Zoe Markos, who appeared on Neighbours as an extra before landing a speaking role, has revealed what it’s really like working on the soap opera and let slip some backstage secrets
Dan Laurie Deputy Editor of Screen Time
09:00, 14 Mar 2026
Zoe Markos played Louisa Palamountain in Neighbours in 2025
An actress who previously on a huge soap opera has opened up on what it’s really like on set.
Neighbours first aired in 1985 and initially ended in 2022, however, the show was later revived by Amazon before its final cancellation in 2025.
Over its long history, the Australian serial drama launched the careers of global stars like Margot Robbie, Kylie Minogue, Russell Crowe, and Liam Hemsworth but what is it actually like to be on the set of Erinsborough?
Zoe Markos first joined Neighbours in 2012 as an extra before eventually landing a speaking role in 2025 as Louisa Palamountain and she’s now shared some behind-the-scenes secrets that viewers might not know.
Speaking to JoeFortune, Zoe explained: “The studio is literally Erinsborough, built to feel like a real town. Walking around, you genuinely feel like you’re in an actual town because of how well it’s been designed. The sets are much smaller than they look on TV.
“For example, when you’re pretending to make juice or cook something, none of the utensils actually work but it doesn’t matter because the illusion is perfect.
“What really blows me away is how much history is packed into those sets. Especially when I was involved on the production side, I got to see props, furniture, and chairs dating back to the 1980s, all carefully preserved.
“They even have old VHS tapes of episodes that haven’t been digitised yet. It’s incredible. I think most people don’t realise just how much history was made in that studio and on that show. It’s truly remarkable.”
Zoe went on to share some bizarre rules she had to follow on set, revealing: “You can’t actually talk, so you have to mime.
“For example, if you’re opposite someone or asked to have a conversation on set, you just can’t speak. It’s probably common on all shows, but in party scenes, for instance, they don’t play the music, so you have to dance without it. It can feel a bit awkward.
“Another thing is that you really have to be very quiet and not make any noise, which is kind of funny when you think about it. Those would probably be some of the little secrets about being on set that people don’t usually notice.”
Moving on to clothing, Zoe added: “As an extra, it depends on your role. If you are part of the main background, like a work guard or a specific set role, they usually provide your costume. If you are just a regular member of the community in a scene, they might give you clothes or accessories.
“If not, they will send a brief to your manager or directly to you if you do not have one, explaining what you can and cannot wear.
“Generally, they avoid patterns like polka dots or anything too busy. They prefer plain clothing with no logos, and you definitely cannot wear anything that could be copyrighted.”
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AUSTIN, Texas — One of the most anticipated events at this year’s SXSW Film & TV Festival wasn’t a movie at all, but a speaking appearance by director Steven Spielberg. The talk, a live taping of the podcast “The Big Picture” lead by co-host Sean Fennessey, covered many aspects of the Hollywood legend’s career, with a through line of sci-fi and space aliens in conjunction with Spielberg’s upcoming alien invasion thriller “Disclosure Day,” due June 12.
Though no real details about the new film were revealed, references to it peppered the conversation as if it were very much on Spielberg’s mind — the film he was ostensibly there to promote.
To an audience that included filmmakers Robert Rodriguez and Daniel Kwan, the event began with a clip reel that served as a reminder (as if anyone in the packed hotel ballroom needed one) of just how influential the 79-year-old filmmaker is. A selection of Spielberg’s work plays like a trailer for the idea of movies themselves; this one included “Jaws,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “E.T.” “Schindler’s List,” “Jurassic Park,” “The Sugarland Express,” “Catch Me If You Can,” “Munich” and many more.
Fennessey noted that Spielberg wanted to make 1977’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” his first sci-fi movie about the existence of aliens from other worlds, even before making 1975’s “Jaws.” Spielberg went further, saying he had actually wanted to make “Close Encounters” — then just referred to as “The UFO Movie” — even before 1974’s “Sugarland Express.”
Asked about President Obama’s recent comments about the possible existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe and how his own feelings may have evolved over the years, Spielberg said, “I think that for one thing, when President Obama made that comment, I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is so great for “Disclosure Day,”’ and then, two days later, he stepped back the comment and said what he believed in was life in the cosmos, which of course everybody should believe that because no one should ever think that we are the only intelligent civilization in the entire universe. So I’ve always believed, even as a kid, that we were not alone. So that just goes without saying. The big question is: Are we alone now?”
He added this interest was “reinvigorated” by a 2017 New York Times article about U.S. Navy pilots seeing unexplained aerial phenomenon, then by a 2023 Congressional subcommittee hearing on the topic.
“I don’t know any more than any of you do,” Spielberg said, “but I have a very strong, sticky suspicion that we are not alone here on Earth right now. And I made a movie about that.”
Spielberg and “The Big Picture” co-host Sean Fennessey taping a live podcast at SXSW on Friday.
(Tibrina Hobson / Getty Images)
As to how he feels about that possibility, Spielberg added, “I’m not afraid of any aliens, there or here. I have no fears about that, whatsoever. I think our movie does take into consideration, without giving too much away, the social dislocation that could occur, theologically, if it would be announced that there’s evidence — not only evidence, where it’s interaction that’s has been going on for decades, that we are not just now finding out about. It is going to cause a disruption in a lot of belief systems, but I don’t think it’s a lethal disruption at all.”
Among other topics that were discussed, Spielberg revealed he is developing a western that would shoot in Texas, though he was reluctant to discuss it in any further detail except to say it would contain “no tropes.”
He also said he is not on any social media, but did install Instagram on his phone once for two weeks and felt as if he had been abducted by aliens for the amount of time he lost.
To that end, he also noted, with comic frustration, how he himself has never had any sort of alien encounter.
”I made a movie called ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind.’ I haven’t even had a close encounter of the first or second kind,” Spielberg said. “Where’s the justice in that? If you’re listening out there, I’m talking to you.”
There was a brief moment of confusion when Fennessey asked Spielberg for his thoughts on AI and Spielberg wasn’t clear if he was asking about his own 2001 movie or the broader topic of artificial intelligence.
Once that was cleared up (Fennessey meant the latter, a serious labor issue in Hollywood), Spielberg noted he has not used AI on any of his own films. “I don’t want to go into a whole rant about AI because I am for AI in many different disciplines. I am not for AI if it replaces a creative individual.”
Speaking to the theatrical experience, Spielberg made a brief allusion to the flare-up around comments by Timothée Chalamet regarding the popularity of opera and ballet in relation to the movies.
He noted that he does not decry the at-home streaming experience and that he works with Netflix, but that “for me, the real experience comes when we can influence a community to congregate in a strange dark space. All us are strangers and, at the end of a really good movie experience, we are all united with a whole bunch of feelings that we walk into the daylight with or into the nighttime with. And there’s nothing like that. I mean, it happens in movies, it happens at concerts and it happens in ballet and opera.”
Here there was a round of applause from the audience. “And we want that sustained and we want that to go forever.”
Spielberg noted how many of his favorite filmmakers, including David Lean and Billy Wilder and more recent examples such as Paul Thomas Anderson and Christopher Nolan, are always making films that feel different from what they have done before. He sees himself as part of that same school.
“If we’re just not making the same sequel over and over and over again and they’re not the same Marvel title over and over and over again, we all get a real chance to experience something, which is freshness,” Spielberg said. “And that is why I don’t judge my accomplishments based on a single film.”
The Hollywood Pantages Theatre on Thursday announced its 2026-27 season, which contains a whopping seven L.A. premieres including “Maybe Happy Ending.” The hugely buzzy show about the complicated love between two humanoid helperbots was originally developed and staged in South Korea, and won six Tony Awards last year including musical, direction (Michael Arden), leading actor (Darren Criss) and book and original score (Will Aronson and Hue Park).
An early version of the show was first staged in Seoul in 2015, seven years before the rollout of ChatGPT and the ensuing AI doomsday alarm that platform sparked about the rise of hyper-intelligent robots. It will be interesting to watch “Maybe Happy Ending’s” lead robot characters, Claire and Oliver, contemplate their existence during a time when Elon Musk says his Optimus humanoid robots will be in widespread use by the end of next year.
Five shows will be staged at the Pantages before “Maybe Happy Ending,” starting with the season-opening L.A. premiere of “Water for Elephants.” Based on Sara Gruen’s 2006 novel, this musical about the dramatic life of a traveling circus performer during the Great Depression premiered on Broadway to mixed reviews in 2024 and closed after 300 performances.
