Come join the standby list for our Fall 2023 Urban NY trips! Arrive at the meeting time (or no more than 10 minutes earlier) for Standby. You will put your name on a list provided by the Urban NY Trip Leader, and 10 minutes after the designated meeting time any last minute cancellations or no-shows will be released to the Standby list via random draw (please note that an earlier time of arrival will NOT increase chances of selection). Standby tickets are not guaranteed for any show, however there are often at least a few available!
The trips that will be offered during the Fall 2023 semester are listed below, as well as meeting times and locations. Please email urbanny@columbia.edu with any questions.
Tuesday, October 3rd: Little Shop of Horrors (meet in 515 Lerner @ 5:50PM)
The world’s most ravenous plant has returned to its acclaimed, sold-out run at the Westside Theatre! Winner of the 2020 Drama League, Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk Awards for BEST MUSICAL REVIVAL, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS is “wildly exuberant” (The Hollywood Reporter), and a New York Times Critic’s Pick. This smash-hit production stars Emmy® winner and Grammy® nominee Tammy Blanchard (“Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows”), 2022 Tony Award® nominee Rob McClure (Mrs. Doubtfire, Beetlejuice), and two-time Tony winner Christian Borle (Something Rotten!), who won the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Lucille Lortel Awards for his performance in LITTLE SHOP. Together they bring succulent life to a show that has made millions of theatergoers laugh, scream, and give up gardening for good. Get tickets now and enjoy a taste of what we’ve all been craving: live theater!
Wednesday, October 4th: Moulin Rouge (meet in 515 Lerner @ 5:50PM)
Enter a world of splendor and romance, of eye-popping excess, of glitz, grandeur and glory! A world where Bohemians and aristocrats rub elbows and revel in electrifying enchantment. Pop the champagne and prepare for the spectacular spectacular…Welcome to Moulin Rouge! The Musical! Baz Luhrmann’s revolutionary film comes to life onstage, remixed in a new musical mash-up extravaganza. A theatrical celebration of truth, beauty, freedom and — above all — love, Moulin Rouge! is more than a musical; it is a state of mind
Thursday, October 5th: Sweeney Todd (meet in 515 Lerner @ 5:50PM)
For the first time since 1980, Broadway audiences will experience Stephen Sondheim’s Tony Award®–winning score as it was performed in the original production—with Jonathan Tunick’s classic 26-player orchestration on an epic scale. Tony Award–winning director Thomas Kail (Hamilton) helms the return of this musical thriller starring Tony and Grammy® nominee Josh Groban (Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812) as Sweeney Todd and Tony winner Annaleigh Ashford (Sunday in the Park With George, Kinky Boots) as Mrs. Lovett. Tony winner Alex Lacamoire (Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen) reunites with Kail as Music Supervisor, and Olivier Award winner Steven Hoggett (Once, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) choreographs this new production of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
Thursday, October 12th: Hamilton (meet in 515 Lerner @ 5:50PM)
A wildly inventive new musical about the scrappy young immigrant who forever changed America: Alexander Hamilton. Tony and Grammy Award winner Lin-Manuel Miranda’s iconic musical about the unlikely founding father determined to make his mark on a new nation as hungry and ambitious as he is. From bastard orphan to Washington's right hand man, rebel to war hero, loving husband caught in the country's first sex scandal to Treasury head who made an untrusting world believe in the American economy, Hamilton is an exploration of a political mastermind. Attend this revolutionary tale of America's fiery past told through the sounds of the ever-changing nation we've become.
Monday, October 16th: Sleep No More (meet in 515 Lerner @ 5:50PM)
Completed in 1939, The McKittrick Hotel was intended to be New York City’s finest and most decadent luxury hotel of its time. Six weeks before opening, and two days after the outbreak of World War II, the legendary hotel was condemned and left locked, permanently sealed from the public. Until now… EMURSIVE has brought the Grande Dame back to life. Collaborating with London’s award-winning PUNCHDRUNK, the legendary space is reinvented with SLEEP NO MORE, presenting Shakespeare’s classic Scottish tragedy through the lens of suspenseful film noir. Audiences move freely through a transporting world at their own pace, choosing their own path through the story, immersed in the most unique theatrical experience in New York.
