BENEFIT: Tonight catch a special performance by Alanis Morissette, while rubbing elbows with Matt Dillon...all for a good cause! The inaugural fundraising benefit for the Adrienne Shelly Foundation will be held this evening, and you can get in with a ticket from $150 to...well, $10,000 bucks. You'll be supporting the late Shelly's foundation which "supports the artistic achievements of female actors, writers and directors through a series of scholarships and grants."

6pm // Skirball Center for the Performing Arts [566 La Guardia Place]

READING: Tonight the Tenement Museum hosts Edith Wharton's New York ("How the OTHER Other Half Lives"). Learn how New York City shaped the novelist’s writing through panel discussions with Hildegard Hoeller and Roxana Robinson, the latter is the editor of the new collection The New York Stories of Edith Wharton. Class restrictions, repressed sexuality amongst 19th Century Manhattanites, and social manners...oh my!

6pm // LES Tenement Museum [108 Orchard St] // Free

FOOD: Get your gluttony on tonight with Blue Smoke and Brooklyn Brewery for a Beer and 'Cue Pairing Dinner. Blue Smoke's Executive Chef Ken Callaghan and Brooklyn Brewery Brewmaster Garrett Oliver will school you in pairing beer with barbecue...and when your mouth is watering, you'll be able to enjoy both in the form of a five-course menu! On the menu: Braised Pork Belly, Louisiana White Boot Brigade Shrimp, Smoked Chicken, and much more, all paired with Brooklyn Brewery's finest.

6:30pm // Blue Smoke [116 East 27th St] // $99, to reserve call 212.447.7733

MUSIC: The cutesy trio of UK popsters, The Pipettes, will be performing at Gramercy Theater tonight. Opening up is Nicole Atkins, who we always highly recommend! Sort of an odd pairing, but should be a fun show none-the-less.

7pm // Gramercy Theater // $20

THEATER: The Chapters of Ronald Pelican: Musings of a Man-Bird Recluse is a peculiar performance taking place this week in a storefront window on 37th Street. The star is Admiral Ronald Pelican, a half-man half-pelican F.M.B. (Flightless Man Bird) who was an esteemed Navy Admiral in the 19th century. After he went down with his beloved ship, Ronald was sentenced to hell simply because his father was a pelican. Seems rather unfair, but the injustice has inspired a crazed performance “replete with dancing, singing, guessing games, short plays, poetry readings, psychic readings, magic, violent humility, inordinate suffering and comedy.” The week climaxes Friday night with a 24 hour Pelican marathon in the window! – John Del Signore

8pm // chashama performance window [266 W 37th St] // FREE