Next up: The L.A. premiere of “The Outsiders,” based on S.E. Hinton’s iconic 1967 novel about the conflict between two gangs of disaffected youth. The show opened on Broadway in 2024 and was nominated for 11 Tony Awards — it ultimately won four including for musical and direction.
After that a new revival of the beloved rock opera “The Who’s Tommy” will take to the stage. Given the show’s 30-plus-year history of destroying audiences (in a good way) with its classic rock grooves, it’s sure to remain a steadfast crowd-pleaser.
Get your dancing shoes on for the L.A. premiere of “Buena Vista Social Club,” which was co-produced by John Leguizamo and opened on Broadway last year, garnering 11 Tony nominations and five wins, including a special Tony Award for the Buena Vista Social Club band. Based on the lives of musicians in Havana from the 1950s through the 1990s, and featuring plenty of infectious Latin music presented in Spanish, the show is set to launch its North American tour in Buffalo this fall before making its way to the Pantages.
The L.A. premiere of “Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical” is up next. The World War II-themed comedy about a British plan of deception premiered on Broadway last year and was nominated for four Tonys including musical.
Rounding out the L.A. premieres are a lavish production of “The Great Gatsby” and the season closer, “Death Becomes Her,” both of which are based on hot properties with plenty of audience recognition.
If you’re looking for a classic, fear not: “Hamilton” and “The Lion King” are returning next season to do what they do best: Thrill audiences and sell out shows.
I’m Arts editor Jessica Gelt contemplating a season pass. Here’s your arts and culture news for the week.
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The week ahead: A curated calendar
FRIDAY From John Doe to Lonesome Rhodes: Anti-fascism From the Archive A double bill of “Arch of Triumph” (1948), a tragic romance set in 1938 Paris starring Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer and Charles Laughton, and “Voice in the Wind” (1944), a low-budget B-movie with Francis Lederer as a persecuted Czech concert pianist, opens this short series of films that were restored by the the UCLA Film & Television Archive. The series continues with Saturday’s pairing of “The Burning Cross” (1947) and “Open Secret” (1948) and “A Face in the Crowd” (1957) on March 20. 7:30 p.m. Billy Wilder Theater, UCLA Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood. cinema.ucla.edu
SATURDAY Nuun to Midnight A 37-film, 12-hour festival that merges music and visual arts serves as a fundraiser for curated arts presenter Middle Ear Project. Noon-midnight. Automata Theater, 504 Chung King Road, Chinatown. automatala.org
Sarah Davachi + Robert Takahashi Novak: New Commissions The Broad lobby’s unique characteristics will be utilized to create a deep listening experience for newly commissioned compositions by electroacoustic and minimalist organist Davachi and conceptual sound and contemporary electronic music artist Novak. 8 p.m. The Broad, 221 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. thebroad.org
The Great Wall of Los Angeles Judy Baca’s iconic mural inspired Gustavo Dudamel and Gabriela Ortiz to gather composers Juhi Bansal, Nicolás Lell Benavides, Viet Cuong, Estevan Olmos, Xavier Muzik and Nina Shekhar for this salute to the city, augmented by a video installation created director Alejandro González Iñárritu and cinematographer Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki. 2 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
Alexander Malofeev The young Russian pianist performs a program featuring works by Sibelius, Grieg, Rautavaara, Scriabin, Stravinsky, Arthur Lourié and Prokofiev. 7:30 p.m. Broad Stage, Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center, 1310 11th St. broadstage.org
The Opera Buffs Emerging musical artists from Southern California perform six mini-operas. 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd. sierramadreplayhouse.org
Wild Up The orchestral collective Wild Up performs “The Odes,” a program highlighting experimentation across the ages, featuring works by French Baroque composer Jean-Féry Rebel, English dramatist Henry Purcell and Soviet modern polystylist Alfred Schnittke, as well as modern artists. The group will be joined by guest vocalist and composer Julia Holter, students from the Herb Alpert School of Music at CalArts and special guests. 8 p.m. REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., downtown L.A. redcat.org
TUESDAY Beetlejuice The Broadway musical based on Tim Burton’s 1988 horror-comedy makes a local stop on its national tour. Through March 22. Hollywood Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd. broadwayinhollywood.com
Malice: Stories of Injustice The Odyssey, in partnering with Mar Vista Voice and West Los Respuesta Rapida, presents a program of monologues based on the true stories of families and communities impacted by ICE, with proceeds benefiting the two charities. 8 p.m. Tuesday (in English) and Wednesday (in Spanish). Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. odysseytheatre.com
The Rilke Project Piano Spheres presents pianist Vicki Ray performing works by Bernstein, Ives and Eötvös, as well as pieces from Los Angeles-based composers Steuart Liebig, Andrew Tholl, Joseph Pereira and David Rhodes, and the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke. 8 p.m. 2220 Arts + Archives, 2220 Beverly Blvd. pianospheres.org
Six The national tour of the Broadway musical by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, a modern pop take on the sextet of women who were the wives of Henry VIII. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-March 13; 2 p.m. Saturday. Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 300 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. scfta.org
THURSDAY Turning Points Guest conductor Dinis Sousa leads the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in Huang Ruo’s “Tipping Point,” Schumann’s “Violin Concerto” with solo violinist Isabelle Faust, and Mendelssohn’s “Symphony No. 4,” a.k.a. the “Italian.” 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills; 7:30 p.m. March 6. Colburn School, Zipper Hall, 220 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laco.org
Arts anywhere
Kevin Kline and Laura Linney in the series “American Classic” on MGM+.
(David Giesbrecht/MGM+)
American Classic The limited series (eight 30-minute episodes) stars Kevin Kline as an out-of-control Broadway star who returns to his Pennsylvania hometown. Featuring a fine supporting cast that includes Laura Linney, Jon Tenney, Tony Shalhoub and Len Cariou, Times TV critic Robert Lloyd calls the show “a love letter to theater, community and community theater.” Streaming on MGM+ (free 7-day trial available).
KUSC Local classical music fans know very well the treasure we have in Classical KUSC, one of the few all-classical music stations left on the planet. And, indeed, people from all over the world listen online. But what if you’re just “classical curious” and don’t know where to start? With round-the-clock programming, multiple specialized streaming channels devoted to movie scores, seasonal sounds and more, plus live concerts and knowledgeable hosts, this is the place for enjoyment, enlightenment and education. And remember, it’s listener-supported! If you can afford to give, please do. Listen at 98.7 FM and stream at kusc.org
The jacket of the book “True Color” by Kory Stamper.
(Knopf)
True Color Kory Stamper chronicles the life of I. H. Godlove, an eccentric scientist who infused the midcentury Merriam-Webster dictionary with a shockingly kaleidoscopic array of colors using only words. The worlds of color science, color psychology and color production provide a vivid backdrop for a journey across the 20th century. Knopf (March 31 release): 320 pp. $32
Culture news and the SoCal scene
People gather outside for pre-show drinks before Public Assembly theater’s show at the Women’s Twentieth Century Club on Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, in Los Angeles.
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
The roving company Public Assembly Theatre, which develops three one-act plays monthly in unconventional L.A. spaces, got an up-close look via a fascinating story by freelancer Emma Madden. Madden spent the better part of a month tracking the development process, read-throughs and final show, and tells the story of a tiny company that is making major waves with a Hollywood-weary crowd.
Freelancer Solvej Schou tells the difficult but ultimately uplifting story of an Altadena shop owner who closed twice during the last year: Once because of the Eaton fire, and again because of heavy flooding the following year. In the wake of all the trauma, the owner, Adriana Molina, hired a local muralist to paint a colorful outdoor mural of Altadena as a way to boost morale in the neighborhood.
Dalia Stasevska, a Ukranian-born conductor who is making her L.A. Opera debut with Philip Glass’ “Akhnaten,” poses for a portrait at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
(David Butow / For the Times)
The Ukrainian-born conductor Dalia Stasevska made her L.A. Opera debut last weekend, conducting Philip Glass’ opera “Akhnaten,” which runs through late March. Times freelancer Tim Greiving sat down with Stasevska to write an in-depth profile that delves into her early love of opera and classical music as well as her efforts to raise money for humanitarian aid in Ukraine.
