matthew lópez

With Thanksgiving in the rearview mirror we are now hurtling toward Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and the New Year. December can bring stress, but it also brings the feel-good holiday shows, including “Tinselcolor,” which opens Dec. 2 at CineVita, a 15,000-square-foot double-decker Belgian spiegeltent operated by For the Record, which stages live musical revues of well-known film soundtracks.

Joey McIntyre — the youngest member of the ultra ‘90s boy band, New Kids on the Block — signed on as host of the candy-colored world-premiere extravaganza, which features an eight-piece band and 14 singers performing holiday movie music from 25 film scores including “Home Alone,” “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” and “White Christmas.”

For the Record has been putting on shows for more than 15 years, starting in a small bar and restaurant in Los Feliz and moving up to bigger venues leading to CineVita. Over the years, the company became known for attracting celebrity clientele. Quentin Tarantino and Rosario Dawson attended a performance based on Tarantino’s film scores, and Demi Moore’s daughter, Rumer Willis, once joined the troupe. Moore is now an investor.

In an email, McIntyre wrote that he saw the Tarantino show years ago and loved it.

“I knew the caliber of talent and production that this company puts up, and then I stepped foot into this unparalleled space and almost verbatim said ‘sign me up,’” he wrote. “I’m a theater kid. The venue was like Jessica Rabbit calling me in.”

The unparalleled space McIntyre is referring to contains 3,000 hand-beveled mirrors, hand-cut stained glass windows and carved wood ornamentation. It will be decorated with outsized holiday flair for “Tinselcolor,” but it will also feel cozy.

“The theater holds about 700, but it is so warm and intimate, like you’re in my living room for the holidays,” McIntyre wrote. “Our guests are going to feel that. Our director, Anderson Davis, and the creative team have been super open to making it feel authentic to me and showcasing what I bring to the table.”

Performers joining McIntyre onstage include Brian Justin Crum, who recently played the role of Annas alongside Cynthia Erivo and Adam Lambert in the Hollywood Bowl’s electrifying “Jesus Christ Superstar”; Vintage Trouble frontman Ty Taylor; Cheyenne Isabel Wells, who starred in “Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies” on Paramount+; and Dionne Gipson from “Found” on NBC and “Haus of Vicious” on BET.

McIntyre noted that he gets to sing the Andy Williams classic, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” in full holiday regalia. His favorite holiday movie song of all time, however, is not in the show. That would be “A Brand New Christmas,” which he co-wrote for last year’s Roku Original “Jingle Bell Love.”

His favorite Christmas carol of all time? “O Holy Night.”

“It sits right in my wheelhouse vocally, and it checks all the boxes: heartfelt, classic melody with a pop bluesy accessibility. And you get to ‘fall on your knees’ when you’re performing it,” he wrote.

“Tinselcolor” runs through Dec. 30. After that, McIntyre will head back to Las Vegas to continue the New Kids on the Block residency at Dolby Live at Park MGM, which was extended through 2026 due to high demand.

“We just announced 3 more stints for 2026. We are a blessed bunch of guys. We’ve been able to keep it fresh and exciting over all these years, and the fact that we still had Vegas on the table was something we have really taken advantage of,” McIntyre wrote about the residency. “Our diehards are genuinely blown away, and Vegas is yet another hook for folks who haven’t seen us in a while. And those newbies are loving it too. It feels like a slam dunk all around.”

I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt wishing you a very happy holiday season filled with love, kindness, health and hope. Here’s your arts and culture news for the week.

On our radar

Clockwise from bottom left: Grand Kiev Ballet, American Ballet Theatre and Inland Pacific Ballet.

(Los Angeles Times photo collage; illustrations by Katie Smith / For The Times; photographs from Grand Kyiv Ballet, Cheryl Mann and Marsha McNeely Photography)

Nutcracker roundup
The season of Sugar Plum Fairies is upon us. In last weekend’s holiday preview, Ashley Lee did the legwork gathering intel on productions of the holiday perennial that will be dancing their way across Southern California stages in the coming weeks. From downtown L.A. to the South Bay, Orange County and the Inland Empire, the variety of imaginative interpretations offer something for almost everybody. This week alone sees the openings of Anaheim Ballet’s “Nutcracker” (Friday and Saturday. City National Grove of Anaheim, 2200 E. Katella Ave. anaheimballet.org); American Contemporary Ballet’s “The Nutcracker Suite” (Saturday through Dec. 24. Bank of America Plaza, 333 S. Hope St., downtown L.A. acbdances.com); “Bob Baker’s Nutcracker,” a marionette version of the show (Saturday through Jan. 4. Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd. sierramadreplayhouse.org); and Debbie Allen Dance Academy’s “The Hot Chocolate Nutcracker,” which subs Mariah Carey and other contemporary artists for Tchaikovsky (Thursday through Dec. 14. Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center, 1935 Manhattan Beach Blvd. debbieallendanceacademy.com).

What the Dickens!

The cast of “A Christmas Carol” at A Noise Within.

(Craig Schwartz)

Like “The Nutcracker,” the holidays are heavy with varied interpretations of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” Friday night in Anaheim, Chance Theater opens Leslie Bricusse’s “Scrooge! The Musical” (Through Dec. 21. Bette Aitken Theater Arts Center, 5522 E. La Palma Ave. chancetheater.com). Saturday night, two long-standing productions of “A Christmas Carol” make their traditional returns. In Pasadena, Geoff Elliott (who also adapted and co-directs with Julia Rodriguez-Elliott) once again steps into Ebenezer’s slippers for a night of ghostly visitations (Through Dec. 4. A Noise Within, 3352 E. Foothill Blvd. anoisewithin.org).

Richard Doyle in “A Christmas Carol” at South Coast Repertory.

(Robert Huskey)

Meanwhile, down in Orange County, South Coast Repertory celebrates the 45th anniversary of resident dramaturg Jerry Patch’s adaptation (Through Dec. 28. Emmes/Benson Theatre Center, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. scr.org). And on Dec. 5, Independent Shakespeare Co.‘s David Melville plays not Scrooge, but the author himself in “A Christmas Carol With Charles Dickens,” a solo storytelling tour-de-force (Through Dec. 22. ISC Studio, Atwater Crossing, 3191 Casitas Ave., Suite 130, Atwater Village. iscla.org).

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY
Heisenberg
Paul Eiding and Juls Hoover star in Simon Stephens’ drama about a middle-woman and an older man who meet in a London railway station. Directed by Cameron Watson.
8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday, through Dec. 22. Additional show 8 p.m. Dec. 18. Skylight Theatre, 1816 1/2 N. Vermont Ave., Los Feliz. skylighttheatre.org

SATURDAY

Artist Drew Struzan signs his Oscar poster in 2008.

(Mark Mainz / Getty Images)

Drew Struzan Tribute
The American Cinematheque salutes the artist, illustrator and designer who died in October with a triple-feature of films for which he designed the posters: “Back to the Future,” “The Goonies” and “E.T.” Struzan also designed iconic one-sheets for such films as “Star Wars,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Blade Runner.”
11 a.m. Saturday. Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd. americancinematheque.com

TUESDAY

Tom Morello at South by Southwest in Austin in 2025.

