Are people who FaceTime while walking down the street literally insane?

Smorgasburg, the food bazaar spectacular, is back as of April with dozens of great local vendors across three locations. Smorgasburg WTC runs on Fridays; Williamsburg is on Saturdays; and Prospect Park is on Sundays. Each location is open weekly through October. 

For its 15th year of outdoor food and fun, Smorgasburg will showcase more than 70 vendors. The food festival will be filled with fragrant Ethiopian stews, Hawaii-style street comforts, explosive pani puri, potato puff poutine and lots more.

For neurodiverse audiences, the world of performing arts is not always a welcoming place. So in its seventh annual Big Umbrella Festival, Lincoln Center is inviting that world to come to them.

From April 4 through April 20, 2025, the arts complex will host companies from the U.S., the U.K., Australia, Mexico and Peru in programs specially designed to entertain and engage with children, teens and adults with autism, sensory and communication disorders or learning disabilities. The festival's events cover a spectrum of theater, music, dance, comedy and visual art.

On April 4, Portillo's is setting up shop here for one night only but, instead of just doling out dogs on a bus, the chain is bringing a sense of class (or chaos, depending on how you look at it) with its Hot Dog High Tea. For one night only, Portillo’s is going pinkies up, serving elegant versions of its hot dogs, Italian beef sandwiches and more on a—literally!—golden platter.

Keep in mind that we're using the word “tea” lightly here. Drinks, after all, come in the form of alcohol made with Jameson Black Barrel.

While there is already a waitlist, you can add your name here. 

Grab your paddles, pickeball fans, because the popular sport is back in Central Park all spring and summer long. CityPickle will open at the park's Wollman Rink as of April 4 through the early fall. 

This is the third season for pickleball on 14 courts in the center of Manhattan—the largest pickleball offering in the Northeast. This tennis/ping-pong/badminton hybrid has become the country's fastest-growing sport, with more than 130,000 New Yorkers flocking to Wollman Rink's courts in past years. All skill levels are welcome for court rentals, clinics, open play, and private events from 8am to 9pm daily. Plus, expect summer camps, events, and special free programming. 

Is there a certain dish you still dream about? One that you wish would come back to the menu of your favorite restaurant? Yes, us too. Luckily, Chef Driven Hospitality is indulging in our nostalgia by reviving the dishes of yesteryear. 

This month, the hospitality group is launching its inaugural Forgotten Foods Festival. From March 28 to April 6, all 16 restaurants within the hospitality group’s portfolio will revive dishes that time almost forgot. Each restaurant has interpreted the definition of “forgotten” differently, with some chefs channeling treasured family recipes and techniques mastered in the early days of their culinary careers while others looked back to dishes that defined history.

To check out the full list of menus, check out the website here.

Ahead of The Handmaid’s Tale finale, The Paley Museum in midtown is hosting an immersive exhibit featuring the costumes, artifacts and props from the Emmy Award-winning show. It'll be on view starting Friday, April 4, through Sunday, June 8.

At the Paley Museum, “The Legacy of The Handmaid’s Tale: June’s Evolution from Handmaid to Rebel” will put you face-to-face with its costumes, including June's iconic red handmaid’s dress, cloak and white winged bonnet and Serena Joy Waterford’s haunting teal dress, as well as costumes worn by other pivotal characters. You’ll also get to see Commander Waterford’s Scrabble board, Nichole’s doll from Nick, June’s Boston map and June’s terrifying Handmaid muzzle.

The Martha Graham company keeps the modern dance master's legacy alive at the Joyce with a set of programs that juxtapose classic Graham pieces with works by modern choreographers. The run is divided into three major programs plus two one-offs. The Gala Opening on April 1 includes Graham's Clytemnestra Act II (1958) and the world premiere of Baye & Asa’s Cortege. Those two pieces are also in Program A (Apr 2, 4, 10, 12) along with Hofesh Shechter’s Cave (2022) and the world premiere of Xin Ying's Letter to Nobody, which she created in collaboration with Mimi Yin. Program B (Apr 3, 6, 9, 13) features two Graham masterworks of Americana, Frontier (1935) and Rodeo (1942) as well as Jamar Roberts's We the People (2024) and Virginie Mécène's reconstructions of a pair of early Graham solos, Revolt (1927) and Immigrant (1928). Cave and Cortege recur in Program C (Apr 5, 6, 8, 11, 13) in tandem with Graham's Brontë-sisters ballet Deaths and Entrances (1943) and her Greek-myth duet Errand into the Maze (1947). The family matinee on April 12 comprises Rodeo, We the People and a performance of Graham's Panorama (1935) by teenage dancers from this year's All-City Panorama Project.

The 2025 edition of Frigid New York's Fringe Festival features more than 60 productions, each less than an hour long and each performed four or five times at the East Village's Under St. Marks and wild project and midtown's two Chain Theatre venues (plus four at the Rat NYC in Brooklyn). That means you can choose among at least 10 shows every weekday and about twice that many on weekends.

Options include an abundance of solo shows, new adaptations of Machinal and Uncle Vanya, and several projects by established names: The End of All Flesh, a postapocalyptic bluegrass musical by Urinetown co-writer Greg Kotis; Gabe Mollica: Horse Lawyer, by the comedian behind 2023's Solo: A Show About Friendship; 90 Years of Song and Scandal, a showcase for the world's oldest female stand-up, D'yan Forest; and The Retreating World, a monologue by Naomi Wallace (One Flea Spare). As at the Fringe of old, there are also many productions with grabbily funny titles, such as Jaws: The Musical, F***ed Up Fairytales, Love in the Time of Piñatas, Texas Annie: The Legend of the Moan Ranger, Swipe This! My Life in Transit, Adam Driver and The Phantom of the Opera’s Friend.

Peruse the full list of offerings here, or view them in calendar form here.

Josefina López's 1990 play, about a Latina teenager torn between her family's garment factory and her college dreams, has already been the basis of the 2002 film that introduced the world to America Fererra.

Now playwrights Lisa Loomer (Living Out) and Nell Benjamin (Legally Blonde) adapt it into a musical with music and lyrics by Joy Huerta (of the Mexican pop duo Jesse & Joy) and Benjamin Velez. Following a warmly received 2023 premiere at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the show is moving to Broadway under the guiding eye of director-choreographer Sergio Trujillo (Ain't Too Proud).

What do you get when you take some of New York's funniest folks and have them play the classic "Would You Rather?" game onstage? Hilarity, that's what! 

Hosts Maggie Maxwell and Andre Medrano bring together top talent from stand-up, sketch, improv and more to tackle their increasingly absurd and thought-provoking questions. (Examples: Would you rather have a cat with the will to win or a dog with the need for speed? Break every promise or share all your secrets? Suffer from acute FOMO or definitively find out that...YOLO?) They will be joined by comedians including Anna Roisman, Bassam Shawl, Carmen Lagala and Joe Nunnink.