One of the finest actors in the world, the strikingly handsome Tatsuya Nakadai (picture a Japanese Elvis), has wowed audiences - and made the ladies swoon - for more than 50 years in films ranging from bloody samurai flicks (Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo) to romantic heartbreakers (Mikio Naruse's When a Woman Ascends the Stairs). Starting today, Film Forum and the Japan Foundation celebrate his incredible career (which began when director Masaki Kobayashi discovered the young Nakadai working in a Tokyo shop) with a seven-week retrospective. Nakadai himself will be on hand for a Q&A after the 6:10 p.m. screening of Kobayashi's Harakiri, which won the Jury Prize at Cannes and ends with one of the most intense (and grueling) sword battles in the history of film. Can't make it tonight? On June 24, Nakadai returns to Film Forum for a conversation with Japanese film specialist Michael Jeck. more at this venue

One of the finest actors in the world, the strikingly handsome Tatsuya Nakadai (picture a Japanese Elvis), has wowed audiences - and made the ladies swoon - for more than 50 years in films ranging from bloody samurai flicks (Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo) to romantic heartbreakers (Mikio Naruse's When a Woman Ascends the Stairs). Starting today, Film Forum and the Japan Foundation celebrate his incredible career (which began when director Masaki Kobayashi discovered the young Nakadai working in a Tokyo shop) with a seven-week retrospective. Nakadai himself will be on hand for a Q&A after the 6:10 p.m. screening of Kobayashi's Harakiri, which won the Jury Prize at Cannes and ends with one of the most intense (and grueling) sword battles in the history of film. Can't make it tonight? On June 24, Nakadai returns to Film Forum for a conversation with Japanese film specialist Michael Jeck. more at this venue

What began with fledgling filmmaker James Spooner's 2003 documentary Afropunk, an exploration of racial identity within the punk-music scene, has grown into a much-anticipated annual celebration of black-rock rebellion at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Afro Punk Festival. Now in its fourth year, the festival is hosting 15 film screenings at BAM's Rose Cinemas and music performances by 40 artists in the BAM parking lot, which will be temporarily transformed into a skate park. The 10-day event culminates with a concert (on July 12) in Fort Greene Park starring Little Jackie and Tamar Kali and a block party (on July 13) on Fort Greene's historic Clinton Avenue, featuring live music, fashion, and arts and crafts. more at this venue

What began with fledgling filmmaker James Spooner's 2003 documentary Afropunk, an exploration of racial identity within the punk-music scene, has grown into a much-anticipated annual celebration of black-rock rebellion at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Afro Punk Festival. Now in its fourth year, the festival is hosting 15 film screenings at BAM's Rose Cinemas and music performances by 40 artists in the BAM parking lot, which will be temporarily transformed into a skate park. The 10-day event culminates with a concert (on July 12) in Fort Greene Park starring Little Jackie and Tamar Kali and a block party (on July 13) on Fort Greene's historic Clinton Avenue, featuring live music, fashion, and arts and crafts. more at this venue

If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the Dixon-;Hot!, Dixon Place's annual festival of queer culture, seems especially scorching this year, full of naughty-sounding performances like History of the Dildo and Other Fun Facts, Rufflebutts, Peg+Ass+Us, and Man Boobs. (OK, that last one might not be quite as arousing.) And John Fleck threatens that four-hour erections may result from his new piece, Side Effects May Include. For the next several months, Dixon Place will open itself to theater, performance art, music, dance, and cabaret that celebrate the best of LGBT art. Featured performers include Mother Flawless Sabrina, Annie Lanzillotto, and Kiki & Herb's Kenny Mellman. Step out of your controlled climate and into this subversive swelter. more at this venue

Baltimore adolescents in poodle skirts hit the Broadway stage in John Waters's Cry-Baby-but will this classic indie flick turned musical do as well as its predecessor, Hairspray? It'll definitely be a box-office throwdown between Tracy Turnblad and Wade "Cry-Baby" Walker (though we're not sure Broadway newbie James Snyder will make us swoon the way Johnny Depp did). The eclectic group of actors will have to pull off roles once played by Ricki Lake, Tracy Lords, and Iggy Pop, so they have their work cut out for them. more at this venue

