This week, there are lots of great opportunities to see movies in the neighborhood, including an early preview of the new Meryl-Streep-as-Margaret-Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady. There’s also a free screening of a movie that helped inspire Occupy Wall Street at Lincoln Center, and a series of short films about New Orleans, with appearances by actress Patricia Clarkson and others.
And even though the last sex shop on the Upper West Side closed this year, the neighborhods still sexy: there’s, a 1950’s Cuban Burlesque show the triad on Friday night.
Check out these and dozens more events below. Email us at info at westsiderag dot com to let us know about upcoming events.
Please double-check times and prices with the event producer. Many venues offer special pricing for students, seniors and members.
Monday
7 p.m.
Anna Lefler: Chicktionary Anna Lefler talks about her new book, The Chicktionary, a humorous dictionary of the words and phrases (more than 450) that women use, and what they really mean when they use them. At the 82nd Street Barnes & Noble. FREE.
6 p.m.
Annual Holiday Songbook A concert of new holiday music by Broadway composers and lyricists, sung by Broadway vocalists. Presented by Arts and Artists at St. Paul, directed by John Znidarsic. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, Bruno Walter Auditorium. FREE.
8 p.m.
Axiom Jeffrey Milarsky Conducts Axiom in works by Babbitt, Carter, and Boulez. Alice Tully Hall. FREE.
8 p.m.
D’Ambrose Boyd & David Pearl Present Singers Space Come to Singers Space at Thalia Café, hosted by D’Ambrose Boyd with David Pearl at the piano. Where New York’s finest professional and aspiring singers go to sing their favorites and hear their peers perform before an intimate audience. The café offers cocktails, wine & beer, soups, salads, wraps and desserts. There’s no cover and no minimum. At Symphony Space. FREE.
8 p.m.
Noel Coward’s ‘Hay Fever’ Featuring Juilliard Drama’s 4th-year actors. Less well-known than other works in Coward’s canon, Hay Fever demonstrates the playwright’s unique way with controlled mayhem and eccentric family characters. Stephanie P. McClelland Drama Theater. FREE. (Very limited ticket availability Two free tickets per person will be available 11/22 in the Juilliard Box Office A limited standby line forms one hour prior to each performance.)
Tuesday
All Day
African Diaspora Film Festival Part of the 19th Annual African Diaspora International Film Festival. At Symphony Space. $11 per film.
12 p.m.
Toe-Tappin’ Tuesdays – Dixieland Jazz with the Gotham Jazzmen The Gotham Jazzmen bring you all your old favorites and more on Tuesdays from 12:00 noon to 1:30 p.m. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, Bruno Walter Auditorium. FREE.
8 p.m.
Historical Performance Chamber Music Works by Handel, Telemann, Vivaldi, and Schubert. Paul Hall. FREE.
Wednesday
9 a.m.
Walk NYC Walk NYC is a program that encourages New Yorkers of all ages to get fit while enjoying the outdoors. Parks will staff locations throughout the city with trained walking instructors to lead one-hour walks. Meet at 83rd Street & Riverside Drive. FREE.
1 p.m.
Wednesdays at One: Juilliard Conductors Juilliard students share their talent with the community in these free hour-long lunchtime concerts on Wednesday afternoons throughout the season. Alice Tully Hall. FREE.
2 p.m.
Guitar Afternoon Enjoy free live music performed by jazz guitarist Bill Wurtzel and guest musicians each Wednesday from 2 to 3 pm. Folk Art Museum. FREE.
6 p.m.
BookTalk: Professor Bob Hurley Discusses Trust Certain individuals and organizations are skilled at cultivating trust, based on their actions and ways of working, while others have become sad emblems of a general collapse in trust in U.S. society. Why are some institutions trustworthy while others are not? How do you establish trust? Once you have it, how do you keep it? Discuss these issues with Fordham’s Professor Bob Hurley on Wednesday, December 14, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the 12th-floor lounge of the Lincoln Center campus’s Lowenstein Building. The discussion will last approximately one hour, and the remainder of the time will feature a catered reception. In the 12th-floor lounge of the Fordham Lincoln Center campus’s Lowenstein Building, 113 West 60th Street. FREE (choose the guest option when you register).