Tuesday, October 17th: Back to the Future (meet in 515 Lerner @ 5:50PM)
Great Scott! The multi-award winning Back to the Future The Musical is changing Broadway musical theatre history. When Marty McFly finds himself transported back to 1955 in a time machine built by the eccentric scientist Doc Brown, he accidentally changes the course of history. Now he’s in a race against time to fix the present, escape the past and send himself... back to the future. Experience this high-voltage comedy as the iconic story is adapted for the stage by the movie’s creators Bob Gale (Back to the Future trilogy) and Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump) and is directed by the Tony Award-winning John Rando. Back to the Future the Musical features original music by multi-Grammy winners Alan Silvestri (Avengers: Endgame) and Glen Ballard (Michael Jackson’s Man in the Mirror), alongside hit songs from the movie including The Power of Love, Johnny B. Goode, Earth Angel and Back in Time. When BACK TO THE FUTURE THE MUSICAL hits 88mph, you’re gonna see some serious… entertainment.
Wednesday, October 18th: Gutenberg! The Musical (meet in 515 Lerner @ 6:50PM)
THE ORIGINAL STARS OF THE BOOK OF MORMON TOGETHER AGAIN, IN A HILARIOUS NEW MUSICAL ABOUT AN UNINTENTIONALLY HILARIOUS NEW MUSICAL! Need we say more? Okay we will! Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells – who became pretty famous on Broadway and then extremely super famous out in Hollywood – are coming back to their musical theater roots, putting on a show together because they just love each other so damn much. And what did they pick? A hilarious new musical from the guys who wrote Beetlejuice and the guy who directed Beetlejuice and Moulin Rouge. It’s the story of two best pals named Bud and Doug who put on a show together because they just love each other so damn much. It’s art imitating life imitating art! And it’s the funniest thing to come to Broadway since 1448! (Which is the year the printing press was invented by Johannes Gutenberg, who is the subject of the musical that Bud and Doug write, but that’s not important right now.)
Thursday, October 19th: Purlie Victorious (meet in 515 Lerner @ 5:50PM)
***Note: This trip is STANDBY ONLY. All tickets will go to participants from the standby list on the day of the performance, by random selection.
Don't miss the first Broadway revival ever of Ossie Davis's wonderful comedy Purlie Victorious: a non-confederate romp through the cotton patch. And yes, we need it now! As Purlie declares: "Let us, therefore, stifle the rifle of conflict, shatter the scatter or discord, smuggle the struggle, tick the pickle and grapple the apple of peace!"
Monday, October 23rd: Doors of Divergence (meet in 515 Lerner @ 6:20PM)
Experience a mix of immersive theatre and escape room-style interactive decisions at Doors of Divergence. Participants will work their way through two separate rooms: Heresy: 1897 and Madenss: 1917, in groups of 8. After completing both rooms, all participants will have the chance to debrief and mingle in the Paradox space.
Tuesday, October 24th: Shucked (meet in 515 Lerner @ 5:50PM)
WHAT THE SHUCK IS SHUCKED? An unlikely hero, an unscrupulous con man, and a battle for the heart & soil of a small town. SHUCKED is the Tony Award®-winning musical comedy The Wall Street Journal calls “flat out hilarious!” Featuring a book by Tony Award winner Robert Horn (Tootsie), a score by the Grammy® Award-winning songwriting team of Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, and directed by Tony Award winner Jack O’Brien (Hairspray), this corn-fed, corn-bred American musical is sure to satisfy your appetite for great musical theater.
Wednesday, October 25th: Wicked (meet in 515 Lerner @ 5:50PM)
Wicked, the Broadway sensation, looks at what happened in the Land of Oz…but from a different angle. Long before Dorothy arrives, there is another girl, born with emerald-green skin—smart, fiery, misunderstood, and possessing an extraordinary talent. When she meets a bubbly blonde who is exceptionally popular, their initial rivalry turns into the unlikeliest of friendships…until the world decides to call one “good,” and the other one “wicked.” From the first electrifying note to the final breathtaking moment, Wicked—the untold true story of the Witches of Oz—transfixes audiences with its wildly inventive story. It will send your spirits soaring to heights you’ll never forget.
Thursday, October 26th: Here Lies Love (meet in 515 Lerner @ 5:50PM)
HERE LIES LOVE IS A GROUNDBREAKING MUSICAL about former Filipina First Lady Imelda Marcos’ astonishing rise to power and subsequent fall at the hands of the Philippine People Power Revolution. From DAVID BYRNE (Academy Award®, Grammy® Award, and Tony Award® winner) and FATBOY SLIM (Grammy Award winner), Here Lies Love has been called “INGENIOUS” by The New York Times and “AN ECSTATIC AND DYNAMIC PARTY” by Time Out New York. Choreographed by ANNIE-B PARSON (Olivier Award nominee) and developed and directed by ALEX TIMBERS (Tony Award winner), the theater is transformed into a dance club where the audience is immersed in the story.
