design columnist carolina a. miranda

When her home burned down in the Eaton fire, artist Susannah Mills felt lost and adrift — but never alone. Her home was part of an Altadena artists collective called JJU, or John Joyce University, named after a beloved carpenter who lived there for 26 years. And although the residents were forced to scatter in the wake of the January 2025 devastation, they remained in contact, looking for ways to support one another through what is still an ongoing process of recovery.

A few months after her loss, Mills was accepted into an artist residency at BKN, a retreat in the northern Stockholm Archipelago, where she expanded her watercolor practice from relatively small works to large scale, and explored installation. Like JJU, BKN prides itself on building community, and while there Mills began talking with BKN curator Anna Viola Hallberg about bringing other L.A. fire survivors to Sweden to experience the same sense of connection and relief Mills was feeling.

Hallberg had already been thinking along those lines and suggested they create another residency to do just that. In the fall of 2025, Mills and Hallberg, with the help of another L.A. artist, Rick Gradone, started an organization named Los Angeles Wildfire Survivors, or L.A.W.S., and raised the funds to send 13 Eaton and Malibu-based artists to BKN for two months.

The result was life-altering for the artists, most of whom were still working to rebuild from the devastating loss — and some of whom had been so occupied with the logistics of recovery that they had not been able to make time to work.

“It creates a network, and people who work together in the residency continue to help each other,” said Hallberg in a recent interview. “So there’s a really true new arts community that lingers beyond the residency.”

It soon became clear to the team behind L.A.W.S. that more needed to be done, and they solicited another round of applications for a residency, set to begin later this month at Pilchuck Glass School in Washington state. Eight Eaton fire survivors have been selected in a competitive process, and plans are in the works to bring another cohort of artists to Sweden next Spring.

“We want to expand this outside of Los Angeles ultimately, because there are fires everywhere and there is climate disaster everywhere,” Mills said, explaining that the group’s mission is growing as changing weather patterns result in escalating cataclysm and displacement of artists globally.

“The media focuses on the disaster really fast, and they don’t understand just how long the recovery takes,” Gradone said in a recent interview. “So this puts some kind of resource in place where people can continue to to get help, especially artists who lose everything that they’ve made, lose their studio spaces and homes. That can’t be recovered in six months.”

L.A.W.S. operates as a not-for-profit and has applied for official nonprofit status, a process that can take some time in California. It is also actively looking for fiscal sponsorship. Up until now the group has relied on its personal connections to raise money to support its artist residencies. Mills’ partner, Brian Huskey, is a comedian and actor who has rallied celebrity friends to auction off small pieces of art on cards in support of L.A.W.S. But there is a need for more help as the group grows.

“Word has really caught on with people who want to have this experience, which I’m really happy about,” said Mills.

I’m arts editor Jessica Gelt, wishing I could turn back time, Cher-like, to an era before the world fast-tracked climate change with its laissez faire approach to global warming. This is your arts and culture news for the week.

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

Bruce Willis, left, talks with director M. Night Shyamalan on the set of the 2000 film “Unbreakable.”

(Frank Masi / Touchstone Pictures)

Unbreakable
M. Night Shyamalan’s 2000 superhero thriller with a twist stars Bruce Willis, Charlayne Woodard, Robin Wright, Samuel L. Jackson and Spencer Treat Clark.
7 p.m. Vidiots, The Eagle, 4884 Eagle Rock Blvd. vidiotsfoundation.org

SATURDAY

“the wheat leaping constantly from the shute,” Marley Freeman (2026). Oil, acrylic on linen, 58 by 54 inches.

(Marley Freeman / Parker Gallery)

Marley Freeman
The artist’s new exhibition of paintings, “worthless serpentine,” takes its title from the writings of Joan Didion.
Opening, 6-8 p.m. Saturday; 11 a.m.-6 p.m., Tuesday–Saturday, through Oct. 31. Parker Gallery, 6700 Melrose Ave. parkergallery.com

SUNDAY

Doyle Lane: Master Of Clay
The first major museum retrospective of the Los Angeles ceramic artist features more than 100 works from the 1950s through the 1980s, from functional pottery to monumental murals, as well as archival documents.
Through Feb 22. The Huntington, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino. huntington.org

Marie Atoinette
A 20th anniversary screening of the semibiographical period film with a postpunk- and new wave-fueled soundtrack with writer-director Sofia Coppola and star Kirsten Dunst in person. Coppola and photographer Andrew Durham will sign copies of their new book, “Making Marie Antoinette,” at the Academy Museum Store in a separately ticketed event prior the screening.
6:30 p.m. Academy Museum, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. academymuseum.org

TUESDAY

Andrea Bocelli performs live in Vienna on Aug. 22.

(Thomas Kronsteiner / Getty Images)

Andrea Bocelli
The Italian tenor arrives at the Hollywood Bowl for two nights on his Romanza 30th Anniversary World Tour. 8 p.m. Tuesday-Wednesday. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com

WEDNESDAY

Elliott Hundley
“Book of Sand” is an exhibition of new paintings, sculptures and tapestries focusing on the artist’s “own exuberant internal universe” created through compiling paint, paper cutouts, string, encaustic and other found materials.
Artist led walk–through, 11 a.m.; opening reception, 6-8 p.m.; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, through Oct. 24. Regen Projects, 6750 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles. regenprojects.com

The Peterson Show
The world premiere of Janine Nabers’ play about a group of former child stars from a beloved TV show about a Black family come together after a scandal entangles their famous TV father. Directed by Michelle Bossy.
Previews, 8 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, opens, 8 p.m. Saturday (sold out), runs through Oct. 26. Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave. echotheatercompany.com