(Jack Plunkett / Invision / Associated Press)

The REVOLUTION(S) will be Amplified
Musician/activist Tom Morello joins curator Douglas Fogle for a discussion about art, activism, creativity and resistance on the occasion of the exhibition “Corita Kent: The Sorcery of Images.”
7 p.m. Marciano Art Foundation, 4357 Wilshire Blvd. marcianoartfoundation.org

THURSDAY
Children of the Winter Kingdom
Orphaned twins escape a circus and encounter a king and his dragon, a wild girl, a crow, a sorceress and an ice spider in a holiday adventure filled with music and puppetry. Written by Adam Dugas & Mary Eileen O’Donnell, directed by Adam Dugas.
8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays, through Dec. 20. The Actors’ Gang at the Ivy Substation, 9070 Venice Blvd., Culver City. theactorsgang.com

‘Die Heart’
Yippee-ki-yay, Heart lovers! Troubadour Theater Co. revives its holiday musical-comedy synergism of the 1988 Bruce Willis action movie “Die Hard” with the songs of the Wilson sisters. Don’t even think about asking if it’s really a Christmas movie.
Dec. 4 to 21. Colony Theatre, 555 N. Third St., Burbank. troubie.com

A scene from “Putney Swope,” directed by Robert Downey Sr.

(Cinema 5 / Photofest)

Putney Swope
The Academy Museum’s celebration of film preservation kicks off with the world premiere of a new 35mm print of Robert Downey Sr.’s 1969 social satire.
7:30 p.m. Thursday Academy Museum, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. academymuseum.org

Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake
The Pacific Symphony and pianist Alexandra Dariescu, conducted by Tianyi Liu, perform works by Cassandra Miller, Maurice Ravel and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
8 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. scfta.org/events

Dispatch: The Butterfly Effect

Liviera Lim as Vivian Fang in “The Butterfly Effect.”

(Charly Charney Cohen)

Young local theater troupe Last Call Theater specializes in interactive, participatory productions, and its latest, “The Butterfly Effect,” is an intimate affair that encourages one-to-one and small group pairings with actors. The show examines past choices and the consequences of changing them. There’s a fantastical bent, as it’s set in a cafe that promises the ability to time travel. The decade-hopping coffee shop backdrop gives the company a chance to play with multiple storylines that touch on L.A. history, from immigrant tales of a family-run business to those often overlooked by our city’s emphasis on celebrity. The production, which opened in mid-November, runs Thursday through Saturday at Stella Coffee and closes Dec 6. ticketleap.events
— Todd Martens

Culture news and the SoCal scene

Robert Therrien‘s “No title (red chapel relief),” 1991, enamel on paper and wood.

(Christopher Knight / Los Angeles Times)

A place at the (big) table
If you’ve ever visited the Broad, you’re quite familiar with the large table and chairs in its permanent collection that dwarf even the tallest viewer. Times art critic Christopher Knight (who is retiring as of today) calls the Broad’s new exhibition, “Robert Therrien: This Is a Story,” a “smashing retrospective” and one of the year’s best museum solo shows. Therrien, who died at 71 in 2019, was a unique talent who sits comfortably among the most significant L.A. artists since the ‘60s and ‘70s. “Whether he was making a 3D sculpture to stand on the floor, a 2D painting to hang on the wall, or a 3D sculpture attached to a wall like an ancient frieze,” writes Knight, “he managed the same uncanny result — objects where the purely visual and the utterly physical demand equal time.”

Maya Keleher in the national tour of the musical “Suffs.”

(Joan Marcus)

Suffragette City
An all-female and nonbinary cast dramatizes the inspiring story of American women fighting for the right to vote in the musical “Suffs,” playing at the Hollywood Pantages through Dec. 7. Shaina Taub won Tony Awards for its book and score, while also starring as suffragette leader Alice Paul in the Broadway run. In L.A., the national tour’s Maya Keleher “lends alluring warmth to the role,” writes Times theater critic Charles McNulty in his review. “The teamwork of the performers honors the messy yet undeniably effective cooperation of Alice and her freedom fighters — women who changed the world by not staying silent in their prescribed place.”

Viola time
Times music critic Mark Swed noted a recent “fall-harvesting viola bandwagon,” with multiple ensembles spotlighting the humble middle child of stringed instruments played with a bow. “The L.A. Phil began viola week with a Tuesday evening program, ‘Brahms Strings,’ as part of the orchestra’s chamber music series at Walt Disney Concert Hall that included the blazing early First Sextet and late, luminously serene Second Quintet,” wrote Swed. “As part of its chamber music series across the street in the Colburn School’s Zipper Hall, Saturday, [the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra] coincidentally held ‘A Brahmsian Affair,’ in this case featuring both the sextets.” On Saturday, recent Colburn graduate Lan Cao and current conservatory student Ran Tae performed Korean composer Isang Yun’s 1988 “Contemplation,” for two violas, “played with gripping meditative intensity” during a day-long MOCA seminar on South Korean artist Haegue Yang.

Ray Ushikubo will play a rare 1741 Guarneri “del Gesù” violin at a free concert at the Colburn School on Dec. 3.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

History in his hands
Ray Ushikubo of San Gabriel, a 24-year-old virtuoso musician, has been selected to play the Playfair violin, an ultra-rare model crafted by the famed luthier Guarneri “del Gesù.” “I’m only 24,” Ushikubo told reporter Emma Madden. “This instrument is from 1741. It’s older than the United States. I can barely comprehend that amount of history. But mostly I feel happiness. And honor. It sounds better than any violin that’s ever been made.” The musician will debut the instrument in a free concert at the Colburn School’s Zipper Hall on Dec. 3.

East L.A. Youth Orchestra gets a reprieve
“After recently announcing major cuts to its youth orchestra, the L.A. Phil has secured additional donor funding to ensure the East L.A. branch of the Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA) program will continue at full capacity until the end of the school year,” reports The Times’ Cerys Davies. The initial cuts to the programming at the Esteban E. Torres High School site included laying off teaching artists, gutting programs for younger students and reduced practices for older students. The parents of students and members of the local community responded to the cuts by organizing an Instagram campaign and town hall meeting, imploring the L.A. Phil to temporarily preserve the Torres site.

An architectural whodunit
In 2013, Robert Mosher, one of San Diego’s most respected architects, called Keith York, founder of Modern San Diego, a digital archive devoted to the region’s mid-century design, asking to meet for lunch. “I have something I need to tell you,” he said. A revelation at that meeting led York and fellow architecture buff Stephen Buck to investigate the provenance of Balboa Park’s Timken Museum of Art, which opened in 1965. Did two of the biggest names in American design have a hand in it? Sam Lubell has the details on the decades-old mystery.

— Kevin Crust

And last but not least

I give you the 2025 Times holiday gift guide. Even if you don’t see anything on these carefully curated lists that you like, it’s a great inspiration starter.

— Jessica Gelt

The Huntington has acquired a rare Civil War-era painting by American master Winslow Homer. “The Sutler’s Tent” was made in 1863 when Homer was traveling with the Union Army as an illustrator for Harper’s Weekly. The title refers to a type of transitory store that sold goods to soldiers when they were out in the field, and the canvas shows a soldier eating bread and cheese while another soldier rests beside him.

The acquisition is the Huntington’s first oil painting by Homer. The museum’s other holdings include his watercolor, “Indians Making Canoes (Montagnais Indians)” (1895), and several prints, including “The Life Line” (1887). The pieces show the artist’s journey from commercial illustrator to celebrated painter.

