In announcing their presentation of Moliere’s riff on the Don Juan legend, The National Theater of the United States of America promised “a production so authentic that it rivals in authenticity Moliere’s own 1665 production at the Palais-Royal in Paris.” As we learn in an opening monologue, their tongue-in-cheek press release prompted one critic to sniff, “I see there is no translator mentioned. I assume you will be doing it in the original French.” Ah,......

Over the past several years The Chocolate Factory in Long Island City has distinguished itself as one of New York's important venues for adventurous theater, dance, art and multimedia performance. Productions such as Tere O’Connor’s Rammed Earth have won major critical praise and drawn sold-out crowds to Long Island City, a previously unthinkable destination for cutting-edge performance. Artistic Director and co-founder Brian Rogers answered our questions about how The Chocolate Factory has been able to......

EVENT: Into anime? It's your lucky weekend, the New York Anime Festival is in town! There will be previews, screenings and panels galore. Check out their website for more details. All Weekend // Jacob Javits Convention Center [655 W 34th St] // $30 day pass, $55 weekend pass SHOP: FIT and the Design Mavens come together for a 3 day shopstravaganza. Tons of designers we're not cool enough to have ever heard of will be......

LISTEN UP: Last month we set up shop at White Rabbit, which was transformed into Gothamist House, with WOXY for 4 days of shows. Now WOXY has put together "Best of" podcasts from each of those days, and the first one is up -- so give a listen! Gothamist House Day 1.mp3 ART: First Friday's are so over, tonight come to Williamsburg for Every 2nd Friday. Pick up a copy of "the only comprehensive guide......

THEATER: Temporary Distortion’s Welcome to Nowhere (bullet hole road) juxtaposes lushly photographed cinema with hypnotic live performance. Positioned within a small but elaborately designed boxlike installation, the actors draw the audience into their blood-stained world with a stillness that approaches meditation. When fused with the rich film projection above their heads – which furthers the abstract plot of the road movie/love story – the show draws you into an intimate embrace, as if the characters......

THEATER: Sarah Maxfield, the brains behind theater collective Red Metal Mailbox, brings THROW, the bi-monthly performance series she curates, to The Chocolate Factory in Long Island City. Imbibe cheap beer and vibe new work by Rebecca Davis, Betsy Miller & Dancers, and Tara O'Con. After each experiment, Maxfield moderates an exchange in which each performer interrogates the audience in hopes of culling constructive criticism from the increasingly lubricated crowd. Who’ll be the first to declare,......

MUSIC: Scottish indie sensations Camera Obscura bring their pop and their rock to the Seaport tonight. They're joined by The Last Town Chorus. After that, there's only one more show down there this season! Friday // 7pm // South Street Seaport, Pier 17 // Free MOVIE: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is playing tonight, and you've got a golden ticket! Stock up on sweets and enjoy the 1971 classic down by the river. Friday......

MUSIC: Didn't get enough partying done yesterday? Come out and see Shearwater (which includes Will Sheff of Okkervil River) play a free show. Hard tickets will be distributed two per person, outside the venue on a first-come, first-served basis starting at 5:00pm on the day of the show. Listen: White Waves.mp3 5pm doors, 7pm show // Note: show is moved indoors to The Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts at Pace University // Free Over......

DANCE: Since the Copacabana is closed for now, get your dance on under the night sky. WhatsUpNYC tells us that every Monday through July 23rd (though the NYC Parks site says through August 13th), the Parks and Rec department will conduct Dancing Under the Stars. Get dance lessons from the experts at American Ballroom Theater, then grab a partner and tear up the dancefloor. 6 to 7:30pm // Directions here // Free MOVIES: It's a......

EXHIBIT: Apparently there's an exhibit of Anna Nicole Smith photographs starting tonight. We can't find much info on it, but What's Up NYC says there's a "reception and exhibit of portraits and candid photographs of, wait for it, Anna Nicole Smith." 6 to 8pm // Gallery of Fine Arts [511 W 25th St] // Free PARTY: It's Prom time at Unisex Salon. Tonight put on your best formalwear and head to the basement of the......

FESTIVAL: The New York Ukulele Festival has arrived. The weekend includes: "nonstop Ukulele Fun! Concerts, Vendors, Workshops, Jams! 40,000 Square Feet, Two Concert Stages! FREE BEER ALL WEEKEND. FREE UKULELE DOOR PRIZES AT EVERY CONCERT!!” Friday through Sunday // Noon to 5pm // Theatre for the New City [155 1st Ave] EVENT: Clock out early and head to the Apple Store this afternoon to catch producers/screenwriters/directors Joel and Ethan Coen (pictured). They'll be discussing the......

THEATER: The esteemed Classical Theatre of Harlem is reviving Peter Weiss’s masterpiece Marat/Sade. The dizzying action takes place in an asylum in France, where the infamous Marquis de Sade is sequestered in 1808. To pass the time, he directs a play about the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat during the revolution. His asylum casting pool yields up some magnificent performances, though the production is almost squelched by the hospital administrator, a tool of Napoleon’s post-revolutionary regime.......

THEATER: Pot-au-Noir (The Black Hole) is a retelling of the story of Cain & Abel "through the lens of the Great American Myth -- combining images of Hollywood Film Noir, the Gold Rush, the Dust Bowl, and Manifest Destiny with a story that is at the core of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and, therefore, America." Jake Hooker’s new production promises lyrical text, contemporary dance and live music to tell a story of lies, deceit, jealousy,......

