opera

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

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

Director Richard Linklater at the 2023 Toronto Film Festival.

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

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

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

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

SATURDAY

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

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

(839 Gallery)

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

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

SUNDAY

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

TUESDAY

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

THURSDAY

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

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

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

Arts everywhere

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

(A Group Effort Films / Naked Edge Films)

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

Culture news and the SoCal scene

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

(Beth Baugher / California Museum)

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

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

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

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

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

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

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

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

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

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

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

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

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

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

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

Eleanora Owen in “Being Piaf.”

(Doug Engalla )

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

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

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

SATURDAY

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

SUNDAY

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

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

(Daniel Reichert)

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

TUESDAY

Beethoven’s Fifth with Anna Handler

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

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

(Blue Note LA)

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

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

WEDNESDAY

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

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

(Justin Patterson)

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

THURSDAY

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

— Kevin Crust

Retrospective

L.A. Times arts coverage from the past …

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

(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

A double life as actor, playwright

Aug. 14, 2011

“I’m in a play called ‘This.’ ”

“OK, what is it called?”

“No, no, it’s called ‘This.’ ”

“Yes? What? It’s called what?”

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

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

– Jasmine Elist

Culture news and the SoCal scene

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

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

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

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

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

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

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

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

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

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

(Don Stahl)

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

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

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

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

SUNDAY

Jas Ahluwalia and Kamaljeet Ahluwalia of Absolute Focus.

(Sierra Madre Playhouse; courtesy of the artist)

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

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

TUESDAY

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

WEDNESDAY

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

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

(Amy Harris / Invision / AP)

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

THURSDAY

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

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

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

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

— Kevin Crust

Retrospective

L.A. Times arts coverage from the past …

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

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

Shattering expectations

Aug. 6, 2006

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

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

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

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

— Scarlett Cheng

Culture news and the SoCal scene

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

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

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

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

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

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

(Johan Persson)

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

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

Self Help Graphics & Art in Los Angeles.

(Sarahi Apaez)

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

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

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

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

SALZBURG, Austria — With the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel heading off on a brief tour to London and Edinburgh, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra steps in Tuesday night at the Hollywood Bowl with an all-Mozart program. Mozart has long been a specialty of LACO.

And it so happens that the orchestra is using the Mozartean occasion to announce that its next music director will be German composer and conductor Matthias Pintscher, who has been busy conducting in Mozart’s birthplace, Salzburg, where I caught up with him.

Pintscher, who will succeed current music director Jaime Martín beginning in 2027-28 season, augurs a new era for LACO. The orchestra will have a part-time residence when the Colburn Center opens next fall. The innovative 1,000-seat hall for concert, opera and dance looks to be Frank Gehry’s last music-meant masterpiece certain to usher in a new era for the Grand Avenue cultural district.

It also means a sort of homecoming for LACO, which gave its first concert in 1969 in the then-new Mark Taper Forum, the last of the Music Center’s initial three venues. The orchestra had been founded as an outlet to Hollywood studio musicians, and its first music director was the lively Mozartean, Neville Marriner. LACO’s first nine seasons included a Monday night series when the theater, originally meant to be a chamber music hall, was otherwise dark.

A little odd, perhaps, but the Taper remains until now the most intriguing venue of the peripatetic ensemble that has roamed through the years from Santa Monica to Pasadena, and that helped give the ensemble a distinctive image.

That is still the case. Once the Colburn Center opens, LACO will continue its series at the Wallis as well as at various chamber music programs around town.

Pintscher made his LACO debut in 2016 and already there was talk about him succeeding Jeffry Kahane, at two decades, who was the longest-running and most admired music director. Pintscher then served as its artist-in-residence, during which he oversaw a stab at the avant-garde. Not all LACO patrons were pleased.

It was out of the modernism, if not exactly avant-garde (but close), that Pintscher emerged first as a composer of colorfully complex orchestral and vocal scores that reflect a dizzying technical command and often a deep philosophical concept, sometimes taken from ancient Judaic tradition. His first big break as a conductor was as music director of France’s premiere new music Ensemble Intercontemporain that was founded by Pierre Boulez. But Pintscher also expanded in other directions. At the same time, he guest conducted orchestras in Europe and America with programs, while heavily weighed on the 20th century, that went back to Mozart and Haydn. He developed a surprising reputation as an interpreter of Rachmaninoff and other romantics disliked by modernists.

In 2008, he moved to New York, where he has remained, teaching composition at the Juilliard School and guest conducting widely (including the Los Angeles Philharmonic). Two years ago, he became the unlikely music director of the Kansas City Symphony. It was, he said over coffee at Salzburg hotel terrace, love at first rehearsal. His programming is a kind of wish-list of the new and recent with newly-buffed chestnuts, and it’s worked. His contract has been extended to 2034.

Pintscher, who is 55, says he is not ready to make any grand statements about LACO other than being eager to explore West Coast music and that he loves combining old with everything else. There is always room for Mozart and Haydn, to say nothing for his recent infatuation with Aaron Copland. He also described a mission for collaborative and theatrical projects, noting eager discussions with the Los Angeles Master Chorale (expect a Haydn “Creation” sooner rather than later) and director Peter Sellars.

When asked whether he saw himself as a composer who conducts or a conductor who composes, he simply laughed. But Pintscher did say he had no intention, at least for the present, of conducting his own works, feeling that to be a kind of self-promotion. But his mind can be changed. After two years Kansas City talked him into doing a piece, even if a small one.

Meanwhile, a new opera by Pintscher, “Das Kalte Herz” (The Cold Heart), which had its premiere in Berlin earlier this year, happened to be directed by the Long Beach Opera artistic director and chief creative officer, James Darrah Black. Watch this space.

Pintscher was enticed to the Salzburg Festival as part of this summer’s homage to the ageless Hungarian composer György Kurtág, who turned 100 this year. Pintscher conducted two programs with Vienna’s new music ensemble Klangforum Wien. In one, noting Kurtág’s affinity to Samuel Beckett, Pintscher led a transfixing performance of Morton Feldman’s “For Samuel Beckett” holding an audience prisoner for 50 minutes within a chord that won’t go away.

A mystical aura filled the heat-wave-sweaty Kollegienkirche, a voluminous central Salzburg church. Written on his deathbed in 1988, Feldman‘s piece reflects a final harmonic vision combining mismatched patterning of Turkish rugs and Hebraic chant. It remains super soft throughout and nothing seems to happen. But under the surface, little bits of notes fall precisely in and out of place in a rhythmic structure almost too hard to count.

The world’s complexity and emptiness simultaneously filled the church. Afterward, I walked past the home where Mozart was born. It was late at night. The tourists had turned in. My hotel was nearby, just across the river. But I made a lost, wrong turn.

Pintscher had put a peaceful, Feldman-esque, Twilight Zone spell on Mozart.

Salzburg, Austria — “Optimism doesn’t mean pretending everything is fine,” the Belarusian flutist and political activist Maria Kalesnikava said in this year’s Salzburg Festival keynote address. “It means deciding to step up and act, even in the face of uncertainty.”

Picture-perfect, Mozart-drunk Salzburg can’t pretend everything is fine. Temperatures are rising and normally rainy Salzburg now worries about water shortage and the environmental ravage of over-tourism. The artistically and culturally exceptional six-week Salzburg Festival, which began mid-July with a two-week Ouverture Spirituelle this year titled “miserere” (mercy), is facing its own political and administrative turmoil and uncertainty.

Salzburg’s worries are our worries; its triumphs can be ours as well. Los Angeles and the Salzburg Festival have been cultural and political soulmates for close to a century, beginning when playwright, director and filmmaker Max Reinhardt, who co-founded the Salzburg Festival in 1920, found mercy in L.A. as refuge from the Nazis.

Reinhardt’s star-studded 1934 music-theater production of “Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Hollywood Bowl offered a template for spectacle in the young amphitheater, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s participation crucially reinforced a young orchestra’s early venturesome ambition following an avant-garde Bowl season the previous summer that nearly bankrupted the Bowl. Over the next decade this Salzburger’s influence on Hollywood dramaturgy would become legend.