“The Sutler’s Tent” will be unveiled to the public on Dec. 7 in the Huntington’s Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art. It was acquired through a partnership with the Ahmanson Foundation — which seeks to help boost the notable holdings of the museum — and marks the fifth major acquisition made through the program.

The gift is intended to honor the country’s upcoming semiquincentennial, and will anchor an ongoing reinstallation of the galleries as the Huntington seeks to expand the multicultural narrative of American art. It will also be integral to the Huntington’s “This Land Is …” initiative, which works to examine the country’s history through its metaphorical and literal landscapes as it approaches the 250th anniversary of its founding.

“The Sutler’s Tent” will be placed in conversation with works about the Civil War and Reconstruction, including Eastman Johnson’s “Sugaring Off” (1865), Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux’s “Why Born Enslaved? “(1868, cast 1872), and a signed copy of the Emancipation Proclamation.

“The Ahmanson Foundation’s partnership with The Huntington has allowed us to bring works of profound artistic and historical resonance into our collections and into public view,” said Huntington President Karen R. Lawrence, in a statement. “Winslow Homer’s ‘The Sutler’s Tent’ — a meditation on the experience of war — embodies our mission to connect art, history, and literature in ways that deepen understanding of the American story.”

The Huntington Library is known for its vast scholarly trove of Civil War ephemera. Its United States Military Telegraph archive includes ciphered communications between Abraham Lincoln and the Army command, and soldiers’ letters and diaries. It also holds the James E. Taylor Collection of scrapbooks documenting the war through photographs and newspaper clippings, and two of the most significant known Lincoln archives.

The art museum’s director, Christina Nielsen, said in a statement that the acquisition of “The Sutler’s Tent,” “deepens our representation of the Civil War era and expands the dialogue between our art and library collections. As we look toward the 250th anniversary of the United States, the painting invites reflection on a pivotal chapter in our nation’s history — one that continues to shape the American experience.”

I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt, looking forward to taking a deep dive into all that can be learned about our present from our past. Here’s your arts and culture news for the week.

Dispatch: Pulitzer Prize-winning Times art critic Christopher Knight to retire

Times art critic Christopher Knight.

(Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

After 45 years, 36 of them at The Times, art critic Christopher Knight is retiring from daily journalism. His final day at The Times is Nov. 28. In 2020, Knight won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism, and was also honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award for Art Journalism from the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation.

It’s impossible to overstate the loss Knight’s departure represents for the paper and Los Angeles, or what a tireless, generous, inspiring colleague he is. He possesses a quiet, encyclopedic knowledge of art, and in column after column he connected the dots of culture, history, folklore, civics and psychology in razor-sharp assessments of what a piece of art really means, or how a particular exhibition is poised to change the narrative around a longstanding or misguided idea. In short, he is everything a truly excellent critic should be.

He is also endlessly supportive of arts writers like me who look up to him — will always look up to him.

Thank you, Christopher, for all your words.

On our radar

Janai Brugger as Mimi and Oreste Cosimo as Rodolfo in L.A. Opera’s 2025 production of “La Bohème.”

(Cory Weaver)

La Bohème
Giacomo Puccini’s 1896 opera remains one of the most popular works in the Italian canon. Its doomed romanticism among struggling artists in 1830s Paris has a particular appeal to young people and became the inspiration for Jonathan Larson’s musical “Rent.” Lina González-Granados conducts the L.A. Opera orchestra. Brenna Corner directs this revival of the late Herbert Ross’ enduring production.
Saturday through Dec. 14. Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laopera.org

Roberto González-Monjas conducts the L.A. Phil this weekend at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

(L.A. Phil)

Elgar’s Enigma
Roberto González-Monjas conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a program featuring Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s “Themes and Variations, Op. 42,” Edwin Elgar’s “Enigma Variations, Op. 36,” and cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason’s performance of the world premiere of an Edmund Finnis concerto. 
8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com

Robert Therrien, “No title (plaster snowman),” 1982-98, plaster

(Douglas M. Parker Studio)

Robert Therrien: This Is a Story
A quintessential artist’s artist, internationally admired Los Angeles sculptor Robert Therrien (1947-2019) made eccentric objects in two and three dimensions that seem strangely familiar when they are wholly abstract, and strangely abstract when they are instantly recognizable as representations of known things — a tall pillar of giant dinner plates, for example, or a simple little snowman. Often the materials are unusual, like zinc over bronze, buffed plaster or tempera on silver, adding to the sense of mysterious specificity. With more than 120 works spanning five decades, this should be the most compelling museum solo show of the season.
— Christopher Knight
Saturday through April 5, 2026. The Broad, 221 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. thebroad.org

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY
Fall of Freedom
In a unified act of creative resistance, hundreds of galleries, museums, libraries, comedy clubs, theaters, concert halls and individuals across the nation will host exhibitions, performances and public events, asserting the power of free expression to mount a response to escalating authoritarian threats and censorship in the U.S.
Friday and Saturday. There are dozens of local events in Southern California, please check the website for details. falloffreedom.com

¡Cómo el Grinch robó la Navidad!
The Old Globe Theatre will present two performances of the world premiere of a new version of the Dr. Seuss classic with your favorite songs in Spanish. And for the 28th year, the Old Globe will also be doing its traditional holiday musical of “Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” Nov. 21-28.
7 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m. Saturday. Old Globe Theatre, 1363 Old Globe Way, San Diego. theoldglobe.org

From “The Dying World” by Lauren Tsai.

(Josh White)

The Dying World
Lauren Tsai’s solo exhibition, an installation utilizing drawing, painting, sculpture, puppets and projected stop motion imagery, explores the liminal space between worlds: subject and object, fiction and maker. Final two nights.
6-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Hollywood Forever, the Cathedral Mausoleum Courtyard, 6000 Santa Monica Blvd. hollywoodforever.com

Amy Engelhardt in “Impact,” a solo one-act at the Fountain.

(Peter Serocki/peterserockivisuals.com)

Impact
Composer/lyricist/performer Amy Engelhardt’s one-act solo show (with musical accompaniment) probes the 1988 terrorist attack on Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. The Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Ave., Los Angeles. fountaintheatre.com

SATURDAY
Animal Instinct
Chinese American artist Kristen Liu-Wong’s solo exhibition of vibrant paintings with slightly macabre narratives highlights her varied influences from American folk art, the cartoons she watched as a kid, Japanese erotic art and an appreciation for architecture.
Opening reception, 7-11 p.m. Saturday; noon-6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, through Jan. 3, 2026. Corey Helford Gallery, 571 S. Anderson St., Los Angeles. coreyhelfordgallery.com

A Brahmsian Affair
The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra presents a program featuring two sextets by Brahms, plus the world premiere of Julia Moss’ “(Please Don’t) Look Away.”
7:30 p.m. Saturday. Zipper Hall, 200 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A.; 4 p.m. Sunday. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. laco.org

Corita Day
Corita Art Center celebrates L.A.’s favorite artist/nun with an afternoon of art activities for all ages, live screen printing by Self Help Graphics, holiday shopping, food, music by KCRW, and a performance by Bob Baker Marionette Theater at 2 p.m. Visitors can also reserve spots from 11 a.m.-6 p.m. to see the exhibitions “Corita Kent: The Sorcery of Images” and “Irregularity: Corita and Immaculate Heart College’s Rule Breaking Designs.”
1-4 p.m. Marciano Art Foundation, 4357 Wilshire Blvd., L.A. marcianoartfoundation.org