THURSDAY

The Case-Book of C. Auguste Dupin
The world premiere of a new play adapted and directed by John Strysik, based on the stories of Edgar Allan Poe.
7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, through Oct. 18. Mary Levin Cutler Theatre, 241 S. Moreno Drive, Beverly Hills. theatre40.org

The Ford/Hill Project
A Waterwell Production created by Lee Sunday Evans and Elizabeth Marvel, this documentary theater piece is based on the verbatim Senate testimony of Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford during Supreme Court confirmation hearings, 30 years apart. The cast includes Rosemarie DeWitt, Betty Gabriel, Dulé Hill and Jerry O’Connell.
8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday. REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., downtown L.A. redcat.org

The SoCal scene

A view of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles from a garden.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

Hey, have you heard? The Lucas Museum of Narrative Arts will open Sept. 22 and began member previews late last week. Just kidding. Of course you have heard, because hot takes currently abound on the new $1-billion museum. Love it or hate it, it’s here to stay, and Team Arts spent the week rolling out a spate of stories explaining how we got here, as well as what you can find in the shiny new 300,000-square-foot Ma Yansong-designed building.

Times film critic Amy Nicholson wrote about what “Star Wars” fans can expect from the new museum and contributed to a piece about 11 must-see things while you’re there. We also commissioned a handy artist-drawn map of the place that should help you navigate the 100,000 square feet of gallery space with its more than 30 discrete galleries arranged by theme. Finally, Times contributor Jane Horowitz wrote two stories: one about whether or not the museum’s disregard for established art hierarchies will upend the art world; and another on how the museum’s epic search for a forever home ended in L.A.’s Exposition Park.

I also wrote about a lawsuit that a contractor filed against the museum claiming unpaid work that shines fresh light on the Museum’s Exposition Park land deal.

Randolph Thompson, Desiree Mee Jung, Adam J. Smith, Nicole Javier and Julanne Chidi Hill in “Pericles” at Boston Court Pasadena.

(Brian Hashimoto)

Times theater critic Charles McNulty spent an evening at Boston Court Pasadena watching Ellen McLaughlin’s modern verse translation of Shakespeare’s “Pericles,” which takes place at a disaster relief center, where anxious evacuees improvise a play to escape their fear of the storm they are fleeing. “It’s hard to allow yourself to fully believe in the incredible turn of events when the prevailing attitude is so emphatically tongue-in-cheek,” McNulty wrote of the West Coast premiere.

McNulty also had lunch in Manhattan with playwright Samuel D. Hunter, who has two plays running in L.A.: “Grangeville,” which McNulty calls “Los Angeles’ most acclaimed theatrical offering of the summer” and has been extended at Ruskin Group Theatre through Sept. 21; and “A Case for the Existence of God,” in a recently opened Rogue Machine production at the Matrix Theater’s Henry Murray Stage. “Drama in Hunter’s hands is built around an encounter. He doesn’t force his characters to jump through hoops,” writes McNulty in a profile. “He listens to them, as they navigate their complicated feelings, closely tracking the way their intersecting paths lead them toward incremental revelation.”

Paintings from the private collection of the late music executive Clive Davis, estimated to fetch more than $35 million, are heading for auction at Christie’s in November.

Culture news

Lucien Smith attends the Hugo Boss Prize 2014 ceremony at Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

(Dimitrios Kambouris)

Lucien Smith, a Los Angeles–born multidisciplinary artist who garnered loads of attention in 2010s art scene, has died at 37.

IAMA Theatre Company is set to launch its ninth annual New Works Festival, which will take place Sept. 14-28 at Atwater Village Theatre, and will feature staged readings of six new plays. Tickets are $18 for each reading and can be found at iamatheatre.com. This year’s festival includes “The Half-Sibling Play” by Agyeiwaa Asante; “All Remaining Assets” by Serena Berman; “The Starters” by Laura Winters; “Betta Mus Come” by Alicia Carroll; “Werewolves” by Liba Vaynberg; and “The Great Florida Python Challenge” by John Lavelle.

Additional tumult is coming for the Smithsonian Institution as secretary Lonnie Bunch announced he will step down from his leadership position. The news comes in the midst of President Trump’s pressure campaign on the organization and his administration’s attempts to alter what Smithsonian museums include in their exhibitions.

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

Oh, no! In-N-Out is making tweaks to staples like buns and ketchup!

Yayoi Kusama, the Japanese artist known for her hypnotic, repetitive polka dot artworks, died earlier this week at the age of 97. Hers was the third in a string of deaths this week that left me feeling quite melancholy. First Dolly Parton, then Tim Curry and finally, Kusama.

The silver lining in the death of an artist, whether they be musician, actor, writer or visual artist, is that they leave a trail of comfort for fans through their work. I can (and did) sit in my breakfast nook weeping to the sound of Parton’s voice in songs including 1971’s “Coat of Many Colors.” When it comes to mourning Kusama, I am planning a trip to the Broad museum in downtown L.A., which houses two of her famous Infinity Mirror Rooms.

“Longing for Eternity” (2017) is on view on the third floor and can be accessed with a free general admission ticket. “Infinity Mirrored Room —The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away” (2013), however, requires a separate free reservation. A rep for the museum said reservations are currently available through September with many time slots already completely full. The museum is also accommodating as many walk-ups as capacity allows — and these walk-ups have increased in the wake of Kusama’s death.

