NY PopsUp Will Launch Live Entertainment in NYC Next Week

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo today announced the February 20 launch of a statewide entertainment festival featuring more than 1,000 live performances. NY PopsUp will feature more than 300 pop-up events in 100 days in New York City alone.

The governor introduced this event as the New York Arts Revival on January 12. Beyond the renaming of the event, today's announcement presented further details on the events.

NY PopsUp will launch on Saturday, February 20 and run through Labor Day. On opening day, Jon Batiste, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Cecile McLorin Salvant, Ayodele Casel, and others will perform at the Javits Center as a special tribute to our healthcare workers. The opening day events will conclude with one of Jon Batiste's signature Love Riots, beginning at Walt Whitman Park and ending at Golconda Playground in Brooklyn.

As previously announced, the festival will reach its climax in New York City in June with the 20th anniversary of the Tribeca Film Festival and close with the official opening of Little Island, a new park at Pier 55. The Tribeca Film Festival will have300 ticketed and non-ticketed events, with screenings, panel discussions, concerts, and more, in parks, on piers, on buildings, and on barges. NY PopsUp will close with The Festival at Little Island from August 11 to September 5, which will host an average of 16 events per day, for a total of 325 performances by approximately 500 artists.

Many of the events throughout the state will have free admission. Not all performances will be announced in advance.

Governor Cuomo announced a new entertainment program, but did not take into account that live entertainment is already happening. Pictured above, COBU, an all-female Japanese Taiko drumming and dance troupe, open the Theater for the New City's free Open 'Tho Shut variety shows every Saturday afternoon.

The range of artists already committed to the project will represent theater, dance, poetry, comedy, pop music, opera, and more. Hugh Jackman, Renée Fleming, Amy Schumer, Alec Baldwin, Chris Rock, Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker, Isabel Leonard, Nico Muhly, Joyce DiDonato, John Early and Kate Berlant, Patti Smith, Mandy Patinkin, Raja Feather Kelly, J'Nai Bridges, Kenan Thompson, Gavin Creel, Garth Fagan, Larry Owens, Q-Tip, Billy Porter, Conrad Tao, Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber, Tina Landau, Rhiannon Giddens, Aparna Nancherla, Anthony Rodriguez, Jonathan Groff, Savion Glover, Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, Chris Celiz, Christine Goerke, Kelli O'Hara, Dev Hynes, Phoebe Robinson, Sara Mearns, George Saunders, Caleb Teicher, Danielle Brooks, Jeremy Denk, Idina Menzel, Sondra Radvanovsky, Gaby Moreno, Davóne Tines, Jerrod Carmichael, Taylor Mac, Sutton Foster, Jessie Mueller, and Courtney ToPanga Washington, among many others, will participate in the events.

For rock music fans, Patti Smith will perform at the Brooklyn Museum in remembrance of the passing of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.

NY PopsUp is intended as a bridge to the full safe return of live performance. Instead of having many people come to a small number of big events, the scenario will be a multitude of pop-up events for smaller audiences. In New York City, these events will be scattered throughout the five boroughs.

Musicians always find a venue to play music. Seaton Hancock played in Tompkins Square Park outside the former home of jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker.

NY PopsUp will make stages out of existing landscapes, including transit stations, parks, subway platforms, skate parks, street corners, fire escapes, and parking lots. Flex venues, which are indoor venues that do not have fixed seating, will be used for indoor productions. In New York City, these flex venues may include the SHED, the Apollo, Harlem Stage, and La MaMa. All indoor and outdoor events will observe Department of Health public health and safety guidance.

"Cities have taken a real blow during COVID, and the economy will not come back fast enough on its own - we must bring it back," Cuomo said. "Creative synergies are vital for cities to survive, and our arts and cultural industries have been shut down all across the country, taking a terrible toll on workers and the economy. We want to be aggressive with reopening the State and getting our economy back on track, and NY PopsUp will be an important bridge to the broader reopening of our world-class performance venues and institutions. New York has been a leader throughout this entire pandemic, and we will lead once again with bringing back the arts."

NY PopsUp is a private/public partnership overseen by producers Scott Rudin and Jane Rosenthal, in coordination with the New York State Council on the Arts and Empire State Development.