L.A. has reciprocated by sending our visionaries to Salzburg, where director Peter Sellars and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, for instance, have been given the license and means to inspire a reinvention of musical and theatrical thinking. L.A. arts patrons Betty Freeman and Richard Colburn provided important support for Salzburg during their lifetimes that included commissioning new work.

Gustavo Dudamel conducts Strauss’ ‘Alpine Symphony’ with the Vienna Philharmonic at the Grosses Festspielhaus in Salzburg Aug. 25, 2024.

(Marco Borrelli / Salzburg Festival)

Gustavo Dudamel, L.A. Phil’s optimist these 17 seasons, has long been a Salzburg regular as well, and he arrived last week just in time to take up Kalesnikava’s challenge. Her proclamation of optimism comes on the heels of her having been released in December from a brutal Belarusian prison for supporting an opposition candidate running against the country’s authoritarian leader.

In Dudamel’s case, his life has been turned around by the recent earthquakes that devastated Venezuela just two weeks after his last concerts in Walt Disney Concert Hall as L.A. Phil music and artistic director. His activities this summer now revolve around partnering with the United Nations Development Program to gather global support for Venezuela’s recovery, which is estimated at $6.7 billion.

Although little noted, Dudamel’s buoyant World Cup halftime appearance with 20 members of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra and 20 from the New York Philharmonic was as a FIFA fundraiser supporting children affected by global crises, in this case earthquake relief in Venezuela. Dudamel has further turned his last Hollywood Bowl program as L.A. Phil music director into a benefit on Aug. 23.

Prophetically, Dudamel had months ago been invited to close this summer’s Ouverture Spirituelle by leading the Vienna Philharmonic in Mahler’s Second Symphony, known as the “Resurrection.” One way to think about Mahler’s extravagant 90-minute exercise in his search for life’s meaning is as an exercise in attaining optimism in the face of tragedy.

“Rise again, yes, you shall rise again,” Mahler extols in a final ecstatic climax, and it is with the “Resurrection,” which includes chorus and a pair of vocal soloists, that Dudamel began his “Gracias Gustavo” L.A. Phil season last fall. Raising roof, the message was clear: optimism is the native language of Walt Disney Concert Hall.

In Salzburg, where Dudamel’s two Vienna Philharmonic performances were dedicated to the people of Venezuela, those lines took on obvious new meaning. Earlier in the day, Dudamel gave a public talk with a lively German journalist, Marco Frei, in which he described himself as a “resurrectionist” in more ways than one.

The symphony has been a been a musical and spiritual guide for him since his boyhood. He became so excited about a new sense of freedom he feels in the second movement that he leaned back in his chair and kicked his white sneakers in the air.

After the talk, I walked with Dudamel back to his hotel as he displayed a different, more solemn passion describing the toll the earthquakes have taken on El Sistema, the Venezuelan youth program that has been behind his educational activism in L.A.

“At least 140 members of the El Sistema staff and educators were killed or are unaccounted for,” Dudamel said, and that’s not counting what may have happened to a great many children and their families. But remarkably, Dudamel noted, in places where few structures remain, the nucleos (the small El Sistema community schools) are surprisingly still standing. They have become centers for food, aid and shelter.

In Salzburg, Dudamel indulged the Vienna Philharmonic’s incomparable lushness, those plush strings, glowing winds, golden brass, voluminous timpani. The symphony received mixed reviews, with critics complaining of a lack of transparency, argument and depth. Had they been in Disney Hall, they would have had it all.

But here Dudamel became more simply an architect of awe, unfazed by Mahlerian uncertainty as he worked his way to an inevitable cosmic grandeur unfazed by uncertainty. An enthralled audience left opening its collective wallets. Ushers stood at all the exits of Great Festival Hall with baskets for donations for Venezuela. I did not see a single member of the audience leave without throwing in a bill or several.

Dudamel’s “Resurrection” might also be read as a message from L.A. to Salzburg. In the spring the festival board dismissed its artistic director of the past decade, Markus Hinterhäuser, saying there is a difference in vision. Hinterhäuser’s penetrating and uncompromising vision is what has made the modern festival matter. Hinterhäuser has implied political meddling.

It is a huge festival, with more than 200 performances. Last year’s audience exceeded 200,000, with visitors from 88 countries. The arts as a vehicle for coming together can be cliché. In Salzburg, sharing becomes essence, not the kind of narcissism that appears to be adopted by our upcoming LA28 cultural Olympiad, in which Angelenos are invited to submit entrees that show off our goods rather than a cultural exchange.

Over 100 artists have protested Hinterhäuser’s removal, including two Nobel Prize laureates. Hinterhäuser is also an insightful pianist, and he joined baritone Matthias Goerne in a chilling performance of Schubert’s existential song cycle, “Winterreise.” Hinterhäuser got thunderous ovations.

Salzburg’s future is anyone’s guess, but even with Hinterhäuser on the sidelines, this summer is still his festival, meaningful as ever.

A new production of “Carmen” could not be darker, nor more brilliant. It is the latest project of conductor Teodor Currentzis, who has worked extensively with Peter Sellars in Salzburg and elsewhere, and who brings electricity to every moment with his Utopia Orchestra and Choir. Argentine choreographer Gabriela Carrizo makes her debut directing opera and utilizes her alarmingly vibrant Belgian dance company, Peeping Tom. Performing in a vast empty space, two gripping singers — Asmik Grigorian plays an understated Carmen as a survivor in a hostile society, while Jonathan Teltelman’s Don José is unable to cope with that society — turn Bizet’s opera into revelatory existential theater in which survival is toleration.

A scene on the moon in director Yuval Sharon’s magical new production of Janacek’s neglected opera “The Excursions of Mr. Broucek to the Moon and the 15th Century” at the Bregenz Festival.

(Daniel Ammann / Bregenz Festival)

Something similar happens in “Faust, Part 1,” in which the actors spend the entire four hours in a new production by German director Ulrich Rasche walking against the direction of of a revolving disc. To remain in front of the audience, they must remain in motion. They’re dressed in modern business attire, but as they bare their souls, they bare their torsos as they step against forces that prevent progress. The backdrop is brightly illumined screens that hurt your eyes.

This, however, can serve as a reminder of a “Faust” staged by Reinhardt at the Pilgrimage Theater (now John Anson Ford Theater) when it was designed to look like the gates of ancient Jerusalem in 1935. Practically all of Hollywood celebrity showed up for what was the theatrical event of the season.

I asked Lukas Crepaz, who directs the Salzburg Festival’s administrative and business operations, whether it would be possible and whether there still is time for the Salzburg and L.A. to collaboration on an opera production. He said yes, if funding could be found. In fact, the L.A. Phil will mount in February “One Morning Turns Into an Eternity,” a Salonen/Sellars essay in intensity from Salzburg last summer.

Another option: The Bregenz Festival, also in Austria, has just staged a new production by Yuval Sharon of Janacek’s little-known opera, “The Excursions of Mr. Broucek to the Moon and the 15th Century.”

Sharon — who was responsible for the fabulous excursions of his L.A. experimental company, the Industry — supplies his characteristic wit, imagination and insight into a hard-to-please opera about a beer-besotted philistine landlord, who comes to no good in his drunken dreams of going to the moon and back in history, as he does as an angry old man stumbling home from the bar or sitting watching TV (Sharon’s invention).

L.A. optimism may matter more to Austria this summer than it does to L.A. We have two years to step up and act, even in the face of uncertainty.

As the country fixates on the sad saga of the ruined Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C., the Trump administration’s plans to build a 250-foot arch at the western terminus of Memorial Bridge have marched forward.

The project received final design approval in late May from the Trump-appointed U.S. Commission of Fine Arts. The problem with that, critics quickly pointed out, was that this approval occurred before a key part of the National Historic Preservation Act — Section 106 — was initiated.

For background: President Lyndon B. Johnson signed NHPA into law in 1966 during an era of rampant unregulated building in order to protect the country’s shared cultural heritage. Section 106, which the Trump administration has been trying to gut, allows for a period of public comment about proposed projects in advance of their approval. This gives time for reasonable concerns to be raised and for pivots in design and siting to take place accordingly.

