The New York Society for Ethical Culture

Metropolitan Presents: Emma Grede
2026-04-15 20:00 - 22:00 (America/New_York) | Adler Hall, 2 W 64th St, New York, NY, 10023, United States
Emma Grede, cofounder and CEO of Good American, founding partner of SKIMS, cofounder of Safely and Off Season, and now the voice behind the Aspire with Emma Grede podcast, will bring her Start With Yourself Tour to Adler Hall at New York Society for Ethical Culture on Wednesday, April 15 at 7:30PM. This is a series of live conversations where Emma and the audience, going deeper into the ideas from her new book. Start With Yourself is ultimately about self-leadership. It’s for those who want power, money, careers and families and what it really takes to succeed as a woman in business and build a meaningful legacy. All ticket buyers will receive a copy of her new book.
Emma Grede is the ultimate modern mogul, turning big ideas into some of today’s most influential consumer brands. A leader with purpose, Grede also lends her time and expertise to global impact organizations, serving on the board of directors for the Obama Foundation and Baby2Baby, and has recently become a King’s Trust Ambassador. Her journey proves that success and substance go hand in hand.
>>>Purchase Tickets Here

The Moth Presents: 'American Dreams: Stories We Inherit'
2026-04-18 19:30 - 22:00
“What you leave as a legacy is not what is etched in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others” – Pericles
Join The Moth for an evening of stories about the things we inherit. What are the gifts we’ve received from generations before us? And can we give them back?
This year, we celebrate 250 years of The American Dream — two and a half centuries of being tantalized by the possibility…of possibility. As we contemplate what’s next, we cannot deny that we are shaped by the legacies of the people who came before us.
Each teller will wrestle with their bequest, and share stories that elevate its origins, and its role in what will be.
Dreams realized or deferred, discovered or rerouted – join us to examine and celebrate them all.
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SOCIETY MEMBER DISCOUNT: Members, check your inbox for a special discount code!
About The Moth
The Moth is a nonprofit that believes in connecting humanity through the power of personal storytelling. Since its launch in 1997, The Moth has presented over 65,000 stories, told live and without notes, to standing-room-only crowds worldwide. The Moth produces 600+ live shows annually, as well as the Peabody Award-winning The Moth Radio Hour, and the popular The Moth Podcast. You can listen to The Moth weekly on over 540 public radio stations, and anywhere you find podcasts.
Doors Open: 6:30 pm
Event Start Time: 7:30 pm

Metropolitan Presents: ‘Going to Extremes: A John Waters 80th Birthday Celebration’
2026-04-19 19:30 - 21:30
Acclaimed film director John Waters brings Going to Extremes: A John Waters 80th Birthday Celebration to Adler Hall at New York Society for Ethical Culture on Sunday, April 19, 2026 at 7:30PM. John Waters is back on the road with a whole new radical comedy revival show whose sermon will beg the authorities to drop a net on both himself and his rabidly insane audience. He’s dressed to thrill and ready to rant about everything from pro-punk conversion therapy to right-wing female-female impersonators. Waters has written and directed sixteen movies including Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, Polyester, Hairspray, Cry Baby, Serial Mom and A Dirty Shame.
John Waters is no stranger to the theater. He has performed his one man spoken-word lectures entitled “End of the World,” “This Filthy World,” “False Negative,” “Naked Truth,” or “Make Trouble” and his annual Christmas show, “A John Waters Christmas,” at colleges, museums, film festivals and comedy clubs around the world. Waters has played to sold out audiences at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, Bonnaroo, Sydney Opera House, Volksbühne Berlin, and both the Southbank Centre and Barbican Hall in London. He has hosted the Mosswood Meltdown punk rock music festival for over a decade. His speaking tours have brought him in front of American MENSA and the American Association of Law Libraries as well as the Tennessee WIlliams New Orleans Literary Festival.
Tickets
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Notice: This event is managed and ticketed by Metropolitan Entertainment.