In an email to The Times, Broad founding President and Director Joanne Heyler wrote that Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms, “have been among the most beloved works at The Broad since we opened in 2015.”

Heyler noted that the Broad’s 2017 exhibition, “Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors,” “was an incredible moment in the museum’s early history. It was a beautiful show, and unprecedented operationally: the only time our ticketing system broke down due to demand, minutes after release. Her work is both wildly popular and conceptually rigorous; her journey as an artist is complex, full of resilience and a refusal to be limited. Visitors have found deep connection inside the Infinity Mirror Rooms at The Broad — smiles, tears, even marriage proposals. We’re grateful to be one of the places where people can go to spend time with her work and remember her, and we’ll keep working to ensure her art is experienced as she intended: by everyone, infinitely.”

This is welcome news, and the devoted interest makes sense. In many ways, these physically small but emotionally vast rooms encapsulate the essence of Kusama’s practice throughout her life. Built in a distinctively analog way, the rooms create the illusion of endless space through the use of light, mirrors and splashes of color. Kusama incorporated hand-sewn cloth, and later, multimedia video projections, but at their core the rooms remained largely technology-free.

The irony being that a decade ago they emerged as social media sensations, and were ubiquitous in selfies across the internet as they traveled from blockbuster show to blockbuster show.

It’s a pity because all the people who stepped into those rooms with their cellphone cameras at the ready missed a profound opportunity to inhabit a floating dreamscape of true peace and quiet — the kind we rarely grasp in our digital-notification suffocated world.

I can still remember the first time I had the opportunity to experience one of Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms. It was dark and glittering with tiny pinpricks of colored light. I felt as if I were suspended in a deep, black pool of energy that extended beyond me in all directions. I could hear my blood rushing in my ears and briefly wondered if this could be what it felt like in the womb.

I got dizzy and recovered, and then — for what felt like a long time but was only a matter of seconds — I was free.

I’m Arts editor Jessica Gelt taking moments of solace where I can get them. This is your arts and culture news for the week.

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

Babatunde Akinboboye
The baritone fuses classical opera with hip-hop on “Toreador,” “Funiculi, Funicula,” “O Sole Mio” and more.
8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd. sierramadreplayhouse.org

Director Richard Linklater at the 2023 Toronto Film Festival.

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Richard Linklater
A three-movie American Cinematheque tribute featuring Q&As with the Texas filmmaker. In a recent interview, Times film writer Mark Olsen asked Linklater what it’s like to reflect on his work: “What resonates with me in my mind is the experience of making the movie more than the movie itself — all the people you worked with and the cast and all those good feelings.”
“Boyhood,” 7:30 p.m. Friday; “Waking Life,” 4 p.m. Saturday. Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica; “Dazed & Confused,” 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Directors Village, 961 Broxton Ave. Westwood. americancinematheque.com

Pericles
Boston Court, in partnership with Play On Shakespeare, presents the West Coast premiere of Ellen McLaughlin’s modern verse translation of Shakespeare’s rarely performed adventure tale. Directed by Margaret Shigeko Starbuck.
Through Sept. 27. Boston Court Pasadena, 70 N. Mentor Ave. bostoncourtpasadena.org

Romeo & Juliet
A site-specific, immersive, queer adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy.
7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 1 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Sassafras Saloon, 1233 Vine St. eventbrite.com

SATURDAY

Place Is the Space
A four-hour immersive performance experience created by artist Edgar Arceneaux and co-creator Frank Lawson employs live jazz improvisation, theatrical storytelling and multimedia design inspired by Sun Ra’s philosophy and his film “Space Is the Place.” Presented by CAP UCLA, the event includes an audience procession to the Hammer Museum in conjunction with the current exhibition, “Space Is the Place,” for a final performance.
1 p.m. UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu

Joshua Smith Untitled (Yellow Heart), 2026 Acrylic on canvas 14 ¾ x 14 ½ in.

(839 Gallery)

Joshua Smith: Hearts and Triangles
The artist’s first Los Angeles solo show includes brightly colored monochrome paintings on shaped canvases.
Opening reception, 5-8 p.m. Saturday; exhibition continues through Oct. 17. 839, 839 N. Cherokee Ave. 839gallery.com

Winter’s Bench
The world premiere of Mike Kenny’s play about a woman who returns to a park where she thinks a tree once spoke to her. Starring Anne Gee Byrd and Shih-wei Wu. Directed by Debbie Devine. All performances will feature Spanish supertitles.
Previews, 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday; 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Sept. 4; 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2 p.m.; Sundays, 8 p.m.; Sept. 7 and 14; through Oct. 25. 24th Street Theatre, 1117 W. 24th St. 24thstreet.org

SUNDAY

Element Band
Led by Ara Dabandjian, the ensemble features 12 musicians and vocalists, including Soseh Aramouni Keshishyan and Natalie Avunjian, in a celebration of Armenian heritage, creativity and live music.
7:30 p.m. The Ford, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East. theford.com

TUESDAY

Dvořák & Bruch
Conductor Anja Bihlmaier and violinist Bomsori join the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
8 p.m. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com

THURSDAY

Amadeus in Concert
The Los Angeles Philharmonic, led by conductor Norman Huynh, conductor, and the Pacific Chorale perform live to Milos Forman’s 1984 Oscar-winning best picture starring Tom Hulce and F. Murray Abraham.
8 p.m. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com

The Arsonists
Max Frisch’s 1953 absurdist satire, translated by Alastair Beaton and directed by Luke Harlan.
8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays; 5 p.m. Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sunday; through Sept. 20. Skylight Theatre, 1816 1/2 N. Vermont Ave. skylighttheatre.org

Under the Oaks
A weekly salon series featuring performance and music: “Currents: Composers in Concert” (Sept. 3); “Beer! A New Musical-in-Development” (Sept. 10); “Cabaret Theatricum Sings Marvin Gaye” (Sept. 17); and “The Voice of Dr. King” (Sept. 24.
7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Sept. 24. Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd. Topanga. theatricum.com

Arts everywhere

Sarah Bareilles in the documentary “Sarah Bareilles: Good Grief.”

