NEW YORK CITY: NY PopsUp, a festival of live performances, will begin later this month in all five NYC boroughs, as well as upstate and in western New York. The festival, which was announced by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, will feature more than 1,000 performances throughout neighborhoods, parks, transit stations, and museums, with a plan to eventually move to “flex venues” for indoor performances.

“Creative synergies are vital for cities to survive, and our arts and cultural industries have been shut down all across the country, taking a terrible toll on workers and the economy,” Gov. Cuomo said in a statement. “We want to be aggressive with reopening the state and getting our economy back on track, and NY PopsUp will be an important bridge to the broader reopening of of our world-class performance venues and institutions.”

NY PopsUp will be a private-public partnership between producers Scott Rudin and Jane Rosenthal and the New York State Council on the Arts and Empire State Development. The events will be free of charge and will follow strict COVID-19 safety protocols outlined by the Department of Health. Artist Zack Winokur will serve as the festival’s curator, alongside a variety of artistic advisors, including playwright Jeremy O. Harris, scenic designer Mimi Lien, writer and playwright Claudia Rankine, and director Whitney White.

Performances will include theatre, dance, poetry readings, comedy, and opera, among others. Theatre artists scheduled to perform include Gavin Creel, Tina Landau, Kelli O’Hara, Sutton Foster, and many others.

The festival will begin Sat., Feb. 20 with a tribute to healthcare workers at the Javits Center, and will continue through Labor Day. Hallmark events include the Tribeca Film Festival in June and the Festival at Little Island in August.

Due to the pop-up nature of the festival, not all performances will be announced in advance.