In a letter submitted to the National Park Service on Thursday by the nonprofit Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) as part of the federal-level reviews of the Triumphal Arch under Section 106, the group’s founding president and chief executive, Charles Birnbaum, called the chain of events leading to the arch’s approval a “radical departure from a well-established series of processes that have made the Monumental Core a global paragon of civic art, landscape architecture, architecture, and planning.”

Birnbaum, who served as coordinator of the Historic Landscape Initiative at the NPS from 1992 to 2007, also noted, “The process for the selection and siting of the Triumphal Arch has been horrifically flawed from the outset. Remarkably, there was no design competition, which is a dangerous and radical decision for what would be the second largest monument in the Monumental Core after the Washington Monument.”

The letter was sent several days after the NPS released a preliminary assessment that found the arch could have significant adverse effects on the historic structures around it. Birnbaum and TCLF, however, worry — based on linguistic hedging in NPS correspondence — that a final “adverse effect determination” will not be made, thus depriving concerned parties of the ability to continue to advocate against the project.

“Given the extensive documentation of adverse effects in the preliminary finding, the suggestion that any uncertainty exists about the final determination is both confounding and alarming,” Birnbaum wrote.

During his tenure at NPS, Birnbaum was the lead author of “The Guidelines for the Treatment of Cultural Landscapes,” which includes a section on “Spatial Organization and Land Patterns,” which, he writes in the letter, “is clear about what is and is not recommended.”

“Identifying, retaining and preserving the existing spatial organization and land patterns of the landscape as they have over time,” is recommended, for example, while, “Allowing spatial organization and land patterns to be altered through incompatible development or neglect,” is not.

“A 250-foot-tall arch in Memorial Circle sited between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery and Arlington House and in the Monumental Core is undeniably incompatible development,” Birnbaum wrote, noting that any new development is stipulated to be in agreement with the cultural landscape guidelines. “The Arch as proposed will not be consistent with the Guidelines and any certification otherwise would not only be factually baseless (in short, a lie), but declaring so would be unprofessional, fraudulent, and, perhaps, illegal.”

Strong words that may very well fall on closed ears, if recent history is any guide. Nonetheless, the resistance forges ahead.

I’m arts editor Jessica Gelt, building an arch to future goodness. This is your arts and culture news for the week.

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

Judy Collins performs at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville in 2025.

(Jason Kempin / Getty Images)

Judy Collins: Sweet Judy Blue Eyes Farewell Tour
The singer-songwriter-musician with the lilting voice and eclectic catalog is joined by Bruce Cockburn for an evening of folk-infused heartfelt songs.
8 p.m. The Ford, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East. theford.com

Versa-Style Street Dance Company
The troupe marks its 20th anniversary with “Box of Hope” (2nd Edition), a multidisciplinary program featuring West Coast Hip Hop and Street Dance Styles.
8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd. sierramadreplayhouse.org

SATURDAY

Betty Boop’s Birthday Bash for a Cause
Kate Micucci hosts an evening of live music — headlined by indie-pop group Dressy Bessy and Allison Wolfe of Bratmobile — animation, comedy, pop-culture nostalgia and the Bob Baker Marionettes to benefit the nonprofits organizations the Birthday Party Project and Saturday Morning Cartoons United.
6:30 p.m. Alex Theatre, 216 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale. thealex.evnsong.com

The Improvised Shakespeare Company
The troupe takes a single audience suggestion and spontaneously turns it into a full-blown Elizabethan-style comedy that could (possibly) make the Bard himself wish he had written it.
8 p.m. The Ford, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East. theford.com

The Complete History of American Musical Theater: The 1950s
An evening of theatrical history, storytelling and live performances revisits the Golden Age of the American musical, featuring such classics as “Guys and Dolls,” “The King and I,” “My Fair Lady,” “West Side Story” and “The Music Man.” With Eileen Barnett, Camryn Hamm, Scott Harlan, Hayden Kharrazi, Tony nominee Mary Gordon Murray and Tony nominee Rory O’Malley. Narrated by Dan Fishbach and Mark D. Kaufmann. Produced by the Odyssey Theatre and the Los Angeles Musical Theatre Studio.
8 p.m. Odyssey Ensemble Theatre, 2055 South Sepulveda Blvd. odysseytheatre.com

James Morris, from left, Christopher Reiling and Jasmine Kimiko in the play “Slava Ukraini! (or Waiting for Elon).”

(Deverill Weeks)

Slava Ukraini! (or Waiting for Elon)
A Few Thoughts Theatre Company presents a new play by Keith Szarabajka about three soldiers — two Ukrainian and one Russian — trapped together during the siege of Mariupol. Directed by Tony Pasqualini.
8 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays; 3 p.m. Sundays through Aug. 31. (no performances Aug. 16, 17) . Atwater Village, 3269 Casitas Ave., Theater #3, Los Angeles afewthoughtstheatercompany.org

SUNDAY

Jazz keyboardist Carey Frank.

(Courtesy of the artist)

Carey Frank Organ Trio
Joined by guitarist Nadav Peled and drummer Jake Reed, the jazz keyboardist powers a contemporary take on jazz, swing, blues and soul.
8 p.m. Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd. sierramadreplayhouse.org

Summertime! with Bob Baker Marionettes and Kate Micucci
The marionettes and Micucci have a busy weekend, going from Betty Boop at the Alex to celebrating all things sunny and funny at the Ford.
The Ford, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East. theford.com

TUESDAY

Mozart Under the Stars
A pair of celebrated Canadians, conductor Nicolas Ellis and pianist Angela Hewitt, join the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra for their Mozartian summer tradition.
8 p.m. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N Highland Ave., Hollywood. hollywoodbowl.com

WEDNESDAY

Giselle, the chandelier set piece that travels with the North American tour of “Phantom of the Opera,” photographed the Hollywood Pantages Theatre in July.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

Phantom of the Opera
The new North American touring production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s hit musical, featuring Maria Björnson’s original design — including a really big chandelier — and based on the direction of Harold Prince, with musical staging and choreography by Gillian Lynne, shifts to Orange County.
Through Aug. 30. Segerstrom Hall, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. scfta.org/events

Stanley Jordan Trio
The virtuoso jazz guitarist is joined by drummer Chris Wabich and bassist Ahmet Turkmenoglu.
7 and 9:30 p.m. Blue Note Los Angeles, 6372 Sunset Blvd. bluenotejazz.com

THURSDAY

Michael Douglas and Glenn Close in “Fatal Attraction” directed by Adrian Lyne in 1987.

(Sunset Boulevard / Corbis via Getty Images)

A Weekend With Adrian Lyne
The director known for his sleek, erotic thrillers will be on hand for screenings of “Fatal Attraction” (1987) and “Unfaithful” (2002) at the Academy Museum and the theatrical premiere of “Deep Water” (2022), starring Ana de Armas and Ben Affleck, at Brain Dead Studios.
7:30 p.m. Thursday (“Fatal Attraction”) and Friday (“Unfaithful”). Academy Museum, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. academymuseum.org 7:30 p.m. Saturday (“Deep Water”). Brain Dead Studios, 611 N. Fairfax Ave. studios.wearebraindead.com

Helado Tropical
The night will be full of Latin beats, rhythms and experimental sounds as Helado Negro and Reyna Tropical team up following the recent release of their nine-song collaborative album.
8 p.m. The Ford, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East. theford.com

— Kevin Crust

Retrospective

L.A. Times arts coverage from the past …

Ballet dancers Rochelle Chang, Emily Parker and Raffaella Stroik rehearse a new work by choreographer Lincoln Jones, background, in 2016.

(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

How a new dance gets made: Behind the scenes at American Contemporary Ballet
Aug. 7, 2016

Emily Parker stood still on pointe. Arms spread like wings, she fixed her gaze somewhere in the distance. Dancers spun around her like ribbons in a breeze. A bend, a twist, a slide of foot, a flutter of light. On and on, with no music, only the tap, tap, tap of toe shoes and the sound of texting from those stretching and waiting in the wings.