(A Group Effort Films / Naked Edge Films)

Sara Bareilles: Good Grief
The Grammy-winning Broadway star and pop singer’s return to the recording studio for the first time in seven years is captured in this intimate documentary directed by Josh Alexander receiving a one-night-only theatrical release. The film looks at Bareilles’ experience of channeling her own pain to create art and the healing journey that accompanied it. Bareilles will perform at the Dolby Theatre, Oct. 12-14.
7 p.m. Wednesday. Laemmle and AMC theaters. sarabmusic.com

Culture news and the SoCal scene

Dolores Huerta photographed at Dolores Huerta “Help Wanted/Leave Now” exhibit at California Museum.

(Beth Baugher / California Museum)

Dolores Huerta has prioritized involving herself in projects relating to labor and women’s rights in the wake of going public with sexual abuse allegations against former labor leader Cesar Chavez. One of those projects can now be seen at the California Museum in Sacramento in an exhibition called “Help Wanted/Leave Now: ‘Operation Wetback’ and the Revolving Door of Mass Deportation,” which, according to a story by contributor Isa Farfan, “examines decades of the federal government’s deportation campaigns against Mexican immigrants even while it recruited millions of these farmworkers and rail workers to fill labor shortages during and after World War II.”

Contributor Leah Ollman reviews a new Eileen Cowin retrospective called “Between Panic and Paradise” at Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Labeling Cowin a “wry disruptor,” Ollman notes that over the artist’s nearly six-decade career, she has toyed with time in a novel way: “By deviating from straightforward chronology, the installation resonates smartly with one of Cowin’s key operating principles — that we don’t experience time as a continuous line moving in one direction, but as episodic, fragmented, interrupted, layered.”

Gustavo Dudamel at the end of the first half his show at the Hollywood Bowl on Aug. 20.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Gustavo Dudamel is really leaving — although it feels as if the city has been mourning the eventuality for years. Times classical music critic Mark Swed was, of course, on hand to bear witness to Dudamel’s final farewell: a four-night Hollywood Bowl extravaganza. “Dudamel addressed the audience, sounding very much like he had 17 years ago at the Bowl, extolling in our being a crowd of many types together for many musics. L.A., he said, made him an Angeleno,” Swed wrote.

Swed also attended a Tuesday night show at the Hollywood Bowl after the Dudamel farewell extravaganza and found it rather empty and a bit “forlorn,” a situation, he writes in a review, that “left Anna Handler, who becomes the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s conductor-in-residence this fall, with the trickiest conducting assignment of the summer anywhere.”

Theater Director Bart DeLorenzo on the set of “Enemy of the People” at the Odyssey Theatre on Friday, Aug. 21, 2026.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

Times theater critic Charles McNulty recently sat down for a lunchtime conversation with Bart DeLorenzo, “L.A.’s most playfully provocative theater auteur,” about his decision to direct (and adapt) Henrik Ibsen’s “Enemy of the People” at Odyssey Theatre. “If ever there was a moment to revive ‘An Enemy of the People,’ it’s now,” McNulty writes. “The demoralizing spectacle of the U.S. Senate’s inquisition of Dr. Anthony Fauci last month, led by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) in unapologetic witch-hunt mode, was yet another reminder that Ibsen’s drama about a public health crusader being targeted by politicians and business leaders when his medical advice goes counter to their interests hasn’t lost its punch.”

The drama never stops at the beleaguered Kennedy Center as it deals with the continued tumult resulting from President Trump’s takeover early last year. Most recently the Justice Department claimed in a recent court filing that Trump’s “efforts and prestige provide the sole hope for the Center’s financial survival, and structural renewal.” If the center isn’t shut down for the two-year renovation Trump demands, it may need to be demolished, the filing reads.

Visitors line up outside the Japanese American National Museum for a 2022 event recalling World War II incarceration camps.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

After closing in early January, 2024, the Japanese American National Museum has announced it will reopen its newly renovated Pavilion on Jan. 23, 2027. Renovations include a new main entrance and new first-floor galleries for a brand new exhibition titled “In the Future We Call Now: Realities of Racism, Forging Democracy.” The special exhibition galleries on the second floor have also been updated and will feature the inaugural exhibition, “Pictures of Belonging: Miki Hayakawa, Hisako Hibi, and Miné Okubo.”

The Broad has announced its next fall exhibition, “Has the myth been shattered,” opening Nov. 21. The exhibition is set to include recent acquisitions by Guadalupe Rosales, Hank Willis Thomas and Mickalene Thomas. “Gathered together, works in the exhibition create unexpected connections across six decades, prompting an examination of how media has shaped history, memory, and collective experience,” a news release notes.

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

A little rare bird is making people happy, and I’ll take the moment of levity.

I’d like to pen an ode to the once-L.A.-based artist Mel Kadel on the occasion of the release of her first coloring book for women and girls, published by Secret Headquarters in Atwater Village. Titled “Dream Drops,” the detailed hand drawings allow blossoming artists to participate in Kadel’s elaborate, imaginative world of fragile, brave, timid, hopeful, brash, adventurous women — characters she’s drawn for decades now.

