September in New York is when the city snaps back to life, and the cabaret rooms and conversation stages are already filling with some seriously intriguing names. Sylvester Stallone, Heated Rivalry, Ariana DeBose, Linda Eder and Tony Danza are among those bringing star power, stories and music to the month ahead. From intimate performances to conversations that take us behind the celebrity curtain, September offers plenty of reasons to pull up a chair and listen. T2C takes a look at who’s talking, who’s singing and where you’ll want to be.

54 Below: 254 West 54 St. 9/8 – 9: Claybourne Elder: Can I Tell You Something?; 9/11-12; Charles Busch Sings Johnny Mercer; 9/13: Ben Franklin In Paris; 9/16: Michael Cerveris: The Other Part; 9/18 -19: Ute Lemper: Celebrating Marlene Dietrich’s 125th Birthday; 9/22: Seth Sikes with Tedd Firth: Together at Last! Feat. Marilyn Maye; 9/23 and 27: Linda Eder; 9/24 and  26: Orfeh: Unbound and 9/29 – 30: Jeanna de Waal: Songs I Love to Sing.

92 Street Y: 1395 Lexington Ave. 9/9: Jaclyn Smith in Conversation: Beyond Charlie’s Angels; 9/17: STARZ’s Outlander: Blood of my Blood; 9/18: Cabaret Conversations: Lindsay Mendez; 9/23: StarTalk Live! with Neil deGrasse Tyson: Lost in Space; 9/27: Gloria Steinem in Conversation with Katie Couric: An Unexpected Life; 9/28: CBS Sunday Morning at 92NY: Sylvester Stallone in Conversation with Tracy Smith: The Steps; 9/29: Harry Connick, Jr. in Conversation — Babe: Elaboratio and 9/30: Fashion Icons with Fern Mallis: Ian Schrager.

Eliane Elias

Birdland Jazz: 315 West 44 St. Every Monday Jim Caruso’s Cast party; Every Monday and Tuesday: Vince Giordano leads The Nighthawks; Every Sunday Gabrielle Stravelli Trio;  9/ 15 – 19: Eliane Elias; 9/21: A Night With Nicole Henry and 9/28: Karen Mason.

Karen Mason Photo by Maryann Lopinto

Carnegie Hall: 881 7th Ave at 57th St.

Chelsea Table & Stage: Hilton Fashion District Hotel, 152 W 26th St. 9/9: An Evening With Mairéad; 9/13: Charlie Romo.

Dizzys Club Coca Cola: Frederick P. Rose Hall, Broadway at 60th Street. 9/4 -6: Ann Hampton Callaway I Get A Kick Out Of Cole.

Don’t Tell Mama: 343 W. 46 St. 9/9 and 16: Jeff Harnar: Blame It On My Youth; 9/10: Tanya Moberly: Repertoire With Sean Harkness; 9/24: Tanya Moberly: Repertoire With Ian Herman; 9/26: Steven Carl McCasland: Everybody Rise!

Laurie Beechman Theatre: at the West Bank Café: 407 West 42 St. 9/5:Lillias White Live At The Beechman; 9/8: Alice Ripley and John McDaniel; 9/12: Andrea McArdle’s Broadway On Demand; 9/16: Lorna Luft; 9/16: Lauren Marcus; 9/24: Lorna Dallas and 9/27:Donna McKechnie.

Donna McKechnie

Madame George: 45 West 45th: Broadway Night Mondays.

Ariana DeBose Photo by Genevieve Rafter Keddy

The Café Carlyle: 35 East 76 St. at Madison Ave. 9/8 – 19: Tony Danza: More Standards & Stories; 9/21 -26: Susanna Hoffs: and 9/29 – 10/3: Ariana DeBose.

Alicia Witt

The Cutting Room: 44 East 32nd St. 9/12: ALICIA WITT; 9/14: BROADWAY TAKES ON THE 80S; 9/17: BROADWAY SINGS ABBA

The DJango: 2 Avenue of the Americas. 9/18: Lee Taylor and 9/29: People of the Earth.

The Iridium: 1650 Broadway. 8/29: Papa Chubby

The Pierre Hotel, Two E Bar & Lounge: 2 E 61st St.

