From the archive
Things to do in NYC this week, chosen by Scope.
One pick for every night, plus Saturday and Sunday daytime.
October 19–October 25, 2026
This week links Lebanese cooking across continents, two South Asian art histories, and contemporary fiction read aloud by actors. Live jazz and experimental music span Lincoln Center, the Vanguard and Blue Note; Saturday pairs family-friendly Gnome-topia on the High Line with Fred Hersch’s five-player Village Vanguard set, while Sunday moves from poetry and song to Matt Ruby’s new-hour taping at New York Comedy Club.
Updated October 25 · All times New York
Monday night
Oct 19
PastThree chefs connect Lebanese cooking across Brooklyn and Surrey for a multi-course dinner tied to the release of Jad Youssef’s cookbook. Edy Massih, Samaya Boueri Ziade, and Jad and Aga Youssef build a menu around mezze, kibbeh, grilled chicken and fish. It is a rare chance to spend Monday at a shared table rather than a quick restaurant stop.
Tuesday night
Oct 20
PastArt historians Ananya Sikand and Rattanamol Singh Johal bring the practices of Rummana Hussain and Nasreen Mohamedi into the same conversation. Their work moves across conceptual and performance art and spare abstraction, opening a useful way to think about different artistic responses to modernity and belonging. The Brooklyn archive hosts this small-scale research talk.
Wednesday night
Oct 21
PastViet Thanh Nguyen hosts the annual Best American Short Stories program, with actors Jessica Hecht, Denis O’Hare and Sanjit De Silva performing work by Nathan Blum, Sigrid Nunez and Akhil Sharma. Symphony Space’s 105-minute evening brings contemporary fiction to the stage rather than leaving it on the page; the event is also available by livestream.
Thursday night
Oct 22
PastThe Moth brings live first-person storytelling to Symphony Space’s Peter Jay Sharp Theatre. Its Mainstage format gives personal narratives the focus of a full theater, with the shape of the evening carried by each storyteller’s voice and the turns of a story told in front of an audience.
Friday night
Oct 23
PastHania Rani’s Non-Fiction piano concerto brings the 45-piece Sinfonia Varsovia together with drummer Valentina Magaletti and saxophonist Jack Wyllie. Drawing on the story of young pianist Josima Feldschuh, the work closes the evening’s Unsound Lincoln Center program. Choose-what-you-pay tickets make Friday’s performance unusually flexible.
Saturday day
Oct 24
PastThe High Line’s 14th Street Passage becomes Gnome-topia for a family Halloween morning, with games, a DJ and a giant cardboard gnome world for ages 6–10.
Saturday night
Oct 24
PastFred Hersch expands his trio with saxophonist Tony Malaby and trumpeter Ralph Alessi, alongside bassist Drew Gress and drummer Joe Dyson. The five players settle into the Village Vanguard for an 8 p.m. set, where the club’s close quarters suit the extra horn colors and Hersch’s piano-led interplay.
Sunday day
Oct 25
PastPoet and saxophonist Joy Harjo’s band shares the afternoon with the Cornelius Eady Group at St. Mark’s Church Sanctuary. The bill moves between Indigenous jazz-rock and Eady’s contemporary blues, with poetry threaded through the music. A 4 p.m. start makes this an inviting Sunday matinee before the evening’s club shows.
Sunday night
Oct 25
PastMatt Ruby records a new hour at New York Comedy Club Midtown in a live special taping. His sharp, dark stand-up gives Sunday night a different feel from a regular club set: the audience is there as the material is captured for a longer-form release.