MUSIC: Love is All takes over the Knitting Factory tonight with not one, but two shows. The early show is with Cause Co-Motion! and Devastations, the later one with Cause Co-Motion! and Tyvek. Choose wisely. Or you could always watch Jared Leo bring his emo wrath upon bloggers, his band plays Roseland tonight.

Friday // The Knitting Factory [74 Leonard St] // $13

MORE MUSIC: The Battering Room is putting on a show at the new Brooklyn venue Matchless tonight. Think of this as practice for next week/CMJ. The lineup: Mussels, Aeroplane Pageant, Lolita Bras, The Mugs.

Friday // 8pm // Matchless [557 Manhattan Ave, Brooklyn] // $7

THEATER: Playwright Tim Crouch opens his play An Oak Tree tonight; it’s about a father whose daughter was killed in a car accident and the guilty driver, who happens to be a stage hypnotist. The play explores what happens when the hypnotist unwittingly summons the father on stage as a volunteer and provokes their first encounter since the fatal accident. Crouch himself plays the hypnotist, and a different actor — male or female — will play the father at each performance. What makes An Oak Tree especially intriguing is that the second actor will not have seen or read the play before stepping on stage. (The London Observer called it “absolutely f***ing fantastic.”) Catch F. Murray Abraham on October 30th and James Urbaniak at the 9:30 show on November 4th. - John Del Signore

Friday // 9:30 // Barrow Street Theatre, 27 Barrow Street // Info on discount tickets

COMEDY: Our favorite Microsoft spokeman, Demetri Martin is bringing his stand up show to Town Hall this evening. He is funny. Go.

Friday // 8pm // Town Hall [123 W 43rd St] // $29.75

PARTY: The Not for Tourist Guide folk are having a party for their Brooklyn edition. And they know that locals like free drinks, so there's an open bar from 7 to 10 (featuring Riesling, Svedka, and Miller Lite). The first 250 party goers get NFT Brooklyn ‘07 free and according to them "Cattyshack has a conveniently placed dancing pole at the end of the downstairs bar". Good times.

Friday // 7pm // Cattyshack 249 4th Ave btw. President and Carrol, Park Slope) // Free

MUSIC: The Kooks and Illinois play Northsix, before it turns in to the Music Hall of Williamsburg (we actually like the simplicity of the name!). Give a listen at their respective links. The Kooks also play Sound Fix Records at 3pm.

Saturday // 8pm // Northsix [66 North 6th St] // $10

THEATER: Tonight is also your last chance to catch the much-buzzed-about dark comedy In Public. George Hunka’s incisive play tells the story of a pedantic art history professor’s smug pursuit of a bartender’s wife. Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal’s theater critic, calls it “the dark, discomfiting tale of two uneasily married couples whose lives become entangled… funny in a way that makes you snicker and squirm at the same time… Best of all is Jennifer Gordon Thomas, a remarkable performer who has great things ahead of her.” - John Del Signore

Saturday // 8pm // Manhattan Theatre Source, 177 Macdougal Street // Tickets

The Gatehouse, Harlem’s newest performance space, was designed by Frederick S. Cook in a Romanesque Revival style and finished in 1890; it was originally a pumping station used to distribute water from the Croton Aqueduct to New York City. In the cavernous chamber where the water used to be there are now three levels of new space, with the theater at the top. This extraordinary new venue is being christened by Who Killed Bob Marley, a new work by actor, writer and director Roger Guenveur Smith, who “weaves his story through a landscape of evocative visual projections by distinguished cinematographer Arthur Jafa (Daughters of the Dust) and a dramatic score created by Marc Anthony Thompson (aka Chocolate Genius). Smith’s kaleidoscopic journey through hurricane-swept Jamaica while making a movie about a suicidal American poet reveals a strange and dangerous truth.” Ends Saturday! - John Del Signore

Saturday // 7:30pm // The Gatehouse 150 Convent Avenue // Tickets

And of course, there's always a movie.