I first met Kadel more than 25 years ago when I moved to L.A. from Boston with my then-up-and-coming indie rock band called the Movies. The band moved into a two-bedroom triplex in Silver Lake that cost $845 per month and immediately fell in with a ragtag group of iconoclastic and wildly talented artists including Kadel, photographer Alex Prager, painter America Martin, artist Mercedes Helnwein and bands and musicians such as the Silversun Pickups, Jimmy Tamborello, the Jealous Sound, Earlimart, Radar Bros. and Irving.

Kadel and her then-partner Travis Millard — another prolific and accomplished artist — lived in a cabin near the wild mountainy edges of Echo Park, and friends would gather there to draw, drink and make music. Kadel always had her head bent over her work, page after page of detailed line drawings that later appeared on friends’ bedroom and living room walls and sometimes on fliers for shows at Spaceland or the Silverlake Lounge.

It was Kadel who encouraged many of us to try our hand at creating art, and she once staged a group show at an Echo Park record shop called Sea Level that was owned by a friend of ours. I painted a self-portrait on a piece of wood for the show that still hangs on my wall today.

Kadel created the album cover for the Silversun Pickups’ debut EP, “Pikul,” which was released on Dangerbird Records in 2005, and later, after the band and the label soared to new heights, she covered Dangerbird headquarters near Sunset Junction in Silver Lake with a building-sized mural featuring her otherworldly woman clad in blue stripes with forever flowing flowered hair.

In many ways it is Kadel whom I credit with opening a young me up to the magical world of art and the ideas that flow from it — Kadel and those early L.A. friends, many of whom I no longer see regularly, but whose accomplishments I relish in when they come to my attention. Which is just what I did when I saw that Kadel had released her coloring book — a project that she has worked on (no doubt in the same intentional, intense way that she always has) for the past year.

I’m arts editor Jessica Gelt, glad for what was and looking forward to what will be. This is your arts and culture news for the week.

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

Eleanora Owen in “Being Piaf.”

(Doug Engalla )

Being Piaf
Written and performed by Eleanora Owen, this solo theatrical piece explores the life and songs of French singer and lyricist Edith Piaf. Directed by Tim Byron Owen.
8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 4 p.m. Sundays; through Aug. 30. Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. odysseytheatre.com

Green Corridors
The West Coast premiere of Natalka Vorozhbyt’s darkly humorous drama about the plight of four Ukrainian women — refugees from the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022. Translated by John Freedman with Natalia Bratus. Directed by Frédérique Michel and produced by Charles A. Duncombe.
8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 4 p.m. Sundays; through Sept. 27. City Garage Theater, Bergamot Station Arts Center, 2525 Michigan Ave T1, Santa Monica. citygarage.org

Tercera Raíz
The contributions of the African diaspora to Mexican culture are celebrated with dance and mariachi music. Produced in partnership with Grandeza Mexicana Folk Ballet Company.
8 p.m. The Ford, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East. theford.com

SATURDAY

New–Music Game Night!
Brightwork Ensemble and People Inside Electronics present an evening of game-inspired works by Cristina Lord, Isaac Schankler, Siobhán Dougall and Richard An, and audience participation.
8 p.m. Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd. sierramadreplayhouse.org

SUNDAY

Eileen Cowin: Between Panic and Paradise
The Los Angeles–based photographer and artist’s 50-year career has produced visual narratives that incorporate cinema, literature, poetry and painting, erasing the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction.
Through Jan 3, 2027. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd. lacma.org

Jamar Gilbert and Amber Liekhus in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” at a Noise Within.

(Daniel Reichert)

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
A Noise Within opens its season with the seventh of the 10 plays in August Wilson’s Century Cycle to be produced by the company. Amber Liekhus stars as an iconic blues singer during a tempestuous recording session in 1927 Chicago. Directed by Gregg T. Daniel.
Previews, 2 p.m. Sunday; 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Aug. 28; Aug. 29-Sept. 20. A Noise Within, 3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena. https://www.anoisewithin.org/play/ma-raineys-black-bottom/

TUESDAY

Beethoven’s Fifth with Anna Handler

Da-da-da-DUM. The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s incoming conductor-in-residence leads the orchestra in one of classical music’s most iconic pieces, along with the composer’s rarely heard Triple Concerto and the U.S. premiere of Grace-Evangeline Mason’s “Ablaze the Moon.”
8 p.m. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com

Jeff Goldblum and the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra will play Blue Note LA on Tuesday and Wednesday.

(Blue Note LA)

Jeff Goldblum & the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra
As they’ve been doing for three decades, the actor-musician and his band perform contemporary arrangements of classic jazz and American Songbook standards.
7 and 9:30 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday. Blue Note Los Angeles, 6372 Sunset Blvd. bluenotejazz.com

Looking West: How the Myth of the Western Frontier Got Its Start
Muse/ique takes a deep dive into the legends and reality of the American West through classic Hollywood film scores, folk songs and contemporary compositions that reclaim the era’s diversity. Led by artistic and music director Rachael Worby with Damon Daunno, Raye Zaragoza, Glynn Turman and Muse/ique Orchestra.
7:30 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday. The Huntington, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino; 3 pm. (premium RSVPs only) and 7:30 p.m. Aug. 30. Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd. muse-ique.com

WEDNESDAY

California African American Museum
The museum augments two of its ongoing shows with special events. On Wednesday, Justen LeRoy of Art + Practice offers a curatorial walkthrough of “The Sound of Gordon Parks,” an immersive exhibition highlighting the sonic dimension of the photographer, composer, author, poet and filmmaker’s work. Thursday night, poets Pam Ward, Luis Rodriguez and Lynne Thompson share original work inspired by “A New Song: Langston Hughes in the West.”
Gordon Parks, 2 p.m. Wednesday; Langston Hughes, 7 p.m. Thursday. CAAM, 600 State Drive, Exposition Park. caamuseum.org

“Conscience” by playwright Joe DiPietro will have its L.A. premiere at International City Theatre in Long Beach.