Malia Mendez got the skinny on a Christie’s auction in New York that features the $1-billion guitar collection of the late businessman Jim Irsay. Items on the block included Kurt Cobain’s 1969 Fender Mustang and the Beatles drum head from the band’s legendary appearance on “The Ed Sullivan show.”
Artist Ulysses Jenkins is photographed at his studio in Inglewood on Tuesday, March 8, 2022.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
Mendez also penned a lovely obituary for Ulysses Jenkins, a pioneer of Black experimental video who died last month at the age of 79.
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Chiura Obata, “Full Moon, Pasadena, California,” (1930) Verso, Asian American art
(The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, Gift of the Obata Family)
The new theme for the fourth edition of the Getty’s PST ART has been announced. The 2030 survey will explore “the artistic and cultural exchange between Los Angeles and the Pacific Rim,” according to a news release. PST ART launched in 2011 and has since established itself as one of the region’s most timely and expansive art showcases — with participation from every corner of Southern California.
“PST ART is now an established and central part of Southern California’s cultural landscape, with each edition exploring key aspects of our past, present, and possible futures,” said Katherine E. Fleming, president and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust, in a statement. “With our large diasporic communities from around the Pacific Rim, Los Angeles is the perfect place to explore the far-reaching and varied impact of transpacific culture.”
By my count, Philip Glass has written 28 operas, the same number as Verdi. The count is iffy because Glass pushes the boundaries between what we tend to call opera and the fuzzier idea of music theater. His first, “Einstein on the Beach” in 1976 — a collaboration between the composer and the late, innovative theater maker Robert Wilson — is a non-narrative effusion of imagery, movement, music and text, each a brilliantly independent entity that somehow excites a hard-to-pin-down purpose.
His latest (and probably his last, Glass turns 90 this year) is “Circus Days and Nights” — a touching and thrilling opera for a circus and staged at a circus in Mälmo, Sweden, in 2021 — caps a wondrous 45 years of operatic advancement. You would have to go back to Handel’s 42 operas, Mozart’s 22 or Verdi’s oeuvre for operatic equivalence.
Glass’ subject matter varies widely in epochs and ethoses, from ancient Egypt to Walt Disney’s Hollywood. Taken as a whole, these 28 operas reveal how we got to be who we are historically, artistically, spiritually, politically and fancifully, often including more than one of those categories, as in his third opera, “Akhnaten,” which Los Angeles Opera has now remounted at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The instantly recognizable musical style has remained, over the years, consistently abstract and refreshing. It doesn’t tell you how to think, how to feel, even how to understand. It simply grabs your attention; you do the interpreting.
Still, America knows little of Glass’ operatic enormity. The early “portrait” operas — “Einstein,” “Satyagraha” (about Gandhi) and “Akhnaten” (the 14th century BC Egyptian pharaoh) — appear in repertory here and there (meaning mostly in Europe) as do a trio of operas based on Jean Cocteau films. The rest remain little mounted, while several but not all have been recorded. The Metropolitan Opera, for instance, commissioned “The Voyage” in 1992 to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in the Americas, but the epic opera is nowhere to be found in our semisesquicentennial year. It is sadly no longer even thinkable that “Appomattox,” Glass’ revelatory reminder of an America that once honored goodwill negotiation over political self-interest, return to the Kennedy Center, where its final version had its premiere 11 years ago.
L.A. Opera has been better than most American companies in its attention to Glass. It has excellently presented the three portrait operas on its main stage, beginning with “Einstein” in the final and most brilliant revival of the original Wilson staging. The “Satyagraha” and “Akhnaten” revivals have been the designed-to-dazzle inventions of quirky director Phelim McDermott, a co-founder of Impossible, an eccentric British theater company. When new in the last decade, they felt the most arresting productions of these operas since Achim Freyer’s in Stuttgart, Germany, in the early 1980s. Almost every performance at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion has sold out.
John Holiday as the titular ruler in Philip Glass’ “Akhnaten” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)
McDermott’s “Akhnaten” got the most attention thanks to breathtaking jugglers and lavish costumes, along with a touch of full-frontal novelty as Akhnaten gets clothed in his kitschy, glittery getup for his inauguration. Glass had chosen the pharaoh because he is thought to have been the first monotheistic ruler.
Akhnaten is revealed in episodes of his life that are not fleshed out but presented as ritual, including the ravishing love duet with his wife, Nefertiti. The revolutionary pharoah builds a great city and reduces spiritual chaos by focusing on a single-minded form of worship. He looks androgenous in portraits, which led Glass to create the role for countertenor.
The sung texts are in ancient languages, and there are no projected song titles. Instead, a narrator gives a somewhat notion of what’s what in the language of the audience, as is Akhnaten’s great aria, a hymn to Aten (god of the sun).
Ultimately, the pharaoh’s prescient spiritual optimism comes in conflict with the all-powerful establishment priests, who kill Akhnaten and Nefertiti. The opera ends with Akhnaten’s son, presumably Tutankhamun, restoring polytheism, and then, once the staging jumps millennia into the future, it’s rediscovered by modern-day tourists. The currency couldn’t be missed Saturday, the Shia cleric and Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei having just been assassinated along with his wife at the start of America’s and Israel’s Iran war.
Sun-Ly Pierce as Nefertiti and John Holiday as Akhnaten in Philip Glass’ “Akhnaten” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)
In the opera, it so happens, the ghosts of Akhnaten, his wife and mother, have the last word in a glorious trio.
When first performed at L.A. Opera a decade ago, the lavish production, co-produced with English National Opera, helped recover a neglected opera. In the meantime, “Akhnaten” has gone practically mainstream. The Metropolitan Opera, which also mounted McDermott’s production, released it on CD and DVD, winning a Grammy for best opera recording.
Since then, the choreographer Lucinda Childs, veteran of “Einstein on the Beach,” has staged a stunningly chic “Akhnaten” in Nice, France, that is available on YouTube. Last year, director Barrie Kosky created a sensation with his staging at Komische Oper Berlin, which starred American countertenor John Holiday.
Holiday happens to be the Akhnaten in the L.A. Opera revival, and he is magnificent. McDermott had built his production around the gracefully emotive Anthony Roth Costanzo, slight and luminous in voice and build and game for nudity. If Costanzo’s disarming enthusiasm for the role has been significant in mainstreaming “Akhnaten,” Holiday, who is a very different presence, may be the next step.
Although he can be a popularly gregarious crossover performer, here he suggests a ruler of profound, unflappable dignity, rather than vulnerability. His hymn to Aten is an exercise in majesty, an ode not just to the sun but to the expanses in which our solar system circulates.
In general, the singers class up the production. Sun-Ly Pierce as Nefertiti and So Young Park as Queen Tye add allure. The large cast of smaller roles and chorus is excellent. Zachary James returns as both Amenhotep III, Akhnaten’s father, and the engaging narrator who occasionally threatens to get carried away. McDermott had perfectly employed James as the droll animatronic Disneyland Lincoln in his animation-friendly, slightly goofy production of “Perfect American” in Madrid, where the opera premiered. Here McDermott’s inspired staging demonstrated that Glass’ forgiving personal portrait of Walt Disney makes it the quintessential Hollywood opera that no one dares bring to squeamish Hollywood.
Zachary James as Amenhotep III in Philip Glass’ “Akhnaten” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)
Hollywood, however, is hardly squeamish when it comes to synchronized jugglers. For McDermott, they suggest somber ritual and were, in fact, known in Akhnaten’s Egypt. For the audience, they are a thrill a minute. For Glass, they may take on deeper meaning now that the circus is where he landed 26 operas later.
As for Finnish conductor Dalia Stasevska, making her L.A. opera debut, she keenly keeps score and bounding balls together with cinematic flair. Glass removed violins from the orchestra to achieve a dark, primordial orchestral sound along with pounding percussion. Stasevska finds light, color and action. She conducts for the moment. Picturesque wind instruments suddenly burst forth as if a flock of birds were flying over the pyramids. Solo brass can sound momentous. The percussion pounds like nobody’s business, opening the score up to all the implied emotion and glitter on an over-stuffed stage.
Childs’ exalted use of dance and Kosky’s dazzling theatrical imagination may have moved us into a sleeker, more sophisticated and paradisal Glassian realm, but the sheer passion McDermott and Stasevska bring continues its own attraction.