Parker relaxed her pose. The other dancers flitted toward windows. Choreographer Lincoln Jones walked among them, hand to chin, thinking, and at times twirling alone as if chasing whispers. The afternoon pressed in. He called a break and headed for a laptop. Dancers from American Contemporary Ballet, which on Aug. 11 [2016] will perform an original work by Jones, dispersed in the studio heat.

A ballet troupe is a small army of fine lines and grace. Some dancers have been with the company for years, others like Parker are new, finding their places amid mats, bags, tape, calluses, balm, egos, sore backs, battered toes and torn tights. They are led by Jones, a dark-haired man who between smiles and asides moves with quiet intensity. His new production for the company’s “Music + Dance: LA II” series was inspired by 19th century French composer Adolphe Adam and set amid a countryside, a lake and a wedding. READ MORE

— Jeffrey Fleishman

Culture news and the SoCal scene

The Boyle Heights side of 6th Street PARC underneath the 6th Street Viaduct.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

As the once heralded, now neglected 6th Street Bridge continues its precipitous decline, a new park is being built beneath it that supporters hope could uplift the neighboring community of Boyle Heights and help renew the bridge in the process. Called Sixth Street PARC and scheduled to open later this year, the 12-acre green space is meant to serve as a vital community hub connecting downtown’s Arts District with the Eastside neighborhood. It will take more than good intentions to make that plan work, Sam Lubell writes in a detailed story about the project.

Times classical music critic Mark Swed is currently in Austria, taking in the many wonders of the annual Salzburg Festival. Among them: Gustavo Dudamel leading Mahler’s “Resurrection” symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic. “In Salzburg, Dudamel indulged the Vienna Philharmonic’s incomparable lushness, those plush strings, glowing winds, golden brass, voluminous timpani. The symphony received mixed reviews, with critics complaining of a lack of transparency, argument and depth. Had they been in Disney Hall, they would have had it all,” Swed writes.

The D.C.-based anonymous arts activist group Secret Handshake is taking its satirical work on tour. The group recently started an Instagram page to chart the journey of a 10-foot golden cup dedicated to Trump, “The Iran War Participation Trophy.” The trophy went to New York City after appearing late last month on the National Mall. This week it popped up on the lawn of the Capitol Building in St. Paul, Minn. Other cities will follow, Secret Handshake promises.

Dorothy Wolpert, board chair of the Fountain Theatre for 12 has died. She was 91.

(Fountain Theatre)

The Fountain Theatre is mourning the death of Dorothy Wolpert, who served as the theater’s board chair for 12 years. She was 91. Wolpert was deeply involved in the life of the city through her love and support of the arts as well as in her professional life. As the co-founder of Bird Marella, a Century City law firm, Wolpert was involved in cases that advanced equity and social justice, including the landmark school desegregation case Crawford v. Los Angeles Board of Education. She also used her legal expertise in the fight against human trafficking.

Wolpert received UCLA Law’s Trailblazers Lifetime Achievement Award and the ACLU Humanitarian Award, and in 2022 UCLA Law established the Dorothy and Stanley Wolpert Public Interest Fellowship in her honor.

Wolpert became the Fountain’s board chair in 2013, and served until 2025. In an email, the Fountain’s co-founder Stephen Sachs wrote that Wolpert was “instrumental in expanding [the Fountain’s] board, strengthening its leadership, and raising its national profile. She was also a generous supporter of numerous LA arts organizations and a devoted patron of LA Opera.”

“On a personal level, Dorothy was my trusted mentor and confidant. Whenever I faced a difficult decision, she was the person I turned to first. She had a remarkable gift for asking exactly the right question. Her wisdom shaped not only the Fountain, but many of us fortunate enough to know her,” Sachs wrote.

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

Here are 18 things you should do if you can afford to go to Carmel-by-the-Sea.

One of the most read — and debated — stories from the Arts team this week was an interview with Oskar Eustis a day after he announced that he would step down as the artistic director of the Public Theater in 2028. The New York Times broke the news July 22 in an interview with Eustis in which he also said that the American nonprofit theater movement was over.

I followed up in a phone interview the next day and asked him to explain what he meant, which he did, noting that the broad consensus that nonprofit theater mattered to the country — a belief held by national endowments, state arts agencies, public policy institutes and corporate philanthropic departments — had disappeared. So, too, have many of those very same agencies and their budgets that provided funding to the arts. The case for sustaining any particular theater now comes down to that theater and how relevant and necessary it can make itself to its surrounding community, Eustis said.

There is never enough room in an article when you’ve had a good conversation with someone, so I thought I’d use the newsletter to publish a bit more of what Eustis shared with me. I was particularly interested in something he said about the Public’s famed Shakespeare in the Park program, which is free and takes place every summer at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. Since its inception, more than 160 productions have been staged, reaching more than 6 million people.

The free tickets the Public gives away for these shows are “the prime driver of our income at the Public, and this has been true since our founding,” Eustis told me.

That may sound counterintuitive, but it goes directly to the case Eustis is making for modern nonprofit theaters to be as relevant as possible to their communities. Ticket sales will never bring in the kind of money theaters need to sustain a robust slate of diverse programming — that will always have to come from donors. These very same donors, Eustis said, are the ones who feel most excited to be sitting among the citizenry in Central Park, watching the beauty of public art unfold in a joyous communal atmosphere.

“It’s not just when they make a donation that they get to see the show,” said Eustis of uber-wealthy donors. “They absolutely viscerally feel that — sitting in that theater when 75% of the audience hasn’t paid a penny to be there — they are getting to be part of their dream city. They’re feeling, ‘Oh, this is what New York is supposed to feel like.’”

By giving away free Shakespeare in the Park tickets, Eustis said, the Public is “making an unbelievably powerful case for why we need subsidy … and that’s why the money comes, because we are [showing] that democratic access is more fun for a better city.”

I like the idea of free theater being more fun, and rich people paying for the privilege of being a part of that fun when it is so removed from their cordoned-off daily lives. But I do worry that so much of what we now rely on culturally comes down to the whims and fancies of a handful of ultra-rich patrons. Newspapers are run by them, public school art and music programs rely on them, as do museums, symphonies, ballets and operas.

As Eustis pointed out, these donors no longer represent a broad consensus that is channeled into a civic vision via government support, but that is precisely why the situation feels so precarious. We might be one serious AI-driven stock market crash from artistic oblivion.

I’m Arts editor Jessica Gelt staring gloomily into the distance. This is your arts and culture news for the week.

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

“Ulises Carrión, a bookwork in many places” exhibition at Joan Los Angeles.

(Evan Walsh)

Ulises Carrión, a bookwork in many places
The exhibition, in its final two weeks, examines the Mexican-born conceptual artist’s influence on reimagined systems of exchange through printed matter by artists, librarians, publishers and alternative spaces. The show focuses on Southern California in particular, spanning the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, featuring artist books, correspondence, video and ephemera.
11 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays. Through Aug. 9. Joan, 1206 Maple Ave., Suite 715, Fashion District, downtown L.A. joanlosangeles.org

Puppet Up!
Brian Henson’s adventurous stage show featuring improv and sketch comedy with the iconic Henson puppets and puppeteers is back for a limited eight-performance run. Also on tap is “A Conversation With Brian Henson,” a live presentation by the Emmy-winning producer, director and puppeteer about the rich history of the Jim Henson Company, 2 p.m. Sunday at the Montalbán.
8 p.m. Friday; 3 and 7 p.m. Saturday; 5 p.m. Sunday; 8 p.m. Aug. 7; 3 and 7 p.m. Aug. 8; and 5 p.m. Aug. 9. Ricardo Montalbán Theatre, 1615 Vine St. puppetup.com

Tchaikovsky Spectacular with Fireworks
L.A.-based circus company Troupe Vertigo and the USC Trojan Marching Band join the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by France’s Chloe Dufresne, for the 1812 overture — with pyrotechnics.
8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com

SATURDAY

A scene from “Acquaprofonda” at the Aquarium of the Pacific.”

