Pop supreme Ariana Grande’s Sweetener World Tour crisscrossed the globe this year bringing platinum singles like “Thank U, Next,” “No Tears Left to Cry,” and “7 Rings” to stages from New York to Norway. Grande swings back alongside Social House, with whom she collaborated on the late-summer hit “Boyfriend.”
Barclays Center, November 12. Buy tickets here.

A troika of Richard Serra shows across three Gagosian galleries is an occasion to behold the profundities of steel and form in the hands of a living master of both. In Reverse Curve, a curving 99-foot-long, 13-foot-high slab leans in, then out, and comes on like a wave, a whale. Beauty stands in place of awe. The runny finish of the steel resembles red-velvet cake. It’s as sensuous to see as the poetry of material is to glean here.
Gagosian, 980 Madison Avenue, through November 2; 555 West 24th Street, through December 7; 522 West 21st Street, through February 1.

Jeremy O. Harris’s darkly funny play about sex and race in America has made it to Broadway with all its sense of provocation intact. There’s an explosive energy to this thought-provoking work, which freely references everything from psychotherapyspeak to Rihanna.
Golden Theatre, through January 19. Buy tickets here.

America’s largest documentary festival celebrates its tenth anniversary with its fattest-ever slate. You get profile docs, investigative docs, activist docs, music docs, and a handy showcase of year-end-awards contenders, along with appearances by some of nonfiction film’s biggest names. Opening night is Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band with Robertson in attendance. Closing night is The Capote Tapes, a hard look at the tell-all magnum opus that drove Truman Capote into social exile.
Cinépolis Chelsea, IFC Center, and SVA Theatre, November 6 to 15. Buy tickets here.

Of all the Best Picture noms from 2000’s Oscars, the only one that still seems to deserve the honor is Michael Mann’s riveting, ambitious, and prescient drama about Big Tobacco’s big lies and the cowardice of media execs in the face of corporate intimidation. Al Pacino plays 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman, and a young Russell Crowe plays whistle-blower Jeffrey Wigand.
MoMA, November 1. Reserve tickets here.

Maybe the closest you can get to a perfect musical comedy, Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s B-movie farce about a man-eating plant gets a true-to-form revival Off Broadway. Jonathan Groff lends his pristine pipes to the nerdy Seymour, with Tammy Blanchard as Audrey and Christian Borle as the devious dentist.
Westside Theatre, through January 19. Buy tickets here.

The late Hannah Wilke was one of the most powerful artists of her time. In this show of “performalist” self-portraits, chewing-gum vulva sculptures, and pointed texts about the patriarchy and the ways she was discriminated against throughout her career, her longtime gallery has done a tremendous job of making sure no one forgets this. Wilke’s works are as relevant today as when she made them.
Ronald Feldman Gallery, 31 Mercer Street, through November 30.

Ntozake Shange’s landmark “choreopoem,” which folds in dance and song, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf returns to the Public for the first time since it premiered in 1976. Obie winner Leah C. Gardiner directs, with choreography from recent Tony nominee Camille A. Brown.
The Public Theater, through December 1. Buy tickets here.

The New York Comedy Festival, as always, is stacked this year. Your best bet for belly-busting laughs? Vulture’s Megh Wright recommends Decolonize Your Mind, Astronomy Club, Sarah Squirm, Seek Culture, the Exhibition with Joel Kim Booster and Nikki Glaser, and heavyweights like Jenny Slate, Stephen Colbert, and Nick Kroll.
Various locations, November 4 to 10.