Do you enjoy ingeniously crafted rock tunes, with brilliant lyrics and arrangements for accordion, keyboard, ukulele, guitar, bass and drums? Do you like pirates? How about puppets? Rum based drink specials? Laughing until your sides hurt? If you answered yes to even one of these questions, you’re ready to set forth on the dread ship Jollyship the Whiz-Bang, the rollicking “pirate puppet rock odyssey” that’s currently docked at Ars Nova. more ›

Photos: Carol Rosegg more ›

THEATER: This week marks your last chance to see TRUTH {the heart is a million little pieces above all things}, a one-man show by Mike Daisey that NYMetro declares “a delirious, brainy, hilarious, infuriating experience from which one emerges perversely hopeful.” The play follows the fictional and non-fictional stories of James Frey's self-destruction, the sordid and shocking tale of J.T. LeRoy, and Fernando Pessoa, a Portuguese poet whose great works were written by warring multiple personalities inside his head. These stories are reflected against an autobiographical accounting of Daisey's own history of lying and telling the truth. - John Del Signore more ›

Jewcy (a politics and culture webzine featuring "fierce and funny writing and artwork" with commentary in the Jewish world and beyond) will be relaunching this summer. Tonight, however, is the launch of their variety show-style reading series (you see, Jewcy produces offline too!) more ›

From the looks of the shows opening and already running, this is a good week for nontraditional, multidisciplinary theater around town. OK, so maybe just about every week is good for it, especially in comparison with cities where theater options are limited to high school plays and (maybe) traveling versions of Beauty and the Beast. But the eclectic quotient seems to be running particularly high at the moment. more ›

Gothamist’s family has never been the type to take to the yard after our Thanksgiving meal for a rousing game of touch football. That’s so Kennedy’s in Hyannisport, and so the opposite of everything our sedentary upbringing represents. Our family is less competitive, opting to sit quietly before getting what we lovingly refer to as our “second wind” where we continue our Pilgrim and Indian inspired binging. This week we’d like to suggest some shows that will remind you of all the competition, drama and dysfunction Thanksgiving can inspire, hopefully with less bloated regret. more ›

Today Gothamist has quite the conundrum on its hands…with so many good shows happening this week all over our fair city, how do we narrow it all down? There’s a bit of a hodge-podge of things happening tonight, so rather than file them all under comedy, it’s probably safer to refer to them as a canon of miscellany. more ›

Writing sketch comedy is not an easy skill. Appealing to a wide audience, writing a good ending for each sketch, and rehearsing your material are not always taken into consideration. Which is why Gothamist loved the new sketch show The Incorrigible Mr. J, now up at the PIT [154 w. 29th Street]. Matt Donnelly, Rebekka Johnson and Jim Festante of the improv group Possible Side Effects, have created a world where reclusive hermits, “dynamic choreography”, and Samuel L. Jackson all cleverly intersect. The Incorrigible Mr. J. - Fridays in October at 7pm - $5 more ›

Comedy comes in many forms. Musical, sketch, improvised, and sometimes the best of all, unintentional. This week is rich with all of the above. more ›

Looking for something to do tonight, here are some suggestions: more ›