Grief Bacon and Other Holiday Treats
Melanie Mayron and Sandra Tsing Loh deliver “old and new humor for trying times.” Part of the Odyssey’s “Thresholds of Invention” series.
8 p.m. Saturday. Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. odysseytheatre.com

Tom Wesselman, “Bedroom Face,” 1977, color aquatint

(Palm Springs Art Museum)

Mapping the Female Body: Tom Wesselmann and Mickalene Thomas
An unexpected juxtaposition of two very different painters from the end of one century and the beginning of the next is set to consider dissimilar representations of the contemporary female nude. In the 1960s, the famous “Great American Nude” series by Tom Wesselmann (1931-2004) applied commercial advertising techniques to painterly traditions in Western art familiar since the Renaissance. Fifty years later, Mickalene Thomas applies commercial craft techniques to vibrant paintings of queer Black women — a subject previously absent from Western art history. Questions of gender, sexuality and their depictions are the exhibition’s focus.
— Christopher Knight
Through April 6, 2026. Palm Springs Art Museum, 101 Museum Drive. psmuseum.org

Venice Winter Fest
Chill out SoCal-style with artisan markets, hot cocoa, live music, festive bites and interactive winter-themed activities for all ages.
10 a.m.-6 p.m. 12257 Venice Blvd. thevenicefest.com

SUNDAY
Habsburg Harmonies: Haydn, Ligeti, and Brahms
Violinist Martin Beaver, flutist Demarre McGill, cellist Clive Greensmith and pianist Fabio Bidini team up for an evening rooted in Austro-Hungarian musical tradition.
4 p.m. Thayer Hall, 200 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. colburnschool.edu

TUESDAY
Dungeons & Dragons: The Twenty-Sided Tavern
Three adventurers need your help on an epic quest to save the world in this interactive fantasy inspired by the immensely popular role-playing game.
Through Jan. 4, 2026. The Montálban, 1615 Vine St., Hollywood. broadwayinhollywood.com

Culture news and the SoCal scene

The Palm Springs Art Museum, founded in 1938, has a small board of 22 trustees.

(Lance Gerber / Palm Springs Art Museum)

Speaking of Christopher Knight’s tremendous skills as a critic, did I mention he’s also a phenomenal reporter? In one of his final columns, Knight chronicles the many financial travails of the Palm Springs Art Museum based on internal documents obtained by The Times. “Recent developments have opened a Pandora’s box,” Knight writes of an accounting firm’s annual audit of the museum’s 2024 books. The audit revealed that there is a “reasonable possibility that [the museum’s] internal financial statements are significantly out of whack,” Knight wrote before detailing the fallout leading to a trustees revolt.

Knight also delighted us with a list of “22 essential works of art at the Huntington and the surprising stories behind them.” No one can highlight what should be considered essential viewing at a museum quite like Knight, who takes readers on a virtual tour of the storied San Marino museum and its exquisite holdings, including Sir Joshua Reynolds’ “Portrait of Samuel Johnson (‘Blinking Sam’),” which Knight writes was not favored by its famous subject.

Times theater critic Charles McNulty once again checks in on Broadway, this time with a review of Robert Icke’s “Oedipus,” a modern retelling of Sophocles’ “Oedipus the King.” McNulty notes that the play “must be the buzziest, if not the chicest, Broadway offering of the fall season.”

Cher Alvarez, who reprises her role at the Ahmanson, in “Paranormal Activity” at Chicago Shakespeare Theater.

(Kyle Flubacker)

Closer to home, McNulty reserved high praise for the spooky “Paranormal Activity,” now playing at the Ahmanson Theatre. “I caught myself wondering during the first act, ‘Is this the best staged production of the year?’,” McNulty writes of the show, which is based on the horror film franchise of the same name and just completed a run at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Director Felix Barrett, playwright Levi Holloway and Tony Award-winning illusion designer Chris Fisher are “masters of misdirection,” McNulty concludes.

McNulty also wrote a news dispatch that Jessica Stone, “a Tony-nominated director (‘Kimberly Akimbo,’ ‘Water for Elephants’), has been named the new artistic director of La Jolla Playhouse, succeeding Christopher Ashley at the helm of one of the nation’s preeminent regional theaters.”

I had a great Zoom call with Shaina Taub about the inspiration behind her musical, “Suffs.” Taub is only the second woman, after Micki Grant, to star in a Broadway musical for which she also wrote the book, music and lyrics. The show is about the women’s suffrage movement leading up to the ratification of the 19th Amendment. It opened earlier this week at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre as part of the show’s inaugural national tour.

Daniel T. Gaitor-Lomack in his studio.

(Daniel Tyree Gaitor-Lomack / Night Gallery, Los Angeles. Photo by Tomasa Calvo.)

Interdisciplinary Los Angeles–based artist Daniel T. Gaitor-Lomack is staging a solo exhibition, “You Can Hate Me Now,” at Night Gallery. This marks the artist’s second solo show at the space. Much of the new work was informed by Gaitor-Lomack’s life in his MacArthur Park neighborhood. A rep for the gallery wrote in an email that Gaitor-Lomack describes the exhibition “as a kind of ceremony, a gathering of ideas and emotions that have been unfolding across his work over the past three years. Guided by intuition and lived experience, he continues to use found and everyday materials to reflect on the innumerable systems of the world around. The exhibition’s title, long held in his mind, frames the presentation as a meditation on anticipation, transformation, and resilience.” The show will be at Night Gallery through Feb. 14.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has made what it is calling the first-ever restitution of artwork to the descendants of an enslaved artist. The artist, David Drake, was born around 1800 in Edgefield, S.C. He is known for signing his vessels and inscribing them with poetic verses, including one that read, “I wonder where is all my relations.” Fifteen of Drake’s descendants recently traveled to Boston from various states for a ceremony during which MFA returned one of Drake’s stoneware jars to them, and purchased a second back. An L.A.-based attorney named George Fatheree represents Drake’s family and help shepherd the transaction. “This is a day we hoped and prayed for,” said Pauline Baker, the third great-granddaughter of Drake, in a news release. “To see it realized is almost overwhelming. On behalf of our family, we express our deepest gratitude to the Museum of Fine Arts for its courage and integrity. Most importantly, this ceremony restores not just his work, but his humanity.”

A Gustav Klimt painting, “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer,” recently sold for $236.4 million, including fees, making it the most expensive modern work to be sold at auction. The 71-by-51-inch painting, created between 1914 and 1916, portrays the 20-year-old daughter of the Viennese art collectors who commissioned the work. The portrait was sold during a Sotheby’s auction in New York and was part of the private collection of cosmetics heir Leonard Lauder, who died in June. According to the Washington Post, a 19-minute bidding battle catapulted the painting “far beyond its $150 million estimate, with two bidders competing over the phone via their auction representatives.”

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

The unfettered, stand-up kindness of Keanu Reeves has become the stuff of legend thanks to legions of fans who faithfully recount the actor’s good deeds on social media. Most recently, Reeves penned a handwritten letter of gratitude to the FBI after it recovered a stolen Rolex watch used in “John Wick.”

Remember the brave, talented theater students at Eliot Arts magnet school who lost their school, homes and theater to January’s Eaton fire and went on to perform their spring musical, “Shrek Jr.,” to a sold-out crowd at the Ahmanson Theatre?

Those kids are still displaced from their school, but not from the tenacious community spirit that guided them through the aftermath of that trauma. Their next chapter: a four-day, three-night class trip to New York City to see the sights and attend Broadway shows and workshops.