"The New York Asian Film Festival is back like a bad dream, ready to cleanse the dirt from your soul," proclaim the festival's organizers. We're not sure what that means, but it sounds like good times. For the next 18 days, the IFC Center and the Japan Society play host to one of the best and most influential events in the city for Asian cinema. For a feel-good and surprisingly unpredictable flick, set your sights on Japanese filmmaker Masaya Kakei's Accuracy of Death (a/k/a Sweet Rain). Takeshi Kaneshiro stars as a soulful Grim Reaper who's been traveling the earth with his telepathically talkative dog for the past 40 years, judging whether or not individuals are ready to shuffle off this mortal coil. Those who aren't among the faint of heart can get their buzzsaws cranking for The Butcher, a low-budget feature by unknown director Kim Jin-Won that pokes fun at-or, more appropriately, dismembers-the Korean film industry. Check for full schedule and locations. more at this venue

Euripides' The Bacchae-that hymn to faith, filicide, and the dangers of drink-enjoyed its first performance some 2,400 years ago. But John Tiffany, a remarkable young director, has given this ancient tragedy an utterly up-to-date production, which he remounts at the Lincoln Center Festival. A hit at last summer's Edinburgh Festival, critics variously described the play-adapted by Scottish writer David Greig-as "a masterpiece," "a knockout of epic proportions," and "a spectacular piece of theater." Alan Cumming, rather spectacular himself, stars as the naughty god Dionysus, and first appears on the stage resplendent in a gold kilt, wearing nothing underneath. Supporting him is a chorus of voluptuous Anglo-African women, clothed in vermilion gowns, who sing his praises gospel-style. How heavenly! more at this venue

Philip Guston's socially conscious 1940s drawings of the downtrodden and their hooded tormentors evolved into searching, tender abstractions in the '50s, spare graphics in the '60s, and galumphing, cartoonish narratives in the '70s. This terrific show concisely charts how concentrated bouts of drawing re-energized the artist's broadly influential paintings. At age 13, Guston (1913–1980) was studying at Cleveland's School of Cartooning, but he was soon in thrall to such Renaissance masters as Giotto and Masaccio. This mix of low and high oscillated throughout his career-the rock-ribbed compositions of early street scenes that imagined kids battling with wooden swords and garbage-can lids combine Piero with Barney Google. A 1947 ink drawing, Angel, hovers between abstraction and winged figuration, but by 1951's Untitled, only sensitive, gestural flutters of the brush remain, creating airy, ungrounded forms. In Prague (1967), three vertical slashes inside a square placed high on the page can be read as pure, reductive design or as a prison window, while 1970's Figure in Interior gathers all of Guston's artistic powers: Beautifully rendered in pencil, the cartoon contours of a Klansman and his fringed lampshade resonate with the abstracted buildings outside his window. Guston filtered the classics through America's rough-and-ready culture and distilled 600 years of pictorial invention into an ever-intoxicating brew. more at this venue

Philip Guston's socially conscious 1940s drawings of the downtrodden and their hooded tormentors evolved into searching, tender abstractions in the '50s, spare graphics in the '60s, and galumphing, cartoonish narratives in the '70s. This terrific show concisely charts how concentrated bouts of drawing re-energized the artist's broadly influential paintings. At age 13, Guston (1913–1980) was studying at Cleveland's School of Cartooning, but he was soon in thrall to such Renaissance masters as Giotto and Masaccio. This mix of low and high oscillated throughout his career-the rock-ribbed compositions of early street scenes that imagined kids battling with wooden swords and garbage-can lids combine Piero with Barney Google. A 1947 ink drawing, Angel, hovers between abstraction and winged figuration, but by 1951's Untitled, only sensitive, gestural flutters of the brush remain, creating airy, ungrounded forms. In Prague (1967), three vertical slashes inside a square placed high on the page can be read as pure, reductive design or as a prison window, while 1970's Figure in Interior gathers all of Guston's artistic powers: Beautifully rendered in pencil, the cartoon contours of a Klansman and his fringed lampshade resonate with the abstracted buildings outside his window. Guston filtered the classics through America's rough-and-ready culture and distilled 600 years of pictorial invention into an ever-intoxicating brew. more at this venue

