MUSIC: George Clinton and, yes, the Parliament Funkadelic, are bringing their legendary grooves to Warsaw tonight. Tickets are still on sale! Come help bring that funk back, etc. 7pm // Warsaw [261 Driggs Ave, Greenpoint] // $45 MOVIE: The “really alternative film festival,” CineKink NYC, kicks off tonight. Entering its 5th year with a Gala, the celebration will be followed by almost one weeks worth of movies that "range from documentary to drama, camp......

EVENT: For book lovers and the broken hearted, head over to the Knitting Factory after work for the book release party for "How Not to Date." The series of vignettes will make you feel better as they focus on nightmare dates, relationships and every sordid detail in between. Author Judy McGuire says, "There'll be snacks, a cash bar with happy hour prices, book giveaways, and some surprises (which may or may not include interpretive......

MUSIC: Come enjoy the Whitney after dark tonight as the museum's live showcase series invites Dan Deacon (pictured) to the stage. If you haven't seen Deacon before, get ready for some Casio keyboard electro-rock compositions and an art dance party. Friday // 7pm // Whitney Museum [945 Madison Ave] // Pay what you want EVENT: The Moth Story Shop presents “The One that Got Away: Stories from South Street Seaport” tonight. The following storytellers will......

The most exciting story in New York theater this year had nothing to do with the Broadway stagehands' strike, it was the vibrant growth of what used to be called “experimental theater”, a movement that can now really only loosely be defined by what it’s not: non-naturalistic and not made for TV, with an emphasis on bold physicality, collaboration and, sometimes, multimedia. This aesthetically diverse body of work is generally classified as Off-Off-Broadway (some dub......

It’s not Tracy Letts’s fault that his play, August: Osage County, has been breathlessly overhyped by the critics, from the Times’s Charles Isherwood on down. It’s also not his fault that compared to many other Broadway spectacles the play stands out as a polestar of humor and intelligence. Still, it’s difficult to disassociate the play from the deafening buzz; August: Osage County is being heralded as an Important Theatrical Event, when it’s really just a......

SHOP: Still looking for that perfect gift? The Brooklyn Historical Society is holding the 4th Annual NY Creates Craft Fair, and they may have just what you're looking for. Check it out today and tomorrow, and it will be back the 22nd and 23rd for the real last-minute shoppers. Friday and Saturday // Noon to 6pm // BHS [128 Pierrepont St, Brooklyn] ART: Too much is going on the First Friday of every month, so......

There was a bit of drama Friday at the Broadway theater where The Color Purple performs, just not onstage. The lobby of the theater was mobbed by disgruntled ticket holders demanding refunds when ex-American Idol Fantasia, who stars as Celie, failed to turn up for work. Lobby spies for Post columnist Michael Riedel witnessed an 8-year-old girl “sobbing uncontrollably when she heard Fantasia was not going to be in the show.” But it seems there......

THEATER: As Steve On Broadway notes, Chicago’s stellar Steppenwolf Theater Company, which launched the careers of Gary Sinise and Little Johnny Malkapee, is back on Broadway for the first time since 2001, when their production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest won the Tony for Best Revival. This time they’ve delivered playwright Tracy Letts’s August: Osage County, and after reading today’s rave reviews, you can count on more Tonys flying back to the Windy......

The Critical Mass Halloween Ride is tonight! If you go, get some good pictures! THEATER: Sam Marks’s new play The Joke peels back the thin gauze separating comedy from an open wound. Set in the last throws of the Catskills comedy circuit circa 1965, the story concerns the disintegrating comedy duo of Steady Eddie and Doug the Mug. Doug has let his envy of Eddie get the better of him and begins adding more of......

The New York theater world’s obsession with the almighty Times, which was once astutely likened to kremlinology, has often erupted in strong words about reviewer Charles Isherwood, whose opinion was recently derided as “antique snobbery” by TONY critic David Cote. So it was amusing to discover today that not only had the Times assigned the more mainstreamish Ish to review Fuerzabruta, the latest wet and wild spectacle from the people behind De La Guarda,......