“After ‘Shrek’ last spring, I sat down with a group of my advanced theater students, and I said, ‘Dream big. What else would you want in your fantasy world?’ Big things have happened for us this semester after the fires,” their drama teacher, Mollie Lief, said in a phone interview. “And they said, ‘We want to go to New York City.’ And I just thought, ‘OK, we’re gonna make this happen.’”

The class has now met its initial $75,000 fundraising goal toward “Broadway Bound: A drama and dance trip to NYC,” which Lief will lead along with dance teacher Billy Rugh, who choreographed “Shrek Jr.” The funds, which will help cover the partial or full cost of taking 61 seventh and eighth graders to the Big Apple from April 7-10, were raised in about 28 days through a school fundraising campaign app called SnapRaise.

Lief credited actor Gillian Jacobs — who Lief calls “our fairy godmother” — with spreading the word to friends in film and TV, which is why the initial goal was met so quickly. Fundraising remains ongoing for the trip, as well as the school’s spring musical, but the class can now rest easy that everyone will be able to go.

“I think everybody was skeptical that we were going to be able to raise that much money and make it happen. But if Eliot’s good at anything, we are good at making big things happen,” said Lief.

Speaking of which: The other really big thing that Lief wants for the kids is a meeting with Broadway superstar and “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda. Miranda sent a personal message of support to the students via video when they performed at the Ahmanson, so he’s aware of them and their extraordinary story.

“They just love him,” Lief said of Miranda. “We had a Lin-Manuel Miranda day for Hispanic Heritage Month, and everybody dressed up as him or a character from one of his shows. They are all obviously obsessed with ‘Hamilton,’ which is a show we’re trying to see when we’re in New York.”

Three Broadway shows are part of the trip’s itinerary, as well as a theater and dance workshop or two. Also on the agenda: plenty of New York pizza, a jaunt through Central Park, a sightseeing cruise and a Big Bus tour.

“They’re super pumped,” Lief said of the kids who are currently rehearsing for their newest show, “The Somewhat True Tale of Robin Hood.”

On our radar

Grant Gershon will conduct the Los Angeles Master Chorale in David Lang’s “before and after nature” Sunday at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

(Jamie Phan / Los Angeles Master Chorale)

before and after nature
The fall’s third and largest major environment-themed work is David Lang’s “before and after nature,” an evening-length score that was commissioned by the Los Angeles Master Chorale and had its premiere in the spring at Stanford University in conjunction with the Doerr School of Sustainability. Here, Lang explores, in his almost Hildegard-like glowing vocal writing, the human relationship with a nature that doesn’t need us, or want us, yet we insist on being the center of everything and making an inevitable mess of it. The instrumental ensemble is Bang on a Can All-Stars (Lang having been a founder of the New York music institution). The performance includes a video component by Tal Rosner, and Grant Gershon conducts.
— Mark Swed
7:30 p.m. Sunday. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. lamasterchorale.org

A 1989 billboard poster about museum representation by the Guerrilla Girls.

(Getty Research Institute)

How to Be a Guerrilla Girl
The Guerrilla Girls famously shield their identity by wearing gorilla masks in public, but this show will unveil “how-to” information on their effective techniques of data research, distribution and culture jamming. Drawing on the witty protest group’s early archives, acquired in 2008 by the Getty Research Institute, their 40th anniversary will be celebrated by an exhibition of materials outlining the collaborative process that goes into their ongoing demands for art world equity for women and artists of color. A selection from their dozens of posters and ads will be displayed.
— Christopher Knight
Tuesday through April 12, 2026. Getty Center, Research Institute Galleries, 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles. getty.edu

The Broadway production of the musical “Suffs.”

(Joan Marcus)

Suffs
This musical by Shaina Taub, which won Tony Awards for book and original score, turns the history of the 20th century American women’s suffrage movement into a show that rallies the spirit of democracy. The plot follows Alice Paul and a new generation of radical activists who are testing new tactics in the fight to secure women the right to vote. During the Broadway run, Hillary Clinton, one of the show’s high-profile producers, went on the stump for “Suffs,” endorsing its much-needed lesson that progress is possible, if never guaranteed.
— Charles McNulty
Wednesday through Dec. 7. Hollywood Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. broadwayinhollywood.com

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

Olga de Amaral, “Gran Muro, Panel 7B,” 1976. Cotton, wool, horsehair, sisal and/or jute, rayon, nylon, raffia. 130 x 175 in.

(Mark Waldhauser / Photo from Lisson Gallery)

Olga de Amaral
This solo exhibition of work from the Colombian artist’s six-decade career emphasizes her use of weaving, painting and sculpture, with variable scale, form and materials, including linen, wool, horsehair, Japanese paper, acrylic and precious metals.
Opening, 6-8 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. Lisson Gallery, 1037 N. Sycamore Ave. Los Angeles. lissongallery.com

60 Miles East: Riverside’s Underground Punk Rock, Hardcore & Ska Scene, from the late 1980s to early 2000s
An exhibit of photography devoted to a distinctive music scene that made the most of its outsider existence in exploding exurbia.
Riverside Museum of Art, Art Alliance Gallery, 3425 Mission Inn Ave. riversideartmuseum.org

SATURDAY

Yaphet Kotto, Sigourney Weaver and Ian Holm in the 1979 film “Alien.”

(Robert Penn / 20th Century Fox)

Alien
Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi classic screens in 35 mm to capture all of its oozing, Xenomorphic chest-bursting glory. Sigourney Weaver, Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto and Tom Skerritt star.
7:30 p.m. Academy Museum, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. academymuseum.org

Creative Continuities: Family, Pride and Community in Native Art
Three contemporary Plains Indian artists, John Pepion (Blackfeet), Brocade Stops Black Eagle (Crow) and Jessa Rae Growing Thunder (Dakota/Nakoda), each curated a section of this exhibition exploring aspects of Native culture through the lens of works created by their ancestors.
Saturday-June 2027. Autry Museum of the American West, 4700 Western Heritage Way, Griffith Park. theautry.org

Jlin
A 2023 Pulitzer Prize finalist, the electronic music composer a.k.a. Jerrilynn Patton’s latest album featured collaborations with Philip Glass, Björk and Kronos Quartet.
8 p.m. Saturday. UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu

Baratunde Thurston will perform Saturday at Carpenter Center.

