Pencil This In
ART: Multimedia artist Thomas Beale hosts a cocktail reception tonight to help launch the 3-month-long "charity: water" photographic exhibition at Chelsea Market. The artist has even installed a custom-built wishing well for the installation (100% of the change tossed in will go towards the construction of freshwater wells in developing nations). The event's site explains: "Unsafe water and a lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of all sickness and disease, killing more people every year than all forms of violence, including war."
9 p.m. // Chelsea Market [75 9th Ave] // $20
EVENT: Head to the Depression Happy Hour tonight, where you can "help others and help yourself by donating stuff to those who need it more than you, drinking, and meeting new friends and contacts." The best part: "Nikki Cascone (Top Chef, Season 4) has graciously offered drink specials at the basement bar of her restaurant 24 Prince. For a couple of hours, you’ll get $5 cocktails and $4 beers)" and "everyone will be able to get a three-course prix-fixed dinner for the Depression Era price of $24 just before the party." There are a ton of details, so read all the fine print before going!
7 p.m. // 24 Prince [24 Prince St] // Bring canned foods, etc, for admission
THEATER: Allusions to lesbianism and vampirism abound in Samuel Coleridge's long, complex and unfinished poem "Christabel." So why not adapt it for the stage? The nascent First Light Theater group is tackling it in all its gothic glory with a new play called THIRST: A Spell for Christabel. The poster for the show looks like something out of Neil Gaiman's Sandman comic, so this could be good. Set in an abandoned forest "suffering from an apocalyptic drought, Christabel and her father, stubborn hold-outs in the dying woods, are visited by a mysterious and opportunistic woman who quickly transforms their quiet world... The medieval model of fairy tale (a helpless damsel in distress, a royal father as protector) is turned on its head, and feminine power, guilt, and redemption are viewed from all angles." — John Del Signore
7 p.m. // HERE Arts Center [145 6th Ave, btwn Spring and Broome] // $25
MUSIC: To celebrate their new album, titled GRRR..., and to kick-off their tour, Bishop Allen are playing a free show at Other Music tonight. Grab a few mp3s from their latest release here, then check them out live tonight (they'll be back for much larger shows in early April).
8 p.m. // Other Music [15 E 4th St] // Free
TELEVISION: Another recession pick! Stay at home tonight and catch the History Channel's How the Earth Was Made. Tonight's episode focuses on NYC. "Learn how New Jersey and North Africa were neighbors 250 million years ago, how the rocks New York are built on are the remains of mountains that 450 million years ago were as tall as the Himalayas, and how Long Island is covered in rubble that remained as ice sheets retreated 10,000 years ago." If you can't be at home, this definitely seems worthy of the DVR.
9 p.m. // The History Channel // Free
