READING: John Wesley Harding and his Cabinet of Wonders is holding court at (Le) Poisson Rouge starting tonight. The residency will include guest performers like novelist Rick Moody, comedian Eugene Mirman and singer-songwriters Roseanne Cash and Josh Ritter. Here's more details on who to expect tonight.
10 p.m. // (Le) Poisson Rouge [158 Bleecker St] // $20
EVENT: Valentine's Day is lurking right around the corner, and tonight apexart offers up a love tutorial...of sorts. "If the secrets to finding true love are often elusive, well, so are the secrets to making films about love. How do you inject humor into a film about heartbreak? How do you portray a happy romance without being too saccharine and oversentimental? Author and filmmaker Davy Rothbart, at work on a personal documentary called My Heart Is An Idiot, has asked a collection of talented and eclectic friends to explore these and other challenges by producing short, love-related films of their own." More details here.
6 to 8 p.m. // apexart [291 Church St] // Free
MUSIC: Hot 97 DJ Peter Rosenberg hosts a night of music and conversation featuring famed hip-hop musician, drummer for the Roots, journalist, and producer Questlove. DJ Quiz will be spinning at the decks, and jazz hip-hop fusion band Igmar Thomas and The Cypher will also perform, paying tribute to Questlove’s music. More details here.
7 p.m. // 92Y Tribeca [200 Hudson St] // $15
THEATER: Damn, Manhattan Theater Club is expensive! 75 bones for Ruined, their new production, could very well ruin us, so this thing better be good. And Big Ben Brantley at the Times says it is, noting that a "raw and genuine agony pulses within and finally bursts through" this "strong and absorbing" play by, which views the horrors of Congolese war from the confines of a cozy brothel. Brantley calls it "a comfortable, old-fashioned drama about an uncomfortable of-the-moment subject. But whereas Mama, a latter-day variation on Brecht’s Mother Courage, uses hominess and familiarity to shut out the terrors of war in Congo, Ruined craftily creates the same atmosphere to bring those same terrors to our attention." — John Del Signore
8 p.m. // New York City Center, Stage I [131 W 55th St] // $75