Spring Arts Guide

Along with spring art shows and play openings, this season marks the start of a stretch of free outdoor events, from a museum crawl up and down Fifth Avenue to a celebration of Shakespeare’s birthday in Bryant Park.

MUSEUMS

Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection

The Whitney Museum of American Art opens a two-floor, 200-artist show of portraits from the museum’s own holdings. The more than 300 works on display, all created in the last 116 years, include the celebrated, by artists including Edward Hopper, Alice Neel, Cindy Sherman and Andy Warhol, and the recently-acquired that will receive their first showings at the museum. Divided into 12 sections, the exhibition explores glam celebrity portraits from the early days of motion pictures, including Edward Steichen’s magazine shots, as well as street photography like Helen Levitt’s Spanish Harlem images. Artists’ likenesses also appear, including Robert Rauschenberg’s photograph of Cy Twombly, and a portrait of Jasper Johns captured by Richard Avedon. Among the recent works is a wax candle sculpture by Urs Fischer of artist Julian Schnabel.

Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection
Opens April 27
The Whitney Museum of American Art
99 Gansevoort St., between Washington and West Streets
Museum hours: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, 10:30 a.m.-6 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 10:30 a.m.-10 p.m.; closed Tuesday
Admission $22
For more information, visit whitney.org or call 212-570-3600

Museum Mile Festival

Exploring just one of the Upper East Side’s art destinations can often become a full day excursion, but the annual Museum Mile Festival makes seven of the area’s cultural meccas accessible and family friendly for an evening. During the festival, now in its 38th year, galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cooper Hewitt, the Jewish Museum and others open to the public for free. Street performers and chalk artists take over Fifth Avenue, which is open to pedestrians only during this three-hour stretch, and musicians perform outside the museums. A retrospective of painter László Moholy-Nagy’s work at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Roz Chast’s cartoons at the Museum of the City of New York are among the shows on view.

Museum Mile Festival
Tuesday, June 14
Fifth Avenue, from 82nd Street to 105th Street
6-9 p.m.
Begins at 5:45 p.m. at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Ave., at 82nd Street
FREE
For more information, visit museummilefestival.org or call 212-606-2296

ART SHOWS

The Photography Show from AIPAD

This 36th-annual photography showcase at the Park Avenue Armory convenes 86 galleries from across the globe showing a variety of work, from 19th-century prints to 1960s photojournalistic images to contemporary landscapes. Participants include Minneapolis’ Weinstein Gallery, which shows portraits by Alec Soth of respondents to the artist’s Craigslist ad while he was staying in a Tokyo hotel. "Ballerina" by Morton Bartlett, which is bound for exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is an example of the artist’s photographs of plaster dolls that he crafted and posed.

The Photography Show from AIPAD
April 14-17
Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Ave., at E. 66th Street
Show hours: April 14 and 16, 11 a.m.-7 p.m.; April 15, 11 a.m.-8 p.m.; April 17, 11 a.m.-6 p.m.
Admission $30
For tickets, visit aipad.com/tickets, or call 202-367-1158 for more information

THEATER

A Shakespearean Birthday Bash

The Drilling Company, which performs annual, free outdoor Shakespeare productions in a parking lot on Norfolk Street, celebrates the playwright’s birthday and the 400th anniversary of his death with a day of monologues, music and death scenes. Free to the public, the event includes live music by the Natalie Smith Band, and, in a nod to a funeral, a jazz procession with the Jambalaya Brass Band. The celebration concludes with performances of death scenes from "Othello," "Romeo and Juliet," "Cymbeline" and other plays.

A Shakespearean Birthday Bash
Friday, April 22
Bryant Park
Sixth Avenue and 42nd Street
12:30-8:30 p.m.
FREE
For more information, visit http://shakespeareintheparkinglot.com

"Annie Get Your Gun"

Non-profit Upper East Side theater group St Jean’s Players stages Irving Berlin’s classic musical about the gun-wielding Annie Oakley as its spring production. The theatrical account of Oakley’s rise to stardom in William "Buffalo Bill" Cody’s traveling show has seen numerous productions, with stars such as Ethel Merman and Bernadette Peters as Oakley, and is known for its numbers like "Anything You Can Do" and "There’s No Business Like Show Business." The production at St. Jean’s Auditorium opens May 6.

"Annie Get Your Gun"
May 6-May 22
St. Jean’s Auditorium
167 E. 75th St., between Lexington and Third Avenues
Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 3 p.m.
Tickets $25
For tickets, visit stjeansplayers.org or purchase at the door 30 minutes before the show begins

MUSIC

Wall to Wall Stephen Schwartz

As part of Symphony Space’s spring theater celebration, its Wall to Wall event, an evening length program and a key point of the performance hall’s annual calendar, is dedicated this year to the work of composer and writer Stephen Schwartz. Nearly 100 performers, including Patti LuPone and Liz Callaway, put their spins on songs by the New York native responsible for the music from "Godspell," "Pippin" and modern classic "Wicked."

Wall to Wall Stephen Schwartz
Saturday, April 16
Symphony Space
2537 Broadway, at 95th Street
Sets at 3 p.m. 5:30 p.m. and 8 p.m.
FREE
For advanced reservations and a full list of performers, visit symphonyspace.org