Sony Hall: 235 W 46th St. 9/21: Twin Peaks: A Conversation with the Stars

The Triad: 158 W. 72 St. Street. 9/5L: The Dozen Divas Show

The Town Hall: 123 W. 43 St. 9/27: Roger Daltrey A Great Night Out; 9/28: Stagedoor 50: A One-Night-Only Concert celebrating 50 Years of Stagedoor Manor Benefiting the Entertainment Community Fund and 9/29:  Heated Rivalry! Release

There is something deeply unsettling about encountering Anton Chekhov’s Ivanov shortly after someone you knew has taken his own life.

We recently lost Josh Grisetti to suicide at 44. Josh seemed to have everything: extraordinary talent, intelligence, humor, a career, people who cared about him and presumably decades still ahead. Yet what someone appears to have from the outside tells us very little about what it feels like to inhabit his life from within. Sitting through writer-director Laura Strausfeld’s 100-minute adaptation, The Real Ivanov, I couldn’t stop thinking about that.

Chekhov’s Ivanov (Sam Underwood) is a provincial Russian gentleman of property in his 30s who has reached the unbearable realization that he is not the man he intended to become. He is educated but aimless, broke, his estate is failing, and his wife is dying of consumption. Worse, he no longer loves her and wonders if he ever did. He sees his own failures with excruciating clarity and hates himself for them, but possesses neither the energy nor the belief necessary to change.

That is what makes Ivanov so difficult and, for certain people, so painfully recognizable. This is not simply a play about depression. It is about what happens when you cannot stomach your own existence as it has become. Human beings find innumerable ways to escape themselves—alcohol, drugs, sex, work, food, addiction, distraction, but what happens when you are too sensitive to what you see, including what you see in yourself, and none of the exits actually takes you away?

Chekhov wrote Ivanov in the 1880s, when depression was neither understood nor treated as it is today. Ivanov is surrounded instead by people who diagnose him morally. He is selfish. He is weak. He is cruel. He is lazy. He should pull himself together. Some of those accusations aren’t entirely wrong, which is what makes Chekhov far more interesting than a simple portrait of a suffering man. Ivanov behaves terribly. The tragedy is that he knows it.

His wife Anna (Ivory Aquino) has given him everything. She is dying from consumption, knows her husband no longer loves her, and nevertheless clings desperately to what remains of their marriage. Ivanov betrays her, berates her and then despises himself for doing so. Anna’s devotion has become its own tragedy; in refusing to relinquish the man who has emotionally abandoned her, she gradually relinquishes herself.

Hovering around them is Anna’s pompously moral doctor, Eugene Lvov, played by a miscast and oddly out-of-place Elijah Guo. Elijah Guo fares considerably worse as Lvov, Anna’s pompously moral doctor. Guo seems completely out of his element onstage, delivering a performance without the technique, authority or theatrical presence the role requires. Lvov should be maddening in his absolute conviction of his own righteousness; here, the character becomes irritating for entirely the wrong reasons.Lvov is certain of everyone else’s moral failings while remaining remarkably blind to his own. Chekhov understood this species of human being particularly well: the person so convinced of his own righteousness that judgment itself becomes a character flaw.

Ivanov’s uncle is played with considerable spirit by Jordan Lage, although he sometimes seems to have wandered in from a somewhat different production. Sam Adegoke plays Ivanov’s shady cousin, who oversees the failing estate and begins the evening by pretending to shoot Ivanov—a gesture that becomes considerably darker in retrospect.

Amelia Mason, Sam Underwood all photo’s by Russ Rowland

Then there is Sasha, played with luminous subtlety by Amelia Mason, Sasha has been mad about Ivanov since girlhood and believes she can rescue him from himself. Her love is genuine, naive and dangerous in the particular way love becomes dangerous when we convince ourselves that wanting to save someone means we actually can.

Sasha’s wealthy, fumbling father is wonderfully played by Spencer Aste, who at moments reminded me enormously of Chip Zien. Sarah Long plays Sasha’s cold, stingy mother, while Kimberlee Walker supplies the giddiness as a widow intent upon marrying into royalty. Around Ivanov, friends, relatives, creditors and acquaintances continue talking, wanting, judging, scheming and living while he becomes progressively less capable of doing any of it.

Soph Metcalf, Amelia Mason, Spencer Aste, Sarah Long, Sam Underwood, Jordan Lage, William DeMeritt, and Kimberlee Walker all photo’s by Russ Roland

Strausfeld is right to cut Ivanov to 100 minutes. Chekhov’s point does not become more profound simply because we spend another hour getting there. The difficulty lies instead with a company composed largely of actors whose experience is rooted in television. Screen acting and stage acting require different muscles, and Chekhov is particularly unforgiving of the distinction. The camera can capture a thought barely registered across an actor’s face; onstage, that thought must somehow travel across the room without losing its truth. Here, some performances remain at camera scale while others are pitched toward the theatre, leaving the company without a unified language. The problem isn’t that Strausfeld has cut too much Chekhov. It is that not everyone onstage knows how to make the Chekhov she retained reach us.