(Andres Leon for Long Beach Opera)

Acquaprofonda: A Deep-Sea Opera for Families
Long Beach Opera Education collaborates with the Aquarium of the Pacific for this free, family-friendly, 30-minute adventure about a young girl who finds an ailing whale and stands up for what’s right. Music by Giovanni Sollima, libretto by Giancarlo De Cataldo and English libretto by Elle Moody.
Noon and 3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, through Aug. 9. Aquarium of the Pacific, Honda Pacific Visions Theater, 100 Aquarium Way, Long Beach. longbeachopera.org

Boleros De Noche
The 10th annual celebration of romance, nostalgia and cultural pride features Puerto Rican singer iLe and a special performance by the L.A.-based trio Voz Bohemia.
8 p.m. Ford Amphitheatre, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East. theford.com

Free 4 All
Claremont Lewis Museum of Art opens its doors for this annual one-day takeover by local artists who will display their work with no fees to exhibit and no gatekeepers to choose whose work gets seen. With live music by the Kamran Curlin Trio, Home Again Home Again and Coupe Deville.
1-8 p.m. Claremont Lewis Museum of Art, 200 W. First St., Claremont. clmoa.org

People of Pompeii
A new comedy by Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award-winning playwright Bernardo Cubría, co-directed by Ellen Geer and Xochitl Romero, is set in Topanga Canyon itself and focuses on community in a time of climate catastrophe.
Through Oct. 4. Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga. theatricum.com

Two Gentlebots of Verona
The annual Actors’ Gang Free Shakespeare in the Park for Families features a cyber-inspired Shakespeare adaptation by Rynn Vogel, directed by Adam J. Jefferis.
11 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays, through Aug. 23. Media Park, 9091 Culver Blvd., Culver City; noon, Aug. 29-30. Buena Vista Branch Library, 300 N. Buena Vista St., Burbank. theactorsgang.com

SUNDAY

Sidney Jacobs & the Monsters
The jazz vocalist and his sextet perform original music with reimagined standards.
8 p.m. Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd. sierramadreplayhouse.org

St. Vincent with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra
The six-time Grammy-winning singer-songwriter guitarist goes orchestral with the HBO led by conductor Jules Buckley.
7 p.m. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com

TUESDAY

Louis Langrée
The French conductor leads the L.A. Phil in works from Felix Mendelssohn and Joseph Haydn on Tuesday at the Hollywood Bowl; two nights later, Langrée returns with pieces by Johannes Brahms, Georges Bizet and Louise Farrenc.
Mendelssohn & Haydn, 8 p.m. Tuesday; Brahms & Bizet, 8 p.m. Thursday. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com

“Saint Luke” from Irmengard Codex shortly after 1053. German. Tempera colors, gold, and ink on parchment 22.2 × 18.7 cm (8 3/4 × 7 3/8 in.)

(Getty Museum)

The Making of a Medieval Manuscript
If you ever wondered how the beautiful manuscripts in the Getty’s extensive collection were created, this is the exhibition for you. Tools and materials used illustrate each phase of the process from parchment making, writing and illuminating through the final binding. Christian manuscripts from Europe, Armenia and Ethiopia, plus objects of Jewish and Muslim origin, will also be on display, along with a video component.
Through May 2, 2027. Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Drive, L.A. getty.edu

WEDNESDAY

Kalean Ung as the Chanteuse in “The Comedy of Errors.”

(Mike Ditz)

The Comedy of Errors
Melissa Chalsma directs Indie Shakes’ production of the Bard’s wordplay and slapstick set in a Mediterranean port town, with an original score.
7 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday; through Sept. 6. Old Zoo Picnic Area, Griffith Park. indieshakes.org/free-shakespeare-2026

THURSDAY

Annie and the Caldwells/The Campbell Brothers
The Skirball concludes its 29th season of Sunset Concerts with this family-fueled pairing of disco soul and sacred steel gospel groups, respectively, plus DJ sets by Sonrisita.
7 p.m. Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd. skirball.org

JazzPOP 2026
The summer series marks its 19th season with three concerts showcasing West Coast creative jazz: Kasey Knudsen Sextet (Thursday); Malachi Whitson Quartet (Aug. 13); and Machado Mijiga Trio (Aug. 20).
8 p.m. Thursdays, through Aug. 20. UCLA Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood. hammer.ucla.edu

— Kevin Crust

Retrospective

L.A. Times arts coverage from the the past …

Playwright/director Moises Kaufman of “The Laramie Project” was on the cover of Sunday Calendar, July 29, 2001.

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

At the Heart of a Modern Tragedy

Sunday Calendar, July 29, 2001

NEW YORK — Moises Kaufman could not turn off the television. He could not put down the newspaper. Like much of America, he was mesmerized by the news of the horrific beating, robbery and eventual death in 1998 of Matthew Shepard, a gay university student attacked and left for dead by two young men near Laramie, Wyo.

“For the five days until he died, you couldn’t turn on a television or a radio and not hear about it,” says the 37-year-old playwright and director. “Matthew Shepard put a face on hate crimes. He was young, beautiful, starting his life. The nation as a whole said, ‘Oh, my God. What’s going on?’ ”

It was exactly the sort of question that Kaufman and his colleagues at the Tectonic Theater Project here try to ask, if not answer, onstage. So unlike much of America, Kaufman did not simply move on to the next news tragedy. The man who created the widely produced “Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde” had found his next theater project. READ MORE

— Barbara Isenberg

Culture news and the SoCal scene

Artist Betye Saar visits her pet tortoise named Ms. Rojo on Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026, in Los Angeles.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Pioneering Los Angeles assemblage artist Betye Saar died Sunday, just a few days shy of her 100th birthday. The Times had the privilege of profiling her a few weeks earlier in a story that also included some wonderful photos of Saar still hard at work in her Laurel Canyon home studio. After Saar’s death, we published an obituary written by former Times columnist Carolina Miranda, and I put together a list of five of Saar’s most compelling works.

Watts Towers is poised to break ground in October on a $22-million campus renovation — the first such work done to the arts campus since it opened in 1970. The work is set to begin as funding for a 15-year project to preserve the towers themselves has dried up, with work about 90% complete. Community leaders say the situation represents the frustrating piecemeal approach taken over the years to preserve one of the city’s most important cultural landmarks. Times contributor Jane Horowitz has the scoop.

Evan Lugo (George Page), Sonya Cooke (Margaret Page), Zane Caputo (Abraham Slender), Zach Trent (Skateboard Fenton) and Heriberto Cruz Jr. (Doctor Cayo) in “The Merry Wives of Windsor Cove.”

(Elijah Waller)

“The Merry Wives of Windsor’” got a ’50s-themed SoCal beach blanket bingo musical makeover at UC Irvine’s New Swan Shakespeare Festival, and Times theater critic Charles McNulty was there to weigh in on the result. “The pastiche score, indebted to the pop charts of the 1950s, isn’t allowed to dominate,” McNulty writes. “As modern musicals go, this is a low-key affair. The comedy is still the thing in this frolicsome outdoor production, which takes place in the charming ambiance of the festival’s portable, mini-Elizabethan venue.”

McNulty also took time to praise the work of stellar older actors in a rare revival of Nöel Coward’s “Waiting in the Wings,” which is running in repertory at Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum through Oct. 10. The play, “which is set in ‘The Wings,’ a charity home for retired actresses, provides a feast for veteran thespians for whom it would be impolite to ask their age,” writes McNulty. “Led by Susan Angelo, Jan Wikstrom and Ellen Geer, this ensemble, under the direction of Willow Geer, diverts and distracts from the mustier aspects of Coward’s style.”

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art announced its inaugural film programming, which is set to screen nonstop during museum hours in two dedicated 299-seat theaters. One theater will play mostly documentary films, and the other will be devoted to the more experimental aspects of the art form.

Alaska Thunderf— will play Mary Todd Lincoln in “Oh, Mary!” at the Ahmanson.