(Justin Patterson)

Conscience
The Los Angeles premiere of Tony Award-winning playwright Joe DiPietro’s drama about pioneering politician Margaret Chase Smith, who famously challenged Joseph McCarthy’s tactics and was the first woman to serve in both houses of the U.S. Congress. Directed by Caryn Desai.
Previews, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday; 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays; through Sept. 13. International City Theatre the Beverly O’Neill Theater, 330 E. Seaside Way, Long Beach. ictlongbeach.org

THURSDAY

Rachmaninoff & Adams
Gemma New conducts John Adams’ “Short Ride in a Fast Machine,” ahead of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto (with Jeneba Kanneh-Mason in her L.A. Phil debut) and Symphonic Dances.
8 p.m. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com

— Kevin Crust

Retrospective

L.A. Times arts coverage from the past …

Eisa Davis, playwright and actor, who appeared in Melissa Jane Gibson’s play “This” at the Kirk Douglas Theater in Culver City in 2011.

(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

A double life as actor, playwright

Aug. 14, 2011

“I’m in a play called ‘This.’ ”

“OK, what is it called?”

“No, no, it’s called ‘This.’ ”

“Yes? What? It’s called what?”

With a lighthearted laugh, Eisa Davis says she often encounters this response when revealing that she is in a new production of “This,” which recently opened at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. The perplexity may be fitting for the universe playwright Melissa James Gibson has created: a world of confusion in which close friends enter a vulnerable time of unforeseen circumstances testing their expectations — a time also known as middle age.

Davis’ work as an actor and a playwright has contributed to a textured career. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in drama in 2007 for her play “Bulrusher,” about a biracial orphan infant found in a basket and raised by a quiet schoolteacher. She went on to write and star in the autobiographical “Angela’s Mixtape,” which was among the New Yorker’s best plays of 2009. Other plays she has written include “Ramp,” as well as “The History of Light,” which is returning to the stage this fall in New Jersey. READ MORE

– Jasmine Elist

Culture news and the SoCal scene

Conservators examine “Portrait of Mai” by Joshua Reynolds at the Getty museum.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

A 250-year-old portrait by painter Joshua Reynolds recently arrived at the Getty and is being examined by conservators before going on view in its West Coast debut later next month. “The Portrait of Mai” was acquired by the Getty for $61 million in a rare joint purchase with the National Portrait Gallery in London and depicts a young, regal-looking Tahitian man who arrived in London with Capt. James Cook in 1774.

If you’ve seen the recent national tour of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre, you may have wondered how on earth the actor playing the living chandelier Lumiere sings and dances for more than two hours while wearing lighted candles on both of his hands. The answer has arrived via this fun story written by Times contributor Jenelle Riley, who headed backstage during a recent performance to trail Danny Gardner as he donned the 7-pound props and went about the business of performing in the rigorous show.

The group show “To Share a Stomach” recently opened at the Brick in East Hollywood. Times contributor Sharon Mizota wrote a review that included her take on the unique and difficult-to-execute concept. The show was made manifest when 25 Iranian artists, working under challenging wartime conditions, sent instructions to artists counterparts in L.A. for how to create artworks using various levels of collaboration. Mizota found the results understandably uneven, but deeply touching and impactful.

The Kennedy Center’s National Symphony Orchestra performs at the Hollywood Bowl under musical director Gianandrea Noseda on Aug. 18.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

The newly homeless National Symphony Orchestra, whose fate has become uncertain as a court battle wages over whether or not the Kennedy Center will close down for two years, performed at the Hollywood Bowl earlier this week. Times classical music critic Mark Swed was there to watch, along with many effusive supporters of music director Gianandrea Noseda’s now wandering orchestra. Swed found the program lacking in imagination, but noted, “with its smooth strings, creamy brass, pungent winds and friendly percussion, Noseda’s NSO came across as a gracious orchestra meant to please, and, consequently, a seemingly marvelous anomaly in an otherwise divisive present-day D.C.”

Speaking of the Kennedy Center, last week proved a pivotal one for its fate. The Kennedy Center Board of Trustees voted late in the week to move forward with President Trump’s plan to close the building for renovations for two years. According to multiple news reports, the board also voted to inscribe Trump’s name on the building using the language “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump.”

Brett Littman has been named the new director and chief executive of the the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.

(Don Stahl)

The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego announced earlier this week that it has appointed Brett Littman as its new director and chief executive. Littman is replacing Kathryn Kanjo, who left to become the new director of the UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art. Littman has previously served in a variety of leadership roles in the arts in New York City, including as director of the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum; executive director of the Drawing Center; and deputy director of MoMA PS1. He was also co-director of Dieu Donné Papermill and associate director of UrbanGlass. He will start at MCASD in early October as the fifth director and chief executive in the museum’s history.

The Perenchio Foundation has awarded a $2,040,000 grant to the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus, representing the largest grant in the Grammy-winning organization’s history. The 2026 General Operating Support grant, which aids many aspects of the organization’s programming and community offerings, will be distributed over three years, and arrives at LACC celebrates its 40th anniversary.

