Stems in the city
After a cruel NYC winter, the botanical bonanza of the year is back — an English garden right in the heart of Midtown. Starting Sunday, the Macy’s Flower Show promises more than 50 specimens of trees and up to 30,000 individual plants — 200 species in all, with a “Secret Garden” theme. And you don’t even have to leave the store’s main floor, where there’ll be one showstopping arrangement after another.
“This year, we’ll travel on a magical journey of discovery,” says Mike Gansmoe, the show’s executive producer. “As you pass through the gateway, you will be enveloped by rich and dynamic colors, elaborate scenic elements and breathtaking landscaping that will showcase hidden floral treasures.”
Check out the “bouquet of the day” centerpiece, and special celeb appearances — plus cooking demos, arrangement presentations and more.
Best part? It’s free. Stop by and smell the roses. Sunday to April 6, macys.com/flowershow
–Doree Lewak
Get ready for Take 2
Andrew Rannells wonders if he can make his Carnegie Hall debut twice. “I sang one song there in 2012, but I was so nervous I can’t remember it!” says the boyish star of “Girls.” That said, he’s no stranger to performing live, having won a Tony nomination for “The Book of Mormon.” Friday, he’ll team with the New York Pops and Stephanie J. Block for an evening of Broadway show tunes. From his car headset in Santa Monica (“If you hear me curse, it’s just a New Yorker driving in California”), he says he’s excited about singing Sondheim’s “Being Alive” and more. Just don’t expect anything from “Mormon”: “The producers are very sensitive about the music being sung out of context,” he says. But singing anything at Carnegie is a thrill for him. “It’s surprisingly emotional when you stand onstage with that wall of sound behind you,” Rannells says. “Hopefully, I’ll remember it this time!” 7:30 p.m., Seventh Avenue at 57th Street; 212-247-7800, carnegiehall.org. Tickets, $17 and up.
–Barbara Hoffman
“Wait” no more for this
An elderly Don Ameche once told me he “hated’’ most of the “silly’’ movies he starred in during Hollywood’s Golden Age, but this was not the case for “Heaven Can Wait’’ (1943). “I showed up two hours early every day because I was so excited to work with the great director Ernst Lubitsch,’’ he recalled. Ameche gives the performance of his career as a recently deceased early 20th-century playboy recounting his life for the Devil (Laird Cregar) in this great romantic comedy, Oscar-nominated for Best Picture, Lubitsch’s direction and its ravishing Technicolor cinematography. Co-starring the gorgeous Gene Tierney, it’s showing Saturday at 4 p.m. at the Museum of the Moving Image, 35th Avenue and 36th Street, Astoria. Info: movingimage.us.
–Lou Lumenick
A ‘gran’ son
“I was doing film studies in college for a couple of years,” says jazz bassist/bandleader Kyle Eastwood, “but music won out.” Not completely, though — the son of actor/director Clint Eastwood has scored and arranged several of his father’s films, including “Gran Torino” and “Invictus.” And despite influences ranging from R&B to West African music, Eastwood, 45, says people still tell him his music is “visual . . . even though I’m not trying for that!” Eastwood, who lives in France, returns to his former hometown of NYC for a week of shows at the Blue Note alongside the Larry Carlton Group. If past trends are any indication, it may well be a cinematic experience!
Tuesday through March 30, 8 and 10:30 p.m. at 131 W. Third St., 212-475-8592, bluenotejazz.com.
–Charlie Heller
This one’s for the birds
Depending upon the latest AccuWeather forecast, this might be your best chance to see spring birds anytime soon. The New-York Historical Society is opening a fine, feathery exhibit Friday called “Audubon’s Aviary: Parts Unknown.” The second in a three-part series, it displays John James Audubon’s original watercolors that were the studies for the Havell engraved plates, which became the signature early classification of birds.
“There was something in there for everybody: Those who liked songbirds, those who liked raptors,” curator Roberta Olson says.
For next spring’s third part of the series, NYHS. plans the exhibit to match migratory patterns — of tourists.
“They actually make a pilgrimage to come here,” Olson says.
170 Central Park West; 212-873-3400, nyhistory.org.
–Tim Donnelly