The Knicks won their first N.B.A. championship in 53 years, igniting orange-and-blue tinted celebrations in NYC streets… and on Broadway stages! The celebration will continue on Broadway — the street — on Thursday with a ticker-tape parade past City Hall. But the Knicks victory was just the noisiest in a very busy week, from the 25th Tribeca Festival to the starry “Rise Up, Sing Out” concert at The Town Hall (watch full video), part of a weekend full of resistance. (And then there’s the launch of the 2026 World Cup, and the Puerto Rican Day Parade — and the restoration over the weekend of the Kennedy Center’s legal name!)
Third row, left to right: The Rocky Horror Show, Hamilton, Every Brilliant Thing and &Juliet respond to Knicks win.
The Week in New York Reviews (Tribeca Festival edition)
A screen version of “Hadestown,” which is currently showing at the Tribeca festival and will be in movie theaters in July, has one moment that is not part of the original stage musical: Backstage before the show begins, Andre De Shields leads the cast in three breaths:“First breath is for community. Second breath is for being in the moment. Final breath is love.”
It counts as ironic that that moment most stood out for me in this film of Anais Mitchell’s sung-through musical, which is a recording of the 2025 West End production, featuring five of the original Broadway cast members performing alongside the London ensemble. The cast is as terrific as I remembered them, the score still a rewarding mix of sweet folk, snazzy New Orleans jazz, get-down blues and sinful soul. But something feels missing from the show I first saw Off-Broadway ten years ago. Full review.
AI: Probably Nothing to Worry About, at Tribeca Festival.
Tribeca Festival Looks at NYC: Human Theories. Mario. Born to Kill. NY Making It Here Shorts.
6 Tribeca Festival Award Winning Films of 2026
The Week in New York Theater News
The 79th Annual Tony Awards, with Pink as host, drew 5.06 million viewers, a slight decrease from last year’s broadcast with Cynthia Erivo as host.
“Ragtime” will play its final performance at the Vivian Beaumont Theater on Sunday, August 16, an extension of two weeks after its four Tony wins, including Best Musical Revival. It is one of six 2026 Tony winners that you can still see. (A seventh closed on Sunday.)
Spring Awakening will open this fall at Studio Seaview, directed by Danya Taymor. The Duncan Sheik/Steven Sater musical, which won eight Tony Awards including best musical, is based on Frank Wedekind 19th century play about repressed and oppressed adolescents.
Billy Crystal’s new one-man show, 860, will open at the Imperial Theater on October 21, running from October 1 to January 3, 2027. The title was the address of his home, which was lost in the Palisades fires.
“Stranger Things: The First Shadow” will complete its run at Broadway’s Marquis Theater on January 3, 2027 (and at at the Phoenix Theatre in London’s West End on December 27 2026.) By the time of its losing it will have run for a little more than a year and a half on Broadway. It won four Tony Awards, for its design and special effects. But those effects are a large reason why the show reportedly cost a million dollars a week. Last week, it grossed $859,000 at the box office with 74 percent attendance.
Sherie Rene Scott (Everyday Rapture, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) will join The Rocky Horror Show as “Magenta,” succeeding Juliette Lewis, beginning on Friday, June 26, 2026.
Rosie O’Donnell is returning to New York in July to present her one-woman show “Common Knowledge,” which I reviewed at its debut at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe last year.
HERE Arts Center’s 2026-2027 season:
Arias with a Twist
A return of this popular show — part cabaret, part fever dream, part visual spectacle, in which Joey Arias’s voice is unleashed inside Basil Twist’s puppet universe.
The Kick Inside
October 21 – November 7
Written by eleven New York City based playwrights, he story follows Alenka, a woman who grows awfully tired of the way that people talk to one another and begins experimenting with language in every scene.
Dream Feed
November 19-22
The latest electro-acoustic vocal work from two-time Grammy Award® Winning theatrical family band The HawtPlates.
See/Unsee
March 2027
In an evening of music and storytelling, Lila Blue and their eight-piece band commune with the work and imagined life of artist Hilma af Klint, surfacing where Blue’s life overlaps with that of the painter – in queerness, in love, and in loss Puppetopia 2027
Puppetopia
April 2027
A springtime review of HERE’s puppetry state of mind;
Stone Belly
May 2027
A dance, music, and installation artwork that re-imagines myths of the Philippines
The War on Culture
Crews remove Trump’s name from Kennedy Center, but hide results from the public (MSNow)
The Washington National Opera sued to collect $17 million from the Kennedy Center (NY Times)
In Memoriam
Charles Dennis, 77, downtown performance artist, dancer, choreographer, videographer, filmmaker and curator, who helped found P.S. 122
Gina Ferrall, 67, 11-time Broadway veteran, including the Tom Stoppard play “The Coast of Utopia” and most recently his play “Leopoldstadt.:
Janie Sell, 86, Tony-winning actress (for “Over Here,” pictured) and seven other Broadway shows — George M! with Joel Grey, Irene with Debbie Reynolds, I Love My Wife with The Smothers Brothers, Pal Joey with Eleanor Parker, and Happy End with Christopher Lloyd, as well as standby for Carol Burnett in Moon Over Buffalo.
This Week’s Theater Video
well, theatrical — the final moments of the NBA finals