(Roy Rochlin / Getty Images for Unfinished Live)

An Evening with Baratunde Thurston
The comedian and futurist ponders interrelationships between people, nature and technologies through stories.
8 p.m. Carpenter Center, 6200 E. Atherton St., Long Beach. carpenterarts.org

SUNDAY
Radical Histories: Chicano Prints from the Smithsonian American Art Museum
Six decades of art featuring 60 works by 40 or so artists and collectives that reflects an era of rebellion and cultural solidarity.
Through March 2, 2026. The Huntington, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino. huntington.org

Something’s Gotta Give
The American Cinematheque’s tribute to Diane Keaton continues with director Nancy Meyers’ 2003 romantic comedy co-starring Jack Nicholson, Amanda Peet and Keanu Reeves. Meyers joins film critic Katie Walsh for a Q&A.
7 p.m. Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica. americancinematheque.com

Takács Quartet
The chamber music ensemble performs a program featuring works by Joseph Haydn, Clarice Assad and Claude Debussy.
4 p.m. Broad Stage at Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center, 1310 11th St. broadstage.org

TUESDAY
Brahms Strings
Members of the L.A. Phil perform contemporary American composer Jessie Montgomery’s “Strum” as well as19th century masterworks by Johannes Brahms.
8 p.m. Tuesday. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com

THURSDAY
Lonnie Holley and Moor Mother
The two artists collaborate for an evening of free jazz and spoken word rooted in Afrofuturism.
7:30 p.m. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. thewallis.org

Prieto
The L.A. premiere of poet and performance artist Yosimar Reyes dives into his experience growing up queer in East San Jose.
8 p.m. Thursday; 8 p.m. Nov. 21-22; 2 p.m. Nov. 23. The Rosenthal Theater at Inner-City Arts, 720 Kohler St., Los Angeles. brownpapertickets.com

New Original Works (NOW)
The third weekend of REDCAT’s annual festival of experimental performance features a program of works by Lu Coy, jeremy de’jon guyton and Luna Izpisua Rodriguez.
8 p.m Thursday-Saturday. REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., downtown L.A. redcat.org

Shelley Conducts Carmen and Daphnis and Chloe
Artistic and music director designate Alexander Shelley conducts the Pacific Symphony in a program of Bizet and Ravel, as well composer/pianist Gabriel Montero’s “Latin Concerto.”
8 p.m Thursday; 8 p.m. Nov. 21-22. Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. pacificsymphony.org

Culture news and the SoCal scene

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art has officially set its opening date for Sept. 22, 2026. The Times got an exclusive peek at a few interiors, including the research library and the entrance lobby. We also took some great photos of the building as it currently looks and made a short video. Take a peek.

Times classical music critic Mark Swed weighs in on opera’s “long and curious fetish for the convent” in his review of Sarah Kirkland Snider’s “sincere and compelling ‘Hildegard.’” L.A. Opera’s collaboration with Beth Morrison Projects is based on “a real-life 12th century abbess and present-day cult figure, St. Hildegard von Bingen.” The show, which premiered at the Wallis last week, “operates as much as a passion play as an opera,” Swed writes.

Swed also took in a show featuring Zubin Mehta, the 89-year-old Los Angeles Philharmonic’s conductor emeritus, as he led the orchestra in Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony. Swed calls Mehta “a living L.A. icon.”

Times theater critic Charles McNulty touched down in New York City to review “The Queen of Versailles,” an adaptation of Lauren Greenfield’s 2012 documentary about a family building a supersized American home. McNulty found the musical unwieldy despite Michael Arden’s superb direction, but he reserved special praise for its star, Kristin Chenoweth, “who is bearing the weight of a McMansion musical on her diminutive frame and making it seem like she’s hoisting nothing heavier than a few overstuffed Hermes, Prada and Chanel shopping bags.”

Sculptures by the entrance of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena.

(Etienne Laurent / For The Times)

I enjoyed writing about the $15-million renovation of the Norton Simon Museum, which has been unveiled in tandem with the organization’s 50th anniversary. In addition to new signage, improved curb appeal and a more accessible pedestrian entryway, the museum restored the 115,000 Heath tiles that clad the building’s exterior.

Times art critic Christopher Knight has the scoop on trouble at the Palm Springs Art Museum, which is facing a trustee revolt after hiring its new director, Christine Vendredi — the fourth such leader in just seven years. A week after the hire, “the chair of the search committee tasked with filling that position, trustee Patsy Marino, resigned from the museum’s board citing ‘inappropriate interference and attempts to influence the process’ on the part of the museum’s executive committee, individual trustees and other unidentified museum staff and donors,” Knight writes. To date, 22 trustees have exited, and it has been revealed that no other candidates were interviewed for the role.

Finally, read how the creators behind the new “Paranormal Activity” play are bringing jump scares to the Ahmanson Theatre. Hint: It’s all about what you don’t see.

Eddie Izzard arrives at the London premiere of “Moonage Daydream” in 2022.

(Scott Garfitt / Invision / AP)

British comedian and actor Eddie Izzard is bringing her solo performance of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” to L.A.’s Montalbán Theatre for seven nights from Jan. 22-31. While in New York, the show received a New York Outer Critics Circle Award nomination for outstanding solo performance, and a nomination for the New York Drama League’s Distinguished Performance Award.

Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts announced a major departure: Robert van Leer is stepping down as executive director and chief executive of the Wallis to take on the role of the new performing arts program director of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Van Leer has been at the Wallis since April 2023, and was instrumental in inviting a host of prominent performing arts organizations to make the Wallis their home, including Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, L.A. Dance Project, Los Angeles Ballet, BODYTRAFFIC, and Tonality.

“Specter,” a sculptural installation for Desert X by L.A. artist Sterling Ruby, just outside Palm Springs in 2019.

(Carolina A. Miranda / Los Angeles Times)

Big changes are coming to Desert X as it plans its sixth exhibition in the Coachella Valley, and its 10th worldwide. Over the past decade, the organization has commissioned more than 100 artists to create site-specific work in the desert. For its 10th anniversary exhibition, Desert X has announced new dates and an extended timeline. The next show is scheduled to open on Oct. 30, 2027, and will run through May 7, 2028, to coincide with other important area cultural events including the Palm Springs International Film Festival, Modernism Week, Frieze Los Angeles and the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

Carol Burnett has endowed a new scholarship at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. The annual award will support undergraduate students in the school’s Ray Bolger Musical Theater Program. The inaugural scholarship has been awarded to first-year theater major Alexa Cruz.

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

Looking for a decadent holiday gift for an art lover? How about a $295 chocolate bar made by andSons Chocolatiers in collaboration with Ed Ruscha? The 73% Peruvian dark chocolate bar is an edition of 300 and comes in a cloth-bound box, which, according to the Beverly Hills-based chocolate company’s website, features “a reproduction of Ruscha’s 1971 lithograph ‘Made in California’” and “bears the relief of the West Coast’s rugged topography from the Pacific Ocean eastward to the Santa Lucia Mountains.”

Fans can’t get enough of Japanese artist Takashi Murakami’s limited edition Dodgers gear, decorated with colorful, cartoon flowers featuring smiling faces in surprisingly un-jockish colors like pastel pink and butter yellow. The merch sold out in a matter of minutes at a pop-up store in March before the two-game season opening in Japan. A second collection was released in April.

Three’s a charm — as always.

On Friday at 1 p.m. a final Murakami collection will go on sale, this time commemorating the Dodgers’ historic World Series Championship. The series of T-shirts and hoodies — decorated in Murakami’s distinctive flowers, and featuring the team name in Japanese Katakana characters — is being presented by the sports and youth culture platforms Fanatics and Complex. The merch can be found on their websites as well as MLBShop online stores, the MLB app, the Dodger Stadium Team Store and the MLB Flagship Store in New York City.

I know friends who spent hours trying to obtain a single Murakami-designed Dodgers baseball cap last spring, so I expect the merch to sell fast. I’d set an alarm for 12:55 p.m. and log in exactly at 1 p.m. if I were hoping to score an item or two.

Dodgers fans are more than fans after their team won in what many are calling a “series for the ages” — they are fanatics. I should know. I wrote a story that mentioned the game, and I referred to the Dodgers being one “point” down to the Toronto Blue Jays. I awoke to an inbox full of letters from readers alerting me to the fact that a “point” in baseball is called a “run.” Some said it not so nicely.