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

Here are 16 burger and drink deals for when you need an “adult happy meal,” from The Times food section. Who doesn’t?

The school year is beginning in the Los Angeles area, with LAUSD back this week and Pasadena Unified School District starting Monday. My 10-year-old daughter just got her new backpack and shoes and is aflutter about her return for her final year of elementary school. But she’s sad about one thing in particular: Last year her school had to choose to keep PE or art. It voted for art. She loved both, and didn’t think the choice was fair. I asked her to write about it and said I’d share her thoughts with readers.

For context, late last school year PUSD laid off more than 150 full-time-equivalent certificated positions. According to United Teachers of Pasadena President Jonathan Gardner, that number included almost 25 art, music, dance, orchestra and choir teachers. It also included librarians, coordinators for special education and counselors, and, of course, plenty of irreplaceable regular teachers. It’s a bitter pill for educators and parents to swallow, especially when the country is spending billions on an ill-advised war in Iran that was never approved by Congress and many people in the city are struggling to afford groceries and healthcare.

My daughter, Henri Boo Biller, gets into that a bit in her essay:

“Because the district couldn’t pay for certain activities and classes anymore, subjects like art, music and PE have ended. Some people have protested about these layoffs and budget cuts, but the children are especially sad.

Kids love and adore some of these teachers that have been teaching them how to draw or play a sport or musical instrument. Taking away these activities is ending certain opportunities for kids. For example, kids love to run and play just as much as they love to draw and sculpt. Taking away one of the two wouldn’t mean that the kid doesn’t still want to do it!

One of the subjects they’ve been taking away in some schools is music. This is a problem because some kids can’t afford instruments or lessons from an expensive instructor. That’s why music is so important, to let kids learn an instrument without having to pay big bucks for it. Taking away that is taking away a giant opportunity. The instruments the kids are learning, such as trumpet, trombone, flute, guitar, saxophone, cello and violin are expensive instruments that are hard to find, or at least hard to find in good condition.”

I’ll interject here. This is true. My family benefits from a school-loaned saxophone for my daughter.

In her essay, my kiddo interviewed her neighbor and best friend who lives across the street, asking her what she thought should be done about these budget cuts. Her answer broke my heart.

Q. What do you think we can do about these changes?
A. Have more fundraising events throughout the year. As well as school sales, bake sales and lemonade stands.

My daughter continues, “As [my friend] mentioned, we could hold more school sales like bake sales and lemonade stands. But we could also think about why this is happening. The money that is usually going to schools across the country is instead being used by the government to buy more weapons for the war in Iran [editor’s note: we have discussed that one thing being funded doesn’t necessarily take away from another, and that it is really a matter of what we prioritize as a society] … and because of this PUSD and other districts are having to take away certain programs. Some of these programs are even their main selling point! Programs like art, music and PE are being shut down, ending certain opportunities for children. We can try to get some of that money back, like the interview stated, or protest to show the world we mean business. Thank you for your time. Next week I will come back with an equally intriguing topic. Have a nice rest of your week! I’m Henri B. Biller, signing out.”

As her mother, I vote for protest! We do mean business, right?

I’m arts editor Jessica Gelt sending my love to the teachers of the city. This is your arts and culture news for the week.

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

Battleship Potemkin
Sergei Eisenstein’s epic 1925 silent film screens with the world premiere of a live music score for string quartet and vocal quintet composed and conducted by George Sarah. Sarah also performs on synths/electronics, joined by soprano Jenna Hansen, mezzo soprano Anna Caplan, tenors George Sterne and Sean McDermott, Kaija Hansen on violin/viola, Katie Kim on violin and cellists Carolyn Regula and Paul Hyun.
8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd. sierramadreplayhouse.org

SUNDAY

Jas Ahluwalia and Kamaljeet Ahluwalia of Absolute Focus.

(Sierra Madre Playhouse; courtesy of the artist)

Absolute Focus + Chris Votek
The husband-and-wife duo of Santoor virtuoso Kamaljeet Ahluwalia and tabla master Jas Ahluwalia are joined by cellist Votek for an afternoon of traditional Hindustani raga.
4 p.m. Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd. sierramadreplayhouse.org

Pacific Chorale’s Choral Festival
The annual event brings hundreds of community members together with the voices of the Chorale for Maurice Duruflé’s “Requiem.” Robert Istad conducts the Pacific Chorale’s Festival Chorus.
5 p.m. Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. pacificchorale.org

TUESDAY

Gershwin, Bernstein & More
Gianandrea Noseda and the National Symphony Orchestra make their Bowl debut with music from “West Side Story,” “An American in Paris” and Dvořák’s “From the New World.”
8 p.m. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N Highland Ave., Hollywood. hollywoodbowl.com

WEDNESDAY

An Enemy of the People
Director Bart DeLorenzo has reimagined Henrik Ibsen’s classic play to highlight its contemporary resonance in a society in decline. The cast includes Lauren Campedelli, DeJuan Christopher, Dennis Dun, Clay Hollander, Jason McBeth, Cara Mitsuko and Jay Paulson.
Previews, 8 p.m. Wednesday-Aug. 21; opening night, 8 p.m. Aug. 22; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and Wed. Sept. 16; 3 p.m. Sundays through Sept. 27. Odyssey Ensemble Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. odysseytheatre.com

Herbie Hancock performs at the 2026 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

(Amy Harris / Invision / AP)