In the meantime, McDermott has worked with Glass on a theatrical show, “The Tao of Glass,” that has been seen in New York and will run throughout much of the summer in London. In a better world of Glass, it would be running alongside “Akhnaten” at the Ahmanson. But the Labèque sisters will be at Walt Disney Concert Hall at the end of the month with a two-piano program based on Glass’ operatic Cocteau trilogy. Also check out L.A. Opera’s several excellent podcasts on “Ahkhnaten” — the company has quietly become a leader in the medium.
‘Akhnaten’
Where: Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 Grand Ave., L.A.
When: Through March 22
Tickets: $33.50-$415
Running time: About 3 hours, 40 minutes, with 2 intermissions.
What sounded like a very cool L.A. Art Week party ended up getting a bit too rowdy. On Sunday night the Los Angeles Police Department was called to a former 99 Cents Only store on Wilshire Boulevard where an opening night party was underway for a week-long pop-up called “99CENT,” organized by former tagger and blue-chip artist Barry McGee and presented with the Hole gallery.
An LAPD public information officer confirmed that officers responded to a disturbance call at the location, which is just down the street from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Academy Museum, at 10:30 p.m. Sunday. Police arrived to find “a large group of about 20 or 30 people, drinking and playing loud music.” The crowd dispersed on its own after law enforcement arrived.
Neighbor Rebekka Mueller, who lives across the parking lot from the store, said that a concert at the event had attracted hundreds of people, a number of whom took to tagging four or five neighboring businesses, including the now-closed historic Googie-style Johnie’s Coffee Shop.
The event drew plenty of respectful art fans, Mueller said, “but attracted lots of other people, and they started tagging the whole building — but not in an art way. And then it spilled over to the businesses nearby, to an insurance company, and then two apartment buildings were completely tagged … and they had no security on site when this happened. So this was very alarming for the neighborhood.”
Cole Schiffer, whose family owns the 99 Cents building, said he was sorry that neighbors’ structures were tagged and that he has been working all week to paint over the tagging.
“We didn’t know that this would happen. I was pretty naive about the graphic art world,” he said. “We’re business owners, we spend a lot of time removing graffiti. My mom grew up in this neighborhood. My grandparents lived and died here, so honestly, it’s a little sad and crazy to see this graffiti all over the neighborhood.”
Schiffer said things had calmed down after Sunday night and that the Hole gallery was working to avoid problems for the rest of the week’s festivities.
In a brief story about the event, Times freelancer Mariella Rudi noted that the 99 Cents store had been transformed into, “a dense, joyous artist flea market” featuring, “more than 200 contributors and well over 4,000 works.” When Rudi was there on Sunday night she said she didn’t see any destructive behavior.
“Paintings are stacked against old shelving. Shopping carts hang from the ceiling. You can even check out your purchases at the register, complete with a sticker and a receipt,” Rudi wrote, adding, “Graffiti-heavy aisles will thrill fans of Beyond the Streets, but a handwritten sign near the entrance offers a final note: ‘Please, no tagging inside. Owners are cool.’ ”
The pop-up will feature puppets from Bob Baker Marionette Theatre this Sunday, as well as an Anti-Fascist Zine Fair. This whole scene is right up my alley, and I say, “Yes, please,” to more edgy arts programming featuring outsider artists and youthful rebellion.
But it seems a minority of guests decided to dishonor the spirit of the event by disrespecting the boundaries put into place by organizers.
Even neighbors who complained, like Mueller, said they were big supporters of the arts and that a lot of great art was on display inside the store — they wished the situation had played out differently, and they hope Sunday night’s grand finale proves more in control.
Mueller said that although organizers had painted over many of the tags, the situation at Johnie’s had not yet been remedied.
I’m Times Arts editor Jessica Gelt, and I’m here for all the colorful underground fun — and the angry dissent that often comes with it — but none of the destruction of property.
You’re reading Essential Arts
The week ahead: A curated calendar
FRIDAY All My Sons Oánh Nguyễn directs Antaeus Theatre Company’s production of Arthur Miller’s 1946 Tony-winning play about a Midwestern family facing a moral reckoning after World War II. Through March 30. Kiki & David Gindler Performing Arts Center, 110 E. Broadway, Glendale. antaeus.org
Detail of a photo by Lou Bopp, seen in the documentary “All the Empty Rooms.”
(Netflix)
All the Empty Rooms Photos memorializing the bedrooms of children lost to school shootings captured by photographer Lou Bopp and reporter Steve Hartman and featured in the Oscar-nominated documentary short film directed by Joshua Seftel, are on display at an outdoor installation. Through Monday, Sunset Triangle Plaza, 3700 Sunset Blvd.
And What of the Children? Writer-director Ryan Lisman’s play blends drama, dark comedy and horror in a psychological thriller about a trio of siblings in the Witness Protection Program. Through March 15. The Broadwater Black Box, 6322 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles. events.humanitix.com
Front and Center: Emerging Artists with the Colburn Orchestra Salonen Fellows Mert Yalniz and Aleksandra Melaniuk will lead a varied program of concerto works spotlighting up-and-coming soloists. The performance will be live streamed. 7 p.m. Friday. Zipper Hall, 200 S. Grand. Ave., downtown L.A. colburnschool.edu
John Giorno in Andy Warhol’s “Sleep.”
(Andy Warhol/John Giorno Collection, John Giorno Archives. Studio Rondinone, New York, NY.)
Sleep John Giorno, the subject of the exhibition “John Giorno: No Nostalgia,” stars in Andy Warhol’s 1964 five hours and 21-minute silent film. Free with a reservation. 5-10:30 p.m. Friday. Marciano Art Foundation, 4357 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. marcianoartfoundation.org
SATURDAY
John Holiday in the title role of LA Opera’s 2026 production of “Akhnaten.”
(Cory Weaver)
Akhnatan John Holiday stars in L.A. Opera’s production of Philip Glass’ portrait of the Egyptian pharaoh, sung in in English, Ancient Egyptian, Biblical Hebrew and Akkadian. Directed by Phelim McDermott and conducted by Dalia Stasevska making her company debut. Through March 21, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laopera.org
Attacca Quartet and Theo Bleckmann The versatile Grammy-winning ensemble teams with vocalist Bleckmann on David Lang’s “note to a friend,” a chamber opera based on three reimagined texts by Japanese writer Ryunosuke Akutagawa. 8 p.m. UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu
From Strand to Sculpture A self-guided tour of the Japanese bamboo basketry exhibition will be followed by a lecture from bamboo art expert Robert Coffland, founder of TAI Gallery (now TAI Modern) in Santa Fe, N.M., and now president of the Santa Fe gallery Textile Arts Inc. The lecture is also available via Zoom. 4-7 p.m. Saturday. The Gamble House is located at 4 Westmoreland Place, Pasadena. gamblehouse.org
The Price Richard Fancy, Dana Dewes, Jason Huber and Scott G. Jackson star in Arthur Miller’s late-period drama about two brother’s cleaning out their late father’s New York brownstone. Through April 5. Pacific Resident Theatre, 703 Venice Blvd. pacificresidenttheatre.org
Pepe Romero Returns The classical guitarist joins the Long Beach Symphony for a concert featuring ”Concierto de Aranjuez” by Joaquín Rodrigo, Gabriela Lena Frank’s “Elegia Andina” and movements from Handel’s “Water Music Suites.” 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Long Beach Terrace Theater, 300 E. Ocean Blvd. longbeachsymphony.org
Bud Cort in the 1971 movie “Harold and Maude,” screening March 15 at the Aero.
(CBS via Getty Images)
Starring Bud Cort The American Cinematheque salutes the singular character actor, who recently died at 77, with screenings of Robert Altman’s “Brewster McCloud” (1970), Wes Anderson’s “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou” (2004) and Hal Ashby’s“Harold and Maude” (1971). “Brewster McCloud”, 2 p.m. Saturday in 35mm. Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd.; “The Life Aquatic”, 3 p.m. March 14; “Harold and Maude,” 1 p.m. March 15 in 35 mm. Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica. americancinematheque.com
SUNDAY Unassisted Residency Every edition of erstwhile weatherman Fritz Coleman’s monthly comedy show features a special guest. 3 p.m. Sunday. El Portal Theatre, Monroe Forum, 5269 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. elportaltheatre.com
TUESDAY Camerata Pacifica The ensemble performs a program that includes Madeleine Dring’s “Trio for Flute, Oboe and Piano,” the world premiere of David Brice’s “Natural Light,” Cécile Chaminade’s “Thème varié for Piano, Op. 89” and Antonín Dvořák’s “Quintet in A major for Piano and Strings, Op. 81,” arranged by David Jolley. 3 p.m. Sunday. Bank of America Performing Arts Center, Janet and Ray Scherr Forum, 2100 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks; 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. The Huntington, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino; 8 p.m., Thursday. Zipper Hall, 200 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A.; 7 p.m. Friday. Music Academy of the West, 1070 Fairway Road, Santa Barbara. cameratapacifica.org
WEDNESDAY
Sara Porkalob, playwright and performer of “Dragon Mama.”
