 p.m. // Franklin Park, 618 St. John’s Pl., Brooklyn // Free
Autumnal Apple Dinner @ Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Indulge in a slew of seasonal fare at the Autumnal Apple Dinner, five fruitful courses designed by executive chef Sarah Flynn. Among the dishes are parsnip and apple veloute shooters, citrus-cured arctic char with compressed apples and kohlrabi, apple-stuffed sunchokes, smoked whiskey-lacquered pork belly with apple pommes anna, and lots more. If that’s not enough apple goodness, each course can also be paired with hand-selected hard ciders.
Wednesday, October 23rd, 6:30 p.m. // Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Yellow Magnolia Café, 1000 Washington Ave. // Tickets: $69–$98
Marvel at the amazing moves of the Houston Ballet
Houston Ballet @ New York City Center
Celebrating its 50th-anniversary season this year, the Houston Ballet will perform in New York for the first time since 2013. The program includes two NY premieres: the offbeat and lighthearted The Letter V, choreographed by Mark Morris, and the bright and ebullient Reflections, choreographed by Justin Peck, as well as the all-male ensemble piece Come In, originally created for Mikhail Baryshnikov’s Hell’s Kitchen Dance project. The whole performance features live accompaniment from the Orchestra of St. Luke’s.
Opens Thursday, October 24th // New York City Center, 131 West 55th St., Manhattan // Tickets: $35 and up
Halloweekend at Snug Harbor @ Snug Harbor Cultural Center
Bring the tykes to Staten Island for four days of spooky movies, crafts, haunted history, and more. Halloweekend at Snug Harbor features storytelling sessions, activities like Candy Chromatography and Create Your Monster, and four days of movie screenings, from Bedknobs and Broomsticks to A Girl Walks Home at Night to Creature from the Black Lagoon. There will also be tours of different cultural spaces, plus trick-or-treating all day Saturday at all the participating museums and galleries. Costumes encouraged all weekend long.
Thursday, October 24th, through Sunday, October 27th // Snug Harbor Cultural Center, 1000 Richmond Terr., Staten Island // Various prices
Halloween Masquerade @ New York Public Library
Have a very literary Halloween at the New York Public Library’s Halloween Masquerade, billed as the city’s “most cerebral happy hour.” Nosh on treats and sip drinks while checking out creepy items from the library’s archive, watching spooky 16mm films, and listening to horror writers Samantha Hunt, Alice Sola Kim, Victor LaValle, and Kelly Link read their favorite scary stories. Show up early to enter the literary costume parade and contest, judged by fashion mentor Tim Gunn and local librarians Ricci Yuhico and Isaiah Pittman.
Friday, October 25th, 7 p.m. // New York Public Library, 476 Fifth Ave., Manhattan // Tickets: $15
Go gruesomely glamorous at the McKittrick Hotel's Hitchcock Halloween
Hitchcock Halloween @ McKittrick Hotel
Glitz it up at the McKittrick Hotel for a frightfully glamorous Hitchcock Halloween, a three-night series of suspenseful soirées evoking Hollywood’s Golden Age. The entire hotel will be made over into a cinema-scape, loaded with surreal surprises, strange installations, dazzling theatrics, and unique performers, all inspired by the Master of Suspense. There will also be surprise guests, a massive dance party, and an open bar until 4 a.m. Some ticket levels include access to Sleep No More, and on Saturday there will be a Hitchcock-inspired dinner banquet prior to the party.
Opens Friday, October 25th // McKittrick Hotel, 530 West 27th St., Manhattan // Tickets: $75 and up
Halloween Horrorvaganza @ House of Yes
It’s always a dirty sexy party at House of Yes, but Halloween is their time to really shine. This year, co-founder Anya Sapozhnikova has produced the first-ever Halloween Horrorvaganza, a collaborative three-night limited run that combines twisted acts from the Dirty Circus series with the narrative cohesion of the annual Xmas Spectacular. Some of the performers you’ll see: New Orleans sideshow troupe No Ring Circus, flaming duo Flambeaux Fire & Phonexia, hip-hop ballet dancers The Painted Ladies, plus all manner of aerialists, pole-dancers, clowns, burlesquers, and more.
Opens Friday, October 25th, 6:30 p.m. // House of Yes, 2 Wyckoff Ave., Brooklyn // Tickets: $40
See an awe-inspiring adaptation of "Between the World and Me"
Between the World and Me @ The Apollo Theater
The critically acclaimed stage adaptation of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me, centering “difficult but necessary conversations around black life and death,” is coming to the Apollo (and will be a part of the upcoming doc on the legendary venue). Conceived and directed by the Apollo’s Kamilah Forbes, the production features live music composed by Jason Moran, as well as a rotating cast of artists and activists. Over the three-night run, performers will include actors Omar J. Dorsey, Michelle Wilson, Greg Alverez Reid, and Pauletta Washington, rapper Tip “T.I.” Harris, producer Lynn Whitfield, playwright Dahlak Brathwaite, and poet Marc Bamuthi Joseph.
Opens Friday, October 25th, 8 p.m. // The Apollo Theater, 253 West 125th St., Harlem // Tickets: $30 and up
Tribute to Toni @ MoCADA
Traveling literary installation The Free Black Women’s Library is an “interactive biblio installation”: a collection of 1,000 books written by black women that pops up monthly across Brooklyn. This month it’s coming to the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts for Tribute to Toni, a gathering in honor of Toni Morrison. There will be readings, a book discussion of Sula, performances, and an altar building. Attendees are encouraged to share a favorite Morrison passage, poem, essay, or other work, and anyone can bring a book written by a black woman to swap.
Sunday, October 27th, 12 p.m. // MoCADA, 80 Hanson Pl., Brooklyn // Suggested donation: $5
