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

Paul Chan’s work doesn’t merely hang on a wall—it also exists on the floors and ceilings. In reflected light and shadow, the elements of city life emerge, evoking politics, poetry, war, death, and desire. The 7 Lights, Chan’s first major exhibition in the U.S., takes as its underlying theme the seven days of creation, but makes it seem like a hallucination. And some of Chan’s work may already feel eerily familiar: His posters are displayed throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. more at this venue

Dear friends: I’m sorry if we made plans this month. I have to cancel. For the next five weeks, I will be dining only on popcorn at the Film Forum concession stand during the run of its Godard ’60s! series, where all of Jean-Luc Godard’s greatest ground-breaking, anarchic works from the 1960s (21 in all!) will be screened. If you’d like, you could join me tonight to see Breathless, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo as a wanted criminal who seduces the blonde pixie Jean Seberg (ooh la la!). Or we could see A Woman Is a Woman (May 11-13), in which Anna Karina (Godard’s muse and then-wife) plays a stripper who desperately wants to be a mother; Masculine Feminine (May 25-27), a raucous portrait of the ’60s youth culture in Paris; or Sympathy for the Devil (May 27), featuring a young Mick Jagger at a recording session. Or just pick any day—I’ll be waiting in the lobby. more at this venue

The New York African Film Festival celebrates its 15th anniversary with a lineup of 40 films from 22 countries throughout Africa and the African Diaspora. Titled “Cinema and History: Africa and the Future,” this year's program emphasizes history and storytelling, technology and the future. Highlights of this year's festival include a tribute commemorating the life of the "Father of African Cinema," the late Ousmane Sembène and Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka will be honored on Saturday, April 12, at the Centerpiece Celebration with the U.S. premiere of The African Slave Trades: Across the Indian Ocean. For more information, go to africanfilmny.org. more at this venue

If you’ve ever wanted to twirl like a flamenco dancer or tap your feet like Fred Astaire, National Dance Week is the perfect time for anyone who hasn’t gotten moving to start! Beginning today, studios such as Ailey Extensions, the American Tap Dance Foundation, Djoniba Dance & Drum Center, Power Pilates, the Hip-Hop Dance Conservatory, and many others are offering free classes. Newcomers can try out just about every dance form known to man and then keep the party rolling long after the week of freebies is over. There’s also a performance that includes ballet, jazz, lyrical, Latin, and Middle Eastern dances on Sunday to show you how fabulously you’ll be able to move if you stick the program out. more at this venue

Early word has it that Lloyd Kaufman has outdone himself this time with Troma’s latest contribution to ending civilization as we know it: Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead. We hear that not only does Kaufman himself make several appearances, but so do his . . . uh . . . McNuggets. But if you can stomach that, surely you’ll love the half-fried tale about poor, rejected Arbie, who takes revenge on his “lefty lipstick-lesbo liberal” girlfriend, Wendy, by getting a job at a haunted chicken shack. And when the fryers rise up to take their revenge, the chicken-zombie apocalypse may just leave you hungry for a mess of wings. After-party at Fontana’s, 105 Eldridge Street. more at this venue

Where would the dance world be without its next generation of brilliant dancers bidding fair to be the next Baryshnikov, Nijinsky, or Pavlova? The 1-2-3 Festival takes three of the city’s top ballet companies and hands over the stage to their junior troupes. Tonight, the fanciful youths of Ailey II, ABT II, and Taylor 2 demonstrate why they’re the next constellation of fiery talents to watch out for as they perform various repertoire works. And the opening-night gala offers a chance to see all three companies doing what they do best. more at this venue

For women, making it into the boardroom in the 1980s was fraught with a very different set of concerns than Omarosa’s 15 minutes on The Apprentice. Caryl Churchill’s Broadway premiere of Top Girls takes us back to the decade of decadence at London’s Top Girls Employment Agency, where Marlene (played by Elizabeth Marvel) celebrates her climb to success as head of the company. With an all-star cast featuring Mary Beth Hurt, Martha Plimpton, and Marisa Tomei, the show prompts us to question whether the sacrifices we’re willing to make and the values we place on getting ahead in a so-called man’s world are really worth the ride. more at this venue

Lyrical dance can come off as very corny if it’s choreographed with too much of a heavy hand—there’s nothing worse than an overly saccharine performance expressly designed to try to make you either tear up or smile with hyper-elation. This is not a problem for Patrick Corbin’s company, Corbindances. The one-time dancer for Paul Taylor takes modern dance and swaths of ballet to create beautiful, classic-feeling works full of flowy dresses and soft yet strong (and distinctly unsappy) movements that won’t make you cringe with irritation. Tonight he begins a two-week season, which will include the world premiere of Romantic Conversions (set to Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2) and the New York premieres of Infinity and Gregory Dolbashian’s Do I Make Myself Clear?  It will be lovely. 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

Summer’s almost here, which means that the Ensemble Studio Theatre’s annual array of one-acts, Marathon 2008, is back to delight us with 15 new short plays on alternating programs. For its 30th anniversary, EST brings us works by brilliant award winners (David Auburn, Neil LaBute), talented newcomers (Anne Washburn, Amy Herzog), and established veterans (Frank Gilroy, José Rivera). Highlights include a solo piece by the always-entertaining drag artist Taylor Mac and a play titled Japanoir by the Voice’s own Michael Feingold. more at this venue

Perhaps the only major rap-and-r&b act weirder than the Roots—the long-running and curmudgeonly collective from Philadelphia—is Erykah Badu, whose new album, entitled New Amerykah Part One (4th World War), bears little resemblance to even a single piece of music released in the last decade. Her early days as neo-soul’s Billie Holiday seem laughably far away; today, her idiom—one part esoteric philosophy, two parts sample science, all held together by Badu’s helium-squeaky declamations—has more to do with ’70s-era paranoid funk than with modern rap’s blithe material contentment. The Roots, who tote their own brand-new Rising Down to Radio City tonight, know a thing or two about discontentment as well: Rising Down opens with a tape of a 1994 phone call between band and management, in which the group wakes up to the painful fact that it no longer controls its own artistic destiny. They’ve been fighting for creative control ever since. more at this venue

If Stevie Nicks were to attend Night of a Thousand Stevies incognito, what would she wear? Nicks is rumored to have attended the massive annual fan event disguised as herself back in 2000. “I cannot confirm or refute this,” says Chi Chi Valenti, NOTS’s founder and producer, “but several of the fanatic Stevie lovers swore they saw someone who had the same retinal patterns as Stevie.” See if you can spot the real deal or just some truly awesome look-alikes beneath all the beads, lace, and chiffon at NOTS 18: “Nightbirds.” An “all-Stevie, all-Fleetwood” soundtrack provides the mystical ’70s pop-rock ambience, plus performances by Cirque du Soleil star Joey Arias and puppeteer Basil Twist. more at this venue