Erivo

When Los Angeles County Museum of Art director Michael Govan first stepped up to the podium at the museum’s star-packed 14th annual Art + Film Gala, the Dodgers were down one point to the Toronto Blue Jays in the eighth inning of the final game of the World Series.

There was no giant screen in the massive tent where a decadent dinner was being served Saturday night in celebration of honorees artist Mary Corse and director Ryan Coogler. Instead guests in elaborate gowns and tuxedos discreetly glanced at their phones propped on tables and at the base of flower vases across the star-packed venue. This became apparent when Miguel Rojas hit a game-tying home run at the top of the ninth inning and the whole room erupted in cheers.

Michael Govan, CEO of LACMA, wearing Gucci, speaks onstage during the 2025 LACMA Art+Film Gala.

(Amy Sussman / Getty Images for LACMA)

When Govan returned to the stageto begin the well-deserved tributes to the artist and filmmaker of the hour, the game had been won, the effusive cheering had died down, and the phones had been respectfully put away.

“Go Dodgers!” Govan said, before joking that LACMA had engineered the win for this special evening. The room was juiced.

It made Los Angeles feel like the center of the universe for a few hours and was fitting for an event that famously brings together the city’s twin cultural bedrocks of art and cinema, creating a rarefied space where the two worlds mix and mingle in support of a shared vision of recognizing L.A.’s immeasurable contributions to the global cultural conversation.

“This is a celebration that can only happen in L.A. — where art, film and creativity are deeply intertwined,” Govan said. “I always say this is the most creative place on Earth.”

The event raised a record $6.5 million in support of the museum and its programs. Co-chairs Leonardo DiCaprio and LACMA trustee Eva Chow hosted a cocktail party and dinner that drew celebrities including Dustin Hoffman, Cynthia Erivo, Cindy Crawford, Queen Latifah, Angela Bassett, Lorde, Demi Moore, Hannah Einbinder, Charlie Hunnam and Elle Fanning alongside local elected officials and appointees including U.S. Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles); L.A. County Supervisors Holly Mitchell and Lindsey Horvath; L.A. Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky; West Hollywood Councilmember John M. Erickson, and Kristin Sakoda, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture.

Sakoda said she thoroughly enjoyed the festivities “as representative of the incredibly diverse culture of Los Angeles and how that speaks to our entire nation.”

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1. George Lucas arrives at the LACMA Art + Film Gala on Saturday. (Jordan Strauss / Invision via Associated Press) 2. Elle Fanning arrives at the LACMA Art + Film Gala on Saturday. (Jordan Strauss / Invision via Associated Press) 3. Angela Bassett arrives at the LACMA Art + Film Gala on Saturday. (Jordan Strauss / Invision via Associated Press)

A special nod of gratitude went to previous gala honorees in attendance including artists Mark Bradford, James Turrell, Catherine Opie, Betye Saar, Judy Baca, George Lucas and Park Chan-Wook. Leaders from many other local arts institutions also showed up including the Hammer Museum’s director, Zoe Ryan; California African American Museum Director Cameron Shaw; and MOCA’s interim Director Ann Goldstein.

Rising in the background was LACMA’s new David Geffen Galleries, the 110,000-square-foot Peter Zumthor-designed building scheduled to open in April as the new home for the museum’s 150,000-object permanent collection.

“Every day I’m in that little building behind installing thousands of artworks,” Govan said to cheers. “I can’t wait for people to rediscover our permanent collection, from old favorites to new acquisitions. It’s a monumental gift to L.A., and in addition to L.A. County and the public, I would like to thank the person whose generosity brought us to this landmark moment, Mr. David Geffen.”

Geffen sat in a sea of black ties and glittering gowns, near Disney CEO Bob Iger and DiCaprio — who had been filmed earlier in the week in attendance at Game 5 of the World Series at Dodger Stadium.

