It’s almost that time of year when the NYC Fringe Festival dominates the theater scene with hundreds of new shows of wildly varying quality. But before the Fringe sucks the air out of the room in August, it’s worth noting that July is packed with a number of smaller, more manageable and generally more-reliable theater festivals. For starters: The Summer Play Festival: Now in its fifth season, this festival of new plays is being hosted......

THEATER: The annual Soho Think Tank Ice Factory, arguably New York’s most impeccably curated theater festival, has been hosting an exhilarating array of new shows every weekend since July 4th . Starting tonight you can sink your teeth into Vampire University, in which “a struggling vampire family descends on an evangelical college in the Midwest, the dad’s mid-life crisis of immortality triggers a desire to come back to life and the gulf between first and......

MUSIC: If you haven't checked out the Summer of Love exhibit at the Whitney, head over there after work and get a double dose of rock while you're at it. Tonight Dirty Projectors and Lucky Dragons take the stage at Whitney Live. Get there early to get in. Check out this "Take Away Show" in New York featuring the Dirty Projectors. Friday // 6pm // The Whitney [945 Madison Ave at 75th St] // Free......

THEATER: The Jaded Assassin, an original “fightsical” which prompted the Times to gush, “Take that, ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’!”, was a hit at last year’s Ice Factory Festival with its daring mix of martial arts and visceral storytelling. “In a mythical world, in brutal times, a curse has plagued the land ever since the chosen ones infuriated the gods. It is up to one non-pureblood to end the curse and end the misery that has......

READINGS: Mark Helprin, author of the whimsical and weird Freddy and Fredericka (reviewed on Gothamist) will be reading from the novel at the 7th Ave Barnes & Noble in Brooklyn. We suspect the witty parts will be even more witty when read in a British accent, so head on down. - Krissa Corbett Cavouras 7pm // Barnes & Noble [267 7th Ave. in Park Slope] // Free THEATER: As the behemoth Fringe Festival stands up,......

ART: On the Couch: Cartoons From the New Yorker is a collection of cartoons from the magazine which Bob Mankoff (the cartoon editor) says focuses on “the shrink and the shrunk, the practitioner and the practiced upon.” So we're sure you'll all be able to relate, somehow. 10am to 5pm // The Museum of New York [1220 5th Ave] // $9 YOGA: Just reading the words "sunset yoga" is relaxing. Tonight you can actually head......

Right now we feel like the bear climbing the mountain of previews, knowing that in a couple weeks we'll reach the top and see a whole slew of shows opening (at least, that’s how we like to sing the mountain-climbing bear song). We can hardly wait for later in March when everything’s in full swing, but there’s more than enough to keep us awash in Playbills…er, hand-folded programs…for now. It feels like the fall EATFest......

Tickets for the Fringe Festival, which starts August 12, went on sale on Saturday, and by the looks of the website there’s going to be the same mind-boggling range of performances that theatre-loving New Yorkers have come to expect. Just scrolling through the titles of the shows about to be put on by the 200+ companies is practically an adventure in itself. Gothamist will have much more to say about the Fringe in the next......

Interesting assortments of shows just keep opening. At this rate, theatre-lovers will be worn out and sick of novelty onstage by the time the Fringe Festival steamrolls into town…nah. Gothamist hopes people took last week’s advice and went to the Ice Factory festival in SoHo to see Fathom, SaBooge Theatre’s mesmerizing tale of English devils in Tasmania. Too bad for those who didn’t, but you can catch this week’s offering, courtesy of Sponsored by Nobody:......