Initiative Productions is fledgling, and it shows. The cast does not gel into a coherent world. Performers seem to be working in distinctly different acting styles; several roles are miscast, and some of the supporting performances simply aren’t yet equal to the demands of Chekhov. Strausfeld understands what she wants to say with the play, but she needs a company capable of speaking the same theatrical language.

Underwood initially left me uncertain, but his Ivanov grew on me as the evening progressed. There is something appropriate about not immediately being seduced by this man. Ivanov isn’t a romantic hero waiting for us to understand him. He is difficult, exhausted, unpleasant and increasingly trapped inside himself. Underwood eventually finds the suffocation underneath that behavior, and by the conclusion I understood the journey he was attempting.

Jiyoun Chang’s scenic design is minimal, with rugs spread across a planked floor delineating four locations. Ella Matza dresses this cross-section of humanity largely in tans and creams while separating Ivanov visually in black and white. He is already apart from them before he finally removes himself altogether.

William DeMeritt, Soph Metcalf, Sam Underwood, Sam Adegoke, Spencer Aste, Elijah Guo, Jordan Lage, Sarah Long, Amelia Mason, and Kimberlee Walker All Photo’s by Russ Roland

Strausfeld’s strongest theatrical idea comes at the end. A long red carpet becomes the setting as the people surrounding Ivanov chatter, posture, judge and reveal the extraordinary shallowness and narrowness of the world enclosing him. Humanity keeps talking while Ivanov is running out of reasons to listen. The staging becomes almost suffocating, and suddenly the uneven production finds the play’s pulse.

Sam Adegoke, Sam Underwood, Amelia Mason, and Spencer Aste all photo’s by Russ Rowland

That sequence struck me particularly hard because it didn’t feel confined to nineteenth-century Russia. Look around now. We live in a culture of relentless noise, judgment, performance and certainty. Everyone has an opinion about everyone else. Everyone knows what another person should have done, should have felt, should have overcome. We rarely know what is actually happening inside the person standing beside us. Some people can shut that noise out. Some cannot. Some people survive the ugliness of the world by refusing to look too closely. Ivanov’s tragedy is that he looks at humanity, looks at himself, and cannot look away.

I think that is where Ivanov will divide its audience. Many people will simply see a privileged, self-pitying man behaving badly and wonder why everyone around him doesn’t walk away. They aren’t necessarily wrong. Others will recognize something considerably darker: the moment when a person sees both the world’s ugliness and his own flaws so clearly that he can no longer find a place within either that he wants to inhabit.

That doesn’t make suicide noble. It doesn’t make Ivanov a hero. And it certainly doesn’t tell me why Josh Grisetti made the decision he made. That belongs to Josh, and none of us left behind gets to pretend we know the entirety of another person’s final interior world. Losing him made Chekhov’s play land differently for me.

We are extraordinarily good at looking at another person’s life and inventorying the reasons they should be happy. Talent, love, success, youth….possibility. We are considerably less capable of understanding that none of those things necessarily tells us what that person sees when they look inward.

The Real Ivanov is an uneven production of a play that is anything but easy. Initiative Productions needs to become considerably more rigorous about casting and establishing a unified acting style. Strausfeld’s adaptation sometimes moves too quickly, and not every member of the company can carry what Chekhov demands.

Amelia Mason can. Spencer Aste can. And, ultimately, Sam Underwood got me there. More importantly, Chekhov got me there.

This production will not resonate with everyone. I don’t think it is supposed to. There are people who will look at Ivanov and never understand why he cannot simply get on with his life. There are others who will understand him immediately. After losing Josh, I wish considerably fewer of us did.

The Real Ivanov: Lynn F. Angelson Theater,  through September 19. Tickets and information are available at The Real Ivanov.

Forget simply cutting a ribbon. To officially open House of Spells, the UK’s wildly popular immersive fandom destination made its New York debut with something far more fitting—a little magic.

Video by Magda Katz

More than 100 leaders from Broadway, tourism, hospitality and government gathered Wednesday morning as House of Spells officially opened the doors to its first U.S. flagship at 234 West 42nd Street, but the real showstopper belonged to British illusionist and AMAZE star Jamie Allan.