Govan also gave a special acknowledgment to former LACMA board co-chair, Elaine Wynn, who died earlier this year and was one of the museum’s most steadfast champions. Wynn contributed $50 million to the new building — one of the first major gifts in support of the effort. Govan noted that the northern half of the building will be named the Elaine Wynn wing.

Honoree Ryan Coogler, wearing Gucci, speaks onstage during the 2025 LACMA Art+Film Gala.

(Amy Sussman / Getty Images for LACMA)

Left unmentioned was the fact that earlier in the week LACMA’s employees announced they are forming a union, LACMA United, representing more than 300 workers from across all departments, including curators, educators, guest relations associates and others. One worker told The Times there were no plans to demonstrate at the gala, which raises much-needed funds for the museum.

The crowd sat rapt as the night’s guests of honor, Corse and Coogler, humbly spoke of their journeys in their respective art forms, with Govan introducing them as “artists whose brilliant groundbreaking work challenges us to see the world differently.”

The night concluded with an enthusiastic performance by Doja Cat on an outdoor stage in the shadow of the David Geffen Galleries, the lights girding its massive concrete underbelly like stars in the sky.

“It was a beautiful evening of community coming together around something that reminds us of our shared humanity at a time when we need it,” said Yaroslavsky with a smile as the evening wound down.

Cynthia Erivo, a noted theatrical divinity, redeemed the title of “Jesus Christ Superstar” at the Hollywood Bowl last weekend in a magnetic, heaven-sent performance that established God the Savior as a queer Black woman, as many of us suspected might be the case all along.

Divine dispensation allowed me to catch the final performance of this revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s 1971 breakout musical. I returned from vacation just in time to join the pilgrimaging hordes carting cumbersome picnic baskets and enough wine for a few dozen Sicilian weddings. The vast number of attendees caused bottlenecks at entry points, prompting one wag to crack, “What is this, the Second Coming?”

The headliners, Erivo as Jesus and Adam Lambert as Judas, certainly have sizable fan bases. But so too does the subject of this Greatest Story Ever Told, a messiah whose following has few equals in the history of the world. Suffice it to say, it was a supercharged evening, comparable more to a rock concert than one of the Bowl’s forays into the musical theater past.

The hard-charging exuberance was appropriate for a production that went back to the concept album roots of a rock opera that, like other countercultural musicals of the period — such as “Hair” and “Godspell” — preached peace and love while rebelling against oppression and conformity. “Jesus Christ Superstar” reminds us that Lloyd Webber wasn’t always a symbol of the bourgeois establishment.

Yes, the composer behind “Cats,” “The Phantom of the Opera” and “Sunset Boulevard” had an early revolutionary streak, challenging authority and testing social taboos. What made “Jesus Christ Superstar” controversial wasn’t simply the depiction of Jesus of Nazareth as a man with vulnerabilities and doubts. It was the blast of guitars and vocal shrieks that accompanied the telling of his last days and crucifixion in a manner more akin to the Who’s “Tommy” than the church organ interludes of a traditional Sunday service.

Cynthia Erivo delivered a heaven-sent performance in “Jesus Christ Superstar” at the Hollywood Bowl last weekend.

(Farah Sosa)

Director and choreographer Sergio Trujillo leaned into the concert nature of “Jesus Christ Superstar.” The metallic scaffolding staging, the mythic scale of projections and the rhythmic flow of cast members, moving from one musical number to the next, freed the production from literal illustration.

The religious meaning of the story was communicated through the intensity of the performances. Erivo and Lambert are incapable of ever giving less than 100% when translating emotion into song. But the human drama was most evident in the handling of duets, the musical give and take that showcases the richness of all that lies between lyrics.

The conflict between Erivo’s all-seeing, all-feeling Jesus and Lambert’s competitive yet remorseful Judas was thrillingly brought to life in their different yet wholly compatible musical styles. In “Strange Thing Mystifying” and “The Last Supper,” Lambert, a Freddie Mercury style-rocker, and Erivo, a musical theater phenomenon who can pierce the heavens with her mighty voice, revealed a Judas who can’t account for all his actions and a Jesus who understands the larger destiny that is both sorrowfully and triumphantly unfolding.

