Shauna Lyon
Goings On editor

In the summer, New York City likes to play outside—quite literally—as with the genre-skipping, star-packed music festival Governors Ball; Lincoln Center’s congenial “Summer for the City” dance programming on the plaza; the Public Theatre’s always electrifying, free Shakespeare in the Park; and the New York Philharmonic’s blissfully cultivated borough-hopping parks tour (complete with post-show fireworks), among many, many other outdoor performances. If you prefer a dark room with air-conditioning, there are revamps of classics from various eras on the small and big screens—including, streaming, “Little House on the Prairie,” “Cape Fear,” and “Legally Blonde,” and, at the cinema, tales of Odysseus (Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey”) and Robin Hood (Hugh Jackman carries the quiver). Blockbusters abound, among a murderers’ row of musical icons, at the Guggenheim’s Pop-art show, and in a movie that sees Steven Spielberg dabbling, once again, in aliens. But there’s also plenty that is new and unusual: John Early in drag as an addled chef-influencer, in the indie flick “Maddie’s Secret”; Clubbed Thumb’s edifying Summerworks series; the Morgan Library’s meditation on the history and mysteries of tarot. Have a spritz, catch some rays, and, most definitely, see a show. Enjoy our summer culture preview, and start making plans.

Today, we’re delivering a sampling of our summer culture previews, which are available in full exclusively to our subscribers. We hope that you will consider upgrading to enjoy full access to our recommendations. A subscription is also the best way to support our work in the year ahead.

TV

Elle Woods, Barack and Larry

Illustration by Fanny Blanc

Hollywood’s current book-adaptation mania is turning the proverbial beach read into the beach watch this summer. Many boast fresh premises, foremost among them the Peacock drama “The Five-Star Weekend” (premièring on July 9). Based on Elin Hilderbrand’s Nantucket-set novel, the series follows a food influencer, played by Jennifer Garner, who copes with the sudden death of her husband by bringing together friends from different stages of her life—played by the likes of Chloë Sevigny and Regina Hall. Across the Atlantic, a schoolteacher in the London suburbs (Rebecca Hall) is tormented by a debilitating hum in Starz’s “The Listeners” (June 12). The show, which Jordan Tannahill adapts from his own best-seller, finds its protagonist searching for others unable to escape the mysterious and unrelenting noise.

Read more from Inkoo Kang »

Art

Pop Art, Tarot History, Pope.L

For the most part, the art world doesn’t do summer blockbusters. This season, though, a few of New York’s museums are mounting decidedly fun shows that could be big hits. Chief among them is the Morgan Library & Museum’s “Tarot! Renaissance Symbols, Modern Visions” (opening June 26), an exhibition that perfectly bridges the institution’s scholarly approach with mass appeal. The first section of the show looks at the cards’ origins in Renaissance Italy, focussing on an original, hand-painted deck from the fifteenth century, when tarot was still a court game. The second part centers on tarot as a tool of divination and creative inspiration, beginning with the iconic 1909 Rider-Waite-Smith deck and moving on to art works from the twentieth century into the present day.

Read more from Jillian Steinhauer »

Movies

Odysseus, Aliens, Spider-Man

Illustration by Fanny Blanc

Studios and independent producers alike are planning hot fun in the summertime. Olivia Wilde directed “The Invite” (June 26), an erotic comedy, in which she and Seth Rogen play a San Francisco couple whose swinger neighbors (Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton) proposition them. “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass” (July 10), directed by David Wain, stars Zoey Deutch as a Midwestern hairdresser who, enraged when her fiancé (Michael Cassidy) hooks up with Jennifer Aniston, heads to Los Angeles to pair off with Jon Hamm. In Gregg Araki’s “I Want Your Sex” (July 31), Cooper Hoffman plays an art-studio assistant, Elliot, in a B.D.S.M. relationship with his boss (Olivia Wilde); Charli XCX plays Elliot’s girlfriend. Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner star in Will Gluck’s dystopian comedy “One Night Only” (Aug. 7), set in a time in which premarital sex is legal for a single night a year.

