Fanfare, Everywhere
It’s a month of marching: The National Puerto Rican Day Parade, which goes from 44th to 79th Streets along Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, is on June 14. The fanciful, sexy sea creatures at the Mermaid Parade make their way from West 21st Street and Surf Avenue to the Coney Island Boardwalk in Brooklyn on June 20. And Dominique Jackson, Peppermint and Bowen Yang are among the grand marshals at New York City’s Pride Parade, which kicks off at 26th Street and Fifth Avenue on June 28.
Dad’s Day
If your father is as proudly frugal as mine was, treat him to a free event at a city park on Father’s Day (June 21). The Urban Park Rangers are hosting a knot-tying workshop at Elmhurst Park in Queens and a guided hike through Central Park’s North Woods. Or explore the inside of an ambulance and learn first aid with English-, Spanish- and Russian-speaking volunteers at Dr. John’s Playground at Marine Park in Brooklyn.
Other concerts by generation: Baby boomers, James Taylor plays Northwell at Jones Beach Theater in Wantagh, N.Y. (June 23). Gen X, the Human League, Soft Cell and Alison Moyet are at Radio City Music Hall (June 26). Millennials, Lorde, Stray Kids and A$AP Rocky are headliners at the three-day Governor’s Ball at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens (June 5-7). Gen Z, Yungblud is at Radio City Music Hall (June 10).
Comedy
Six stages and 56 continuous hours of comedy — that’s the ambitious plan at the Upright Citizen Brigade’s annual Del Close Marathon (June 12-14), named after the beloved improv pioneer Del Close, who died in 1999. Headliners include Rory Scovel (June 12) and Gianmarco Soresi (June 14), both at Theater for the New City in the East Village.
Film
Goths, listen up: Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair, the summertime counterprogramming series of your dreams, is at the Paris Theater in Midtown Manhattan from June 5 to 11. My pick among the 17 super-downer films is Gaspar Noé’s absolutely brutal “Irreversible,” a French breakup movie told in reverse. Consider yourself warned.
Juneteenth
On June 18, the Hostos Center for the Arts and Culture in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx celebrates Juneteenth with a free, family-friendly night of music, spoken word and a performance by Forces of Nature Dance Theater, a company that combines West African dance tradition with ballet, hip-hop and martial arts.
Tony Time
On June 7, celebrate Broadway’s big night with the theater connoisseur Seth Rudetsky, whose annual Tony Awards viewing party is at the Triad on the Upper West Side. Other watch parties are at the Green Room 42 and 54 Below, both in Midtown.
Kids
Caregivers are welcome to let babies be babies at “luzAzul.” This “immersive opera” welcomes children under 2 to play, make sounds and interact at morning performances that run from June 5 to 7 at La MaMa in the East Village. (There is an evening show on June 4 that allows adults without children to attend.)
“Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock Live,” a new stage musical based on the Apple TV series based on the 1980s HBO series, is at the New Victory Theater in Midtown through June 21. On Saturdays through September, you can tour Jim Henson’s Creature Shop in Long Island City, Queens, where the show’s goofy-haired puppets were made.
Books
Kennedy Ryan and S.A. Cosby are among the keynote speakers at the Bronx Book Festival on June 20 at the Andrew Freedman Home in the Concourse section of the Bronx. A panel featuring the authors Clarence A. Haynes and Vincent Tirado is devoted to queer writing.
Art
During the last three minutes of each day, Times Square becomes an al fresco gallery with “Midnight Moment,” a program that displays contemporary digital works on almost 100 video screens from 41st to 49th Streets starting at 11:57 p.m. This month’s piece is Sonia Boyce’s “Transform,” a surreal video about “the sensorial impact of kaleidoscopic movement.” This is Boyce’s month: Her new voice-and-motion-inspired installation, “Demonstrate,” opens on June 27 at the Queens Museum in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
Theater
Andrew McCarthy and Sally Murphy are among the rotating cast members this month in a revival of “Are You Now or Have You Ever Been,” Eric Bentley’s docudrama told through original transcripts of the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings in the 1940s. Performances begin on June 2 at New York City Center Stage I in Midtown.
Kick off summer theater season with a trip to Hudson Valley Shakespeare in Garrison, N.Y., about an hour’s drive from New York City. The company has a new permanent home, and it’s a stunner: an open-air, 26,000-square-foot, 451-seat performance space with sweeping views of the very lush landscape. The season begins with “As You Like It” on June 10 and “King Lear” on June 12.
Jazz
Who says jazz is for night owls? Jazzcultural, a new club on Restaurant Row (a.k.a. West 46th Street) in Hell’s Kitchen, hosts afternoon jams starting at 2. Late-night sets begin at 10:30, perfect for a post-Broadway show nightcap.
Camp Crime
Slay while channeling your inner Jessica Fletcher at “Solve Along a Murder She Wrote,” an interactive screening of the “Paint Me a Murder” episode of the beloved TV detective show starring Angela Lansbury. There will be quizzes and prizes. Check it out on June 21 at Red Eye in Hell’s Kitchen.
Last Call
Since late April, music has been coming from the trees at Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island thanks to “Out of Silence,” a free, site-specific work by the Finnish sound artist Hans Rosenstrom. The 15-minute piece was inspired by the composer Arvo Pärt and features the voices of the Estonian ensemble Vox Clamantis. Soak it in through June 21.
You have until June 26 to see Lisa Yuskavage’s dreamlike collages at David Zwirner on West 19th Street in Chelsea.
And two starry Broadway shows are closing: “Fallen Angels,” with Rose Byrne and Kelli O’Hara, at the Todd Haimes Theater, on June 7; and “Giant,” starring John Lithgow, at the Music Box, on June 28.
