NYC's Lower East Side Festival of the Arts is a cabaret-style festival featuring more than 100 performing groups from the Lower East Side. This year's theme: We will not be silenced, speak up for democracy.

The festival features three days of theater and theater-related events, employing two theater spaces at TNC plus the block of East Tenth Street between First and Second Avenues.

Multidisciplinary indoor performances take stage from 6pm to midnight each evening, utilizing two of TNC's four theaters. 

From 10am to 5pm Saturday, vendors and food sellers, including booths from nearby restaurants, line the closed-off block of East Tenth Street between First and Second Avenues. 

On Saturday afternoon inside in the Johnson Theater, performances by and for children, curated by T. Scott Lilly, Danielle Hauser and Miguel Loyola, emceed by John Grimaldi take the stage. 

On Saturday from 1pm to 5pm, an Outdoor Stage adjoining the theater offers music and multi-discipline performances curated by Richard West, assisted by Didi Champagne. 

On Sunday from 4pm to 7pm in TNC's Community Theater, a "Poetry Jam with Prose on the Side" is curated by Lissa Moira.