September 2017: Entertainment

Film.

• The 74^th Annual Venice International Film Festival – Aug 30 – Sept 9
• Viceroy’s House is set in Delhi at the end of the Raj; Lord Mountbatten (Hugh Bonneville), the great-grandson of Queen Victoria, assumed the post of the last Viceroy, charged with handing India back to its people; Gillian Anderson plays his wife – Sept 1
• Unlocked is a thriller about a CIA-MI5 mission, with John Malkovich, Michael Douglas, and Orlando Bloom – Sept 1
• The Telluride Film Festival is held over Labor Day Weekend every year; started in 1974, this year will see the world premiere of the much-anticipated “Battle of the Sexes” with Emma Stone – Sept 1-4
• The Toronto International Film Festival is expected to draw 250,000 attendees; this year’s slate is 20% smaller than last year – several films directed by women will be showcased, including “Mudbound” from Dee Rees and the world premiere of “Mary Shelley,” directed by Saudi filmmaker Haifaa al-Mansour – Sept 7-17
• It, based on the first half of the novel by Stephen King, opens – Sept 8
• Home Again is the directorial debut of screenwriter Hallie Meyers-Shyer – the rom-com stars Reese Witherspoon as a divorcee living in LA with a group of millennials – Sept 8
• Mother! is the highly-anticipated psychological horror film from Darren Aronofsky starring Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem as a couple whose lives are upended by the arrival of unexpected guests, including characters played by Michelle Pfeiffer and Ed Harris – Sept 15
• Brad’s Status is a bittersweet mid-life crisis comedy that finds Brad (Ben Stiller), a father with a comfortable existence on the West Coast, confronting his feelings of failure while taking his son on a tour of prestigious eastern colleges – Sept 15
• Rat Film is a documentary investigation of the rodent infestation in Baltimore seen from many perspectives, including race and class – Theo Anthony directs – Sept 15
• The 15th Istanbul Biennial is joining forces with the 36th Istanbul Film Festival to create a film program that functions under the biennial’s title and theme, “a good neighbor.” Curated by Elmgreen & Dragset, the biennial explores the concept of homes and neighborhoods – Sept 16 —Nov 12
• The LEGO Ninjago Movie is the third in the series, this time focused on martial arts – Sept 22
• In Battle of the Sexes, Emma Stone and Steve Carrell star as Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs facing off in an epic tennis match in 1973, a watershed moment for women’s tennis; the comedy is directed by Little Miss Sunshine’s Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris – Sept 22
• Stronger is based on the memoir of one of the Boston Marathon bombing’s most famous survivors, Jeff Bauman; the film stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Tatiana Maslany and is directed by David Gordon Green – Sept 22
• Victoria and Abdul is based on the real-life story of the relationship between Queen Victoria and Abdul Karim, a royal servant who worked for the crown in the latter part of the 19th century; Stephen Frears directs and Judi Dench and Ali Fazal star as the title characters – Sept 22
• Kahlil Joseph is one of the directors of Beyonce’s Lemonade; his first solo show in New York, at the New Museum, will showcase films that depict daily urban life – Sept 27-Jan 7,2018
• The 55^th New York Film Festival, presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, will showcase 25 films, including new movies from Noah Baumbach, Greta Gerwig, and Richard Linklater; “Wonderstruck” by Todd Haynes will be the centerpiece – Sept 28-Oct 15
• Action thriller American Made, starring Tom Cruise and Sarah Wright, opens – Sept 29
• Lucky is “a wry meditation on death and all the things we leave behind,” starring Harry Dean Stanton; actor John Carroll Lynch makes his directorial debut – Sept 29
• Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House is a biopic about the Watergate scandal – Liam Neeson stars as “Deep Throat,” and Julian Morris is Bob Woodard – Sept 29

Television.