(Corey Olsen)
Dragon Mama Writer-performer Sara Porkalob returns in Part II of her Filipina American “gangster” family’s intergenerational saga, “The Dragon Cycle,” this time centering her mother’s journey. Directed by Andrew Russell Through April 12. Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Avenue, Westwood. geffenplayhouse.org
THURSDAY The Adding Machine The Actors’ Gang performs Elmer Rice’s 1923 satire that provides a prophetic warning from the past for our present. Through April 18. The Actors; Gang, 9070 Venice Blvd., Culver City. theactorsgang.com
Dante and Beethoven’s Sixth Gustavo Dudamel conducts the L.A. Phil in Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 – Pastoral” and Thomas Adès’ “Inferno – Part 1.” 8 p.m. Thursday; 11 a.m. Friday; and 2 p.m. Sunday. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company A remounting of the historic dance theater work “Still/Here,” created by Jones 30 years in the midst of the AIDS epidemic from interviews with terminally patients which he called “survival workshops.” 8 p.m. UCLA Royce Hall, 340 Royce Drive, Westwood. cap.ucla.edu
Arts anywhere
New releases of arts-related media.
Clockwise from top left, artists Candice Lin, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Tomás Saraceno and Ragnar Kjartansson from “Art in the Twenty-First Century.”
(Art21, Inc.)
Art in the Twenty-First Century Museums are fantastic, but do you ever want to know what’s going on right now in the art world? Since it debuted in 2001, this video series has focused on contemporary art and artists and has been a mainstay of public broadcasting. The second episode of the 12th season (they’re released biannually) debuted Feb. 11 and profiles four international artists, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Ragnar Kjartansson, Candice Lin and Tomás Saraceno, who use ordinary materials to make extraordinary art. Of local note, Crosby and Lin both live and work in L.A., and the Huntington in San Marino makes an appearance as well. Watch at art21.org, YouTube and pbs.org.
(Princeton University Press)
Michelangelo & Titian It may not have been a heated rivalry, but author William E. Wallace makes the case that the two great Renaissance artists drove each other to excel in a new dual biography subtitled “A Tale of Rivalry and Genius.” Princeton University Press: 248 pp., $35. press.princeton.edu
Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama competes in the figure skating men’s singles free skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics on February 13 in Milan, Italy.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
Turandot: Christopher Tin Finale The two-time Grammy-winning composer completed Giacomo Puccini’s famously unfinished final opera for this EP recorded at London’s Abbey Road Studios with an all-star cast. You may even have heard it during Japanese figure skater Yuma Kagiyama’s free skate program at the recent Winter Olympic Games in Milan (Kagiyama won silver for the second time). Not only was Milan Puccini’s hometown, but the Games coincided with the 100th-anniversary of the premiere of the opera at Teatro La Scala. Tin Works: $12-30. Available on vinyl, CD, digital download and streaming platforms.christophertin.com
— Kevin Crust
Culture news and the SoCal scene
Frieze Los Angeles returned to the Santa Monica Airport on Feb. 26.
(Casey Kelbaugh / Courtesy of Frieze and CKA)
Art Week is here, and L.A. is overflowing with guests, artists and dealers from around the world as the city stages a wide variety of fairs, exhibitions, dinners and other arts events. The Times put together a handy guide to all the fairs you need to see, including Frieze, Butter LA and the Other Art Fair.
Freelancer Jane Horowitz wrote an in-depth piece about Frieze’s “Body & Soul,” a public art program of eight installations designed to reach beyond traditional art fair audiences. The story gives information about site-specific installations and the artists behind them, including Patrick Martinez. Amanda Ross Ho and Kelly Wall.
Kara Walker, “Unmanned Drone,” 2024, bronze
(Ruben Diaz)
Earlier this week, MOCA announced it had acquired 158 works by 106 artists in 2025 and that it had acquired the centerpiece of its current blockbuster “Monuments” exhibit: “Unmanned Drone,” by artist Kara Walker. “Walker created the 13-foot-tall bronze sculpture out of a statue of the prominent Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson that was originally in Charlottesville, Va. The statue had been removed after serving as a significant gathering place for the infamous 2017 Unite the Right rally of white supremacists,” I wrote in a story about the acquisition.
Our major investigation into L.A. arts icon Judy Baca also published this week, featuring allegations by 10 former employees, including two managers, that Baca used her nonprofit arts center, SPARC, to benefit her private, for-profit art practice, Judy Baca Inc. They also alleged Baca personally benefited from a $5-million Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant to expand her most famous work, a community-driven effort known as “The Great Wall of Los Angeles.”
Alexander Hurt, left, Katie Holmes and Charlie Barnett in “Hedda Gabler.”
(Rich Soublet II)
Times theater critic Charles McNulty headed to San Diego’s Old Globe to catch Katie Holmes in a new take on Henrik Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler” written by Erin Cressida Wilson “that compresses the action and sharpens the language to a razor’s edge.”
“Beethoven’s ‘Missa Solemnis’ is a grand mass for large orchestra, chorus and four vocal soloists that lasts around 80 minutes,” writes Times classical music critic Mark Swed in his review of Gustavo Dudamel and the L.A. Phil’s performance of the challenging piece. “It was written near the end of Beethoven’s life and is his most ambitious work musically and spiritually.” The concert at Disney Hall was part of Dudamel’s “month-long L.A. Phil focus on Beethoven.”
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The Los Angeles County Museum of Art announced that its partnership with Hyundai Motor Co. will continue until 2037. The union was first cemented in 2015, and the museum said in a news release that it “represents the largest programmatic commitment from a corporate partner in LACMA’s history.” The announcement included two initiatives “that will define the next chapter” of collaboration. “The first initiative is a new exhibition series under the title ‘Hyundai Project.’ Beginning in 2028, the museum will present a biennial survey of an artist with significant ties to Los Angeles and the Pan Pacific region. The featured artist will also develop a large-scale banner for the exhibition that will be installed on the exterior of the Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM). Secondly, with Hyundai Motor’s renewed support, LACMA will expand the scope, visibility, and impact of the Art + Technology Lab,” the release noted.
When Dalia Stasevska heard opera music for the first time, it was a moment of profound self-revelation. She was 13, growing up in the factory town of Tampere in the south of Finland, and her school librarian gave her a CD of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” along with a translation of its Italian libretto.
“As a teenage girl, this dramatic story touched my soul,” Stasevska says, adding that she still remembers the experience and thinking, “ ‘This music understands me, this is exactly how I feel.’ And that was…when I knew that I wanted to become a musician.”
Stasevska is now chief conductor of Finland’s Lahti Symphony Orchestra and a prodigious conductor of orchestral music in all forms. A busy guest baton with companies around the globe, she will make her L.A. Opera debut this Saturday with a production of “Akhnaten” by Philip Glass, running through late March.
John Holiday in the title role of L.A. Opera’s 2026 production of “Akhnaten.”
(Cory Weaver)
The seminal work by Glass lands at L.A. Opera just a month after the world-famous composer abruptly canceled June’s world premiere of Symphony No. 15 “Lincoln” at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. “While Philip Glass has pulled out of Kennedy Center, his music will be front and center at our production,” a rep for L.A. Opera wrote in an email.
Stasevska, with her razor-sharp appreciation of the power of Glass’ work, is the ideal conductor to bring it there.
Stasevska, 41, walks from the ornate foyer of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, with its emerald green carpets and gleaming chandeliers, to the more ordinary hallways and cubicles of L.A. Opera’s offices. She’s been in town rehearsing for a few weeks and jokes with some of the show’s jugglers in a kitchenette, where she makes herself a machine pod coffee.
The conductor is petite with large, expressive eyes and a Cheshire cat’s smile. Her mouth often pulls to the right when she speaks, her admirable non-native English tugged easterly in a Finnish accent.
