(Michael's Apartment, 37 West 26th Street, 12th, New York, NY 10001) (Wd-Sa 8PM, Sa 4PM & Sun 5PM) The Boys in the Band represents a major milestone in American theatre as the first play to openly portray the pleasures, miseries and private lives of gay men. The Boys in the Band is set during Harold's 32nd birthday party. The evening begins as a hilarious and spirited celebration among friends until unexpected guests and games reveal tensions that unravel these men's souls. The party moves to a heart-wrenching, and climactic end. Don't miss this rare opportunity to see one of the theatre's most groundbreaking and important plays. ($38) Event Website

(The Kirk @ Theatre Row, 410 West 42nd St, New York, NY 10036) The sold out smash sensation returns to NYC! On the run from an arranged marriage, Isabella puts her life and happiness into the hands of her friend Violante. How far will Violante go to keep Isabella’s secret? Fiery brothers, amorous Englishmen, lovers in closets, daring getaways, passionate breakups and tearful reconciliations are but a few of the delights in store. The Queen’s Company’s celebrated all-female cast stars in Susanna Centlivre’s luscious Restoration Comedy of Intrigue. One of the most popular shows of the 1700’s, it played in London and toured the colonies (including NYC) for over 100 years. ($18) Event Website

(City Ice Pavilion, 47-32 32nd Place, Long Island City, NY, NY 11101) Whether you’re lacing up skates for the first time, or you’re an experienced skater, you will love ice skating at the City Ice Pavilion, New York’s only roof-top skating facility. There's also ice hockey, figure skating and skating lessons. Santa will be there every Saturday & Sunday until Christmas, and he's bringing his skates! ($5 - $8, $6 skate rental) Event Website

(The Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Ave, New York, NY 10128) The quintessential modernist, Man Ray recast the concept of artistic identity, working as a painter, photographer, sculptor, printmaker, filmmaker, poet, and essayist. He perpetually tinkered with material at hand, putting to ingenious use the practical skills learned in a variety of jobs, from advertising to mapmaking to engraving. Event Website

(Discovery Times Square Exposition, 226 West 44th St, New York, NY 10036) (10am - 10pm) Explore Leonardo da Vinci’s 500 year old inventions from his actual notebooks as they are brought to life in in this world premiere exhibit. Discover how his visions for an airplane, automobile and bridge would have worked – long before they became the modern world’s reality. Plus, uncover the translations and hidden meanings behind the mastermind’s paintings, sketches and notebooks through innovative digital technology. ($17.50 - $19.50) Event Website

(North end of Central Park near 110th St & Lenox Ave) Get caught up in the joy of the winter season by gliding across Lasker Rink with two oval rinks: one for high school hockey teams and one for all ages. ($6.25 (children under 12 $3.50); skate rental $5.50) Event Website

(Central Park South, 59th St & 6th Ave) Wollman Rink is a popular skating choice and is apt to be crowded during peak times (especially weekends). ($10.25 ($5 children) wkdays; $14.75 wknds ($5.75 children); skate rentals $6.25) Event Website

(Lucille Lortel Theatre, 121 Christopher St, New York, NY 10014) Oliver, Philip and Sylvia are caught in a kind of erotic time warp. Their complex love triangle, replete with conflicting loyalties and passions, jumps from 1958 to the present and back in a maelstrom of fantasy, repression and rebellion in this innovative new drama. After taking London by storm last season in an Olivier Award-winning production at the Royal Court, The Pride now makes its American premiere. Tony Award-winning director Joe Mantello (Take Me Out, Blackbird) joins playwright Alexi Kaye Campbell (Apologia) to stage this alternately tough and touching look at love. The cast stars Hugh Dancy, Ben Whishaw, Andrea Riseborough, and Adam James. Event Website

(Leslie/Lohman Gallery, 26 Wooster St, New York, NY 10013) (6pm to 8pm) The Leslie/Lohman Gallery presents Drawn Together, a three-part exhibition of well over 500 works on paper. Curated by Rob Hugh Rosen, this show contains both drawings of men together and images of men created by men drawing together. (FREE) ((212) 431-2609) [email protected] Event Website

(Abrons Arts Center at Henry Street Settlement, 466 Grand St, New York, NY 10002) New Orleans has midwifed every existing form of indigenous American music, from jazz to blues to funk, and hip-hop is the newest manifestation of that tradition. Where They At portrays the founders, architects, and players in New Orleans rap, or Bounce, a community-based phenomenon that gets little attention from the mainstream music press. Photographs, oral histories, and footage document the passing of seminal beats in New Orleans soul to a new generation in the late 1980’s and the creation of a new voice in Southern roots music. A line is traced to the present-day diaspora, as Hurricane Katrina has scattered a once tight-knit Bounce community whose music only existed at home — a home that has been redefined physically and culturally. Event Website

