Monday, March 31st

Skate with America’s sweethearts! Take your pick: Dorothy Hammill? Sarah Hughes? Sasha Cohen? They’ll all be on the ice tonight—whoosh!—happy to hurl you into a double-axel, at a gala titled “Skating With the Stars, Under the Stars,” which raises money to teach underprivileged kids how to figure-skate. Go figure! The benefit committee includes a roster of figure-skating fans such as Tim Gunn, Mariska Hargitay, Regis Philbin, Kelly Ripa, Nicole Miller and Carson Kressley. Later, British stand-up comic Matt Kirshen brings his shtick stateside after a stint as a finalist on comic reality show Last Comic Standing. (Soon half the world will be comprised of former reality-show finalists!) “You are friendly people,” said Mr. Kirshen of us Americans, when we called him up. “You don’t get credit for it. People think Brits are polite but they’ve got it totally wrong. We’re mean-spirited, arrogant people but we sound delightful. It’s purely a trick.”

[2008 Skating With the Stars, Under the Stars Gala, Wollman Rink, Central Park, 6 p.m., 212-675-9474; Matt Kirshen at Ars Nova, 8 p.m., 212-868-4444]