Baltimore adolescents in poodle skirts hit the Broadway stage in John Waters’s Cry-Baby—but will this classic indie flick turned musical do as well as its predecessor, Hairspray? It’ll definitely be a box-office throwdown between Tracy Turnblad and Wade “Cry-Baby” Walker (though we’re not sure Broadway newbie James Snyder will make us swoon the way Johnny Depp did). The eclectic group of actors will have to pull off roles once played by Ricki Lake, Tracy Lords, and Iggy Pop, so they have their work cut out for them. more at this venue

Paul Chan’s work doesn’t merely hang on a wall—it also exists on the floors and ceilings. In reflected light and shadow, the elements of city life emerge, evoking politics, poetry, war, death, and desire. The 7 Lights, Chan’s first major exhibition in the U.S., takes as its underlying theme the seven days of creation, but makes it seem like a hallucination. And some of Chan’s work may already feel eerily familiar: His posters are displayed throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. more at this venue

Dear friends: I’m sorry if we made plans this month. I have to cancel. For the next five weeks, I will be dining only on popcorn at the Film Forum concession stand during the run of its Godard ’60s! series, where all of Jean-Luc Godard’s greatest ground-breaking, anarchic works from the 1960s (21 in all!) will be screened. If you’d like, you could join me tonight to see Breathless, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo as a wanted criminal who seduces the blonde pixie Jean Seberg (ooh la la!). Or we could see A Woman Is a Woman (May 11-13), in which Anna Karina (Godard’s muse and then-wife) plays a stripper who desperately wants to be a mother; Masculine Feminine (May 25-27), a raucous portrait of the ’60s youth culture in Paris; or Sympathy for the Devil (May 27), featuring a young Mick Jagger at a recording session. Or just pick any day—I’ll be waiting in the lobby. more at this venue

The New York African Film Festival celebrates its 15th anniversary with a lineup of 40 films from 22 countries throughout Africa and the African Diaspora. Titled “Cinema and History: Africa and the Future,” this year's program emphasizes history and storytelling, technology and the future. Highlights of this year's festival include a tribute commemorating the life of the "Father of African Cinema," the late Ousmane Sembène and Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka will be honored on Saturday, April 12, at the Centerpiece Celebration with the U.S. premiere of The African Slave Trades: Across the Indian Ocean. For more information, go to africanfilmny.org. more at this venue

If you’ve ever wanted to twirl like a flamenco dancer or tap your feet like Fred Astaire, National Dance Week is the perfect time for anyone who hasn’t gotten moving to start! Beginning today, studios such as Ailey Extensions, the American Tap Dance Foundation, Djoniba Dance & Drum Center, Power Pilates, the Hip-Hop Dance Conservatory, and many others are offering free classes. Newcomers can try out just about every dance form known to man and then keep the party rolling long after the week of freebies is over. There’s also a performance that includes ballet, jazz, lyrical, Latin, and Middle Eastern dances on Sunday to show you how fabulously you’ll be able to move if you stick the program out. more at this venue

Art-book publisher powerHouse Books makes good on its promise to commandeer much of its Brooklyn neighborhood, DUMBO, for an impressively ambitious event: the New York Photo Festival. Teaming up with the VII Photo Agency, powerHouse has corralled 12 different spaces on eight city blocks for what should be a photography lover’s nirvana. The four-day event includes workshops, live performances, seminars, slide shows, and an awards ceremony. Curated by Martin Parr (Magnum), Kathy Ryan (New York Times Magazine picture editor), Lesley A. Martin (the Aperture Foundation), and Tim Barber (TinyVices.com), the festival will announce winners in categories ranging from editorial, unpublished, and multimedia to advertising, personal, fashion, and more. more at this venue

Carey Lovelace, curator of “Making It Together,” a Bronx Museum exhibition inspired by the feminist movement of the ’70s, is taking it to the streets—marching band and all. As an extension of that exhibition, A Day of Collaborative Performance is a six-hour event pushing the boundaries of art coming to life. The “Waitresses Marching Band” kicks off the festivities and later serves drinks during “Unhappy Hour” (women pay 77 cents, men pay $1—to dramatize the inequalities in pay). And another highlight: The artistic duo Ridykeulous will create “That Looks Really Cute On You!”—a sculpture made up of plaster and found objects—and then smash it at the end. more at this venue