Philip Guston's socially conscious 1940s drawings of the downtrodden and their hooded tormentors evolved into searching, tender abstractions in the '50s, spare graphics in the '60s, and galumphing, cartoonish narratives in the '70s. This terrific show concisely charts how concentrated bouts of drawing re-energized the artist's broadly influential paintings. At age 13, Guston (1913–1980) was studying at Cleveland's School of Cartooning, but he was soon in thrall to such Renaissance masters as Giotto and Masaccio. This mix of low and high oscillated throughout his career-the rock-ribbed compositions of early street scenes that imagined kids battling with wooden swords and garbage-can lids combine Piero with Barney Google. A 1947 ink drawing, Angel, hovers between abstraction and winged figuration, but by 1951's Untitled, only sensitive, gestural flutters of the brush remain, creating airy, ungrounded forms. In Prague (1967), three vertical slashes inside a square placed high on the page can be read as pure, reductive design or as a prison window, while 1970's Figure in Interior gathers all of Guston's artistic powers: Beautifully rendered in pencil, the cartoon contours of a Klansman and his fringed lampshade resonate with the abstracted buildings outside his window. Guston filtered the classics through America's rough-and-ready culture and distilled 600 years of pictorial invention into an ever-intoxicating brew. more at this venue

You've seen many of these black-and-white photos reproduced countless times-the pietà of a Japanese mother floating her deformed daughter in the bath, a G.I. cradling his wounded comrade on Okinawa, a welder's goggles glinting in bright contrast to his grimy face. Yet here, divorced from the context of Life magazine photo essays, the individual frames reveal Smith to be not just an emphatic photojournalist but a wholly brilliant artist. While it is generally easy to determine the subject of these images, Smith's narratives derive from more than sundry detail. Consider the stirring composition of 1944's Burial at Sea: the corpse, a white, evocatively lumpy streak, is poised mid-drop, the ship's deck providing a sweeping diagonal that emphasizes the finality of the solemn drama. A similarly powerful setup juxtaposes a tilting American flag against a Klan cross awaiting the torch. For a shot of Spanish women winnowing grain, Smith set his camera low to capture the weight of their labor, recalling the strain conveyed by Caravaggio when he painted St. Peter's executioners raising his upside-down cross. That Smith evokes such classical comparisons is testament to his deep instinct-akin to that of a great athlete-for the physical grace and emotional resonance of the human form. more at this venue

You've seen many of these black-and-white photos reproduced countless times-the pietà of a Japanese mother floating her deformed daughter in the bath, a G.I. cradling his wounded comrade on Okinawa, a welder's goggles glinting in bright contrast to his grimy face. Yet here, divorced from the context of Life magazine photo essays, the individual frames reveal Smith to be not just an emphatic photojournalist but a wholly brilliant artist. While it is generally easy to determine the subject of these images, Smith's narratives derive from more than sundry detail. Consider the stirring composition of 1944's Burial at Sea: the corpse, a white, evocatively lumpy streak, is poised mid-drop, the ship's deck providing a sweeping diagonal that emphasizes the finality of the solemn drama. A similarly powerful setup juxtaposes a tilting American flag against a Klan cross awaiting the torch. For a shot of Spanish women winnowing grain, Smith set his camera low to capture the weight of their labor, recalling the strain conveyed by Caravaggio when he painted St. Peter's executioners raising his upside-down cross. That Smith evokes such classical comparisons is testament to his deep instinct-akin to that of a great athlete-for the physical grace and emotional resonance of the human form. more at this venue