Rather than pulling a rabbit out of a hat, Allan invited audience members to call out random numbers. The choices appeared completely unrelated—until the finale. Before our eyes, those seemingly random numbers transformed into the exact date and time the spell would be broken, officially bringing House of Spells to life. The room erupted.

It was the perfect opening for a place where imagination isn’t confined to the movies—it’s something you can actually walk into.

Created by visionary founders Khaja Hussain and Rafeeque Olikkathodi, House of Spells began in the United Kingdom in 2016 and has become a destination for fantasy lovers, gamers, anime enthusiasts and movie buffs. Its first American home couldn’t have picked a better address than Times Square, where fantasy and reality have always shared the same stage.

Walking through the 20,000-square-foot space feels like stepping through a portal. Around every corner another universe waits to be explored.

Marvel fans will find Spider-Man, Deadpool and Captain America. Jedi can browse Star Wars collectibles, while Hogwarts hopefuls can choose from magical wands worthy of Harry Potter himself. Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Fantastic Beasts, Vikings, Stranger Things, DC Comics, The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario, KPop Demon Hunters, Anime and dozens of other fandoms all coexist under one enchanted roof.

Whether it’s a Baby Yoda backpack, a rare Lord of the Rings tankard, Batman’s miniature Batmobile or collectibles that are difficult to find anywhere else, House of Spells is designed less like a traditional store and more like a treasure hunt.

“As they say in Game of Thrones, ‘Winter is Coming’…to Times Square as we bring the fandom universe to what always feels like the center of the universe,” said Jaime Vidal, President of USA Operations at House of Spells. “Coming to the country’s most iconic entertainment capital is the perfect U.S. launching pad for us, and we can’t wait for visitors to explore the wonders, magic, mystique and enchantment of House of Spells Times Square.”

“The ultimate fandom destination is no longer across the pond in a galaxy far, far away—it is right here in Times Square, the beating heart of Midtown Manhattan,” said Tom Harris, President of the Times Square Alliance. “In a neighborhood where magic happens every day, we welcome House of Spells and its mystical charm to the Crossroads of the World.”

Julie Coker, President and CEO of NYC Tourism + Conventions, welcomed the attraction by noting that while visitors from the United Kingdom already top New York City’s international tourism market, House of Spells is arriving with plans to stay, giving even more travelers a reason to make Times Square part of their itinerary.

Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal praised the opening as another milestone for the neighborhood, noting that more than 50 million visitors pass through Times Square annually and calling House of Spells’ decision to locate its first U.S. flagship there another testament to Manhattan’s place as one of the world’s premier destinations for retail and entertainment.

Council Member Carl Wilson celebrated the attraction as a place where fans of every generation can immerse themselves in the worlds they love.

For Allan, whose AMAZE recently celebrated its 500th performance, the new attraction captures the same sense of wonder that theater has always inspired.

“House of Spells is such a magical place and exactly the kind of thing I would have wanted to see growing up,” Allan said. “It brings together communities, geeks—in the nicest possible way—and all of us that believe in the impossible. Like a theater, the architecture and design of the shop really transport you.”

And that’s exactly what House of Spells does. It doesn’t ask whether you’re a wizard, a superhero, a Viking, a Jedi or simply someone who still believes imagination should have a place in everyday life.

It simply opens the door and says, welcome to the fandom.

Iceboy!  – The Musical now receiving its world premiere at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, is based on one truly wacky premise.

The show is narrated by the spirit of famed playwright Eugene O’Neil (Nick Offerman, of Parks and Recreation and The Last of Us). O’Neil promises to tell us how he was inspired to write one of the longest, darkest plays in American Theater, The Iceman Cometh. The short answer, stretched over two hours, is that a wealthy actress, Vera Vimm (Megan Mullally, beloved as Karen in Will and Grace) buys a caveman frozen in a block of ice at an auction, and takes him home to thaw. Comedy ensues. This results in a show that is always fun, but very emotionally light weight.

Megan Mullally and Grey Henson Photo by Todd Rosenberg

The book of this musical was based on a play by writers Erin Quinn Purcell and Jay Reiss. But why make it a musical? With a straight play, you can laugh at characters and not have to care about them. Music demands emotional engagement with the journeys of the characters. It’s fun sometimes just to see wonderful comedic performers strut their stuff. But there’s not enough genuine emotional meat on the bones of this show for me.

Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman. Photo by Todd Rosenberg

Mr. Offerman and Ms. Mullally are a power couple in real life, who bring the best of their talents to the Goodman stage. Mr. Offerman’s understated, dry delivery draws non-stop laughs from the audience. Ms. Mullally happily flaunts the unabashed sexiness that made her famous, showing that some things just get better with time.

Donterrio, Linda Mugleston, Shawn Pfautsch, Grey Henson, Megan Mullally, Melanie Brezill, Will Koski and Andrea San Miguel. Photo by Todd Rosenberg

They are supported by an unbeatable cast of musical theater clowns. As the Iceboy, Grey Henson brings an irresistible, goofy charm to his evolution from inarticulate caveman to unlikely Broadway star. Sarah Stiles, who wowed us in Tootsie, is a deadpan delight as Vera’s long suffering, menopausal assistant, Lambert. Vera’s butler, played by Alex Goodrich, trapped in costume as Frankenstein’s monster for most of the show, grunts with great expression. Cedric Yarbrough Is warm and engaging as Floyd Richards, the playwright who created Vera’s star vehicles.

Melanie Brezill, Shawn Pfautsch, Donterrio, Megan Mullally, Grey Henson, Andrea San Miguel, Will Koski and Linda Mugleston. Photo by Todd Rosenberg

The events in this story start out weird and become increasingly absurd. Middle aged Vera is badly miscast in her current stage vehicle, playing a seventeen year old ingenue. Iceboy learns to talk so well that he can even mimic Vera. So, when Vera has an accident that takes her out of the show, Iceboy gets to go on for her in drag, and be a Broadway star for a while. When Vera recovers, she tries to reclaim her spotlight. Iceboy is put on display in a zoo. However he still manages to have a romantic fling behind bars with Lambert, and brings out her primitive side. Amazingly, all this finally does manage to involve Eugene O’Neill. It’s all great silliness. But, I’m afraid, it’s nothing to sing about.

Melanie Brezill, Shawn Pfautsch, Megan Mullally, Sarah Styles and Grey Henson Photo by Todd Rosenberg

The best musicals are character driven. Sitcoms don’t make great musicals because the characters don’t evolve, or drive the story. The situation simply changes around them. So when it came to the songs by Mark Hollman (Urinetown), with lyrics by Hollman and Reiss, I found myself unmoved.

Linda Mugleston, Megan Mullally, Melanie Brezill,
Andrea San Miguel and Nick Offerman. Photo by Todd Rosenberg

It’s okay for Vera to be surrounded by an entourage of cartoon characters. But it’s hard to engage with her emotionally if she is a cartoon herself. Ms. Mullally is funny, sexy and as touching as possible under the circumstances. But the character is never really empathetic. Her true focus is all on her own career. In the end, there’s nothing about this character to admire or like enough to care about what happens to her.

Melanie Brezill, Andrea San Miguel, Shawn Pfautsch,
Nick Offerman, Megan Mullally, Will Koski, Linda Mugleston and Donterrio. Photo by Todd Rosenberg

Director Marc Bruni, who made us care so much about Carole King in Beautiful,  does his best to help the team shape the story to add emotional interest. Vera tells us she was an orphan. She has a need to be a mother to the lonely Iceboy. However, her concern for the Iceboy is more about assuaging her own loneliness than fulfilling his needs. Floyd the playwright wants to marry Vera (don’t ask me why), but she keeps him at arm’s length. Unfortunately, I didn’t care enough about their relationship to root for it to succeed.

So, if you don’t care that you really don’t care, this show is a lot of fun. There are random gags for theater folk, like comparing the hairy and bulky Iceboy to your typical stagehand. There are funny meta moments, like when Vera’s hospital bed is brought onstage in the middle of her house set, and the doctor jokes about having to go back to the hospital to get her medicine. The performances are all brilliant. But like so much of what I see in Broadway musicals these days, this show leans heavily on style over substance.  Hopefully, Iceboy! is not yet frozen.

Iceboy! – The Musical plays through August 9 at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre.

There is a particular kind of Manhattan Saturday — humid, moody, faintly chaotic — that seems engineered for revelation. On July 11th, it arrived right on schedule… and so did the witches.

WitchsFest 2026

WitchsFest USA celebrated its fifteenth year at Astor Place, that scrappy little crossroads between Broadway and Lafayette that has hosted skateboarders, cube-huggers and now, once a year, an entire pagan nation. Free, sprawling, and unapologetically itself, the fair is billed as “Ye Olde Pagan Faire,” though nothing about it felt olde so much as perennial — the kind of gathering that has clearly been perfecting itself since 2005, waiting for the rest of us to catch up.