• Season 7 of FX’s horror series will be titled American Horror Story: Cult – premiering Sept 5
• Third Rail with OZY is a new primetime debate series hosted by Emmy-Award winning journalist Carlos Watson; each week experts, celebrity guests, and digital and studio audiences will tackle a provocative question about the country’s critical issues – Sept 8
• The Deuce on HBO, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Franco, chronicles the legalization and subsequent rise of the porn industry in New York’s Times Square from the early 1970s; David Simon directs and Richard Price is one of the writers – Sept 10
• Top of the Lake: China Girl is season two of Sundance TV’s Jane Campion-directed police procedural set in Australia – Elisabeth Moss returns, and Nicole Kidman joins– Sept 10
• Outlander returns to Starz – Sept 10
• The Orville on Fox is “Family Guy in outer space,” created by Seth MacFarlane – Sept 10
• The Primetime Emmy Awards will be broadcast on CBS, hosted by Stephen Colbert – Sept 17
• The Vietnam War, a 10-part series directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, premieres on PBS – Sept 17- 28
• Young Sheldon is a spin-off of The Big Bang Theory set in the ‘80s during the childhood of the scientific genius – if you loved The Wonder Years, check it out – Sept 25
• Empire returns to Fox — Sept 27
• SEAL Team is CBS’s new drama, starring David Boreanaz and Jessica Pare – Sept 27
• Will & Grace returns after 12 years with its original cast for a 10-episode run – Sept 28

Theater.

• Broadway Week (it’s actually 2 weeks) returns, with 2-for-1 tickets on every show – Sept 4-17
• Warhol Capote, a new play adapted from taped conversations recently unearthed by director Rob Roth between the men in the late 1970s, premiers at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, MA – Sept 9
• Signature Theater presents The Red Letter Plays by Pulitzer-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, inspired by the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne: F***ing A and In the Blood will be performed together for the first time, with a shared cast and director – Sept 11
• Atlantic Theater Company opens Tony-winning playwright Simon Stephens’ On the Shore of the Wide World, the story of an English family who struggles with communication – Sept 12
• For Peter Pan on Her 70^th Birthday by Sarah Ruhl is at Playwright’s Horizons; it’s the story of five aging siblings with a dying father – Sept 13
• Oscar, Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Elizabeth McGovern stars in a new production of J.B. Priestly’s time-traveling play, Time and the Conways – set in great Britain in 1919, at the Roundabout Theatre Company; Rebecca Taichman, directs – begins Sept 14
• Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Ayad Akhtar brings his newest work—Junk—to Lincoln Center Theater; set in 1985 and directed by Tony-winner Doug Hughes, the play is about how money became the only thing of real value for a genius banker at an upstart investment firm – performances begin Sept 14
• In the MCC Theater Company’s Charm, Mama Darleena Andrews—a 67-year-old, black, transgender woman—takes it upon herself to teach an etiquette class at Chicago’s LGBTQ community center; the idealistic teachings of Emily Post clash with the very real life challenges of identity, poverty and prejudice faced by her students – Sept 18
• Elevator Repair Service returns to the Public Theater with a slapstick version of Measure for Measure – previews begin Sept 18
• At the Chichester Festival Theater, Ian McKellen will return to the title role of King Lear that he has previously played for the RSC, in a new ensemble production to be directed by Jonathan Munby, beginning performances September 22 prior to an official opening September 29, for a run through October 28
• Moises Kaufman directs Torch Song, a condensed version of Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song Trilogy at the Second Stage Theater – Sept 26
• In The Treasurer, an elderly mother is spending all of her children’s money, forcing her son to assume the unwanted role of The Treasurer; the darkly funny and sharply intimate portrait chronicles the strained family ties the hell of a guilty conscience – Sept 26
• In As You Like It at the Classic Stage Company, the forest of Arden is transformed into a Jazz Age concrete jungle – Ellen Burstyn stars – Sept 28

Popular Music.