Read more from Richard Brody »

The Theatre

Cramped Quarters, Ancient Poisoners

This season’s playwrights seem fascinated by the idea of close encounters: couples stranded in deserts, churches, tents, and other pressure cookers. “Jerome” (Playwrights Horizons; in previews, opening June 2) features a gay couple in the early nineties, living in the Arizona hinterlands, where the arrival of another man unsettles the pair’s equilibrium. The play, by John J. Caswell, Jr., presents polyamory as an emotional bomb shelter, built hurriedly against the catastrophe of the AIDS epidemic. Another kind of hospitality is on offer in “The Loved Ones” (Irish Rep; June 13). Erica Murray’s work, which premièred in Dublin, in 2023, follows Nell, the host of an Airbnb in rural Ireland, as she receives two strangers into her home—one of whom is a compromisingly friendly American—and reckons with the death of her adult son. At Atlantic Theatre Company, Bubba Weiler’s “The Saviors” (July 8) follows two altar boys whose friendship buckles under the combined tensions of faith, masculinity, and adolescence. In “Camping” (HERE; June 13), Victoria Lynne Barclay traps two best friends inside a tent brewing with secrets, longing, and petrichor-tinged memories. Levi Holloway’s “Paranormal Activity: A New Story Live on Broadway” (August Wilson; Aug. 14) brings the frightening premise of the film franchise—that it’s people, rather than places, that are haunted—to the stage.

Read more from Rhoda Feng »

Dance

Ballet Stars, Dance Parties

In summertime, the city develops a new personality: open, relaxed, even, at times, outdoorsy. Each year, the plaza at Lincoln Center goes through a vernal transformation, its formal granite parterre converted to a busy dance floor with twinkling lights, part of the center’s Summer for the City programming. Free nightly dance parties happen there from June 10 to Aug. 8 (often with headphones, so as not to disturb performances at the nearby theatres). This summer, the Center introduces a new Contemporary Dance Festival (Alice Tully Hall; June 18-July 5), curated by the savvy, stylish Kyle Abraham. Its offerings include a recent work by the Bengali British choreographer Akram Khan, inspired by ancient myth, and a meditation on the African influences on Flamenco, by the Ghanaian Jamaican British choreographer Yinka Esi Graves.

Read more from Marina Harss »

Contemporary Music

Guitar Gods, Rock and Pop Idols

Illustration by Fanny Blanc

Listen closely and summer’s approach can be heard in the distance as the roar of the crowds at the 2026 edition of Flushing’s Governors Ball Music Festival grows near. Headliners Lorde, Kali Uchis, and Jennie, of the K-pop girl group Blackpink, are joined by such artists as Wet Leg, Blood Orange, King Princess, 2hollis, Geese, and Slayyyter (June 5-7). The night before the Vegas rapper Baby Keem takes his top-billed Friday-night slot at the fest, he builds a pop-up casino at Brooklyn Paramount (June 4).

A handful of the best guitarists in the world convene in the city. At Sony Hall, as part of the Blue Note Jazz Festival, Mdou Moctar unleashes riffy jams inspired by assouf, a fusionist Tuareg guitar music (June 7). The 2025 Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Jack White shows off the skill that earned him his enshrinement, at Brooklyn Paramount (July 11-12). And, at Lincoln Center, St. Vincent sets down her axe to play with the New York Philharmonic, her music arranged for accompaniment by Jules Buckley (July 2).

Read more from Sheldon Pearce »

Classical Music

Summer Festivals, Beautiful America

If you need a break from un-air-conditioned subway platforms this summer, there’s a multitude of classical events to stop by. The contemporary Time:Spans Festival kicks off, on Aug. 8, with the New York première of Wolfgang Rihm’s “Jagden und Formen,” an orchestral piece that begins with hand claps—listen up! The series also includes a world première by Suzanne Farrin, honoring the Hungarian composer György Kurtág (Aug. 10); the International Contemporary Ensemble, performing “I did not paint the war. I lived the war,” by the Iranian composer Farzia Fallah (Aug. 17); and the Grammy-winning chamber group Alarm Will Sound, with Georg Friedrich Haas’s “in vain,” hopefully not in vain (Aug. 21).