Walk toward the convex, 16-foot-long mirror-like wall of Vertigo, and your reflection-at first upside-down and as elongated as one of Giacometti's existential wanderers-suddenly flips upright and fills out to become the person you see in your bathroom mirror, before abruptly bloating to Macy's-balloon scale. The four large reflective stainless-steel objects here-the curving wall, a stretched-out cone, a rectangular monolith, and a wasp-waist tower-go beyond funhouse mirrors by making the physics of light and perception palpable. Each heightens the banal geometries of the gallery, turning plumb corners into slingshot curves and rows of fluorescent lights into ever-shifting, luminous rubber bands. The sculptures reflect each other in turn, surrounding you with flitting, attenuated doppelgängers. more at this venue

This aesthetic mindfuck requires a backstory: In 1974, struggling Iranian artist Tony Shafrazi spray-bombed Picasso's Guernica with the doggerel "Kill Lies All." Variously described by the perp as a Vietnam War protest and/or a way to bring the 1937 mural "absolutely up to date," this egotistical intervention did nothing for the victims of My Lai or for Picasso's anti-war masterpiece. However, Shafrazi did manage to parlay his notoriety into lucrative art-mongering for the Shah of Iran; after the ayatollahs made that untenable, he peddled graffiti artists in Soho. Fast-forward to a recent show in Shafrazi's Chelsea gallery, which reprised such '80s stablemates as Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf, and then add an intervention by gallerist Gavin Brown, artist Urs Fischer, and a high-resolution camera, and you get vandalism updated for our digital age. Brown and Fischer photographed Shafrazi's exhibition of the graffiti gang in situ, transformed the results into trompe l'oeil wallpaper replete with the shadows of frames and reflections in glass, then pasted the images back up on the walls in the exact same positions as the original show. The topper is works by artists from other generations displayed over the hi-res knockoffs: A Malcolm Morley painting of crashing planes and ships hangs athwart a photo of one of Haring's radiating cartoon canvases; an exuberant John Chamberlain sculpture fairly leaps from in front of the towering facsimile of a Donald Bachelor collage painting. Particularly striking is a gray, untitled Francis Bacon portrait, half obliterated by vertical brushstrokes, which smolders like cremation ashes atop the digital remains of Scharf's colorful, gibbering biomorphs. Lily van der Stokker has painted flat acrylic waves and blubbery curves over the photographic wallpaper, her confectionary blues and pinks adding a third layer of imagery; a fourth dimension appears when a guard stands next to his digitized doppelgänger. So, if you relish blithe provocations and peppy cynicism, this fascinating show's the ticket-too bad you missed the opening, where two hot babes dressed as cops presented Shafrazi with a cake sporting Guernica icing. more at this venue

This aesthetic mindfuck requires a backstory: In 1974, struggling Iranian artist Tony Shafrazi spray-bombed Picasso's Guernica with the doggerel "Kill Lies All." Variously described by the perp as a Vietnam War protest and/or a way to bring the 1937 mural "absolutely up to date," this egotistical intervention did nothing for the victims of My Lai or for Picasso's anti-war masterpiece. However, Shafrazi did manage to parlay his notoriety into lucrative art-mongering for the Shah of Iran; after the ayatollahs made that untenable, he peddled graffiti artists in Soho. Fast-forward to a recent show in Shafrazi's Chelsea gallery, which reprised such '80s stablemates as Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf, and then add an intervention by gallerist Gavin Brown, artist Urs Fischer, and a high-resolution camera, and you get vandalism updated for our digital age. Brown and Fischer photographed Shafrazi's exhibition of the graffiti gang in situ, transformed the results into trompe l'oeil wallpaper replete with the shadows of frames and reflections in glass, then pasted the images back up on the walls in the exact same positions as the original show. The topper is works by artists from other generations displayed over the hi-res knockoffs: A Malcolm Morley painting of crashing planes and ships hangs athwart a photo of one of Haring's radiating cartoon canvases; an exuberant John Chamberlain sculpture fairly leaps from in front of the towering facsimile of a Donald Bachelor collage painting. Particularly striking is a gray, untitled Francis Bacon portrait, half obliterated by vertical brushstrokes, which smolders like cremation ashes atop the digital remains of Scharf's colorful, gibbering biomorphs. Lily van der Stokker has painted flat acrylic waves and blubbery curves over the photographic wallpaper, her confectionary blues and pinks adding a third layer of imagery; a fourth dimension appears when a guard stands next to his digitized doppelgänger. So, if you relish blithe provocations and peppy cynicism, this fascinating show's the ticket-too bad you missed the opening, where two hot babes dressed as cops presented Shafrazi with a cake sporting Guernica icing. more at this venue