Herbie Hancock Celebrates Miles Davis
The Grammy-winning keyboardist has recruited a stellar lineup including two of Miles Davis’ former bassists — Ron Carter and Marcus Miller — trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard, former Davis saxophonist Kenny Garrett, bassist Christian McBride and conductor-arranger Vince Mendoza, to honor Davis through his music.
8 p.m. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com

THURSDAY

Presented in VistaVision
A tribute to the cinematography technique created by Paramount Pictures in 1954. Its popularity waned in the 1960s but contemporary filmmakers such as Brady Corbet, Yorgos Lanthimos and Paul Thomas Anderson have embraced the format. The series begins with John Ford’s “The Searchers” (1956) in 70mm on Thursday, and includes “North by Northwest” (1959), also in 70mm, and “One Battle After Another” (2025), the first film shot in VistaVision to win the Academy Award for best picture.
7:30 p.m. Thursday; the series continues through Aug. 31. Academy Museum, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. academymuseum.org

Gustavo Dudamel conducts his final concert in Disney Hall as L.A. Phil music director on June 7.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Celebrating Gustavo at the Bowl
As Gustavo Dudamel departs L.A. for New York, he goes out with a bang of four nights with four different programs: Beethoven Ninth with the L.A. Phil and YOLA on Thursday; Gustavo’s Fiesta, with Los Tigres del Norte, singer-songwriter Lila Downs, Mariachi Reyna de Los Ángeles, singer Sílvia Pérez Cruz, La Sonora Dinamita and Los Panchos, joining with the L.A. Phil for a night of Latin music on Aug. 21; Foo Fighters with the L.A. Phil and YOLA on Aug. 22; and last, but not least, “A Concert for Venezuela: A Benefit to Support Earthquake Relief” on Aug. 23.
8 p.m. Thursday-Aug. 22; 7 p.m. Aug. 23. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com

— Kevin Crust

Retrospective

L.A. Times arts coverage from the past …

Lynda Benglis. “MI,” 1984. Glass, sandcast, powdered; ceramic oxides, metal inclusions 13 1/2 x 17 x 16 in. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser.

(Museum Associates / LACMA; Lynda Benglis / VAGA, New York)

Shattering expectations

Aug. 6, 2006

It was 1986 and Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser were 10 years into their passion for collecting glass art. Their home was lined with the kinds of works they loved.

That was when Stephanie Barron, a curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, called to suggest that they look at an unusual piece at Margo Leavin Gallery in West Hollywood. Titled “MI,” it was a thick twist of sand-cast glass with a roughened texture reminiscent of glass unearthed from ancient sites. Even more unusual, the artist was Lynda Benglis, better known for avant-garde sculpture and performance and video work.

It was as if glass, as an artistic medium, had reached a critical juncture. “A whole group of artists who were not part of the glass movement but who worked in glass suddenly appeared,” Greenberg says.

He and Steinhauser viewed “MI” with puzzlement at first, then respect and finally appreciation. “This was part of our learning experience,” he said. “It expanded our horizons.” The couple helped LACMA purchase the piece. READ MORE

— Scarlett Cheng

Culture news and the SoCal scene

Anthony Hopkins at Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles on Aug. 1.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Anthony Hopkins’ first love was music, and, at 88, he’s returned to it. Later this month, the two-time Academy Award-winning actor will release his debut album, “Life Is a Dream,” on Decca Classics, featuring London’s Philharmonia Orchestra and conducted by Gustavo Dudamel.

Dudamel will play his final show at the Hollywood Bowl later this month as the music and artistic director of the L.A. Phil, and although the city has had years to get used to the idea of losing him, it still stings. In a tender, thoughtful column filled with insider information, Times classical music critic Mark Swed looks back at Dudamel’s arrival in L.A. more than 20 years ago to track how the Venezuelan wunderkind went from “rising star to star to savior.”

Swed also broke the news that German composer and conductor Matthias Pintscher will be Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s new music director, replacing Jaime Martín beginning in the 2027-28 season. “Pintscher, who is 55, says he is not ready to make any grand statements about LACO other than being eager to explore West Coast music and that he loves combining old with everything else,” Swed wrote.

Michael Shaeffer as King Aerys II Targaryen in the “Game of Thrones: The Mad King,” which opened Saturday at Royal Shakespeare Theatre.

(Johan Persson)

The wildly popular “Game of Thrones” franchise, which began in book form and spawned one of HBO’s most successful series of all time, is branching out to the stage. A 3.5-hour play, “Game of Thrones: The Mad King,” opened last weekend at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. Author George R. R. Martin was in attendance to celebrate, and audiences seemed delighted by the expansion of the fantasy world-building effort, with many fan questions answered.

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art this week announced its flagship restaurant: Skywalker Grill, inspired by founder George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch in Marin County. The restaurant is located on the top floor of the museum with sweeping views of the city. It will be open for lunch, dinner and weekend brunch with hours that last long after the museum closes. Think American cuisine with California-sourced ingredients, including a signature Skywalker Ranch Wagyu burger.

Self Help Graphics & Art in Los Angeles.

(Sarahi Apaez)

Self Help Graphics & Art announced the launch of a $6-million capital campaign for the completion of its permanent home at 1300 E. 1st St. in Boyle Heights. The fund is intended for the final phase of a major renovation that will turn the space into a destination arts and culture center. The goal is to complete the project by the end of the year.

Three public art pieces by street artist Banksy have cost British taxpayers more than $200,000, as public authorities work to remove, manage and protect the art, a freedom of information record request obtained by the BBC recently found.

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

One of L.A.’s most beloved taco trucks now has a brick-and-mortar home in Studio City.