Tuesday, October 31st: The Shark is Broken (meet in 515 Lerner @ 5:50PM)
FADE IN: The open ocean, 1974. Filming is delayed…again. The lead actors—theatre veteran Robert Shaw and young Hollywood hotshots Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider—are crammed into a too-small boat, entirely at the mercy of foul weather and a faulty mechanical co-star. Alcohol flows, egos collide, and tempers flare on a chaotic voyage that just might lead to cinematic magic…if it doesn’t sink them all. Step aboard the Orca and into THE SHARK IS BROKEN, a “profound dive behind the scenes of the making of Jaws” (The Daily Telegraph). This Olivier Award-nominated new play is “hilariously brilliant and pure genius” raves the Sunday Express, and stars Ian Shaw (War Horse, Common) as his father, Robert Shaw, Alex Brightman (Beetlejuice, School of Rock) as Richard Dreyfuss, and Colin Donnell (Anything Goes, “Chicago Med”) as Roy Scheider. Directed by Olivier Award winner Guy Masterson, co-written by Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon, and inspired by Robert Shaw’s experience playing Quint on the notorious shoot, THE SHARK IS BROKEN celebrates movie history and peeks at the choppy waters behind Hollywood’s first blockbuster. Short tempers. Short circuits. 90 minutes, no intermission.
Thursday, November 9th: American Composers Orchestra: The Quest: Epic Journeys (meet in 515 Lerner @ 6:20PM)
The American Composers Orchestra premieres music by hundreds of today’s top composers, and no two concerts are alike. In this program, they offer a wide-ranging musical testament to humanity’s bold endeavors. Works include a multimedia rendering of a famed (and ultimately doomed) expedition to the North Pole, written by Nina C. Young; a world premiere by composer and jazz pianist Guillermo Klein; a world premiere by George Lewis, one of the leading exponents of experimental music today; an Augusta Read Thomas composition originally written to precede Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony; and a world premiere by Jack Hughes.
Tuesday, November 14th: X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X (meet in 515 Lerner @ 6:20PM)
Anthony Davis’s groundbreaking and influential opera, which premiered in 1986, arrives at the Met at long last. Theater luminary and Tony-nominated director of Slave Play Robert O’Hara oversees a potent new staging that imagines Malcolm as an Everyman whose story transcends time and space. An exceptional cast of breakout artists and young Met stars enliven the operatic retelling of the civil rights leader’s life. Baritone Will Liverman, who triumphed in the Met premiere of Fire Shut Up in My Bones, sings Malcolm X, alongside soprano Leah Hawkins as his mother, Louise; mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis as his sister Ella; bass-baritone Michael Sumuel as his brother Reginald; and tenor Victor Ryan Robertson as Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad. Kazem Abdullah conducts the newly revised score, which provides a layered, jazz-inflected setting for the esteemed writer Thulani Davis’s libretto.
Wednesday, November 15th: Un Ballo in Maschera (meet in 515 Lerner @ 6:20PM)
Verdi’s kaleidoscopic drama appears for the first time since 2015, with tenor Charles Castronovo making his Met role debut as the Swedish king whose love for his friend’s wife spells his undoing. Carlo Rizzi conducts an all-star ensemble that features soprano Elena Stikhina as Amelia, the object of Gustavo’s affections, and reigning Verdi baritone Quinn Kelsey as her husband, Count Anckarström. David Alden’s striking production also includes mezzo-soprano Olesya Petrova as the fortune teller Ulrica and soprano Nina Minasyan in her Met debut as the precocious page Oscar.
Thursday, November 16th: The Lion King (meet in 515 Lerner @ 5:50PM)
Giraffes strut, birds swoop, gazelles leap - the entire Serengeti comes to life. And as the music soars, Pride Rock slowly rises from the stage. This is THE LION KING. A spectacular visual feast, this adaptation of Disney's much-loved film transports you to a dazzling world that explodes with glorious colors, stunning effects and enchanting music. At its heart is the powerful and moving story of Simba, and his epic journey from wide-eyed cub to his destined role as King of the Pridelands. The Lion King won six 1998 Tony Awards, and has also earned more than 70 major arts awards. Come join The Circle of Life!