THEATER: 2 Husbands is a multimedia work in progress, but don’t let that scare you. It’s the budding creation of Brian Rogers and Ken Urban, whose innovative play I ♥ Kant made a big splash last month. His new collaboration is being developed at Long Island City’s Chocolate Factory and five bucks gets you a ticket and one complimentary drink. (We recommend the Bacardi and Ovaltine.) The production explores themes arising from the recent Terry......

FILM: Going to movies can sometimes suck a lot of time and money out of you. Which is why we love film shorts. They cater to our attention span, and in this case - our wallet, too. “Made in NY Shorts,” is a whold bunch of shorts that'll leave you filled up like you'd just seen a feature length. 2:30pm // New York Public Library, Donnell Media Center [20 W 53rd St] //Free READING: Francine......

From the looks of the shows opening and already running, this is a good week for nontraditional, multidisciplinary theater around town. OK, so maybe just about every week is good for it, especially in comparison with cities where theater options are limited to high school plays and (maybe) traveling versions of Beauty and the Beast. But the eclectic quotient seems to be running particularly high at the moment. First, there’s InsideOut, a show by Live......

Is it too much to ask our readers if the East River smells like chocolate? Or cold cocoa? In a storyline out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a five train cars filled with cocoa beans sank after the barge overturned at a Brooklyn pier. The pier was near Pier 7 in Red Hook, and the Coast Guard does not think that there is any environmental threat posed by the beans. Hmm. Gothamist will be......

Like many others, Gothamist headed to the movies this weekend. We saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the Oompas Loompas rule), and to our surprise, more disturbing than Johnny Depp's characterization of Willy Wonka was the behavior of some of our fellow moviegoers. During the afternoon showing full of adults and children alike, a young girl start to bawl during the movie. Not fun for the rest of us, but it happens. Except usually parents......

Finally, after months of waiting, the Jacko-inspired Anna Wintour & the Chocolate Factory finally hits theatres and we strongly suggest seeing it at the IMAX, on Broadway at 68th St. For those of you embracing procrasination and wasting more time at work, have fun with the Trailer Crashers - The Wedding Crashers' promotional tool in which you can easily insert you and a friend in the trailer (last week we substituted Krucoff and Lockhart......

It seems many film critics think Burton’s “darker” Willy Wonka bears an uncanny resemblance to Michael Jackson clad in Austin Powers’ wardrobe. E! reports that “a PG-rated kids' fantasy--linked to a fallen pop star with longish black hair, pale skin, a whisper for a speaking voice, a penchant for military garb and a recent acquittal on child-molestation charges is likely not what the Hollywood studio had in mind when it turned Burton.” Depp insists......

It’s that time of the year again – that special time you brave New York’s notoriously humid and sticky summer to battle for one more blanket inch on a crowded park lawn. This year’s free outdoor movie festivals – RiverFlicks, Riverside Park Movies Under the Stars, Brooklyn Music & Movies Series, and HBO Bryant Park Summer Film Festival–offer a wide range of musicals and old favorites, from The Sound of Music to The Big Lebowski......

It seems like not all is golden is Wonka-land. Everyone’s favorite confectionary madman spoke out against Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which he called a pointless money-making ploy. Gene Wilder told the UK Telegraph: "It's all about money. It's just some people sitting around thinking: 'How can we make some more money?' Why else would you remake Willy Wonka? I don't see the point of going back and doing it all over......

The weekend is here, and unfortunately our run of nice weather has run out. The rains will be coming. Luckily the city is prepared with plenty of indoor activities to enjoy, and if you're not scared of getting a little wet there is some outdoor fun to be had as well. FILM: Hopefully the rain will hold off until after tonight. As the Tribeca Film Festival will be airing the comedic masterpiece Monty Python and......

Sunday night Gothamist caught the final day of previews of “The Maids”, the last show of the season for the Jean Cocteau Repertory, and came away with mixed feelings. The play was Jean Genet’s first (it premiered in Paris in 1947) and is still frequently performed – just last month another version was playing at the Chocolate Factory. Cocteau’s interpretation of this tale of two maids’ fury at their mistress has a few twists: for......

We told you it was coming, and now it's finally here: the Seventh Annual Chocolate Show New York, which began this past Thursday, November 11th, and ends this Sunday, November 14th. Gothamist knew that there'd be everything from a fashion show to cooking demos to art displays made of chocolate. But what we were really excited about was getting to try so many different chocolates, all in one afternoon. We wondered beforehand if it were......

Hudson River Park also starts its outdoor film series, RiverFlicks, this week. Films begin at dusk (generally between 8-8:30pm), there will be free popcorn and beverages available for purchase. The Wednesday night series features horror flicks (many of which are rated R, so best leave the kiddies at home) and Friday's will see their general audience selections. Kicking things off is probably one of the more popular horror films of recent, The Ring (2002)......

It'll be a while before we see Tim Burton's version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, starring Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka, but till then, there is Big Fish, about a young man trying to understand his dying father's life (more at Greg's Movie Preview). Albert Finney plays the father, with Ewan McGregor playing the father as a young man, and Billy Crudup as the son; Jessica Lange and Alison Lohman play the mother......

Bad boy turned current critical and audience darling for his turn in Pirates of the Caribbean Johnny Depp may play Willy Wonka for Tim Burton's adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Michael Fleming writes in Variety that "Depp and Burton...came away from their meeting sparked to make the film and negotiations are expected to begin shortly." Additionally, the film would be produced by Brad Grey, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston (via their production company......