Dark Moon Spirit

And catch up we should. Herewith, a gentle nudge to every overscheduled, overmedicated, Peloton-adjacent woman currently vacationing two hours east of here: there is another way to mark time. It does not require a wellness app. It requires a Wheel.

Miss Luah gets serious about spiritual well being

The Wheel, Explained (Briefly, Deliciously)

Northern New Jersey Tarot delivering the good news

Witchcraft, at its foundation, is an earth religion — which is to say, it keeps a calendar the sun and soil actually agree with. Solstices, equinoxes, and the four cross-quarter days between them mark a rhythm that predates every productivity hack ever pitched to a woman in activewear. You don’t have to call yourself a Witch to notice that your nervous system prefers a solstice to a status update. WitchsFest simply asks you to notice on purpose.

Lysander comes prepared

A Faire Worth the Trek

The immersive experience at Sha-Manic Healing

The vendor rows read like a DMT vision. At Silent Wyld, you could adopt a cute, fuzzy ghost — no home visit required. The College of Thelema offered esoteric study for the more academically inclined hex-curious.

Kissy Vauquez of Kizz Hugz

Kizz Hugz brought astrologically tailored skincare, because even your moon sign deserves a serum.

Bound by spirit: Links & Leather

Magick & Macabre sold candles built for binding lovers, while Links & Leather offered a rather more three-dimensional solution. HouseCrypt’s ceramics were spooky in the most charming, shelf-worthy way while at one especially vivid booth a sound bath was underway. The querent stood serenely inside a brass bowl while the practitioner held space over her like a blessing made audible.

Dorin Matthews raising vibes

That booth belonged to Dorin Matthews, shaman, energy worker and captain of the Holistic Mobile Bus, who managed to be even more compelling in person than any of her considerable titles suggest.

A soothing moment in The Temple Of Hecate

For the moodier among us, the Temple of Hecate offered a darker corner lit only by electric candles — a small mercy, historically speaking, for anyone descended from a widow with land and bad luck. But we digress. It’s a party, not a pyre.

Ballet Tonantzin and Aztec magic

All Hail RavenHawk

WitchsFest founders Rev. Starr RavenHawk and Rev. Luna Rojas

None of this exists without Rev. Starr RavenHawk, co-founder and Elder of the NYC Wiccan Family Temple, who has been shepherding New York’s Pagan community since 1993 and practicing as an Eclectic Solitary Witch since 1978 — nearly five decades of devotion that shows in every carefully chosen candle and every workshop timetable. A Trini-Canadian who came to the magickal arts young and never left, RavenHawk founded the Temple itself in 2003 and co-founded the WFT Academy of Pagan Studies in 2007 — the first Witch school New York City has ever had the good sense to host. She is, by any fair accounting, one of the architects of contemporary American Paganism’s public face, and WitchsFest is her long-running love letter to the city that let her build it.

CeCe and Emma came for the vibes

Her own booth, naturally, needed no embellishment: ghost pepper sauce flanked by horseshoes and small wax effigies of persons unnamed flying off the table with the brisk confidence of a woman who has done considerable abundance work.

WitchsFest 2026

The Actual Point

Lady Rhea: better living through Sicilian candle magick

Strip away the puns — reluctantly, and only for a sentence — and what WitchsFest offers is disarmingly simple: permission to trust your own intuition, to mark the turning of a season instead of a quarter, and to seek something larger than your inbox without having to join anything or believe anything you don’t already suspect is true.

Salem’s representative Rev. Alexander Cabot

“We are a nature-based ideology rooted in the spiritual aspects of oneself, taming the ego, surpassing the material and nourishing the spirit.” witnessed Rev. Alexander Cabot, who holds rank as Elder in both Salem and NYC. “This is a wonderful turnout, it’s always been like homecoming at this festival.” Homecoming, indeed. Call it Source Energy, call it the Goddess, call it whatever gets you out of the rat race and back into your body. The Wheel keeps turning either way.

WitchsFest 2026

Fifteen years in, WitchsFest USA has become exactly what its founders hoped: a family-friendly, joyfully weird civic institution hiding in plain sight at Astor Place. Next Solstice, skip the spin class. On July 10, 2027 there’s a drum circle with your name on it.