Phillipa Soo provided sublime support in a cast that had considerable Broadway depth.

(Farah Sosa)

Phillipa Soo’s Mary Magdalene brought a probing, tentative and profound intimacy in her adoration of Erivo’s Jesus. In her exquisite rendition of “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” the tenderness between Mary Magdalene and Jesus, at once earthy and ethereal, deepened the expressive range of the love between them.

Soo, best known for her graceful lead performance in “Hamilton,” provided sublime support in a cast that had considerable Broadway depth. Raúl Esparza, whom I can still hear singing “Being Alive” from the 2006 Broadway revival of “Company,” played Pontius Pilate with lip-smacking political villainy. Josh Gad, who missed Friday’s performance because of illness but was in sharp comic form Sunday, turned King Herod into a Miami-style mobster, dressed in a gold lamé getup that would be just perfect for New Year’s Day brunch at Mar-a-Lago.

Raul Esparza as Pontius and Cynthia Erivo as Jesus in “Jesus Christ Superstar.”

(Farah Sosa)

The acting company distinguished itself primarily through its galvanic singing. Music director and conductor Stephen Oremus maintained the production’s high musical standards, bringing out the extensive palette of a rock score with quicksilver moods.

One could feel Erivo, a generous performer who understands that listening can be as powerful as belting, building up trust in her less experienced musical theater castmates. The way she registered Lambert’s bravura moments bolstered not only his confidence in his non-singing moments but also the miracle of her own fully realized performance.

Ultimately, Jesus’ spiritual journey is a solitary one. In “Gethsemane,” the path of suffering becomes clear, and Erivo’s transcendence was all the more worshipped by the audience for being painfully achieved. Unmistakably modern yet incontestably timeless, abstract yet never disembodied and pure of heart yet alive to the natural shocks that flesh is heir to, this portrayal of Jesus with piercings, acrylic nails and tattoos met us in an ecumenical place where all are welcome in their bodily realities and immortal longings.

Lloyd Webber is undergoing a renaissance at the moment. Fearlessly inventive director Jamie Lloyd has given new impressions of “Sunset Blvd.,” which won the Tony for best musical revival this year, and “Evita,” which is currently the talk of London’s West End.

Trujillo’s production of “Jesus Christ Superstar” deserves not just a longer life but more time for the actors to investigate their momentous relationships with one another. The drama that occurs when Erivo’s Jesus and Soo’s Mary Magdalene interact should provide the model for all the cast members to lay bare their messy human conflicts. “Jesus Christ Superstar” depends as much upon its interpersonal drama as its rock god swagger — as Erivo, in a Bowl performance that won’t soon be forgotten, proved once and for all.

Adam Lambert sits on a rickety wooden chair just outside the main chapel at the Hollywood United Methodist Church on a break from rehearsing the musical “Jesus Christ Superstar.”

Dressed in beige shorts and a vest with matching mid-calf boots, Lambert wears his trademark glitter eye makeup with thick black liner. He’s calm and collected, content to spend his lunch break chatting, even though the rehearsal schedule is a breakneck nine days total. He chalks up his easygoing demeanor to the high-wattage professionalism of the cast, and his familiarity with the music.

Lambert first heard the soundtrack on one of his dad’s vinyl records when he was about 10 years old.

“I’ve always wanted to do that musical. I’ve always wanted to play Judas,” he says with a smile. “And when they told me Cynthia [Erivo] was interested, I was like, ‘Wow, this is gonna be crazy.’”

Lambert, a fan-favorite “American Idol” runner-up who began performing with Queen in 2011, plays Judas to Erivo’s Jesus in the Hollywood Bowl production directed by Tony-winning choreographer Sergio Trujillo.