R. Buckminster Fuller, the designer and inventor, was the best thing to happen to high-school chemistry. The shape of his geodesic dome (think Epcot Center's Spaceship Earth) was the inspiration in the naming of certain spherical carbon molecules as Buckminsterfullerenes, also known, to the delight of horny 16-year-olds, as "Bucky balls." Fuller's dome and other zany creations are the subject of the Center for Architecture's Dymaxion Study Center, which opened this week. Check out the prototype of Fuller's plans for a portable house, the Fly's Eye Dome, at LaGuardia Park across the street. At the film screening tonight, find out from daughter Allegra Fuller Snyder what it was like growing up with a dad who not only worked on his car all the time but also intended to make it fly. more at this venue

All right, we know the Bronx River is nasty-you'd have to have some real cojones to swim in those murky waters. But trust us, you'll soon be giddy about taking the No. 6 train to Hunts Point. In addition to the opening of all public pools today, you'll find some fresh, cool chlorinated water at the tip of Barretto Point Park on the Floating Pool Lady, a barge carrying a seven-lane, 25-meter-long pool. Debuting last summer at Brooklyn Bridge Park, the mini-oasis has now been tugged to the Bronx for another hot season of swimming (and will remain there for three more years). So dive right in, and hold your nose-just because the water is good doesn't mean the air out there is. more at this venue

Last summer at the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog-Eating Contest, Californian Joey Chestnut made history, and Americans proud (at least those of us who cared enough to pay attention), by stealing the Mustard Yellow Belt from six-time champion Takeru Kobayashi. To add insult to injury, Chestnut even hit a new world record by chomping down 66 dogs and buns in 12 minutes, beating his nemesis (who claimed to have a jaw injury) by three weiners. Well, that was then. Now it's time for a rematch. Be afraid, Chestnut fans-Kobayashi's stomach rumbles with hot-dog fury! And with an anticipated turnout of more than 40,000 spectators, you better believe he's going to have his buns in order this time. more at this venue

Curated by painters Mary Heilman and Don Christensen, the vibrant abstractions of 'Present Tense' (Spanierman Modern, 53 E 58th, 212-832-1400. Through July 11) coalesce into a buoyant summer group show. Polly Apfelbaum's stained-fabric pieces are as delicately beautiful as mold blooms, providing a rich contrast to the radiantly furrowed canvases that Taro Suzuki creates by pulling a rake through layers of cyan, magenta, and yellow acrylic. Heilman's own 1992 oil painting, Weave, also features primary colors, set in blunt rectangles that gain endearing subtlety from her lush, drippy brushwork. But it is Christensen, painting bright enamels over roughly cut wooden slabs, who steals the show. The misty pinks of 2008's Up From the South are animated by painted black bars that, in combination with the wooden joints, create a rousing visual rhythm. Long before arriving in such fancy uptown digs, Christensen was the drummer for the Contortions, one of the late-'70s downtown bands that were rooted as much in the visual avant-garde as in music. The 'No Wave' exhibition at KS Art (73 Leonard St, 212-219-9918. Through July 31) opens with a solid wall of brash flyers for such bands as Theoretical Girls, the Gynecologists, and Blinding Headache. Photos document many of the era's highlights, including a Mudd Club performance by Von LMO featuring a welding helmet and a chainsaw. A portrait of the Contortions' angular guitarist, Pat Place (one leg clad in a striped knee sock, the other in a high black boot), hangs next to her own photos of colorful toy monsters that swirl up from soft-focus backgrounds like demented taffy. In 1979, Robin Crutchfield, of the bands DNA and Dark Day, labeled identical baby pictures in a degraded Xerox "Dead" and "Asleep." Three decades later, his diptych remains a sardonic talisman of yesteryear's downtown wasteland. In an interview, Lydia Lunch, of Teenage Jesus & the Jerks, once related the era's ethos: "Work? Are you nuts? Please. $75 per month-that was my rent . . . You begged, borrowed, stole, sold drugs, worked a couple of days at a titty bar if you had to." This compendium of art and ephemera disinters the soul of a gritty bohemia now buried under chain stores and luxury towers. more at this venue