6:30 p.m.
Sugar Skulls to King Cakes: Global Memories and Holiday Traditions Explore holiday food traditions from around the globe with Fabio Parasecoli, associate professor at The New School. Find out why we feel nostalgic about food and taste a variety of beloved global holiday desserts, including fruit cake, panettone, and sesame balls. Sample some king cake for a chance to win an authentic Mexican sugar skull. At the Museum of Natural History. $30.
7 p.m.
Selected Shorts: NOLA: Jazzy Tales from the Big Easy The magic, haunting and exuberant city that has inspired many artists is the heart of this evening: NOLA native Patricia Clarkson, Treme star Clarke Peters, Michael Cerveris, and Amy Ryan read scene-setting poetry, a poignant love story by Eudora Welty, a raucous selection from John Kennedy Toole’s The Confederacy of Dunces and a story about a jazz piano teacher set on Treme Street, by Treme writer Lolis Eric Elie. The evening will also include a reading of a Tennessee Williams poem and a literary tour of the Big Easy by its part-time resident, humorist Roy Blount, Jr. (Feet on the Street: Rambles Around New Orleans) and a performance by New Orleans piano legend Henry Butler. At Symphony Space. $27.
8 p.m.
New Dances: Edition 2011 2011 New Dances features four of today’s innovative choreographers: NY-based Monica Bill Barnes; Swedish choreographer Alex Ekman, known for his humor; west coast choreographer Alex Ketley, whose works explore improvisation and mixed-media; and American choreographer Pam Tanowitz, whose narrative dances are based on traditional movement with a twist. Peter Jay Sharp Theater. FREE.
8:30 p.m.
Bar Trivia Trivia Tryst was founded in NYC in 2009 by Bryce Galen after realizing that pub quizzes were fun, but there was potential for a new type of trivia night with music, energy and popular appeal! At Symphony Space’s BAR Thalia. FREE.
Thursday
7 p.m.
Thalia Film Club Xtra – The Iron Lady The film stars Academy Award-winners Meryl Streep as Lady Thatcher and Jim Broadbent as Denis Thatcher. Their young selves are played by Alexandra Roach and Harry Lloyd. The rest of the cast of family and friends, politicians and advisers, is made up of the very best of British acting talent, including: Olivia Colman, Nicholas Farrell, Susan Brown, Roger Allam, Anthony Head, Julian Wadham, Pip Torrens, Nick Dunning, Richard E Grant, David Westhead, Angus Wright and John Sessions. At Symphony Space. $25.
7:30 p.m.
Films for the Occupation: “The Flaw” With The Flaw, David Sington launches an investigation into what or who caused the recent financial crisis. Using interviews with economists, brokers, and bankers and archival cartoons explaining free market economics, Sington argues that the system of capitalism developed over the past thirty years is to blame for getting us into the mess we are in. At The Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 65th Street. FREE. (no tickets needed).
8:30 p.m.
Kool and Together Call it Black Rock. Where Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys left off is exactly the spot where Kool and Together was born. Formed in 1970 in Victoria, TX by the Sanders family, Kool & Together forged a sound that effortlessly blends the screams of Psychedelic Rock with the Funk and Soul of Motown. After more than 30 years, the original members of Kool & Together have reunited to to tour in support of their first full length release Original Recordings 1970-77 on Heavy Light Records. At the David Rubenstein Atrium. FREE.
9 p.m.
Live Jazz At Sasa’a Lounge. 105th and Columbus. FREE (no cover).
Friday
8 a.m.
Walk NYC Walk NYC is a program that encourages New Yorkers of all ages to get fit while enjoying the outdoors. Parks will staff locations throughout the city with trained walking instructors to lead one-hour walks. Meet at 83rd Street & Riverside Drive. FREE.
8 a.m. (until 1 p.m.)
Green Market Choose from fresh produce & dairy, artisanal breads, baked goods, meats & poultry, honey, eggs. Clothing/textile recycling bin on-site. 97th Street and Columbus.
5:30 p.m.
