Turning the Page: The Week Cats Closed Early, John Berger Turned 100, and Harlem Turned 52
Cats: The Jellicle Ball closes five months ahead of schedule despite three Tony wins, five venues split a centennial tribute to critic John Berger between them, and Harlem opens its 52nd summer festival — a week about what the city decides to keep.
New York turned a page this week, literally at the top of August and thematically in almost everything worth seeing. Cats: The Jellicle Ball announced it’s closing five months early despite winning three Tonys — a reminder that acclaim doesn’t cover Broadway’s electric bill. Five venues split a single centennial tribute to critic John Berger between them like a relay baton. Harlem opened its 52nd annual Harlem Week this morning, and the Brooklyn Museum threw open its doors for a Caribbean-themed First Saturday the same afternoon. Almost nothing this week was new; most of it was closing, returning, or being deliberately remembered.
Highlight
Five venues coordinating one centennial tribute to a critic, not a movie star, is rare: John Berger would have turned 100 this year, and Film at Lincoln Center, the Museum of the Moving Image, BAM, Metrograph, and Anthology Film Archives each carved out a piece of the week to mark it.
Theater
Broadway closed two chapters this week. Joe Turner’s Come and Gone played its final performance July 26 at the Ethel Barrymore, ending a five-Tony-nominated run that gave Taraji P. Henson her Broadway debut. Variety Then Cats: The Jellicle Ball — winner of Tonys for direction, choreography, and costume design — set its closing date for August 8, citing running costs against roughly $1 million weekly grosses. Deadline
Review
“$1 million weekly grosses” — figure is directionally accurate but single-sourced to Deadline alone — add [!unverified] per the template’s rule for single-sourced dollar figures.
Off-Broadway opened instead. Cat Cohen’s Broad Strokes, a confessional comedy about surviving a stroke at 30, opened July 27 at the Lucille Lortel and has already extended through September 25. Hollywood Reporter In Park Slope, Gallery Players opened its own Hamlet July 31, running through August 7. Gallery Players
Two runs worth catching before they close: Rosie O’Donnell’s Common Knowledge plays its final performance at the Daryl Roth Theatre August 8, Deadline and Kerry Washington plays her last night in Lincoln Center Theater’s The Whoopi Monologues August 2, before Jurnee Smollett steps in August 4. Deadline And previews of The Winter’s Tale began at the Delacorte July 28, Daniel Sullivan’s twelfth Shakespeare in the Park production, Raúl Esparza and Lily Rabe leading toward an August 11 opening. Playbill
Independent Film
The John Berger centennial, organized around Film Comment’s “Hold Everything Dear,” moved venue to venue all week: Film at Lincoln Center opened it July 29 with a rare 35mm screening of Pasolini and Bertolucci’s La rabbia di Pasolini, Screenslate and the Museum of the Moving Image closed its leg August 1 with Berger’s own 1973 documentary Germinal. MoMI It continues next week at Metrograph and Anthology Film Archives.
Penny Lane’s Wild Inside, a documentary about Flaco, the Central Park Zoo owl who escaped and became a fixture of Manhattan sky-watching before his death, premiered as a Rooftop Films outdoor screening July 29, then opened at IFC Center July 31 with Q&As — one moderated by Busy Philipps — and tie-in birdwatching tours. Variety
The New York Asian Film Festival closed its 25th-anniversary edition July 26 at SVA Theatre with the North American premiere of Dear You, Deadline and Kiyoshi Kurosawa was in person at Film at Lincoln Center for the opening of The Samurai and the Prisoner.
Review
“Kiyoshi Kurosawa was in person… for the opening of The Samurai and the Prisoner” — carries no inline source link, violating the invariant that every factual claim gets one — add a citation or cut.
Music
Rush brought its “Fifty Something” reunion tour to Madison Square Garden for a four-night stand spanning July 28 through next week — the first time Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson have toured together in eleven years, with new drummer Anika Nilles and the shadow of Neil Peart’s death running through the whole show. Rolling Stone
Review
“spanning July 28 through next week” — MSG/Ticketmaster listings show the four dates as July 28, 30, Aug 1, and Aug 3, ending two days after this brief’s Aug 1 publication date, not “next week” — fix to “through August 3.”
Smaller rooms had their own homecomings: Kamasi Washington played two nights at Music Hall of Williamsburg, BrooklynVegan Makaya McCraven is mid-way through a week-long Village Vanguard stand, and Dan Deacon played his first-ever show in Pioneer Works’ Main Hall in Red Hook. Pioneer Works Free and loud, SummerStage hosted “LAMC at SummerStage” today, a bill of Argentine trap stars Trueno and Milo J alongside Dominican rapper J Noa — the week’s clearest Latin NYC through-line. Afropop Worldwide
Review
“Makaya McCraven is mid-way through a week-long Village Vanguard stand” — carries no inline source link, violating the invariant that every factual claim gets one — add a citation or cut.
Visual Arts & Other
Harlem Week, one of the largest annual celebrations of Black and Latino culture anywhere, opened today for its 52nd year under the theme “Honoring Our Legacy,” running through August 16. Amsterdam News The same afternoon, the Brooklyn Museum’s First Saturday turned Caribbean, with DJs Ultraviolet and NotNice, poetry, and art-making tied to the diaspora. Brooklyn Museum
At Lincoln Center, the BAAND Together Dance Festival closed its run today — its sixth year putting Ballet Hispánico, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, and Dance Theatre of Harlem on one stage. Lincoln Center Out in Queens, Socrates Sculpture Park marked its 40th anniversary season along the Long Island City waterfront, and Mrs. Gallery in Maspeth is showing seven Queens-based artists through August 14. qns.com In East Harlem, catch it before it’s gone: El Museo del Barrio’s survey of Nuyorican photographer Sophie Rivera closes August 2.
Coming Up
- Disruption opens — John David Washington and Conrad Ricamora, new play on tech-founder ethics, Aug 2, Signature Center. Playbill
- Cats: The Jellicle Ball’s final bow — the Tony-winning revival’s last Broadway performance, Aug 8, Broadhurst. Deadline
- Late Fame opens — Willem Dafoe as a forgotten NYC poet, Aug 7, Film at Lincoln Center. Film at Lincoln Center
- globalFEST at Celebrate Brooklyn — DakhaBrakha and Yeison Landero, Lena Horne Bandshell, Aug 7, free. Afropop Worldwide
Takeaway
Takeaway
The city didn’t debut much this week so much as decide what to hold onto. Broadway let a Tony-winning Cats go five months early because acclaim doesn’t cover the light bill, while five institutions carved out time to mark a critic’s centennial nearly a decade after his death. Harlem marked 52 years of showing up for itself; Rush came back after losing the drummer who defined it. This week wasn’t asking what’s new — it was answering what’s worth keeping.