Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – A vibrant slate of offerings enliven the New York performing arts scene during these steamy dog days of summer

• By drediman
• July 15, 2025
• No Comments

Who says that cultural activity dissipates in New York during the dog days of summer? To counteract this myth, I’ve come armed with a slate of happenings — most of them presented al fresco and free of charge or causing minimal damage to the wallet — that should entice arts lovers, particularly performing arts enthusiasts, to reconsider whether to flee the city during the steamy days of July and August. Note that this isn’t an exhaustive list (e.g., it doesn’t include dance performances at The Joyce or by American Ballet Theatre, both of which have seasons that extend well into the summer).

SUMMER FOR THE CITY
Lincoln Center

Lincoln Center has pulled out all the stops for the current iteration of its Summer for the City programming. Established in the post-pandemic era to replace Lincoln Center’s arguably elitist festivals (e.g., Lincoln Center Festival, Mostly Mozart Festival, White Light Festival), Summer for the City’s programming explodes with a dizzying and eclectic array of daily experiences — all of them free or utilizing a pay-what-you-will system — that all but guarantees inclusivity and accessibility. Indeed, there’s a little bit for everybody — silent discos, social dance, comedy, music concerts (classical and otherwise), dance performances, family shows, and so forth. A welcome addition to the 2025 landscape is the introduction of the Run AMOC* Festival, a series dedicated to pushing the boundaries of what we currently consider to be opera, dance, and music. In my mind, this ambitious festival-within-a-festival has been thus far living up to its mission, as exemplified some uniquely immersive, high profile presentations of mind-expanding new works such as Matthew Aucoin’s Music for New Bodies and the George Lewis / Monteverdi mash-up The Comet / Poppea (you can read my review of the latter here) — both of which have certainly made a go at redefining the genre of opera and music theater.

LITTLE ISLAND
The Amph

Just as ambitious and eclectic is the programming down at Little Island, a man-made “island” located off the west side of lower Manhattan. The island features two venues — The Amph (a superbly-designed 687-seat amphitheater that gorgeously overlooks the Hudson River) and The Glade (a smaller, more casual performance space that’s snugly tucked away in a cozy nook of the island). This year, Little Island’s wonderfully curated summer season has come into its own, featuring an enticing array of genres and world class talent. Also similar to Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City, many of the performance offerings come free of charge (e.g., all the performances at The Glade are free) or at a nominal $10-25 admission fee (typically, for the more elaborate offerings in The Amph). Be sure to buy your tickets early, however, as the reserved seats at the Amph tend to sell out well in advance. Some highlights so far have included The Counterfeit Opera, Kate Parker and Dan Scholsberg’s rollicking and freewheeling adaptation of John Gay’s seminal The Beggar’s Opera; Meshell Ndegeocello’s soul-cleansing concert of No More Water, a song cycle inspired by the words of James Baldwin; and Shayok Misha Chowdhury rejuvenating, heartrending revival of Lee Breuer and Bob Telson‘s The Gospel at Colonus (which makes a fascinating companion piece with The Classical Theatre of Harlem’s production of Memnon, see below).

THE CLASSICAL THEATER OF HARLEM
Richard Rodgers Amphitheater

One bit of summer programming that I want to champion is the Classical Theater of Harlem’s annual outdoor productions at the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater at Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem. Although the company only mounts a single show each summer, these affairs tend to be impressively scaled, often featuring panoramic stories, their own dance ensembles, impressive lighting, and so forth. Over the years, I’ve seen fascinating epics such as Euripides’ The Bacchae, Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (starring a luminous Kara Young as Viola), and Will Power’s Seize the King. Largely, these summer offerings have been staged with intent and an eagerness to engage a wide array of audiences via accessible, crowd-pleasing productions that invite them into the spectacle. That’s certainly true of the this year’s production of Memnon, another Power play that expounds on classic dramatic texts, in the process imbuing them with refreshed urgency and relevance. In the case of Memnon — which reunites the creative team behind Seize the King (which is inspired by Richard III) — the playwright revisits the Trojan War saga, introducing contemporary audiences to the titular Ethiopian king, who came to the defense of Troy upon the beleaguered city’s hour of need. Director Carl Cofield has staged a dynamic yet swift production that plays out like a summer blockbuster yet retains the gravitas of the material upon which it’s based, thanks largely to Eric Berryman’s forceful performance in the title role.

FREE SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK
The Public Theater at Delacorte Theater

Few summer traditions are more iconic than The Public Theater’s wonderfully democratic Free Shakespeare in the Park. Over the years, I’ve spent many a summer night engulfed in the magic under the stars at the Delacorte Theater, a beloved venue nestled in New York’s beautiful Central Park. Invariably, these shows offer top-notch production values and often enlist the engagement of high profile actors to star in them (e.g., Al Pacino in The Merchant of Venice, Meryl Streep in Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children) After a lengthy 18-month hiatus, the newly renovated Delacorte is re-opening next month with a highly anticipated production of the Bard’s Twelfth Night directed by The Public’s Associate Artistic Director Saheem Ali and starring the likes of Peter Dinklage, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and Lupita Nyong’o. In order to snag these highly sought after free tickets, be prepared to queue up extra early for them (there is also a last minute cancellation line that distributes unclaimed tickets right before the show begins). If you want to skip the line altogether, there is an option to premium prices to see the show, although expect to shell out the big bucks if you go down this route.

SUMMERWORKS
Clubbed Thumb at The Wild Project

Although it shuttered earlier this month, it would be a shame for me to not include Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks at The Wild Project in the East Village. This festival of new plays has been an exciting opportunity for theater fans to catch up-and-coming playwrights at their most audacious and adventurous (Summerworks has been the incubator of shows like Heidi Schreck’s What the Constitution Means to Me, which eventually made its way to the Great White Way). Although these performances aren’t free of charge — they’re priced at only $35 a pop — these shows do typically sell out. This year’s festival began with Milo Cramer’s Business Ideas (you can find my review of the play here), and continued with Mara Nelson-Greenberg’s Not Not Jane’s and Ro Reddick’s play with music Cold War Choir Practice (the latter of which was a co-presentation with Page 73). Both of these subsequent shows were vintage Summerworks — full of surreal whimsey, all the while poetically meditating on the fascinating realities of contemporary life (e.g., the absurdity of corporate life in Not Not Jane’s) and playfully reconsidering the dramatic form (e.g., the overlaying of children’s choral music to comment on the action in Cold War Choir Practice). As I’ve mentioned in the past, these productions are usually ingeniously designed, meticulously staged, and luxuriously cast with some of downtown theater’s most accomplished thespians.