Communi-Tree: An Earth Day Dance Celebration
2026-04-23 09:45 - 10:45
FREE educational dance performance and presentation!
Communi-tree is an illuminating dance program offering a creative experience of nature for children grades K-6. The Time Lapse Dance ensemble, directed by choreographer Jody Sperling, is renowned for creating visually-stunning and accessible programs merging performing arts and ecology. This event features highlights from Arbor, a dance about the relationship between trees and people, and Plastic Harvest, a romp about plastic pollution that gets kids thinking about what—and who—society throws away. Sperling offers engaging commentary between pieces and a participatory dancing experience for all. The hour-long program concludes with a Q&A.
Hosted by Ethical educators Audrey Kindred and Barbara Carlsen.
PLEASE RSVP TO SECURE A RESERVATION FOR YOUR STUDENT GROUP.
If you are an educator and would like to discuss bringing a Communi-tree workshop to your classroom to deepen the student experience, please contact us for more information.
This program is presented as part of Jody Sperling/Time Lapse Dance’s ongoing Eco-Artist Residency at the New York Society for Ethical Culture.

Shapes of Change: Jody Sperling/Time Lapse Dance 25th Anniversary Season Night 1
2026-04-24 19:00 - 20:00
Pay-What-You-Can Pricing for All Show Tickets!
For two-and-a-half decades, choreographer Jody Sperling and her Time Lapse Dance ensemble have been creating stunning spectacles that illuminate the relationship between the human body and the natural world while reckoning with climate change realities. Since 2022, Sperling and company have been Eco-Artists-in-Residence at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, co-presenting programs that embody an ethical and ecological ethos. Shapes of Change celebrates the 25th Anniversary of Time Lapse Dance and the 150th Anniversary of the New York Society for Ethical Culture with two unique performances (come to both!) featuring a world premiere and repertory favorites at the Society’s historic Adler Hall.
The world premiere, Sea Change,is a poetic reimagining of humanity’s relationship with water in the wake of rising sea levels. Performed by the company’s six exquisite dancers, the dance delves into somatic experiences of submersion and conjures a misty realm between sea and sky. The work continues a decade-long collaboration between Sperling and Emmy Award-winning environmental composer Matthew Burtner. For the season, Burtner performs live and conducts a quartet of New Consort vocalists to evoke a hauntingly luminous sea of sound.
Program A (Friday) features two other Sperling-Burtner collaborations: Fractal Memories, originally created for the documentary Obsessed with Light, which traces the entanglement of bodies through time; and Plastic Harvest, a romp about plastic proliferations. Performance followed by a reception honoring theatrical legend, and Time Lapse Dance founding Board member, Gail Merrifield Papp.
Program B (Saturday) features the Sperling-Burtner collaborations:Wind Rose, visualizing patterns of atmospheric disturbance; and excerpts from the visually-hypnotic Arbor, dwelling on the intimacy of trees. Saturday’s performance is followed by an artist talkback.
All of these works feature transformative costumes that abstract human movement into elemental and organic forces, with the dancers appearing to conjure the oceans eddies, a growing forest, or hovering storm clouds. The company’s unique style of movement draws inspiration from and furthers the art form created by dance icon Loie Fuller (1862-1928) a century ago.
In keeping with an ethical ethos, all performance tickets are offered at pay-what-you-can pricing.
Program A – Friday, April 24
Fractal Memories
Plastic Harvest
Sea Change
Followed by a Separately Ticketed Reception
Program B – Saturday, April 25
Wind Rose
Arbor (excerpts)
Sea Change
Including Artist Talkback
>>>Purchase Tickets Here
Dancers: Frances Barker, Elinor Kleber Diggs, Tessa Fungo, Anika Hunter, Maki Kitahara, Lo Poppy, Sarah Tracy, and Rathi Varma
Jody Sperling/Time Lapse Dance programs are made possible in part by an ongoing eco-artist-residency at The New York Society for Ethical Culture, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, with support from the Heinrich Böll Foundation Washington, DC, and the Harkness Foundation for Dance.

Shapes of Change: Jody Sperling/Time Lapse Dance 25th Anniversary Season Night 2
2026-04-25 19:00 - 20:00