Point taken! I mean, run. Either way, I’ve made much worse mistakes and never gotten so much as a single letter. That’s how I know Dodgers fans are not messing around. Neither is the merchandising machine surrounding the team’s epic win.

I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt, shooting baskets for baseball and scoring touchdowns for a home run. Here’s your arts and culture news this week.

On our radar

Joshua Francique with Alonzo King Lines Ballet.

(RJ Muna)

Alonzo King Lines Ballet
Choreographer and California Hall of Fame inductee Alonzo King brings his San Francisco-based contemporary ballet company to Long Beach for an evening of dance immersed in the spiritually rooted, avant-garde jazz stylings of Alice Coltrane, including her seminal album “Journey in Satchidananda.” In addition to this tribute to one of America’s only jazz harpists, the company will present a fresh take on Maurice Ravel’s suite of Mother Goose fairy tales, “Ma mère l’Oye,” which was originally written as a piano duet in 1910.
— Jessica Gelt
8 p.m. Saturday. Carpenter Center is located at 6200 E. Atherton St., Long Beach. carpenterarts.org

Pacific Opera Project
Daniel-François-Esprit Auber’s funny, tuneful, gang-can’t-shoot-straight, long-out-of-fashion early 19th century comic French opera, “Fra Diavolo” is just the kind of thing on which Pacific Opera Project (POP) has made its irrepressibly wackier-than-thou reputation. While the company performs a range of operas, serious and not-so-serious, here and there (including Descanso Gardens and Forest Lawn), its heart is at the Ebell, a historic Highland Park club, where you sit at tables with wine and hors d’oeuvres, surrounded by dazzling singers, goofy costumes and sets, and the intoxicating hokum that the company’s irrepressible founder and director, Josh Shaw, comes up with.
— Mark Swed
7:30 p.m. Friday, Saturday, Wednesday and Nov. 14; 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 15 and 16. The Highland Park Ebell, 131 S. Ave. 57. pacificoperaproject.com

A stage version of the horror franchise “Paranormal Activity” comes to the Ahmanson.

(Pamela Raith)

Paranormal Activity
The premiere of an original story set in the world of the film franchise, the show seems determined to scare you silly. The theater has caught the horror bug — and why not? Fear knows no bounds. Written by Levi Holloway, whose “Grey House” had a brief Broadway run in 2023, and directed by Felix Barrett, whose immersive “Sleep No More” captivated New York audiences for years, the production sets out to give new meaning to the term stage fright.
— Charles McNulty
Through Dec. 7, check days and times. Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. centertheatregroup.org

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

The new play “Border Crisis” at City Garage.

(City Garage)

Border Crisis
A new absurdist comedy by playwright Charles A. Duncombe, based on “The House on the Border” by Sławomir Mrożek as translated by Pavel Rybak-Rudzki, about a typical U.S. family that finds itself at the center of an international crisis, has its world premiere.
8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 4 p.m. Sunday, through Dec. 13. City Garage, Bergamot Station Arts Center, 2525 Michigan Ave. T1, Santa Monica, citygarage.org

Leah Ollman
In addition to a reading and book signing, the author will discuss her new publication, “Ensnaring the Moment: On the Intersection of Poetry and Photography,” with poet Rae Armantrout.
6 p.m. Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, 700 Prospect St., La Jolla. mcasd.org

SATURDAY

Katherine Ross, Paul Newman, seated, and Robert Redford in the 1969 movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

(20th Century Fox)

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
The American Cinematheque’s tribute to Robert Redford continues with the 1969 George Roy Hill-directed western that first paired the late actor with Paul Newman in one of Hollywood’s great buddy movies.
2 p.m. Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd. americancinematheque.com

The Butterfly Effect
The reopening of a secret cafe where people are rumored to have time traveled is the setting for the latest immersive and interactive audience experience from Last Call Theatre.
8 p.m. Saturday and Nov. 14-15, 20-22, Dec. 4-6. Stella Coffee, 6210 San Vicente Blvd. ticketleap.events

Comic Creators Block Party
A full day of signings, meet and greets, live panels, food and vendors featuring some of your favorite writers and artists, including Patton Oswalt and Jordan Blum.
11 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday. Revenge Of Comics, 3420 Eagle Rock Blvd., Suite A. comiccreatorsblockparty.com

iam8bit 20th Anniversary Art Show
The creative production company celebrates two decades of innovation with an exhibition heavy on video game and pop culture history.
10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Studio 8, 614 E. 12th St., Los Angeles. eventbrite.com

Redrawing the Rancho
The performance platform homeLA presents a program of interdisciplinary performance, dance and installation work by Nao Bustamante, Eva Aguila, Rosa Rodríguez-Frazier and Victoria Marks that evaluate the legacy of Southern California’s oldest surviving brick structure. the Rowland Mansion, and the complex history behind it.
1-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. John Rowland Mansion and Dibble Roundhouse Museum, 16021 Gale Ave., City of Industry. homela.org

“Sweet Nothings,” 2025. Aluminum and bowling balls. 223⁄4 x 183⁄4 x 221⁄4 in. (57.78 x 47.63 x 56.52 cm) by Kathleen Ryan.

(@ Kathleen Ryan. Courtesy the artist and Karma/Artwork photography by Lance Brewer)

Kathleen Ryan
Everyday objects become the stuff of dreams in the exhibition “Souvenir,” featuring nine sculptures rooted in the artist’s use of motifs, techniques and conceptual decisions.
Opening reception, 6-8 p.m. Saturday; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, through Dec. 20. Karma, 7351 Santa Monica Blvd. Los Angeles. karmakarma.org

Wild Up
L.A.’s transformative new music chamber orchestra and collective was founded 15 years ago by Christopher Rountree with a seemingly limitless collection of inventive ideas for bringing classical music into the 21st century and beyond. This fall it begins a new series at the Nimoy, home of UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance, beginning with “What I Call Sound,” a look at the historic influence L.A. jazz has had on new music of all sorts. Given that Wild Up is composed of accomplished improvisers and composers, it is ideally suited to follow the course of the avant-garde jazz scene from Eric Dolphy in the late 1950s to such current leading figures as Anthony Braxton.
— Mark Swed
8 p.m. UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu

SUNDAY
Deep Cuts: Block Printing Across Cultures
The exhibition features more than 150 works from around the world exploring the medium as both a means of creative expression and a vehicle for mass production of both images and ideas, extending from the patterned fabrics of India to German Expressionist artists and contemporary makers like Christiane Baumgartner. Also includes the Los Angeles–based Block Shop demonstrating reinterpretations of the ageless art form.
Through Sept. 13, 2026. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Resnick Pavilion, 5905 Wilshire Blvd. lacma.org

Burt Lancaster
See the Hollywood legend in two very different films and performances: The American Cinematheque screens Luchino Visconti’s 1963 drama “The Leopard,” in which Lancaster stars opposite Claudia Cardinale; at the New Beverly, the actor appears in the delightful 1983 comedy “Local Hero” with Peter Riegert (on a double feature with another Bill Forsyth film, “Housekeeping”).
“The Leopard,” 2 p.m. Sunday. Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd. americancinematheque.com; “Local Hero,” 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday. New Beverly Cinema, 7165 Beverly Blvd. thenewbev.com

TUESDAY
An Evening with Annie Leibovitz
The celebrated photographer discusses her new book, “Women,” which features Louise Bourgeois, Hillary Clinton, Joan Didion, Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga, Michelle Obama, Rihanna, Patti Smith, Elizabeth Taylor, and Serena and Venus Williams.
7 p.m. The Wiltern, 3790 Wilshire Blvd. livenation.com

Recovecos
The LA Phil New Music Group, conducted by Raquel Acevedo Klein, explores works by Caribbean and Latin American composers in a program curated by Angélica Negrón and featuring vocalist Lido Pimienta.
8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com

WEDNESDAY

Broadway star Melissa Errico performs Wednesday at the Carpenter Center in Long Beach.