Fire Island is one big gay beach party during the summer, but that wasn't always the case. Sure, it was always gay, but there was a time when the rich yuppies in the Pines neighborhood didn't take kindly to the flamboyant drag queens who prowled around nearby Cherry Grove. As legend has it, a Cherry Grove queen was barred entry into a Pines restaurant in 1976, and when her gal pals found out, they stormed the Pines like it was World War III-the first-ever Invasion of the Pines. Every year since, Cherry Grove's guests get all dolled up and make their way to the Pines by boat-a splendid barge of beauty. Today, the queens are greeted on the Pines side by cheers and adoration-as well they should more at this venue

Think you need a guitar or drums to make music? Please-that's so 2007. These days, all the kids are Playing the Building, David Byrne's retrofitted antique organ that controls a series of devices attached to metal beams, plumbing, heating pipes, and electrical conduits inside the cavernous second floor of the landmark Battery Maritime Building. A hit when it debuted at a former paint factory in Stockholm in 2005, the organ, which is open to be played by anyone, makes spectacularly bizarre music that sounds a lot like this: ping, clang, hissssss, weee-ooooo! Why would you ever want to strap on a guitar again? more at this venue

Add an extra increment of homecoming here for Sonic Youth, whose Murray Street studio sat for years just a few blocks north of Battery Park-one more crease in the tight fabric that binds the band to NYC. In David Browne's excellent recent bio, Goodbye 20th Century, one of the big themes is the long, gradual acclimation of the quartet to its place in the universe: They'll never be famous, not really, but they can always count on citywide ecstasy just by showing up. On a cluttered Fourth of July, this show will without a doubt be the biggest thing happening around town. Indie heroes the Feelies open up, pay homage. more at this venue

The rivalry feels a bit muted this year. The Red Sox, otherwise engaged in trading poorly aimed punches with a resurgent Tampa Bay team, haven't spent much time gazing back at the AL East's third-place team; the principal drama of the Yankees' season so far has been the epic battle between the team's pitching staff and its disabled list. Disclosures of a certain lucky (shared?) animal-print thong and an unsightly, sweat-soaked Jason Giambi mustache haven't exactly made this year's New York Yankees team likable to anyone but the dudes who wear those hats with all 26 championships crammed in above the brim. The Sox, meanwhile, like certain other Boston teams, just win. But the Red Sox vs. the Yankees remains baseball's premier regular-season event, especially over the weekend that All-Star selections are announced, and especially in Yankee Stadium, which will go the way of the Curse come September-or, if the local team has its way, October. more at this venue

An argument: Those who scoff at opera as a boring or stale genre need to see two things on completely opposite ends of the operatic spectrum: a YouTube video of Juan Diego Flórez performing a thrilling string of high C’s in his history-making encore at the Met this spring; and Bash’d: A Gay Rap Opera, the story of a couple whose relationship takes a beating when one of them is gay-bashed. A little musical that got its start at last year’s New York International Fringe Festival, Bash’d features recitative delivered in rhymed and metered hip-hop flow, taking on homophobia in the rap industry and simultaneously extending the limits of opera’s capabilities. Still care to argue? more at this venue

