Season of Openings: October Arrives at the Bushwick Starr and the Closing Night of NYFF

October is the month the city’s theaters stop clearing their throats and start talking, and this first weekend of it has the feel of a house filling up. A film festival is two weeks into its run and already looking toward its finale; a Brooklyn black box is about to open its season with a solo show about looking at one screen while the street goes on happening. Meanwhile the arena crowds file into Barclays and the smaller rooms keep their own hours. It’s a week of beginnings, mostly, and of the city getting comfortable in its fall coat.

Theater

The fall calendar fills in fast. Off-Broadway, Nick Blaemire’s musical Soon opens Oct. 5 at the Loft at St. Luke’s Theatre, a story about what a young woman does with the time she has left while waiting for the end of the world, and A Ghost in Your Ear opens Oct. 9 at the Minetta Lane Theatre. New York Theater Previews for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button begin Oct. 8 at the Public’s Newman Theater.

The one to watch in Brooklyn is i’m not even half at the Bushwick Starr, the opener of the company’s 2026–27 season. Layla Khoshnoudi created and performs it, Machel Ross directs, and it runs Oct. 6–24 at 419 Eldert Street. It follows a woman watching an uprising in Iran on her phone until a car hits her at a Brooklyn crossing, which is the sort of premise the Starr has long been good at turning into something both funny and unsettled. The Bushwick Starr, TheaterMania Last week’s previewed Studio Seaview run of The Apology Tour wraps this Monday, Oct. 5. Playbill

Independent Film

The 64th New York Film Festival runs through Oct. 12, with satellite screenings at BAM, the Museum of the Moving Image, and houses in Staten Island and the Bronx. Tony Gilroy’s Behemoth!, with Pedro Pascal, is the Centerpiece, and Ava DuVernay’s documentary 14th closes the festival with a world premiere at Alice Tully Hall Oct. 9. Variety, Film at Lincoln Center

Off the festival grid, Metrograph’s fall series are stacking up on Ludlow Street. Its Classical Cinema program runs through Oct. 23, and this weekend brings Trains: Local Routes (from Oct. 3) and a 2 p.m. Saturday screening of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three introduced by Genevieve Yue and Erika Balsom, with a book signing. Valie Export: Tap Touch Burn and Winona Ryder: Analogue Youth start Oct. 4. Metrograph

Music

The week’s live calendar is big on both ends. Teddy Swims played Barclays Center Oct. 2 and the Smashing Pumpkins are there Oct. 4. Barclays Center Saturday night, Australian electronic producer Ninajirachi plays Brooklyn Steel in Greenpoint at 8:30 p.m. AXS Charlie Puth took the intimate-room route Oct. 2 at National Sawdust in Williamsburg, a reminder that the neighborhood’s classical-leaning hall now books pop stars too.

Visual Arts & Other

Brooklyn’s gallery season is in full swing. In DUMBO, Medium Rare Gallery’s Plumb Line, with Irit Baniel and Alexis Granwell, runs Oct. 1–17, and in Bushwick, Incubator Studio Gallery’s Cognitive Dissonance runs Oct. 4–25. Two Coats of Paint A correction to last week’s roundup: Seren Morey’s Vital at Greenpoint’s Next Wave Gallery is on view by appointment through Oct. 25, not closed Sept. 27 as listed then. Read the October issue of the Brooklyn Rail, published Sept. 29, for ArtSeen reviews of Gordon Matta-Clark, Torkwase Dyson, and Claire Falkenstein among others. Brooklyn Rail

Coming Up

• Soon — opens Oct. 5 at the Loft at St. Luke’s Theatre. New York Theater
• i’m not even half — Bushwick Starr season opener, Oct. 6–24. The Bushwick Starr
• NYFF64 closing night — Ava DuVernay’s 14th, Oct. 9 at Alice Tully Hall; the festival ends Oct. 12. Film at Lincoln Center
• Valie Export: Tap Touch Burn — Metrograph series, starting Oct. 4. Metrograph
• Copperfield! The New Musical — opens Oct. 19 at the Duke on 42nd Street. New York Theater

Takeaway