Free Music Fridays Featuring Joe Brent, Debbie Miller, Lily Neill. At the Folk Art Museum. FREE.
8 p.m.
Corinne Fisher Corinne Fisher is a stand-up, writer, actress, producer & filmmaker originally from Union, NJ. She first made a splash with her debut one-woman show Corinne Fisher: I Stalk You which had a run at The Peoples Improv Theater (The PIT) in the Summer of 2010 and was featured in Time Out New York. At Symphony Space. FREE.
9:30 p.m.
1950s Cuban Burlesque at the Triad On Friday, December 16th, 2011, The Triad is presenting an opulent tribute to 1950s Havana Cuba. It’ll be a unique night of Latin themed song and dance and beautifully sophisticated burlesque, taking guests on a journey back to when Cuba was synonymous with mystery and romance. On a cold December night, Tropicana will be the perfect place to take that special someone and turn up the heat with scorching salsa beats and a sexy vintage spectacle. Triad Theatre, 158 W 72nd St, New York, NY. $20 entry 2 drink minimum.
10 p.m.
James Aiello Jr. Come enjoy $6 Martini specials to celebrate James new Album release. James will be playing songs from the new album live at 10PM, don’t miss the chance to see this amazing musician live! At Symphony Space. FREE.
10 p.m.
Live Jazz At Sasa’a Lounge. 105th and Columbus. FREE (no cover).
Saturday
10 a.m. (until 5:30)
GreenFlea Market A weekly flea market. In the playground on 77th Street and Columbus.
2:30 p.m.
A Concert of Seasonal Airs Performed by Andrew Bolotowsky, baroque flute; Greg Bynum, recorder; Paula Rand, bassoon; David Bakamjian, cello; Rebecca Pechefsky, harpsichord; and Mary Hurlbut, soprano. At New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, Bruno Walter Auditorium. FREE.
8 p.m.
New Dances: Edition 2011 2011 New Dances features four of today’s innovative choreographers: NY-based Monica Bill Barnes; Swedish choreographer Alex Ekman, known for his humor; west coast choreographer Alex Ketley, whose works explore improvisation and mixed-media; and American choreographer Pam Tanowitz, whose narrative dances are based on traditional movement with a twist. Peter Jay Sharp Theater. FREE.
Sunday
8 a.m. (until 5)
79th Street Greenmarket Located on beautiful, tree-lined Columbus Avenue, this year-round market stretches from 77th St. to 80th St. each Sunday. Just behind the American Museum of Natural History, shoppers will find grass fed beef, goat cheese, fresh flowers, eggs, honey, baked goods, apple cider, and a large variety of fruit and vegetables. Columbus Avenue between 78th & 81st Streets.
10 a.m. (until 5:30)
GreenFlea Market A weekly flea market. In the playground on 77th Street and Columbus.
1 p.m. (and 3)
Thalia Teen Theatre Project The premier free performances of The Thalia Teen Theatre Project at Symphony Space sponsored by Zabar’s presents The Legend of The Giant Caterpillar from the Ivory Coast of Africa, an exciting and involving inter-active theatre piece for children of all ages and their families. Music! Fun! Excitement! The participants of TTTP will continue to bring myths and legends of the world alive for neighborhood families! At Symphony Space. FREE.
2:30 p.m.
Holiday Concert by Harwood Management Vocal Artists New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, Bruno Walter Auditorium. FREE.
5 p.m.
Matt Roach Guitarist. At Symphony Space. FREE.
8 p.m.
Benita Charles Benita Charles is a singer/songwriter/producer who resides in Harlem, NY by way of Detroit “Motown”, Michigan. She’s appeared at various clubs in the New York tri-state area including Crash Mansion, Webster Hall, Kenny’s Castaways, Bitter End, Alphabet Lounge, Upstairs at Rose’s Turn, and the Beacon Theater. At Symphony Space. FREE.
Ongoing Events
Lincoln Center: American Ballet Theater, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Chamber Music Society, NYC Ballet, War Horse
American Museum of Natural History: Ongoing Exhibits
New-York Historical Society: Current Exhibitions