Opera remains her great love, and it seems a perfect twist of fate that Stasevska was tapped to conduct “Akhnaten.” She saw it for the first time in 2019 at a Helsinki cinema, in a global broadcast of a production by the Met. She couldn’t believe her friend dozed off.
“I was like, ‘How could you fall asleep? This was the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I would do anything to conduct this opera,’ ” she recalls saying.
Stasevska was born in 1984, the same year that Glass’ hypnotic, ritualistic opera, about an Egyptian pharaoh who dared to push monotheism onto his polytheistic culture, debuted in Stuttgart, Germany. Eight months later, Stasevska entered the world in the Soviet-controlled city of Kyiv, the child of a Ukrainian father and Finnish mother.
Conductor Dalia Stasevska, who is making her L.A. Opera debut with Philip Glass’ “Akhnaten,” says that opera is her first great love.
(David Butow / For the Times)
It was a fluke that she was born in Ukraine. Her parents, both painters, were living in the Estonian capital of Tallinn, also under Soviet rule, but found themselves in a Kyiv hospital close to family when Stasevska arrived. She’s never lived in Ukraine — she spent her first few years in Tallinn before moving to Finland at age 5— but her life has been infused with its heritage.
Her father, who as a teenager in Tallinn began to rebel against Sovietization, insisted on teaching Stasevska and her two younger brothers to speak Ukrainian at home. Her grandmother, Iryna, lived with the family and was an important caretaker for much of her childhood. Stasevska grew up hearing fantastic stories filled with dreamlike imagery of the homeland.
“She was such a civilized, cultural person,” Stasevska says of her grandmother, adding that she taught her grandkids everything she knew about her home country. That’s why, even though Stasevska was raised in Finland, she grew up eating Ukrainian food and hearing Ukrainian folk tunes. “I know the language and understand the culture,” she says.
Stasevska grew up poor, but music education was mandatory for her and her brothers: “My father said, ‘This is going to be your profession.’ It was no question that this is not a hobby. So we started practicing immediately, very determined. There was maybe some forcing involved,” she says, laughing.
She played the violin from age 8, but it was only after she heard Puccini at 13 that she fell in love with classical music. She became obsessed with the opera and orchestral repertoires and was immediately determined to play in an orchestra. She approached the headmaster at her conservatory who placed her in a string ensemble before advancing her to the symphony orchestra as a violinist.
At 18, Stasevska entered the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, which is named after Finland’s most famous composer, Jean Sibelius. She couldn’t stop herself from stealing a peek at the school conductor’s score, copying bowings and poring over the details, but she didn’t indulge any dreams of taking the podium herself. “I was going every week to the concerts,” she says, “but it took me so long to see somebody that looked like me.”
She was 20 when she saw a female conductor for the first time, calling it “the second big moment in my life.” When Stasevska expressed interest in trying it herself, she was referred to Jorma Panula, a legendary conductor and teacher in Finland. Panula invited her to attend one of his masterclasses, and on the first downbeat of her first experience conducting, “I knew immediately that this was beyond anything I’ve experienced in my life,” she says. “It became this kind of madness moment.”
She loved the sheer physicality of it, she says, but also “that I can affect the music, and that I can affect the interpretation, because I had so much in my heart that I felt about the music.”
After completing her conducting studies in 2012, Stasevska assisted Panula — who emphasized discovering unique “gestures in such a way that the orchestral musicians know what you mean,” she says. She also worked with her fellow Finn, Esa-Pekka Salonen. Stasevska became principal guest conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 2019 and chief of the Lahti Symphony in 2020.
When she’s not globetrotting, Stasevska lives in Helsinki with her young daughter and her husband, Lauri Porra — a heavy metal bassist who is also the great-grandson of Sibelius.
She likes to champion new music — her 2024 album, “Dalia’s Mixtape,” featured works by Anna Meredith, Caroline Shaw and other contemporary composers. She is also a vocal supporter of the land where she was born and has spoken out against Russia’s war in Ukraine.
John Holiday as Akhnaten, with So Young Park, at right, as Queen Tye, in L.A. Opera’s 2026 production of “Akhnaten.”
(Cory Weaver)
Stasevska’s L.A. Opera debut arrives on the same week as the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion. Both of her brothers — one a film director, the other a journalist — moved to Ukraine and have borne witness to the war, which has given her “another level of experiencing this horror,” she says.
Stasevska has made it her mission to raise funds — more than 250,000 euros to date — to provide basic supplies particularly for children and elders who are without power and huddling in freezing cold homes. She has even driven in supplies herself by truck.
She has also conducted concerts there — and her next album will celebrate the country’s composers in a meaningful way. “Ukrainian Mixtape,” which she recorded with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London, features works by five composers who range from the 19th century to the 1960s. Three are premiere recordings of artists who have been completely forgotten, which required a year of searching for materials.
“I think that it will not leave anybody cold,” Staveska says, “and I hope that it will inspire everybody to discover Ukrainian music more, and that we will hear it more on main stages of the world — where it deserves to be.”
For now, though, her focus is on ancient Egypt and Philip Glass — and opera. She says her goal, in every concert, is to give audiences the same experience she had when she was 13, that remarkable feeling that the music uniquely understands them.
Embattled Hollywood mogul Casey Wasserman, who is facing mounting pressure to resign from his position at the helm of the 2028 L.A. Olympics, also holds another important cultural appointment on the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s board of trustees.
Wasserman, 51, joined LACMA’s board in 2004 when he was 30, two years after he founded his eponymous talent and marketing agency. Just last week, Wasserman announced he would sell his agency after racy emails between himself and convicted sex trafficker and Jeffrey Epstein associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, emerged at part of the Justice Department’s latest release of millions of documents related to the Epstein files.
Wasserman, the grandson of legendary studio exec Lew Wasserman, arrived at LACMA as part of a wave of relatively young additions to a notoriously older board. His addition also heralded the dawning of an era in which LACMA actively sought to strengthen its connections with the entertainment world. In 2011, LACMA launched its glitzy Art + Film Gala, an annual party co-chaired by Leonardo DiCaprio that serves as a melting pot for A-list celebrities and art world stars.
“There was an understanding — the message was there needed to be a change in the board,” museum director Michael Govan told The Times in a 2015 interview. “The board was in extreme need of refreshment.”
Now that Wasserman’s leadership in other roles is being questioned , will his relationship with LACMA follow? LACMA did not respond to a request for comment. Although the board generally meets a few times a year, it may not be an issue that has come to the fore as of yet.
Thus far, LA28 has stood by Wasserman, noting in a recent statement that his emails with Maxwell were sent years “before Mr. Wasserman or the public knew of Epstein and Maxwell’s deplorable crimes … This was his single interaction with Epstein.”
“The Executive Committee of the Board has determined that based on these facts, as well as the strong leadership he has exhibited over the past ten years, Mr. Wasserman should continue to lead LA28 and deliver a safe and successful Games,” LA28 wrote.
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said in a recent CNN interview that she believed Wasserman should step down, and that it is “unfortunate” that Olympic organizers remained in support of him.
In a memo to staff at his talent agency, Wasserman wrote that he was “heartbroken that my brief contact with them 23 years ago has caused you, this company, and its clients so much hardship over the past days and weeks.”
I’m arts editor Jessica Gelt with this week’s arts and culture news.
You’re reading Essential Arts
The week ahead: A curated calendar
FRIDAY
The cast of “Cinderella: A Salsa Fairy Tale.”