(Daniel Rampulla)

“RuPaul’s Drag Race” star Alaska Thunderf— will play Mary Todd Lincoln in Cole Escola’s Tony-winning comedy “Oh, Mary!” when it arrives at Center Theatre Group’s Ahmanson Theatre in the fall. Broadway star J. Harrison Ghee has been cast opposite Alaska in the role of her famous husband.

Joey McIntyre of New Kids on the Block performs during Audacy’s 11th annual We Can Survive at Prudential Center on Sept. 28, 2024, in Newark, N.J.

(Manny Carabel / Getty Images for Audacy)

The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts announced some additions to its 2026-2027 season, including the world premiere of a new play, “Radio Galaxy,” written by Michèle Aldin Kushner, directed by Kimberly Senior and starring Joey McIntyre (yes, that Joey McIntyre) and Olivier Award winner Lesli Margherita. The show is about a 17-year-old from a working-class New Jersey town who wants to become an astronomer but must deal with the harsh realities of daily life, including his half-sister’s need for a bone marrow transplant. The show is scheduled for 18 performances in the Lovelace Studio Theater Nov. 6-22. Tickets are available here.

A few reduced-rate spots remain for Camp Build at the Gamble House in Pasadena, which runs from Aug. 1 to 5 for three hours each day. Two hours are devoted to learning the art and craft of woodworking, and a third hour is spent on activities inspired by nature and architecture in the historic home. The cost of the camp is assessed on a sliding scale according to income and need with four payment tiers ranging from free to $650. The remaining slots are in the second tier, which costs $350.

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

Want a glimpse into the hedonistic L.A. of yore? Check out this story about Eve Babitz’s personal letters. It will not disappoint.

A piece of iconic Los Angeles architecture and one of pop culture’s most recognizable exteriors is on display as the Pasadena home featured as Wayne Manor in TV’s original “Batman” hits the market this month for $32 million — less than a year after it was last sold.

The seven-bedroom, 11-bathroom Jacobean Tudor Revival home on 5 acres of gated land was built in 1928 by the L.A.-based architectural firm Morgan, Walls & Clements. This is the same firm responsible for some of L.A.’s most fantastical and beloved architectural creations including the Wiltern, El Capitan and Mayan theaters. It’s located at 380 S. San Rafael Avenue in Pasadena, in a lush, wooded area above the Arroyo Seco near the Rose Bowl.

The home, which features a stately mahogany main staircase and a genuine butler’s pantry worthy of Alfred Pennyworth, was made famous by the “Batman” TV series, which originally aired on ABC from 1966-68. During that time a man named Norman Preston van Valkenburgh lived there with his family. Film crews shot at the home for three days in 1966, but only external shots ended up being used as stock footage for Wayne Manor.

Over the years fans began to confuse the mansion with another nearby estate — the work of one of the city’s most prominent Africa American architects Paul R. Williams . The home, which The Times cheekily called an “imposter” in a 1989 article, burned down in 2005 while being renovated by its owner, Michael Hammer, grandson of the late oil tycoon Armand Hammer. At that time, crowds of “Batman” fans gathered before the smoldering ashes lamenting the loss only to discover they had the wrong house.

If the real Wayne Manor sells for its $32 million asking price it will break its own record for a residential sale in Pasadena. That record was set only last year when the current owner bought it for $20.5 million.

It will take just one super fan with Bruce Wayne-deep pockets to snap up this dreamy estate. Spoiler alert: There is no Bat Cave, but there is a pickleball court, a resort-style pool, a private theater and an Architectural Digest pedigree.

I’m Arts editor Jessica Gelt counting the money in my swear jar and dreaming big. This is your arts and culture news for the week.

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

Jeff LeBeau, left, and Tim Cummings in the West Coast premiere of Samuel D. Hunter’s “Grangeville” at the Ruskin Group Theatre Arts Center, directed by John Perrin Flynn.

(John Perrin Flynn)

Grangeville
The West Coast premiere of Samuel D. Hunter’s two-hander about a pair of estranged brothers concludes its acclaimed run at the Ruskin next weekend. In his review, Times theater critic Charles McNulty wrote that the playwright “turns his characters inside out in a play that powerfully illuminates a subject that has rarely been treated onstage with such unflinching honesty and sensitivity: How does one integrate a past that took everything to escape?”
8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays through Aug. 2. Ruskin Group Theatre, 2800 Airport Ave., Santa Monica. app.arts-people.com

Sounds of LA County
Country music in Sylmar and Quartz Hill; disco, soul and R&B in South L.A.; regional Mexican music in Florence-Graham and La Puente; deep house, Afrobeats, hip-hop and funk in East Compton; global acoustic in Willowbrook; and live salsa in East L.A. are this week’s offerings in the free summer series from LA County Parks and Nextfest LA. The program continues through August.
6-9 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Thursday. Check website for exact days and locations. soundsoflacounty.com

SATURDAY

Joe Hisaishi presents Music Future
Coming off three nights at the Hollywood Bowl, the Japanese composer moves to a more intimate setting to celebrate the work of contemporary composers, including Nico Muhly, Bryce Dessner and Max Richter, with the LA Phil New Music Group.
8 p.m. The Ford, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East theford.com

The Hour of the Star
Brazilian actor Bruna Fachetti stars in the world premiere of a stage adaptation of the novella by Clarice Lispector about an impoverished woman dreaming of a better life in Rio de Janeiro. The limited, five-performance engagement was conceived and will be directed by Alex Tietre from the English translation by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Lispector biographer Benjamin Moser.
7 p.m. Saturday, Sunday, Thursday, July 31 and Aug. 1. The Broadwater Black Box Theatre, 6322 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A. eventbrite.com

SUNDAY

Boris Brejcha performs during the 2023 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival .

(Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images for Coachella)

Boris Brejcha with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra
The masked German DJ makes his global orchestral debut. The techno DJ duo Frieder & Jakob open the show. Be prepared to dance.
7 p.m. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com

Murder on the Orient Express
Sidney Lumet’s 1974 version of the Agatha Christie mystery, adapted by Paul Dehn, earned six Oscar nominations. Alfred Finney, nominated for leading actor, stars as the meticulous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot investigating a killing aboard the famous train. Also starring Lauren Bacall, Martin Balsam and Ingrid Bergman, who won the Oscar for supporting actress. Part of the Oscar Sundays series.
2 p.m. Academy Museum, David Geffen Theater, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. academymuseum.org

TUESDAY

Rhapsody in Blue & Shostakovich
Marin Alsop conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Anna Clyne’s “Masquerade,” Gershwin’s soaring American classic (with pianist Conrad Tao) and Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony.
8 p.m. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com

THURSDAY

Peter Finch in ‘Network.’

(TCM)

Network
“I’m mad as Hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” shouts Peter Finch as news anchor Howard Beale in this 1976 satire directed by Sidney Lumet and written by Paddy Chayefsky. The film was nominated for ten Academy Awards, winning four: leading actor, posthumously, for Finch, leading actress for Faye Dunaway, supporting actress for Beatrice Straight, and original screenplay. Fifty years later, it feels as prescient as ever.
2 p.m. Vidiots, Eagle Theatre, 4884 Eagle Rock Blvd. vidiotsfoundation.org

Arts anywhere

André De Shields, left, Reeve Carney, center, and the cast of Hadestown perform onstage during the 2019 Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall.

(Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions)

Hadestown: The Musical
The hit Broadway show, winner of eight Tonys and a Grammy, comes to movie theaters for a special five-day engagement. “The show travels to the underworld and back again with liquified grace,” wrote Times theater critic Charles McNulty. “Unfurling like a dream, ‘Hadestown’ speaks most eloquently through its sultry jazz score.” With Reeve Carney as Orpheus André De Shields as Hermes, Amber Gray as Persephone, Eva Noblezada as Eurydice and Patrick Page as Hades.
Friday through Wednesday, theaters everywhere. bleeckerstreetmedia.com

— Kevin Crust

Culture news and the SoCal scene

The Hollywood Bowl during a summer concert.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The Hollywood Bowl recently debuted its biggest sound system upgrade in decades (featuring AI-powered vocal isolation and immersive, surround-sound), and Times classical music critic Mark Swed weighed in on why audiences should be careful of what they wish for. Still, the jury is out: “It is far too soon to say what ways the fabulous new Bowl sound system, which happens to be AI-endowed, might become friend and/or foe. In the first two L.A. Phil classical concerts, the white speakers brought out wonders and caused problems. But the minimal Bowl rehearsal time allows little opportunity to fine-tune,” Swed writes.