(Museum of Arts & Design, 2 Columbus Circle, New York, NY 10019) Slash: Paper Under the Knife takes the pulse of the international art world's renewed interest in paper as a creative medium and source of artistic inspiration, examining the remarkably diverse use of paper in a range of art forms. Slash is the third exhibition in MAD's Materials and Process series, which examines the renaissance of traditional handcraft materials and techniques in contemporary art and design. The exhibition surveys unusual paper treatments, including works that are burned, torn, cut by lasers, and shredded. A section of the exhibition will focus on artists who modify books to transform them into sculpture, while another will highlight the use of cut paper for film and video animations. Selected artists will be commissioned to create site-specific or site-referential works, and others will be invited to create work onsite in MAD's three artist studios that will subsequently be installed in the exhibition. ($15/Thur 6-9pm by donation) Event Website

(FIT, 27th St & 7th Ave, New York, NY 10001) The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) presents the first exhibition to explore how the "philosophy of beauty" is allied to the craft of dressmaking. Each of the 75 looks on display was chosen to exemplify the relationship between technical ingenuity and artistic excellence. Curator Patricia Mears has focused on approximately 25 American fashion designers, ranging from the obscure, such as Jessie Franklin Turner, whose work dates from the late 1910s, to rising stars of the present day, such as the Mulleavy sisters of Rodarte. Other designers featured include Adrian, Bonnie Cashin, Maria Cornejo, James Galanos, Halston, Elizabeth Hawes, Charles James, Charles Kleibacker, Claire McCardell, Norman Norell, Rick Owens, Ralph Rucci, Isabel Toledo, Pauline Trigère, Valentina, Yeohlee, and Jean Yu. (FREE) Event Website

(New York Botanical Garden, 200th Street and Kazimiroff Boulevard, Bronx, NY 10458) (10AM- 5PM) Experience the tropical beauty of Old Havana in bloom featuring thousands of orchids and native plants in Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. Exotic floral displays through architectural scenes transport visitors to the romantic intrigue of Cuba. Chocolate and Vanilla Adventures in the Everett Children's Adventure Garden give families an interactive look the vanilla orchid and the cacao tree. ($20) Event Website

(New World Stages, 340 W 50th St, New York, NY 10019) (Mo,Wd, Thu, Fr & sa 8PM Sa 2PM Su 3 & 7PM) This is the story of two men - the communist Harry Hay and the Viennese refugee and designer Rudi Gernreich - as they fall in love while building the first gay rights organization in the United States pre Stonewall. The play weaves together the personal and political to tell a relatively unknown chapter in gay history. It explores the love between two complex men, as their impossible dream of forming such an unheard of organization becomes a reality in this perilous, unpredictable world. It is an intimate portrayal of the men who created history and the epic struggles they overcame. The characters consist of the actual men who founded the Mattachine Society (Harry Hay, Rudi Gernreich, Chuck Rowland, Bob Hull, and Dale Jennings), as well as other prominent figures of the time in Hollywood and the film industry as well as the world of fashion. Event Website

(Rockefeller Center, 45 Rockefeller Plaza, 5th to 7th Aves, 47 to 51st Sts, New York, NY 10111) The most famous city rink of them all. ($9.50+, skate rental $8) Event Website

(LGBT Community Center, 208 West 13th St, New York, NY 10011) Welcome Home: Building the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, is the first project of its kind- a documentary photography exhibition about the herstoric Festival by photographer Angela Jimenez. Opening Reception: Feb 18, 6pm. (FREE) Event Website

(Chelsea Art Museum, 556 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011) (11am-6pm) An extraordinary 24 ft. long “Silent Flower” painting was transported from Tokyo to blanket the walls of the Chelsea Art Museum. Kotaro Fukui is a Japanese artist who created this masterwork by applying gold foil to washi, a handmade Japanese paper, employing brush ink to create stems and leaves, and then superimposing blue lapis lazuli pigment on the result. The precious blue stone powder is simultaneously subtle in application but powerful in affect. (free with admission)

(Broadhurst Theatre, 235 West 44th Street, New York, NY 10036) The play presents a dramatic and fictionalized account of the confrontation between Mary, Queen of Scots and her cousin, Elizabeth I of England. Event Website

(MoMA, 11 West 53 St, New York, NY 10019) This major career retrospective on Tim Burton, consisting of a gallery exhibition and a film series, considers Burton's career as a director, producer, writer, and concept artist for live-action and animated films, along with his work as a fiction writer, photographer and illustrator. Following the current of his visual imagination from early childhood drawings through his mature work, the exhibition presents artwork generated during the conception and production of his films, and highlights a number of unrealized projects and never-before-seen pieces, as well as student art, his earliest non-professional films, and examples of his work as a storyteller and graphic artist for non-film projects. Event Website

(Chelsea Art Museum, 556 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011) (open Tu - Sa 11am to 6pm Th 11am to 8pm closed Su) Miotte’s artistic influences include performance, choreography, jazz music and Ballet, and of these his most seminal influence is Ballet. In London in 1948 he did set design and saw the work of Balanchine, the Diaghilev Ballet and Margot Fonteyn. Being exposed to this variety of art was of profound inspiration to him. Dance is the universal language of non-verbal communication, evident through performance. Miotte would experiment with gesture through painting and hone lyrical movement in his own art. ($8, $4)