Plan Ahead NYC: A Theater Fest and a Famous Author

Your advance warning for some of NYC’s most anticipated events. Space tends to be limited at these offerings, and tickets go fast.

Under The Radar Festival

JohnHodgman_Brantley-Gutierrez_hi-res — John Hodgman

The Public Theater’s annual Under The Radar Festival celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. Hard to believe that the performance fest, which packs some of the most adventurous international theater into an 11-day stretch, has been around for this long, but it has the track record to show for it (UTR was the launching pad for Elevator Repair Service’s seven-hour production of “Gatz” among other hits).

This year’s lineup may feel a little more familiar to NYC theater regulars; the all-ages company 600 Highwaymen has racked up quite a few accolades locally, while performers like raconteur John Hodgman (the nerdy “personal computer” guy in the wildly popular Apple ads as well as a “Daily Show” star), Roger Guenveur Smith (best known for his role in the Spike Lee film “Do The Right Thing”) and longtime downtowner and Moth contributor Edgar Oliver all contribute vibrant new one-person evenings laced with irony and comedy. Among the international plays making stateside debuts, consider checking out Lola Arias‘ “El Año en Que Naci/The Year I Was Born” from Chile, or young breakout solo performer Katie Tempest, from the UK.

When January 8 – 19
Where Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St, Manhattan; some performances at LaMama and St. Anne’s Warehouse
Directions N, R to 8th St-NYU; 6 to Astor Pl
How much $20 for performances at the Public; UTR festival passes also available.
More info Visit the Under the Radar site
Book ahead Click here and select the show you want to book for or here to find phone booking info for each venue.

Auster on Poe: A Conversation with Paul Auster and Isaac Gewirtz

It turns out that one of Paul Auster’s first book purchases, at the age of nine, was a Modern Library edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s poems and stories, and the award-winning Brooklyn-based novelist’s engagement with early America’s master of the macabre has never waned. As the Morgan Library’s exhibition “Edgar Allan Poe: Terror of the Soul” nears its end in late January, Auster (“The New York Trilogy,” “Winter Journal”) sits down for a talk with Isaac Gewirtz, one of the show’s co-curators. The evening also allows Auster to return to a lecture on Poe he gave some 30 years ago.