(South Coast Repertory)
Cinderella: A Salsa Fairy Tale The classic fairy tale moves to the basketball court in this hip-hop fueled musical adaptation for young audiences with a book and lyrics by Karen Zacarías and music by Deborah Wicks La Puma. Directed by Sara Guerrero. Through March 8. South Coast Repertory, Julianne Argyros Stage, 655 Town Center Dr., Costa Mesa. scr.org
Dear Little Friend: Impressions of Galka Scheyer The exhibition from the German-born art dealer’s collection includes portraits and ephemera, featuring such artists as Maynard Dixon, Peter Krasnow, Beatrice Wood and Edward Weston, as well as gifts from the Blue Four artsist, whose work Scheyer championed: Alexei Jawlensky, Lyonel Feininger, Paul Klee and Vassily Kandinsky. Thursday-Monday, through July 20. Norton Simon Museum, 411 West Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. nortonsimon.org
The Industry LAB 2026 The innovative opera company partners with REDCAT for this series featuring new works: a shared program of Guillermo E. Brown’s “The Instrument, Romance, Bee Boy” and Carmina Escobar’s “Our Voice Is Not at the End of Anything” (8 p.m. Tuesday-Wednesday; 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 3 p.m. Saturday-Sunday); and Matana Roberts’ “spiral resonance: a study in the abstract,” an immersive sound and moving image installation exhibition (noon-6 p.m., daily through March 1) with solo activation performances in the space by Patrick Shiroishi (8 p.m. Tuesday); Ryan Sawyer (8 p.m. Wednesday); Roberts (8 p.m. Feb. 27); Kyp Malone (8 p.m. Feb. 28); and Judith Berkson (3 p.m. March 1). Through March 1, 2026 REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., downtown L.A. redcat.org
Wallace Berman/Bruce Conner A pair of solo exhibitions highlighting extraordinary mark-making: “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” salutes the centennial of post-war counter-culture artist Berman with a rare showing of his large-scale photographic collages; “Inkblots and Felt Tip Drawings” focuses on an often overlooked aspect of multimedia artist Conner’s work. A selection of Conner’s experimental films are being exhibited at Marciano Art Foundation (see below). Tuesday-Saturday, through April 25. Michael Kohn Gallery, 1227 North Highland Ave. kohngallery.com
Missa Solemnis Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic are joined by more than 100 voices from the Cor de Cambra of the Palau de la Música Catalana and Orfeó Català of Barcelona for this Beethoven mass that is rarely performed due to its ambitious scale. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
Jon Serl: As One, As Many Starting in vaudeville before moving to California and working as a Hollywood voice actor and gardener, Serl became a painter following World War II with a long, expressive career illustrated in this retrospective. Fittingly, the artist had his first museum exhibition in 1981 at the Newport Harbor Art Museum (now UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art). Through June 7. UC Irvine Langson/Orange County Museum of Art, 3333 Avenue of the Arts, Costa Mesa. ocma.art
Marco Perego “The Being” is a solo exhibition featuring video, installations and drawings by Italian-born artist. Through April. Jeffrey Deitch, 7000 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles. deitch.com
Christina Kirk and Norbert Leo Butz, seated, with the cast of “The Recipe.”
(Rich Soublet II/La Jolla Playhouse)
The Recipe Christina Kirk and Norbert Leo Butz star as Julia and Paul Child in the world premiere of Claudia Shear’s play about the world-famous chef. Directed by Lisa Petersen. Through March 22. La Jolla Playhouse, 2910 La Jolla Village Dr. lajollaplayhouse.org
Puppet Up! – Uncensored Created by Brian Henson and directed by Patrick Bristow, this irreverent, ever-changing show features the Miskreant puppets plus classic Jim Henson sketches unseen by live audiences for decades. 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 5 p.m. Sunday; 7 p.m. Feb. 27-28; 5 p.m. March 1. The Montalbán, 1615 Vine St., Hollywood. puppetup.com
SATURDAY Kyreeana Breelin Alexander The interdisciplinary artist performs “We Cool,” a solo autobiographical coming-of-age story fueled by rhythm and movement. 8 p.m. UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu
Judith F. Baca With “The Great Wall Of Los Angeles: The 1970’s — A Decade Of Defiance And Dreams,” the artist’s organization SPARC (Social and Public Art Resource Center) exhibits the latest complete segment in the monumental work’s expansion. Opening reception, 6-8 p.m.; through April 4. Jeffrey Deitch, 925 N. Orange Dr. deitch.com
Bruce Conner, “Crossroads,” 1976. 35mm, black/white, sound, 37 min. Digitally Restored, 2013.
(The Conner Family Trust/Michael Kohn Gallery)
Bruce Conner “Recording Angel” brings together seven of the artist’s experimental films, composed of found, scavenged and original footage, and re-cut using his influential rapid-fire editing techniques. Through July 18. Marciano Art Foundation, 4357 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. marcianoartfoundation.org
Patti LuPone The Broadway star marks the 25th anniversary of her concert “Matters of the Heart,” which ran on Broadway and London’s West End and toured the globe. 7:30 p.m. Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laopera.org
John Snow The bassist and his band explore “The Poetry in Music” through works by John Coltrane, Joni Mitchell, Patti Smith, Langston Hughes, Hoagy Carmichael, Bob Dylan and others. 8 p.m. Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. odysseytheatre.com
Tap Fest: Listen to This! Dancers Derick Grant, Sam Weber and Josette Wiggan join the Colburn’s tap faculty and students for a program exploring the concept of the Tap Artist as both a dancer and musician. 7 p.m. Colburn School, Thayer Hall, 200 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. colburnschool.edu
SUNDAY Zhanna Kadyrova A collaboration with Kyiv to LA, an ongoing project supporting Ukrainian artists through a Los Angeles-based residency, and the Thomas Mann House, the solo exhibition “Sliced Realities” explores the artist’s anti-war practice and coincides with the four-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Sunday-Feb. 28. Thomas Mann House (1550 N San Remo Drive, Pacific Palisades. vatmh.org
Museums Free-For-All An Southland tradition in which Southern California arts and cultural institutions open their doors for free general admission. Participants include the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, the Autry Museum of the American West, The Broad, California African American Museum, the Getty Center and the Getty Villa, UCLA Hammer Museum, LACMA, MOCA, Skirball Cultural Center and many, many more. At some locations, tickets are limited and reservations may be required. All-day Sunday. See complete list of participating institutions at socalmuseums.net/free
Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel Colburn Conservatory of Music welcomes the Belgian conservatory and its master-in-residence, cellist Gary Hoffman, for a joint performance of Fauré’s “Piano Quintet No. 1” and Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time.” 3 p.m. Colburn School, Thayer Hall, 200 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. colburnschool.edu
Sueño Perro This film Installation by Alejandro G. Iñárritu both marks the 25th anniversary of his debut “Amores Perros” and serves as a “resurrection” using projections of never-before-seen fragments from that film’s production. Through July 26. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, BCAM, Level 1, 5905 Wilshire Blvd. lacma.org
We Hold These Truths: A Celebration of Black History Month Over 100 Years The contributions of Black Americans to the cause of democracy over the years are recognized in this collaboration of performers from across artistic mediums. Featured artists include actor Phil Morris, composer Tamar-kali, dancer Ishaun Jackson-Moaney, the West Angeles COGIC Victory Dance Company, opera baritone Derrick Lawrence and promising talent out of the USC Thornton School of Music, opera mezzo-soprano and producer Raehann Bryce-Davis, poet Alyesha Wise and arts scholar and activist Derrell Acon. 3 p.m. Nocturne Theatre, 324 N. Orange St., Glendale. eventbrite.com
TUESDAY Flashback Fun Six Disney classics return to the big screen: “Muppet Treasure Island” (Tuesday); “The Aristocats” (Wednesday); “Dumbo” (Thursday); “The Rescuers” (Feb. 27); “Bolt” (Feb. 28); and “Oliver and Company” (March 1). The El Capitan Theatre, 6838 Hollywood Blvd. elcapitantheatre.com
Filmmaker Jafar Panahi at the Toronto International Film Festival last September.