Monday, November 27th: NY Rangers vs. Buffalo Sabres (meet in 515 Lerner @ 5:50PM)
Come watch the NY Rangers play the Buffalo Sabres in an Ice Hockey game at the iconic Madison Square Garden.
Tuesday, November 28th: Some Like it Hot (meet in 515 Lerner @ 5:50PM)
Set in Chicago when Prohibition has everyone thirsty for a little excitement, SOME LIKE IT HOT is the “glorious, big, high-kicking” (Associated Press) story of two musicians forced to flee the Windy City after witnessing a mob hit. With gangsters hot on their heels, they catch a cross-country train for the life-chasing, life-changing trip of a lifetime. SOME LIKE IT HOT boasts infectious music by Marc Shaiman and lyrics by Shaiman and Scott Wittman, a witty book by Matthew López and Amber Ruffin, and stellar direction and choreography by Casey Nicholaw.” All aboard Broadway’s great big musical comedy!
Wednesday, November 29th: Alvin Ailey at NYCC (meet in 515 Lerner @ 5:50PM)
During this milestone 65th anniversary season, Ailey will present Artistic Director Robert Battle's new Undercurrent and introduce Amy Hall Garner and Elizabeth Roxas-Dobrish to the repertory with world premieres CENTURY and Me, Myself and You. The season will also pay tribute to the women who have made Ailey what it is today, notably with the Opening Night Gala celebrating Artistic Director Emerita Judith Jamison in her 80th year. On select programs, the thrill of live music will enhance favorite Ailey works including Revelations, Night Creature, and excerpts of Pas de Duke, Masekela Langage, Opus McShann, Love Songs, For ‘Bird’ – With Love, and Reflections in D. In a return to pre-pandemic tradition, the magic of Ailey will shine at New York City Center for a full five weeks, giving audiences the opportunity to once again celebrate the holidays with Ailey. Check the schedule below for program details!
Thursday, November 30th: Kimberly Akimbo (meet in 515 Lerner @ 5:50PM)
Tony Award® winner Victoria Clark stars as Kim, a bright and funny Jersey teen who happens to look like a 72-year-old lady. And yet her aging disease may be the least of her problems. Forced to maneuver family secrets, borderline personalities, and possible felony charges, Kim is determined to find happiness in a world where not even time is on her side. Written by Pulitzer Prize winner David Lindsay-Abaire and Tony Award® winner Jeanine Tesori, with direction by Outer Critics Circle Award winner Jessica Stone, and winner of 5 Tony Awards including Best New Musical, Kimberly Akimbo “feels like a miracle — the funniest and most moving experience of my entire return to theatergoing” (Peter Marks, The Washington Post).
Monday, December 4th: The Rockettes Christmas Spectacular (meet in 515 Lerner @ 6:00PM)
Share the joy of the holidays with your loved ones this year at the Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes®, the iconic dance and music spectacular! Experience Radio City Music Hall® as it transforms into an immersive, winter wonderland, and create lasting memories with the legendary Rockettes®.
Tuesday, December 5th: Hadestown (meet in 515 Lerner @ 5:50PM)
Welcome to HADESTOWN, where a song can change your fate. This acclaimed new musical by celebrated singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell and innovative director Rachel Chavkin (Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812) is a love story for today... and always. HADESTOWN intertwines two mythic tales — that of young dreamers Orpheus and Eurydice, and that of King Hades and his wife Persephone — as it invites you on a hell-raising journey to the underworld and back. Mitchell’s beguiling melodies and Chavkin’s poetic imagination pit industry against nature, doubt against faith, and fear against love. Performed by a vibrant ensemble of actors, dancers and singers, HADESTOWN is a haunting and hopeful theatrical experience that grabs you and never lets go.
Wednesday, December 6th: Bartók, Haydn, and Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet at the NY Philharmonic (meet in 515 Lerner @ 6:20PM)
Edgar Moreau makes his NY Phil debut in Haydn’s spirited Cello Concerto No. 1. Leading the Orchestra for the first time, Andres Orozco-Estrada conducts Tchaikovsky’s passionate take on the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsody No. 1, and Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin Suite — an orchestral adaptation of the composer’s scandalous 1926 pantomime.
Thursday, December 7th: Merrily We Roll Along (meet in 515 Lerner @ 5:50PM)
Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff, and Lindsay Mendez star in this revival of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s Merrily We Roll Along, which charts the turbulent relationship between composer Franklin Shepard and his two lifelong friends — writer Mary and lyricist & playwright Charley.