EVENT: Join a slew of artists, bid on their work and enjoy complimentary cocktails tonight at a benefit for the Seed Project. Artwork from Swoon, Lisa Dahl, Todd Deluca, Troy Dugas, Lee Everett, Midori Harima & Annysa Ng, Fumiko Toda, Sarah Trigg and a whole bunch more will be auctioned. The Seed Project asks that you buy basil seeds and after planting them: 1. Document what you have planted and put the picture online. 2.......

New York Times managing editor Jill Abramson drew fire in March after her heated dinner party spat with playwright David Hare, in which she reportedly broke it down for Hare thusly: “We are the central arbiter of taste and culture in the city of New York.” Imperious but true. The Times draws a lot of water in this town when it comes to theater; and when there’s big money on the line they are now......

MOVIE: Michael Moore is in town with his latest film that's pissing off the government while informing the nation, Sicko (trailer here). Get ready to be filled with rage as the carpet is pulled back on the American healthcare system and much, much more. 7pm // Museum of the Moving Image [35th Avenue at the corner of 36th Street, Astoria] // $10 * Moved to June 28th! * THEATER: Prolific British playwright Alan Ayckbourn has......

SCIENCE: Since we spent the weekend thinking about the Earth, spend tonight learning about Mars with NASA Solar System Ambassador Dr. Ken Kremer. He'll take you on a tour of the planet through 3-D orbital views. 6pm // The Explorers Club at 46 E 70th St // $20 THEATER: Project Shaw is dedicated to presenting concert readings of everything – every sketch, full-length and one-act play – written by George Bernard Shaw. This month’s reading......

There’s drama pinballing through the theater blogs this week, people! In a recent letter to subscribers, Carolyn Cantor, the director of Adam Rapp’s play Essential Self-Defense, took issue with Charles Isherwood’s “scathing” review in the Times. Isherwood has become something of a punching bag among theater bloggers for his perceived stodginess, and the review is, at times, unnecessarily ad hominem: “A self-conscious exercise in stagy attitudinizing, it could almost have been composed by a......

READING: Got some free time on a Thursday afternoon? Then head up to the 92nd Street Y at lunchtime to hear readings from former poet laureate Billy Collins and novelist Francine Prose. - Krissa Corbett Cavouras 1pm // 92nd Street Y [Lexington Ave and 92nd St] // $17 THEATER:If ventriloquist dummies haunt you like Mr. Marbles, here’s a golden opportunity to overcome your fears. The promotional blurb for Jay Johnson: The Two and Only! asserts......

Ooh, AM New York confirms what we suspected: The NY Times website was down for 4 hours last night. We were blaming it on our Verizon DSL as we tried to desperately read Ben Brantley's review of Julia Roberts in "Three Days of Rain" (aka, "Blame it on the Rain") but gave up after a while - and then the local news distracted us. No word on what happened to the site, but have you......

We were perusing the theater reviews in the Times when we caught this review from Charles Isherwood for the play, Indoor/Outdoor. According to the play's website at the DR2 Theatre, it's about Samantha the house cat who "dreams of adventure and risks everything to find true unconditional love, but will she find her dreams in the home of her quirky owner or with a sexy alley cat in the great outdoors?" Isherwood didn't feel up......

Yesterday, people from TV, film, and Broadway, as well as the public, gathered to pay tribute to the dearly missed Jerry Orbach. The attendees included Angela Lansbury, Al Pacino, Benjamin Bratt, Chris Noth, Jill Hennessy, Jane Alexander, Karen Ziemba, and Dick Wolf, plus many regular New Yorkers who cherished Orbach's contribution as an actor. Former Mayor David Dinkins was there, and Mayor Bloomberg spoke to the crowd, saying, "Briscoe exuded the life of the city......