Swed also attended a showing of two of Yoko Ono’s famous performance pieces at REDCAT (in collaboration with the Broad, which is currently showing a major Ono retrospective). Titled “Sky Piece” and “Cut Piece” the music-driven works featured compositions by Ono’s friend and collaborator John Cage (Swed writes about the pair’s complicated relationship in New York during the 1960s). Swed also extols “Cut Piece” as performed bythe artist known as MPA, who sat stoically as the audience lined up to cut patches of her clothing off piece by piece.

Sean Luc Rogers and James Tupper in “F— Strangers” at the Echo Theater Company.

(Cooper Bates)

Times theater critic Charles McNulty headed to Echo Theater Company to see playwright Erik Patterson’s “F— Strangers,” directed by Echo Theater Company founding artistic director Chris Fields. McNulty found the show, which features scene after scene of intimate encounters, “intriguing and frustrating in equal measure.”

“It’s over 8 feet tall, nearly 11 feet wide and travels by 53-foot semitrailer. It’s covered in more than 20,000 beads and weighs almost 1 ton — or about 2,000 pounds,” writes The Times’ Eloise Rollins-Fife in her charming profile of “Gillian,” the chandelier featured in “Phantom of the Opera’s” current North American tour.” “And eight times a week, it’s dropped atop the heads of people who pay for the privilege — just a few feet short of actually hitting anyone.” “Phantom” is currently playing the Hollywood Pantages Theatre before it moves on to Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa.

Kihun Yoon, Michael J. Hawk, Nicholas Brownlee and Salmir Pirgu, from left, perform during an L.A. Opera dress rehearsal for Barrie Kosky’s “La Bohéme” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Sept. 12, 2019.

(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

Bernard A. Greenberg, a founding board member and former chairman of L.A. Opera, has died at 95. Throughout his life Greenberg was a devoted opera fan and a champion of establishing a dedicated opera company in the city, which ultimately led to the 1986 creation of L.A. Opera. As a philanthropist, civic leader and arts advocate, Greenberg dedicated more than seven decades to steering L.A. Opera and creating the renowned company that it is today. He served on the board of directors for 40 years and held almost every major leadership position during that time. He and his wife, Lenore, also founded the Bernard A. and Lenore S. Greenberg Opera Fund — an endowment that continues to support some of the company’s most vital work.

“If anyone could be called the founder of LA Opera, it is Bernie Greenberg,” said Keith R. Leonard, Jr., Chairman of LA Opera’s Board of Directors in a statement about Greenberg’s death. “For more than 70 years, he devoted his extraordinary wisdom, leadership and generosity to building this company into the institution that serves our audiences today. Bernie believed deeply that opera could enrich lives and strengthen our community, and he worked tirelessly to make that vision a reality. His legacy is woven into every chapter of our history, and all of us at LA Opera are profoundly grateful for his friendship, his guidance and his unwavering commitment to this company.”

IAMA Theatre Company has announced its 2026-2027 season, including three world premieres, as well as its ninth New Works Festival, featuring a variety of new plays by fresh talent. The season kicks off with “Bobby Robotowitz” by Matt Schatz and directed by Casey Stangl, which will be performed from Oct. 15-Nov. 23 in two secret venues — one on the Westside in October and one on the Eastside in November. (When you buy a ticket you find out the location.) The season will end with IAMA’s first collaboration with Geffen Playhouse: the world premiere of “Closing Costs” by Grace McLeod, which was originally developed during IAMA’s 2024-2025 Emerging Playwrights Lab. For the full season lineup, and to buy tickets, click here.

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

This adventurous family of four is raffling off their $2 million home just outside of London in order to travel the world. I tip my hat to them because this is something I would think of doing but never actually do. Instead, I think I’ll buy a ticket or two.

MUNICH, Germany — Nicholas Brownlee had just fallen in love with opera and was eager to see if his emerging bass-baritone voice could handle Richard Wagner’s music. It did not go well.

“I kept reading how you have to wait to sing this big repertoire,” Brownlee said. But there was one bit of Wagner — Wolfram’s “Song to the Evening Star” from “Tannhäuser” — that’s “a little bit lighter. I figured it was more appropriate.”

So he brought it to his teacher, Thomas Rowell, at the University of South Alabama and asked what he thought.

“I just laughed at him and told him to go away,” Rowell recalled. “He knew that big voice was there, and he was so eager to try on the clothes, but they didn’t fit for a while. It was still a very young instrument.”

Reminded of that exchange nearly 20 years later, Brownlee smiles. “I was a bit ambitious,” he said. “But this was just me.”

Now that ambition — what he calls “a fire in my belly that burns brighter every day,” — has helped propel Brownlee to the very top of his profession at age 37. And he’s done it by singing a lot of Wagner.

Brownlee recently made his debut as Wotan, embattled king of the gods, in “Die Walküre” at the Bavarian State Opera House, part two of a complete “Ring” cycle directed by Tobias Kratzer. He had previously sung the role in “Das Rheingold,” the opera that opens the cycle.

The critics reached for superlatives. “A heroic baritone straight out of a textbook,” wrote Markus Thiel in Merkur, “with a powerful, resonant voice, a force of nature.” Carlota Moseguí in Platea Magazine praised his voice and said Brownlee “possesses all the qualities to become the definitive Wotan of his generation.”

Next, Brownlee heads to the Wagner shrine in Bayreuth, Germany, where he will star as the title character in “Der Fliegende Holländer” (“The Flying Dutchman.”) And his upcoming season is one Wotan after another.

“It’ll be ‘Siegfried’ time in Munich, then ‘Walküre’ time in Buenos Aires, then ‘Rheingold’ time in Barcelona,” he said. Add to that two of the “Ring” operas in Frankfurt and then two complete cycles next summer back in Munich.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing to have a student who goes that far, especially from a small regional state university like ours,” said Rowell, who remains close friends with Brownlee and officiated his wedding to mezzo-soprano Jennifer Feinstein. “I have to pinch myself. I’m enjoying it vicariously.”

Does Brownlee worry at all about damaging his voice from so much heavy singing?

“I don’t think you’re supposed to say this, but no, not really,” he replied. “We like to put this big stamp on Wagner and say ‘Be Careful!’” But he said he finds the demands of each opera different enough to help him avoid burnout.

Still, he promises that his roles the following season will be more varied, including a return to one of his favorites — Baron Scarpia in Puccini’s “Tosca.” And down the road are two Verdi roles — the villainous Iago in “Otello” and the comic Falstaff.

Of the latter, he said, “I want to flex a different muscle. I talk fast, I’m a bubbly, fun guy, but what I do on stage is so serious all the time. Boy it would be fun to just be a jolly fat guy!”

Just how did a boy from a working-class family in a small town outside Mobile, Ala., become one of a handful of go-to singers in the world for these demanding roles?

His first success as a vocalist actually came as the youngest grandchild in a large extended family, performing Conway Twitty imitations to grab attention. Classical music had to wait until he fell under the spell of his high school choral director.

When he went to college, he planned to study conducting, but Rowell heard him sing and cajoled him into joining the Mobile Opera chorus.

“I went in the first day and I hated it,” Brownlee recalled. “I said, this is in Italian, who cares? That’s for stuffy elite people, not for us blue-collar fellas.”

Still, his curiosity made him determined to figure out why some people loved the art form. So he sat by the side of the stage one night to watch the emotional final scene of Verdi’s “La Traviata,” when the heroine dies after being reunited with her lover.

“When she said, ‘O, gioia!’ and she fell into his arms, and now she’s dead, Alfredo’s weeping over her, and Germont is feeling half-responsible, I was weeping uncontrollably,” he said. “And I didn’t even know what they were saying.”