(Kate Dockeray/For The Times)
It Was Just an Accident: Live Read Film Independent presents writer-director Jafar Panahi’s “incisive drama,” winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2025 and nominated for international feature film and original screenplay at this year‘s Academy Awards, to the Wallis stage read by a new cast. 7:30 p.m. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. thewallis.org
Haegue Yang “Star-Crossed Rendezvous” pairs two of the Korean-born, Berlin-based artist’s large-scale installations employing utilitarian objects. The first, “Sol LeWitt Upside Down — K123456, Expanded 1078 Times, Doubled and Mirrored” (2015) is a monochromatic installation inspired by the cube structures of the American conceptual artist. Across the gallery, “Star-Crossed Rendezvous after Yun” (2024) is an homage to composer and political dissident Isang Yun (1917–95). Synchronized to Yun’s “Double Concerto” (1977), an array of moving lights animate vibrant geometric structures to create an ever-changing, multisensory experience. The L.A. Philharmonic will perform Yun’s piece on March 10 at Walt Disney Concert Hall, with a pre-concert viewing of the installation at MOCA Grand. Through Aug 2. Museum of Contemporary Art, 250 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. moca.org
WEDNESDAY L.A. Art Week It happens every February. Thousands of artists, collectors, curators and gallerists descend on the city, swelling an already vibrant local scene with a global reach into a week of discovery, creative adventure and fashion flamboyance. The Big Kahuna, of course, is Frieze Los Angeles (Thursday-March 1. frieze.com), a fair with a primarily contemporary focus, approximately 100 galleries, installations and pop-ups restaurants from around L.A.; Butter Fine Art Fair (Thursday-March 1. Hollywood Park, 1237 District Drive, Inglewood. butterartfair.com) features artists representing the African diaspora; Enzo (Wednesday-Saturday. 1634 W. Temple St. enzolosangeles.com) presents nine New York City galleries in an Echo Park warehouse; Felix Art Fair (Wednesday-March 1. Hollywood Roosevelt, 7000 Hollywood Blvd. felixfair.com) showcases exhibitors from around the world in a classic Hollywood setting; the cheekily-named The Other Art Fair Los Angeles (Thursday-March 1. 3Labs, 8461 Warner Dr., Culver City. theotherartfair.com) promises “the bizarre, unexpected, and never normal” with work from 160 independent artists; Post-Fair (Thursday-Feb. 28. 1248 5th St., Santa Monica. post-fair.com) is a dealer-led event in a historic Santa Monica Post Office building; and Start Up Art Fair (Friday-March 1. The Kinney Venice Beach, 737 Washington Blvd. startup-art.com) brings together 150 independent artists, collectors, curators and art professionals. It’s mostly next weekend but we wanted to give you a heads-up. Be sure to watch for Times reporter Malia Mendez’s upcoming preview. Happy art hunting and people watching.
THURSDAY Beethoven and Ortiz with Dudamel Gustavo Dudamel and the L.A. Phil are joined by Grupo Corpa and the L.A. Master Chorale for this charged program pairing Beethoven’s “Seventh Symphony” with Gabriela Ortiz’s ballet “Revolución diamantina (Glitter Revolution).” 8 p.m. Thursday and Feb. 27; 2 p.m. Feb. 28-March 1. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
Norbert Leo Butz The Broadway star and two-time Tony Award winner (currently performing in “The Recipe” at La Jolla Playhouse, above) will perform excerpts from his signature roles, original compositions from his four solo records and covers from Tom Waits, Elton John and Bruce Springsteen. 7 p.m. Thursday-Feb. 28. Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Samueli Theater, 300 Town Center Dr., Costa Mesa. scfta.org
Arts anywhere
Something to read, something to hear and something to watch wherever you are.
The Art Book: Mini Format
(Phaidon Press)
The Art Book What’s it like to hold art history in the palm of your hand? Find out with the new Mini edition of this beloved text celebrated for bringing art appreciation to the masses. First introduced in 1994, the updated edition of this A-Z survey features more than 600 artists from medieval times to the present. It’s far from stuffy, including overlooked and contemporary figures including Berenice Abbott, Romare Bearden, Guerrilla Girls and more; plus Takashi Murakami and Wolfgang Tillmans, who The Times happened to interview recently and have L.A. shows (see below). Phaidon Press: 592 pp., $20. phaidon.com
Yunchan Lim
(IMG Artists)
Goldberg Variations Live at Carnegie Hall, New York, 2025 Recorded fewer than 30 blocks form where Glenn Gould laid down his own landmark recording of Johann Sebastian Bach’s masterpiece, pianist Yunchan Lim’s new album has been topping the classical charts since its release earlier this month. If you missed his performance of the Variations at Disney Hall last October (or if even if you didn’t), this is a must listen. Decca Records: $8-38. Available on vinyl, CD and digital download. deccarecordsus.com
An image from Frederick Wiseman’s ‘Titicut Follies.’
(courtesy of Zipporah Films)
Frederick Wiseman The filmmaker, who died Monday at 96, was a master storyteller and craftsman who mainly inhabited the nonfiction realm of the documentary. His perceptive explorations of public and cultural institutions was unparalleled and he was honored with an honorary Academy Award in 2016. If you would like to revisit Wiseman’s work or want an exhaustive introduction, check out the Frederick Wiseman Essential Films Collection at kanopy.com. Virtually every film he ever made is available and all you need is a public library card (an apt requirement!). His final film, “Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros” from 2023, can be viewed via the PBS Passport membership portal.
— Kevin Crust
Culture news and the SoCal scene
A detail of miniature “sportraits” during a preview of award-winning animator and visual-effects artist Lyndon J. Barrois’ exhibit, “Futbol Is Life” at LACMA.
Jefferson Mays in “Amadeus” at Pasadena Playhouse.
(Jeff Lorch)
A new take on Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus” premiered at Pasadena Playhouse last week, and it may be the Tony Award-winning regional theater’s most lavish production to date. I got a behind-the-scenes tour of the theater’s amazing on-site scene shop to write about what it took to put the set, lighting and costumes together; and Times theater critic Charles McNulty attended opening night. Director Darko Tresnjak, writes McNulty in his review, “treats the play as though it were a tragedy wearing the mask of comedy. He doesn’t resist the melodrama that’s inherent in the material, but he refuses to overindulge it. This production hasn’t convinced me that ‘Amadeus’ is a world classic… But I doubt I’ll have the opportunity to see a better revival in my lifetime.”
McNulty also caught a performance of “Sylvia Sylvia Sylvia,” Beth Hyland‘s new play that recently had its world premiere at the Geffen Playhouse, and explores the lives of married writers living in the Boston apartment once occupied by the poet Sylvia Plath and her husband Ted Hughes. “World premieres are risky, and the writing for this one hasn’t yet settled. The play’s split focus, moving between 1958 and the present, is a sign of conceptual ambition. But Hyland struggles to find the pacing and rhythm of her complicated vision,” McNulty writes.
Meanwhile, “Here Lies Love,” David Byrne’s disco musical about the Ferdinand Marcos regime arrived at the Mark Taper Forum in a show directed by Center Theatre Group’s artistic director Snehal Desai. The Times’ Malia Mendez sat down with members of the all-Filipino cast to discuss the ways the show’s exploration of the perils of authoritarianism dovetail with the modern political moment.
Japanese artist Takashi Murakami sits in front of his painting at Perrotin Gallery on Feb. 13, 2026 in Mid City in Los Angeles, Calif.
(Ariana Drehsler/For The Times)
I had the opportunity for a one-on-one chat with artist Takashi Murakami about his solo show at Perrotin, Los Angeles, which features 24 new canvases that explore the connection between the ancient Japanese art of ukiyo-e and Impressionism. A trip to Monet’s gardens in Giverny, France, cemented Murakami’s idea for the paintings.
Contributor Steve Appleford wrote a thoughtful profile on German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans, who is currently staging his ninth Los Angeles exhibition at Regen Projects. “In 2000 Tillmans became the first photographer and first non-British artist to win the prestigious Turner Award. Tate Britain staged his mid-career retrospective in 2003 and the Hammer Museum in Westwood mounted his first major U.S. retrospective that same year, which traveled to Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.,” Appleford writes.
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A sketch from architect Paul R. Williams’ archive at The Getty Center.
(Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times)
Paul Williams, the first Black architect licensed west of the Mississippi, is the focus of a series of upcoming shows to be staged from August through July 2027 at the Getty, LACMA and USC Fisher Museum of Art. Throughout the course of his six-decade career Williams designed more than 3,000 projects, including for clients such as Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball and the Beverly Hills Hotel. The exhibitions will feature architectural drawings, photographs, plans and memorabilia, some of which have never been on view to the public before.
Los Angeles Master Chorale announced Artistic Director Grant Gershon’s 25th anniversary season featuring work by Brahms, Bruckner, Arvo Pärt, Bach, Morten Lauridsen and Orlando di Lasso. Guest artists will include the National Chorus of Korea, composer Eric Whitacre, violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, Baroque ensemble Le Concert d’Astrée and theater director Peter Sellars. Subscriptions are available now, and single tickets will go on sale June 1.
The nonprofit arts organization, Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND), announced the four artists chosen to receive its 2026 Mohn LAND Grants. They are Shana Hoehn, Angela Anh Nguyen, Harrison Kinnane Smith and Adam Thompson. Winners receive a $5,000 award as well as $5,000 in production funds to use towards a new work commission.