• LCD Soundsystem reunites after its 2011 “retirement,” releasing American Dream – Sept 1
• The Electric Zoo Carnival on New York’s Randall’s Island is in its 8th year — dozens of artists will perform on five stages — Sept 1-3
• Music festival Made in America, launched in 2012, features lineups exclusively curated by its founder, Jay Z; this year’s headliners include Jay Z himself, J. Cole, The Chainsmokers, Migos and Solange along with rising artists like Sampha and 21 Savage – Sept 2-3
• Crossing the Line Festival in New York – Sept 6 – Oct 15
• Katy Perry kicks off her North American tour for Witness – Sept 7
• The Outlook Festival in Croatia takes place at the 19^th-century Fort Punta Christo and its idyllic surroundings; you’ll find an array of hip-hop, grime, reggae, techno, dub, and more – Sept 7-10
• Festival No. 6 in Wales takes place in a beautiful, pastel-colored Italianate village; you can dance in the sand, rave in a lantern-strewn magical forest, sample street food from around the world, get a good massage or play pop-up musical bingo while catching live indie bands, comedy and DJs – Sept 7-10
• Tori Amos drops her latest album, Native Invader – Sept 8
• Singer-songwriter Zola Jesus releases her fourth album, Okovi – Sept 8
• Canadian pop group Alvvays drops their sophomore album, Antisocialites – Sept 8
• Arcade Fire plays Madison Square Garden – Sept 12
• The Meadows Music and Arts Festival is at Citi Field, featuring Jay-Z, Future, Migos, and Weezer – Sept 15-17
• The Kaaboo Music Festival in Del Mar, California has a lineup spanning decades, from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Jackson Browne to Kesha and Jason Derulo, plus art exhibits, comedy shows and gourmet food offerings – Sept 15-17
• The Monterey Jazz Festival at the County Fair and Event Center in Monterey, California, is one of the world’s longest consecutively running jazz festivals, now in its 60th year – Sept 15-17
• The New York Philharmonic will present a Star Wars film concert series with live orchestral accompaniment – Sept 15 – Oct 7
• Fall Out Boy releases their next album, M A N I A – Sept 15
• The Foo Fighters release Concrete and Gold – Sept 15
• On Ringo Starr’s Give More Love, Peter Frampton, Paul McCartney and others join in for the first studio meeting of the living Beatles since 2010 – Sept 15
• Indie band The Pains of Being Pure at Heart drops its fourth album, The Echo of Pleasure – Sept 15
• Performance artist Taylor Mac takes A 24-Decade History of Popular Music on the road, starting with the Curran Theater in San Francisco – Sept 15 & 24 – and Stanford – Sept 27
• Paul McCartney takes his One on One tour to greater New York, with performances at the Prudential Center (Sept 11), MSG (Sept 15) and the Barclay’s Center (Sept 19)
• The Life is Beautiful Festival in Las Vegas is a celebration of music, art, food and ideas, with performances from Chance the Rapper, Blink-182, Muse, Gorillaz and The xx; food by Las Vegas’s top restaurants; thought-provoking speakers like Bill Nye The Science Guy sharing ‘big messages;’ and immersive art installations such as the Art Motel – Sept 22-24
• The multi-genre music and culture fest Pilgrimage Music and Cultural Festival in Franklin, Tennessee will feature Justin Timberlake, Eddie Vedder, Mavis Staples and more. In addition to the music, this is a chance to experience a taste of Williamson County: food, drinks and merchandise are all locally sourced – Sept 23-24
• Harry Styles plays numbers from his self-titled solo album at Radio City – Sept 28
• Kamasi Washington, saxophonist, melds jazz and hip hop – his latest, Harmony of Difference, debuted to rave reviews at this year’s Whitney Biennial – Sept 29
• Miley Cyrus is back with Younger Now; she appears to be returning to her roots – Sept 29
• Shania Twain’s last album dropped in 2002 – she releases her latest, Now, on Sept 29

Books.