Last year’s first annual Dance Parade was a nice reminder of the spunk we still have in this town. Created to unify the dance community, celebrate its diversity, and basically have a damn good time, it showed the world that even with all the city’s sanitization, we still know how to work it. Thousands of breakers, hoofers, Irish steppers, and everyone in between put on their dopest gear to swing, tap, and shimmy their way down Broadway. It was the party of the season, and this year will be no different: The dancers and organizations are signed up, the floats are prepped, and the costumes are ready. The best part is, anyone can join in, whether you register to dance or watch from the sidelines. And even if you don’t make it to the parade, there’s always the after-party, a free, four-hour festival in Tompkins Square Park with slick beats (compliments of DJ Jonathan Peters), performances, and dance lessons. Just follow the dancers! more at this venue

“Literary geniuses” doesn’t seem like an appropriate moniker for the writers of a franchise of books full of lies, and yet, somehow, they sort of are. Some of the faux factoids found in Our Dumb World: Atlas of the Planet Earth: “The average German is comprised of 12 right angles and six 45-degree angles . . . The Republic of Congo, though not a perfect nation by its own admission, is always quick to point out that at least it is doing a heck of a lot better than the Democratic Republic of Congo . . . December 2003: U.S. forces remove Saddam Hussein from a hole in the ground, only to put him back into a hole in the ground three years later.” Tonight, authors Mike DiCenzo and Dan Guterman, also known as editors of The Onion, present a slide show of their geographical musings, “covering most of the 10-or-so continents.” more at this venue

Obie Award–winning writer and performer David Greenspan, who was just nominated for a Drama League Award for his work in The Beebo Brinker Chronicles, wraps up Target Margin Theater’s terrific two-season exploration of Greek works with an adaptation called Old Comedy (from Aristophanes’ Frogs). While the story itself is ancient, its themes are as fresh as ever: Set in Athens during a terrible, losing war without political leadership, the play concerns a group of heroes who go in search of a poet with the wisdom to save them—a task that ends up being far more difficult than they can imagine. David Herskovits, artistic director of Target Margin, directs. more at this venue

For women, making it into the boardroom in the 1980s was fraught with a very different set of concerns than Omarosa’s 15 minutes on The Apprentice. Caryl Churchill’s Broadway premiere of Top Girls takes us back to the decade of decadence at London’s Top Girls Employment Agency, where Marlene (played by Elizabeth Marvel) celebrates her climb to success as head of the company. With an all-star cast featuring Mary Beth Hurt, Martha Plimpton, and Marisa Tomei, the show prompts us to question whether the sacrifices we’re willing to make and the values we place on getting ahead in a so-called man’s world are really worth the ride. more at this venue

Originally scheduled to run at the Signature in 2002, Edward Albee’s Occupant was canceled during previews when its star, Anne Bancroft, came down with pneumonia. Now, Tony winner Mercedes Ruehl is onboard to portray the late acclaimed sculptor (and Albee friend) Louise Nevelson—ably abetted by the excellent Larry Bryggman—in this story about the charismatic artist’s life and career. Though the entire eight-week run sold out while the show was still in rehearsals, it’s been extended another week and, last we heard, tickets were still available. (The catch: They’re now $65 instead of $20.) Pam MacKinnon, who staged the hit revival of Albee’s Peter and Jerry at Second Stage earlier this season, directs. more at this venue

Summer’s almost here, which means that the Ensemble Studio Theatre’s annual array of one-acts, Marathon 2008, is back to delight us with 15 new short plays on alternating programs. For its 30th anniversary, EST brings us works by brilliant award winners (David Auburn, Neil LaBute), talented newcomers (Anne Washburn, Amy Herzog), and established veterans (Frank Gilroy, José Rivera). Highlights include a solo piece by the always-entertaining drag artist Taylor Mac and a play titled Japanoir by the Voice’s own Michael Feingold. more at this venue

In their novelty-drunk neck of the woods (Brooklyn), Blood on the Wall get points just for acknowledging a bunch of good ideas that other people had first: layered, gauzy, shimmering production; jokes about drugs; and mewling male/female vocals—by a brother and sister, no less. Their Liferz—the title perhaps a nod to an obvious lifelong immersion in the music they play—is one of the year’s most sublime, equal parts cascading melodies, nausea, and romance. Touchstones—Sonic Youth, Pixies, My Bloody Valentine—abound. But the band’s trick is to flip their awe into art: music about loving music, from a band that’s atypically easy to like. With Cause Co-Motion, Lights, and Abigail Warchild. more at this venue