We are accustomed to seeing “small works” shows in the winter around the holidays, when people are thinking about gifts. The high season is typically known for larger, even colossal works, both in size and spirit.

When he was 23 and just out of New York University’s musical theater program, Walker Vreeland took a job as a lead singer for Norwegian Cruise Lines, never suspecting that the voyage would last a decade and include a stopover at John Hopkins Hospital’s Mood Disorder Psychiatric Ward.

Levain Bakery’s chocolate chip walnut cookies should probably come with a warning label: These cookies are known by the State of New York to be highly addictive. Huge and gooey and packed with chocolate chips just this side of melting, they have been named to just about every best cookie list in New York, which helps to explain the famously long lines outside of Levain’s 74th Street and Amsterdam Avenue locations.