• Fantasyland, How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History is the latest from NPR’s Studio 360 host Kurt Andersen; Kirkus describes it as “an assemblage not just of scattered false beliefs, but whole lifestyles cobbled from them” in which the author urges us to “gird up for some reality-based arguments against the ‘dangerously untrue and unreal’” – Sept 5
• Dinner at the Center of the Earth by Nathan Englander is a political thriller about a secret Palestinian prisoner and his longtime Israeli guard – Sept 5
• Gillian French’s new novel, The Door to January – Sept 5
• Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process is John McPhee’s advice on how to write well – Sept 5
• A Legacy of Spies is the first George Smiley novel in over 25 from John le Carre – Sept 5
• In Jesmyn Ward’s first novel since her National Book Award–winning Salvage the Bones, the writer brings the archetypal road novel into rural twenty-first-century America in Sing, Unburied, Sing – Sept 5
• The Golden House is the latest novel from Salman Rushdie – a razor-sharp portrait of life among the very rich – Sept 5
• Gorbachev: His Life and Times is a biography by William Taubman of the leader whose policies of perestroika and glasnost brought an end to the Cold War – Sept 5
• On his 71^st birthday, Loudon Snowden Wainwright III – American songwriter, folk singer, humorist, actor, and father of 4 musicians, including Rufus Wainwright – will release Liner Notes: On Parents & Children, Exes & Excess, Death & Decay, & a Few of My Other Favorite Things – Sept 5
• The World of Tomorrow is the debut novel from Brendan Mathews; it examines the legacy of Irish political violence for a family in both the old country and New York during one busy week in 1939 – Sept 5
• Studio 54, edited by Ian Schrager with a foreword by Bob Colacello, is the first official book on the legendary club and features both photographs and personal stories – Sept 5
• CUZ: The Life and Times of Michael A is Danielle Allen’s memoir revolving around her younger cousin, who was murdered at the age of 29 – Sept 5
• Ed Ruscha: Extremes and in-Betweens by Yve-Alain Bois and Ben Eastham features paintings that explore the interplay of words and their meanings – Sept 5
• The Unfinished Palazzo is Judith Mackrell’s account of the Palazzo Venier in Venice, and how three women – Luisa Casati, Doris Castlerosse, and Peggy Guggenheim – brought it to glorious life – Sept 5
• Stephen Colbert’s Midnight Confessions is the late-night host’s illustrated collection of bits based on his popular segment from The Late Show – Sept 5
• Hillary Rodham Clinton’s book of essays, What Happened, is a post-mortem on the 2016 Presidential election – Sept 12
• Forest Dark is Nicole Krauss’s first novel in seven years; set in the Israeli desert, it’s the tale of a high-powered lawyer and a young novelist, both in transition – Sept 12
• Solar Bones by Mike McCormack was nominated for the Man Booker Prize last year – it’s a novel about All Soul’s Day described as “lyrical” – and written all in one sentence – Sept 12
• Defying Reality: The Inside Story of the Virtual Reality Revolution by David Ewalt – Sept 12
• A Sick Life is Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins’ memoir about the early days of the group TLC and her lifelong struggle with sickle cell disease – Sept 12
• In Unbelievable, NBC White House correspondent Katy Tur shares tales of DC – Sept 12
• Little Fires Everywhere is the second novel from Celeste Ng, a portrait of suburbia and family, creativity, and consumerism – Sept 12
• The Twelve-Mile Straight is the latest from bestselling author Eleanor Henderson; set in rural Georgia during the Depression, it’s the tale of two babies – one light-skinned, the other dark – born to a white sharecropper’s daughter – Sept 12
• The Origin of Others is a collection of lectures delivered by Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison at Harvard on the role of race in American literature – Sept 19
• The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott is set in early 20^th-century Brooklyn and the present day, focusing on a widow, her daughter and the nuns in their community – Sept 19
• Bunny Mellon: The Life of An American Style Legend by Meryl Gordon is based on the socialite’s diaries and letters – Sept 26
• Five-Carat Soul is James McBride’s first collection of short stories – Sept 26
• In Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck (translated by Susan Bernofsky), a retired professor from the former East Berlin finds common cause with a group of African refugees – Sept 26

See other September 2017 Events:

Travel

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