Three Jews and a Persian; Patience; Ben Kweller; Punk Rock Aerobics; Ute Lemper; Scene Creamers; Marianne Nowottny; Michelangelo Signorile; Private Lives
You keep saying you want the best for your kids; and yet there is Isaiah Sheffer, working his fingers to the bone trying to make the Upper West Side just as culturally edifying and eclectic a place as it was when you and your friends were young nippers?but you're dragging the tots off to street fairs and museums. Forget face painting and the butterfly room. Forget the zoo. Starting Thurs., May 9, Albert Bergeret's New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players present Patience, or Bunthorne's Bride?arguably the most delightful and piquant of the G&S operettas. This is literate family entertainment at its best. For weeks, your little Savoyards will be using words like "transcendental" and "peripatetic." You won't know where to hide. Thurs.-Sat. at 8, Sat. & Sun. at 3, May 9-12 & 16-19, at Symphony Space, 2537 B'way (95th St.), 864-5400.
Ben Kweller was supposed to be grunge's next big thing in 1997, when he was 16, but it turned out that grunge's next big thing was death, and so his high school punk band, Radish, fizzled out. Since then Kweller has dropped out of sight, worked on his craft and gotten much better. He moved back to playing piano and singing straight pop songs, and his new album, Sha Sha, is a must for anyone who digs Weezer, Counting Crows, Ben Folds Five, Moxy Früvous or Pavement. Kweller may look like Beck lite and market himself to teenage girls, but when he sings, "And don't bother me when I'm watching Planet of the Apes on TV/That's right," you realize that the gift of observant, affecting songwriting got passed into Generation Y somehow. Kweller plays Fri., May 10, 7:15 p.m., at Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard St. (betw. Church St. & B'way), 219-3055.
Punk Rock Aerobics comes to CBGB?where else is more appropriate to undo the pre-summer chicken body and damage done from countless late-night drinking binges? Certified instructors Hilken Mancini and Maura Jasper will lead you through an hour and a half of cardio, weights and strength-building exercises, including guitar kicks, windmills and other choreographed moves you probably won't see at the gym. Mike Watt provides singalong tunes by the Ramones, Stooges, Sex Pistols, the Real Kids and the like on the 1 & 2's. Sat., May 11, 3 p.m., at CB's 313 Gallery, 313 Bowery (Bleecker St.), 677-0455; www.punkrockaerobics.com.
It's the Weimar all over again whenever Ute Lemper sings. This is cabaret, not Cabaret. Besides her not-coincidental evocations of Dietrich, Lemper puts her own smoky stamp on the classic cabaret canon of Brecht-Weill, Brel, Piaf, et al. She's the real deal (which is why tickets are $35), and is finishing up a run at Joe's Pub this week, through May 12. 425 Lafayette St. (betw. 4th St. & Astor Pl.), 539-8770.
Wait with bated Gitanes-stained breath for the New York debut of the new Ian Svenonius/Michelle Mae project, the Scene Creamers. Last seen together in cartoon indie-rock act the Make-Up, we're curious to hear if the two scene icons add any new punchlines to their stylish repertoire. More Prince-like shrieks, shellacked beehives and Arthur Lee worship? Frankly, all gorgeous Mae needs to do is look bored holding a bass to earn her per diem. Last year, Svenonius jetsetted to Sao Paolo to channel his trippy David Candy alter ego, and if the Scene Creamers are half as interesting, we'll happily switch trains three times to get to Greenpoint's Warsaw. Sun., May 12, 261 Driggs Ave. (betw. Eckford & Leonard Sts.), Brooklyn, 718-387-5252.
She's in college now and growing out of her wunderkind stage, but Marianne Nowottny is still a wonder. This blonde beauty and idiosyncratic young visionary continues to write and sing a canon of almost hermetically personal songs that are like nothing else on Earth. Her keyboards wander through an unruly garden of sounds and melody fragments, from rinky-dinky ditties to lugubrious dirges to warped calliope jollity, while she slides her voice over and around like Marlene Dietrich on a stiff regimen of psychedelics. We're not quite sure how she got booked on the Alchemy goth night at CB's 313 Gallery?must be those lugubrious dirges?but that's where she'll be Mon., May 13, 11 p.m. 313 Bowery (Bleecker St.), 677-0455.
Tired of CNN's boring commentary, the bogus terrorism alerts and endless Catholic hypocrisy that have saturated the airwaves and taken up precious space in newspapers? For a unique and no-bullshit take on the news, watch New York Press columnist Michelangelo Signorile expound on this topic: "GLBT Politics in George W. Bush's Post-9/11 America." It's Tues., May 14, 7 p.m., at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, 208 W. 13th St. (betw. 7th & 8th Aves.), 620-7310.
Oh God, another London import, and a revival no less. Well, yeah?but this version of Private Lives, Noel Coward's comedy of veddy, veddy bad manners, is actually worth seeing. For one thing, it stars Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan, the king and queen of psychosexual nastiness, reunited for the first time since their 80s turn in Les Liaisons Dangeureuses. Also, Rickman may be playing the first openly heterosexual Elyot in the history of the role?which makes for some pretty hot stuff. Like that scene toward the end of the first act where they're trying to keep their hands off each other. ("How was China?" "Very big." "And Japan?" "Very small.") Hubba, hubba. Tues.-Sat. at 8, Sat. at 2, Sun. at 3, through Sept. 8, at the Richard Rodgers Theater, 226 W. 46th St. (betw. B'way & 8th Ave.), 307-4100.