Josh Gad, who portrays King Herod, calls the cast “the musical theater version of the Avengers.” He’s referring to Erivo and Lambert, in addition to Phillipa Soo as Mary Magdalene, Milo Manheim as Peter, Raúl Esparza as Pontius Pilate, Tyrone Huntley as Simon and Brian Justin Crum as Annas. The sold-out show runs from Friday to Sunday.

Tyrone Huntley performs as Simon during a rehearsal of “Jesus Christ Superstar” at the Hollywood United Methodist Church in Los Angeles.

(Etienne Laurent / For The Times)

Judging from the ongoing commentary and controversy over the casting on social media, a queer, Black, female actor playing Jesus and a gay actor portraying Judas feel like a revelation to fans grappling with mounting concerns about civil rights in America. Over the last six months, the Trump administration has curtailed diversity, equity and inclusion programs and attempted to roll back key legal protections for certain members of the LGBTQ+ community.

“The challenge for the audience of seeing a female Black Jesus is so exciting. And we all feel the excitement,” says Lambert, adding that the show doesn’t change lyrics or pronouns. “Maybe it doesn’t have to do with male or female. I don’t really know if it matters what gender Jesus was, because it was about the teachings and the love and the connection to faith. So shouldn’t it transcend gender?”

Power — who has it and who doesn’t — has emerged as a defining narrative in 2025. That was also the case 2,000 years ago when Pontius Pilate ordered the crucifixion of Jesus, who posed a serious threat to the religious and political primacy of the Pharisees, the Herodians and the Romans. The 1971 musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice imagines the final days of Jesus’ life, including his agony, before he ultimately accepts his fate.

Gad is keenly aware of the notion of power as historic through-line as he approaches his titular number, “Herod’s Song,” in which the King of Judea coyly mocks Jesus before taking a frightening turn into true menace.

“This is a man who’s so insecure he can’t afford to let Jesus out of his chains in order to actually face him without the help of soldiers around him,” Gad says. “My hope is that I’m getting to bring one of the greatest hypocrites to life in a way that will both make people laugh and also make them recognize that archetype.”

Brian Grohl, left, Josh Gad, Adam Lambert and Sergio Trujillo are bringing “Jesus Christ Superstar” to the Hollywood Bowl.

(Etienne Laurent / For The Times)

The musical was first released as a concept album in 1970 and played at the Hollywood Bowl in 1971, before debuting on Broadway later that year. During its run, protests outside the stage door were commonplace, and although the musical has reached the pinnacle of success over the years, it has remained controversial.

Big summer musicals have been a staple of the Hollywood Bowl since 2000, but the shows went dark due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. With the exception of “Kinky Boots” in 2022, “Jesus Christ Superstar” is the first of what Bowl leaders hope will be an annual resumption of the beloved programming.

“We wanted to make sure that when we came back, it was the most spectacular thing we could do,” says Meghan Umber, president of the Hollywood Bowl and chief programming officer at the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

“Jesus Christ Superstar,” was always at the top of the Bowl’s musical wishlist but wasn’t available until now, adds Brian Grohl, associate director of programming for the L.A. Phil.

“The number of titles that can sustain three nights at the Hollywood Bowl is a narrowed-down list already,” Grohl said, so securing the title resulted in a lot of jumping and shouting around the office. And when it came to who would play Jesus, Umber and Grohl both say Erivo topped the list. Her “yes” made all the others follow.

Adam Lambert performs Saturday during a rehearsal of “Jesus Christ Superstar.”

(Etienne Laurent / For The Times)

Gad calls Erivo — who was not present at a recent rehearsal because of a previous engagement — a “generational talent.” And he’s far from alone. Talk to anyone on the cast or crew and they will immediately hold forth on her extraordinary gifts.

“I see the hand of God in her,” Trujillo says reverently. “Even now, me being in the room with her, I hear it and I see it, and it is transcendent.”

