Andrew Bird stages The Mysterious Production of Eggs at Rumsey: Aug 3 – Aug 9

Hi theater fans — a thin week for staged work, and honest about it. The one thing with real theatrical shape is Thursday at Rumsey, where Andrew Bird performs a twenty-year-old record in full with an orchestra behind him. Around it: tango at the Shakespeare Statue Saturday evening, an amphitheater set at Summit Rock, and a Barefoot Shakespeare run at the end of the month to put in your calendar now.

Weather this week

Monday is wet at 81°F, Tuesday clears to 83°F, then the heat builds through 87°F Thursday to 88°F Friday, Saturday and Sunday, each with a late-afternoon thunderstorm chance. Thursday’s Rumsey performance carries some weather risk after dark and Saturday’s outdoor tango is exposed at 6 PM, so check before you commit to either — the rest of the week’s programming is indoors or shaded.

Thu Aug 6, 8 PM — Andrew Bird with the Wordless Music Orchestra, Rumsey Playfield

Free, SummerStage, with Surma opening. Bird is performing The Mysterious Production of Eggs in its entirety for the album’s twentieth anniversary, orchestrated for the Wordless Music Orchestra. It belongs in this email rather than a music one because of how it’s built — a complete work performed start to finish, in sequence, with an ensemble reinterpreting material originally made by one man and a loop pedal. That’s a revival, structurally speaking, and Wordless Music has spent two decades doing this kind of translation between forms.

Practical notes: no tickets, but the 72nd Street entrance backs up from around 6 and this is the highest-demand show of the week. Arrive by 6:30. Gates at Rumsey, seating is standing-room and grass.

Sat Aug 8, 6–9 PM — tango at the Shakespeare Statue

Shakespeare Statue Plaza, on the Mall. A social tango session that runs weekly on Saturday evenings through the end of August — Aug 8, 15, 22 and 29. Performance in the loosest sense: nobody is staging anything, but the plaza works as a natural playing space and watching from the edge for half an hour is one of the better free hours in the park. 88°F and exposed, so it’s more comfortable at 8 than at 6.

Earlier the same day, Jack in the Park plays the Summit Rock amphitheater, 4 to 7 PM — Summit Rock is the highest point in the park and the natural bowl below it is a genuinely good outdoor venue that almost nothing uses. Worth seeing what it does with sound.

Fri Aug 7, 7 PM — Funk Flex Birthday R&B Picnic, Rumsey

Free. Not theater, but it’s the second of the week’s two Rumsey nights and the bill — Jon B, Fonda Rae, Taana Gardner, Strafe, Dres from Black Sheep — is a lineage act rather than a concert, four decades of New York dance music performed by the people who made it. If Thursday’s your only night out, take Thursday. If you can do both, this is the more social one.

Sun Aug 9, 2 PM — Uptown Royalty at the Dana Discovery Center

Free, part of Summer on the Harlem Meer, which runs 9 to 6. A performance program at the north end of the park, in a setting most downtown theatergoers never make it to. The Conservancy has kept this slot filled all summer and it’s consistently the most interesting free performance north of the Reservoir.

Mon Aug 3 and Wed Aug 5 — dark

Free movies on the Great Lawn Monday at 7, weather permitting, and nothing whatsoever on Wednesday — an empty day park-wide.

Put in the calendar

Barefoot Shakespeare, Aug 28 and 29 at Summit Rock, 3 PM both days. Their August performances, outdoors, free, in the amphitheater. That’s the closest thing to real outdoor Shakespeare on the park’s calendar this summer, and it’s three and a half weeks out. The Delacorte remains absent from our data — no Shakespeare in the Park run dates have been published to any source we track, and we’ll flag it the day they appear.

Quick recap

• Thu 8 PM, Rumsey: Andrew Bird performs The Mysterious Production of Eggs in full with the Wordless Music Orchestra. Free, Surma opening, arrive 6:30.
• Sat 6–9 PM: tango at the Shakespeare Statue — weekly through Aug 29.
• Sat 4–7 PM: Jack in the Park at the Summit Rock amphitheater.
• Sun 2 PM: Uptown Royalty at the Dana Discovery Center, free.
• Aug 28–29, 3 PM: Barefoot Shakespeare at Summit Rock. Book the date now.
• Still nothing from the Delacorte. No published run dates in any source we track.
• Monday and Wednesday are dark.

To the next curtain, The Central Park Guide