Let's face it, getting tickets to Shakespeare in the Park is a bitch. Instead of the 5 a.m. wake-up call and seven-hour wait in Central Park (don't even bother with the Public Theater's new online-lottery system), the new season of Shakespeare in the Parking Lot (the Municipal Parking Lot on the LES) is an appealing alternative. It's here on the asphalt that the Drilling Company gives Shakespeare's words, in this case Twelfth Night, an urban edge, as they've previously done with As You Like It and Romeo and Juliet. And don't worry if you see cars loitering about-artistic director Hamilton Clancy assures us the lot "is not a busy one." What about a stage? "There's not a stage per se," Clancy says. "But the parking lot is on a natural incline." The only question remaining is how they will turn concrete into the shores of Illyria. more at this venue

Originally scheduled to run at the Signature in 2002, Edward Albee's Occupant was canceled during previews when its star, Anne Bancroft, came down with pneumonia. Now, Tony winner Mercedes Ruehl is onboard to portray the late acclaimed sculptor (and Albee friend) Louise Nevelson-ably abetted by the excellent Larry Bryggman-in this story about the charismatic artist's life and career. Though the entire eight-week run sold out while the show was still in rehearsals, it's been extended another week and, last we heard, tickets were still available. (The catch: They're now $65 instead of $20.) Pam MacKinnon, who staged the hit revival of Albee's Peter and Jerry at Second Stage earlier this season, directs. more at this venue

It sure ain't easy to be an emerging playwright in the world's theater capital. So thank goodness for the fifth annual Summer Play Festival, which charges no application fee, accepts unsolicited material, provides full financial and production support to the artist, and keeps the tickets cheap, drawing in sold-out crowds every year. For the first time, the Public Theater hosts the fun, featuring the work of eight talented up-and-comers chosen from more than 1,000 competitors from across the country. The works include a musical about a teen rock band with a lust for fame, a mystical drama about two sets of twins living 100 years apart, and a sci-fi thriller about a homicidal video game. more at this venue

Neil LaBute is no fan of making audiences comfortable. The writer-director of such controversial films as In the Company of Men (about two young executives who compete to seduce a deaf girl at the office and then dump her) prefers to twist the knife in till it hurts - or until people walk out. His newest Off-Broadway play, reasons to be pretty, serves up another cringe-worthy plot: This time, it's about a man whose off-hand remark - that his female co-worker has a much prettier face than his girlfriend - stirs up trouble when his less-pretty girlfriend hears about it. The good-looking cast includes Piper Perabo, Alison Pill, Thomas Sadoski, and Pablo Schreiber. Steppenwolf co-founder Terry Kinney directs LaBute's sixth collaboration with MCC Theater. more at this venue

Though he's torn up downtown drag stages since the '80s, Joey Arias's more tangible claim to fame is his recent six-year run in the relatively tame Zumanity, Cirque du Soleil's attempt at sexing up their high- flying,body-contorting Vegas presence. Arias basically played himself, a gender-bending MC who slyly coaxed Midwestern retirees to lose their shit during the penultimate orgy scene. It was edgy for Vegas, but nothing you wouldn't have already seen in a New York club. Now he's back home with a new show titled Arias With a Twist-in which the "twist" is none other than the prolific puppeteer and director Basil Twist, who's sure to add plenty of his own magic to the drag high-artistry that Arias is truly capable of. more at this venue

An argument: Those who scoff at opera as a boring or stale genre need to see two things on completely opposite ends of the operatic spectrum: a YouTube video of Juan Diego Flórez performing a thrilling string of high C’s in his history-making encore at the Met this spring; and Bash’d: A Gay Rap Opera, the story of a couple whose relationship takes a beating when one of them is gay-bashed. A little musical that got its start at last year’s New York International Fringe Festival, Bash’d features recitative delivered in rhymed and metered hip-hop flow, taking on homophobia in the rap industry and simultaneously extending the limits of opera’s capabilities. Still care to argue? more at this venue