Trujillo decided to go back to the musical’s roots as a concept album and is staging the show as a bare-bones rock concert. Instead of elaborate scenic design, there are black road boxes, microphones and cords. Even the costumes are contemporary with nods to their lineage. A rhythm band will play onstage and a 37-piece orchestra will perform behind a giant LED screen that will create the illusion that the musicians are hovering in the sky above the action.

Keeping the show in the present and infusing it with the raw energy of youth culture was crucial to Trujillo’s vision, he says, adding that in the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll, the musical “reflects the turbulent political times that we’re living in.”

“As I set up each one of the characters, they’re at a microphone singing and then they take the microphone and they step into the scene. I always want to remind the audience that we are in a concert, but we’re also telling the story,” says Trujillo. “Every single person understands the opportunity that we all have to take this monumental story, this monumental score, and to do it justice. So everyone is coming at it with such goodwill and so much joy.”

At a Saturday rehearsal in the church gym, Trujillo’s words ring true. The ensemble cast of more than 20 talented dancers and singers, in sweats and hoodies, run through “What’s the Buzz.” Gad watches and cheers from a table on the sidelines next to conductor and musical director Stephen Oremus, who smiles and nods his head with the beat.

“If you need me to stand in for Jesus, I’ll do it,” Gad jokes.

Phillipa Soo, who plays Mary Magdalene, sings a heartfelt rendition of “I Don’t Know How to Love Him.”

(Etienne Laurent / For The Times)

Lambert mesmerizes the assembled crew and onlookers with a potent rendition of “Heaven on Their Minds” and Soo brings tears with a heartfelt performance of “I Don’t Know How to Love Him.”

“The more time I spend with this musical, the more brilliant I understand it to be,” says Manheim during a brief break. The 24-year-old, who‘s gained a tween following after playing Zed in Disney Channel’s “Zombies” franchise, is part of the youth cohort Trujillo wanted to cast. He wasn’t as familiar with the score as the older cast members — which is part of the point.

“It’s cross-generational,” says Trujillo of the show. “This is the gift that you give to your children and then it just gets passed on.”

Burning questions abound ahead of Sunday’s 78th Tony Awards, hosted for the first time by Cynthia Erivo and broadcast live from New York’s Radio City Music Hall.

Will Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Pulitzer-winning “Purpose” win best play over comedian Cole Escola’s bawdy “Oh, Mary!”? Will George Clooney pull off a win for best performance by an actor in a leading role? Will “Maybe Happy Ending” get a truly happy ending by taking the statuette for best musical? It is, after all, leading the pack with 10 nominations, tied with “Buena Vista Social Club” and “Death Becomes Her.”

This season has been arguably one of the best in recent years for Broadway shows, with fine offerings including “John Proctor Is the Villain,” “Dead Outlaw,” “Real Women Have Curves: The Musical” and “Yellow Face.” Actors hoping to take home a Tony include Darren Criss, Daniel Dae Kim, Mia Farrow, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Sadie Sink, Sarah Snook, Jeremy Jordan, Conrad Ricamora and Bob Odenkirk.

This year will also feature a 10th anniversary reunion performance by the cast of “Hamilton,” as well as a variety of spirited performances by this year’s crop of musical nominees.

So, how to watch it all?

Criss — who was nominated for the first time this year — and Tony-winner Renée Elise Goldsberry will host a live pre-show, “The Tony Awards: Act One,” which begins at 3:40 p.m. Pacific and can be viewed for free on Pluto TV, by clicking on the “live music” channel.

The main ceremony is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. Pacific, directly after the pre-show. It will air live on CBS and be available to stream for subscribers of Paramount+ with Showtime. If you’re a regular Paramount+ subscriber, you won’t be able to watch the show until the following day, when it will be featured as a special on-demand option.

If you don’t have Paramount+, fear not. The streamer is offering a seven-day free trial. If you keep the service past the allotted time, it costs $12.99 per month. The regular Paramount+ plan without Showtime — called Paramount+ Essential — costs $7.99 per month.