DESIGN

BEST OF THE CLASS The New York School of Interior Design presents its annual B.F.A. Thesis Exhibition, featuring the work of 17 candidates for the degree from the school’s graduating class. Artists include Violeta Lekutanoy, whose design for a memorial to the victims of war in Sarajevo during the 1990s provides perspective on what everyday life was like for that city’s inhabitants. Highlights from the exhibit include views of the lobby and ceiling of Stefan Steil’s “Sander Haus,” a redesign of SoHo’s Cable Building into a spa and luxury apartment building owned by fashion designer Jil Sander. Through Friday, February 15, Monday–Friday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m., New York School of Interior Design, 170 E. 70th St., between Third and Lexington avenues, 212-472-5100, free.

DESIGN OF A CENTURY “Piranesi as Designer,” an exhibit that examines the artist’s role in the reform of architecture, is on view at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. An 18th-century Italian architect and designer, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, created elaborate interiors and exquisite furnishings that continue to have an impact on how artists work within the two mediums. The show includes etchings, original drawings, and prints by Piranesi, as well as a selection of three-dimensional objects by the artist and his successors. Through Sunday, January 20, Monday–Thursday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m., Friday, 10 a.m.–9 p.m., Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m., Sunday, noon–6 p.m., Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, 2 E. 91st St. at Fifth Avenue, 212-849-8400, $12 general, $9 seniors and students, free for Cooper-Hewitt and Smithsonian Institution members, and children under 12.

FAMILY

TALES OF YORE Recently extended through the fall, “Mother Goose in an Air-Ship” at the Brooklyn Historical Society features an extensive collection of 19th-century children’s books and games. Many of the selections included were created in the now-shuttered McLoughlin Bros. Factory, long housed in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Early adaptations of children’s classics, as well as instructive — and now, charmingly antiquated — morality tales, including the “Little Slovenly Peter” series, are on view. Many of the pieces in the show were donated to the Brooklyn Historical Society by Ellen Liman, who with her late husband, Arthur, amassed a large body of children’s literature from the 1800s. Ongoing, Wednesday–Sunday, noon–5 p.m., Brooklyn Historical Society, 128 Pierrepont St. at Clinton Street, $6 general, $4 seniors and students, free for children under 12.

FILM

OTTO THE TERRIBLE Film Forum hosts a festival in celebration of Otto Preminger. The director, a Jewish Viennese expatriate, is considered among Hollywood’s earliest independent filmmakers. Preminger’s oeuvre boasts noirs and pop-culture classics such as “Carmen Jones” (1954), right, a modern adaptation of Bizet’s opera “Carmen,” which featured an all-black cast, including starlet Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte. “Daisy Kenyon” (1944), a film noir about a love triangle, screens today at 2:55, 6:30, and 10:05 p.m. Through Wednesday, January 16, dates and times vary, Film Forum, 209 W. Houston St., between Sixth and Seventh avenues, 212-727-8110, $10.50 general, $5.50 for seniors weekdays before 5 p.m., $5.50 children.

OPERA

A GRIMM TALE The Metropolitan Opera presents “Hansel and Gretel,” its new English-language production of Engelbert Humperdinck’s fairy tale opera. Humperdinck’s treatment is based on the story of the same name by the Brothers Grimm. Humperdinck originally conceived of the work as a play (and an engagement gift to his fiancée), but later reworked it into a full-scale opera. It had its first staging in 1893 in Weimar, Germany. Mezzo-soprano Alice Coote and soprano Christine Schäfer play the poverty-stricken siblings lost in a forest where unknown menace lurks, and tenor Philip Langridge is cast in the role of the witch bent on fattening the children and making a feast out of them. Conductor Vladimir Jurowski leads the Met orchestra. Through Thursday, January 31, dates and times vary, Lincoln Center, Metropolitan Opera, between West 62nd and 65th streets, and Columbus and Amsterdam avenues, 212-362-6000, $27–$295.

SCULPTURE

FROM HAND TO STONE “Beginnings: Sculptors as Draftsmen” features preparatory drawings by four sculptors — Shida Kuo, Louise Hindsgavl, Sun Koo Yuh, and Vesa-Pekka Rannikko. These drafts represent the groundwork for sculptures eventually created by the artists. Some of the drawings, such as those of Mr. Rannikko, depict vibrant mini-scenes unfolding around sculpted characters, while those of Mr. Kuo are illustrated with an animated hand. Through Saturday, January 12, Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m., Nancy Margolis Gallery, 523 W. 25th St., between Tenth and Eleventh avenues, 212-242-3013, free.

THEATER

BATTLE FOR THE SMALL SCREEN “The Farnsworth Invention,” with a screenplay by a veteran television writer, Aaron Sorkin, and direction by Des McAnuff, recounts the David and Goliath tale that unfolded around the invention of the small screen. Featured actors include Jimmi Simpson, in the titular role of Philo T. Farnsworth, and Hank Azaria, who plays the president of RCA, David Sarnoff. As head of the radio broadcasting giant in 1929, Sarnoff senses the possibilities to come in the form of television and determines to secure control over the patents and licensing governing the new medium. Farnsworth, a science prodigy credited with inventing television’s key elements, is unprepared for the battle over intellectual property. Tonight and tomorrow, 8 p.m., Saturday, 2 and 8 p.m., Sunday, 3 p.m., Tuesday, 7 p.m., through Sunday, March 16, Music Box Theatre, 239 W. 45th St., between Broadway and Eighth Avenue, 212-239-6200, $59.50–$201.50.

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