(David Kenas)

Melissa Errico
In her new show “The Streisand Effect,” Errico, accompanied by a quartet that includes Streisand’s own 40-year pianist Randy Waldman, performs such favorites as “Send In the Clowns,” “I’d Rather Be Blue,” and “I Never Meant to Hurt You.”
7 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday. Carpenter Center is located at 6200 E. Atherton St., Long Beach. carpenterarts.org

THURSDAY
Celebrating 50 years of Laverne & Shirley
Producer Bob Boyett presents the Garry Marshall Theatre’s annual fundraiser, which this year marks a half-century since the debut of Marshall’s hit ABC sitcom and welcomes special guest Michael McKean, who had a breakout role on the show as Lenny. The event, which includes dinner and entertainment, also honors actor Yeardly Smith of “The Simpsons.” Tickets are $500-1000.
6:30 p.m. Verse Restaurant, 4212 Lankershim Blvd., Toluca Lake garrymarshalltheatre.org/50years

An Inspector Calls
Theatre 40 presents J.B. Priestley’s classic drawing-room mystery about the investigation of a young woman’s death that disrupts an upper-class British family’s engagement party in the industrial north Midlands in 1912.
7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday; also, 7:30 p.m. Dec. 3 and 10; dark on Nov. 27 and 28, through Dec. 14. Beverly Hills High school, Mary Levin Cutler Theatre, 241 S. Moreno Dr. theatre40.org

New Original Works (NOW)
The second weekend of REDCAT’s annual festival of experimental performance features a program of works by Gabriela Burdsall; Orin Calcagne and Jenson Titus; and Divya Victor, Carolyn Chen, AMOC (American Modern Opera Company). NOW 2025 continues with additional programming Nov. 20-22.
8 p.m Thursday-Saturday. REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., downtown L.A. redcat.org

Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Hollywood, 1992, Silver Gelatin Photograph, Ed. of 25, 20 x 16 inches, by Herb Ritts.

(Fahey/Klein Gallery)

Herb Ritts
The exhibition “Allies & Icons” presents the photographer’s portraits of activists, artists and cultural leaders who led the global fight against AIDS, including Elizabeth Taylor, Elton John, Magic Johnson, Madonna, Barbra Streisand, Sharon Stone, Tina Turner, Keith Haring and many others. In celebration of STORIES: The AIDS Monument, which opens Nov. 16 in West Hollywood.
Opening reception, 6-8 p.m. Thursday; Regular hours, 1-7 p.m. Thursday-Sunday, through Dec. 21. ONE Gallery, 626 N. Robertson Blvd, West Hollywood. faheykleingallery.com

Culture news and the SoCal scene

The Scourged Back. The scarred back of an African American slave named Gordon who escaped from Mississippi and reached a Union Army camp in Louisiana in 1863. The photograph is one of many targeted for removal by the Trump administration.

(Getty Images)

National treasure
“In recent months, a small army of historians, librarians, scientists and other volunteers has fanned out across America’s national parks and museums to photograph and painstakingly archive cultural and intellectual treasures they fear are under threat from President Trump’s war against ‘woke’,” writes Times investigative reporter Jack Dolan in a recent story about the volunteers creating a “citizen’s record” of existing exhibits and more, “in case the administration carries out Trump’s orders to scrub public signs and displays of language he and his allies deem too negative about America’s past.”

Theater beat
Times theater critic Charles McNulty reviews a production of “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” at A Noise Within. McNulty deems the script, “arguably the finest work in August Wilson’s 10-play series chronicling the African American experience in the 20th century,” and writes that the new show — set in a Pittsburgh boarding house in 1911 — “seems like a gift from the other side, that mysterious, creative realm where history is spiritualized.”

McNulty also attended Lloyd Suh’s “The Heart Sellers,” at South Coast Repertory, for a production directed by Jennifer Chang, who staged the play’s 2023 world premiere at Milwaukee Repertory Theatre featuring the same two-person cast. The show explores the thorny, timely issue of immigration through the stories of two women — one from the Philippines, the other from South Korea — living in an unnamed mid-sized American city in 1973.

Angela Bassett arrives at the LACMA Art + Film Gala on Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025, at Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles.

(Jordan Strauss / Invision/AP)

LACMA ups and downs
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art was in the news again this past week. I attended its celebrity-packed Art + Film gala on Saturday night — and watched the room explode in celebration after the Dodgers won the World Series. The annual event, this year honoring filmmaker Ryan Coogler and artist Mary Corse, raised more than $6.5 million in support of the museum and its programs.

Less than a week later, LACMA management declined to voluntarily recognize LACMA United, after museum employees announced they were forming a union last week. The move greatly disappointed staff who had overwhelmingly signed cards in favor of organizing , and kicked collective bargaining efforts down the road while the union waits for a National Labor Relations Board election.

40 authors, 40 dinners
I also attended a dinner sponsored by the Library Foundation of Los Angeles featuring historian Rick Atkinson, who won the Pulitzer Prize for history in 2003. Called “Literary Feasts” the biannual event featured 40 authors spread out at 40 dinners hosted at private homes across the city on a single night in order to raise funds for the foundation’s mission in support of the library and its community-driven efforts including adult education and homework support for kids.

Yoko goes solo
It doesn’t seem possible, but it’s true: Yoko One, 92, is staging her first solo museum exhibition in Los Angeles. The show, “Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind,” will open at the Broad museum on May 23 and will run through Oct. 11, 2026. The interactive exhibition is organized in collaboration with Tate Modern in London.

The Verdi Chorus

(T. Berreth)

Faustian
The Verdi Chorus is launching its 42nd season with a special, two-nights-only performance delving into Goethe’s “Faust.” Audiences can expect operatic renditions of Berlioz’s “La Damnation de Faust,” Gounod’s “Faust,” and Boito’s “Mefistofele.” The concerts will take place at the First Presbyterian Church in Santa Monica on Nov. 15 and 16. Artistic director Anne Marie Ketchum will lead the performances, and it should be noted has been leading the group for all 42 years of its existence. The Verdi Chorus dubs itself, “the only choral group in Southern California that focuses primarily on the dramatic and diverse music for opera chorus.”

Girl dad, the musical
My mother’s heart was touched when a father named Matt Braaten — who is also the artistic director of Eagle Rock Theatre Company — wrote to me about a new musical at the theater called, “Daddy Daughter.” The show features Braaten and his 11-year-old daughter, Lily, as they explore the music that has touched her life and informed her childhood to date. “This family-friendly musical comedy celebrates the different stages of Lily’s life through banter and songs, and takes a musical journey from Elmo to Elsa to Elphaba and beyond,” Braaten wrote. I’m getting teary just thinking about it. The show is at 4 p.m. on Sunday Nov. 9, and Sunday Nov. 16.

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

“Gremlins 3” is coming! It’s true! Please, please let it be good. I could use the distraction of a cuddly Mogwai and its evil offspring.