That’s when he started taking voice lessons, and from there followed years of study and apprenticeships both in the U.S. and later in Germany. Along the way he competed twice in the Metropolitan Opera’s National Council Auditions.

The first time, still in his early 20s, he made it to the semifinals in New York. “I did not go on to the finals, which was absolutely correct,” he said. “Failure is a great lesson.” (Coincidentally, one of the winners that year was Ryan Speedo Green, who performed Wotan in May at Walt Disney Hall and will bein the Met’s upcoming “Ring” cycle.)

Brownlee returned in 2015, and this time he took home one of the top prizes. Other awards have followed, including in 2025, best male singer at the International Opera Awards and the Richard Tucker Award for most promising American singer.

Yet this American singer is still barely known to most opera audiences in his native country. Brownlee’s career has so far been largely in Germany, where he and Feinstein are raising their two daughters and are currently applying for dual citizenship.

“I can perform anywhere in Europe and be home in two hours to see my girls,” he said. “In America that’s just not something you can do.”

He may be rooted in Europe for now, but major U.S. houses are beckoning with increasing urgency.

When he appeared at Chicago’s Lyric Opera this past spring as the prophet Jochanaan in Richard Strauss’ “Salome,” general director John Mangum called his performance “absolutely thrilling.” He said Brownlee is “definitely going be at the top of our list” as the company charts its future Wagner performances.

And Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, who heard him sing a major role for the first time during the Munich run of “Walküre,” said “I was blown away. … We’ll definitely be offering him big roles at the Met in upcoming seasons.”

Silverman writes for the Associated Press.

On Monday, more than 40 fake trophies were stacked at the base of a 10-foot-tall “Iran War Participation Trophy” made for President Trump and placed on the National Mall by the anonymous satirical activist group Secret Handshake.

The large golden trophy is part of a growing trove of protest art pieces erected by the group since Trump was reelected to his second term in office. Previous installations, which have all received the necessary permitting for legal display, include one of Trump and convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein holding hands, and a playable retro video game called “Operation Epic Furious: Strait to Hell.”

The new participation trophy is equipped with a plaque that reads:

“We hereby award President Donald J. Trump this participation trophy for his enthusiastic involvement in the Iran War. While some concern themselves with military strategy, diplomacy, or measurable outcomes, President Trump demonstrated the courage to participate regardless of the final score.

As recipient of this prestigious award, President Trump joins the ranks of children everywhere who receive recognition for simply showing up. We join you in celebrating this remarkable achievement.”

Secret Handshake noted in a letter to The Times that the installation serves as the nation’s first official “Donald Trump Trophy Donation Center, encouraging the public to drop off their own personal trophies, medals, and ribbons at the base of the monument for The President to claim as his own. Together, we hope that if enough trophies are donated he will be perceived as a winner and not feel the need to bomb other countries.”

A representative for Secret Handshake said the dozens of donated awards include certificates, trophies, medals, a wrestling belt and a Kennedy Center sash.

“I’m really thrilled to see people taking an active interest in joining in and bringing their own creativity and having their own voice heard by adding trophies to the base of this instillation,” the representative wrote in an email. “I think it’s exciting and I think when people can take a moment to tangibly express their opinion about this government’s war it helps to create a reminder that we aren’t alone. This isn’t normal. This shouldn’t just be accepted at face value.”

One of the best offerings is titled, “First Place in ‘I Know a Pool guy,’” and reads in part, “Participation trophy for Donald Trump in recognition of his renovation of the nation’s historic reflecting pool to more clearly reflect his efforts to criminalize the touching of a public monument in order to cover up the damage he caused …” The award also recognizes Trump’s “development of American Flag Blue pool liner, which he said was indestructible (unless cut by left wing radical terrorist vandals).”

Secret Handshake has extended an offer to “hand deliver both the participation trophy and all smaller trophies to the Trump Administration for The President’s glowing collection of fake accolades.”

I’m Arts editor Jessica Gelt taking First Place in time wasted mulching my garden in the heat. This is your arts and culture news for the week.

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

“Etai & Felipe Pantone: Parallel Practices: Tailored Structures & Kinetic Surfaces” at albertz benda.

Etai & Felipe Pantone
“Parallel Practices: Tailored Structures & Kinetic Surfaces” combines Pantone’s wall-based artworks and a series of collaborative design pieces to challenge ideas of use, intimacy and lived experience, placing each work in the interconnected artistic system.
Opening, 6:30–9:30 p.m. Friday; exhibit continues through Aug. 8. albertz benda, 8260 Marmont Ln. albertzbenda.com

New Swan Shakespeare Festival
The Bard is back in the O.C. at the troupe’s open-air, Elizabethan-style portable theater with “The Merry Wives of Windsor Cove,” a musical adaptation set in a 1950s SoCal beach town, in repertory with “Romeo & Juliet,” the classic tragedy reimagined amid the scarcity of the Dust Bowl.
“Merry Wives,” 8 p.m. Friday, Saturday, Thursday and various dates through Aug. 30; “Romeo,” 8 p.m. Sunday, Wednesday and various dates through Aug. 29. New Swan Shakespeare Festival, Inner Ring Road, UC Irvine. newswanshakespeare.com/

SATURDAY

“Cyrano” at the Old Globe, San Diego.

(Ben Wiseman)

Cyrano
An irreverent take on “Cyrano de Bergerac” by Edmond Rostand, adapted by Jason O’Connell and Brenda Withers, directed by Annie Tippe.
Previews, 8 p.m. Saturday; 7 p.m. Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday; opening night, Thursday, 7 p.m.; continues through Aug. 9. The Old Globe, 1363 Old Globe Way in Balboa Park, San Diego. TheOldGlobe.org

F**king Strangers
The world premiere of a dark comedy about love and loneliness by Erik Patterson, directed by Chris Fields.
Previews, 8 p.m. Friday; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 4 p.m. Sundays; through Aug. 24. Echo Theater Company, Atwater Village Theater, 3269 Casitas Ave. echotheatercompany.com

Yoko Ono’s ‘Sky Piece to Jesus Christ’ + ‘Cut Piece’
A six-piece classical music ensemble from the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra will be gradually wrapped in gauze until the musicians can no longer play their instruments in “Sky Piece,” first presented to the public by Ono at Carnegie Recital Hall in New York in 1965. In “Cut Piece,” performed by artist MPA, the audience will be invited to cut away pieces of the artist’s clothing to take with them while the artist sits silently onstage. The performance was premiered by Ono at Yamaichi Hall in Kyoto in 1964.
6 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., downtown L.A. redcat.org

Marvelous Musicals
Professional and student dancers perform numbers from classic shows to modern favorites.
6:30 p.m. Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Dr. thebarclay.org

Koak, “Portrait of Myself, the Shell,” 2024. Flashe and acrylic on linen; diptych. 74 x 118 inches

(Photo by Chris Grunder. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin.)

Summerlove Sensation
A group show featuring Isabelle Albuquerque, Alex Anderson, Mustafa Ali Clayton, Gregor Hildebrandt, Susumu Kamijo, Rae Klein, Koak, Asuka Anastacia Ogawa, Katherina Olschbaur, Jean-Michel Othoniel, Andrew J. Park, Gahee Park, Aya Takano, Honor Titus and Pilar Zeta.
Opening, 6-9 p.m. Saturday; exhibition continues through Aug. 28. Perrotin Los Angeles, 5036 W. Pico Blvd. perrotin.com

A Weekend With Robert Rodriguez
The multi-hyphenate filmmaker will be on hand for anniversary screenings of “From Dusk Til Dawn” (1996) and “Spy Kids”(2001) with the filmmaker in person and performing with his musical groups, Chingon Band and The Rodriguez Family Spy Band.
“From Dusk,” 7 p.m. Saturday. “Spy Kids.” 2 p.m. Sunday. Academy Museum, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. academymuseum.org

SUNDAY

Tensions, Personified
Readings of four short plays by John Binder are presented as part of the Odyssey’s Thresholds of Invention series.
4 p.m. Odyssey Ensemble Theatre, 2055 South Sepulveda Blvd. odysseytheatre.com

TUESDAY

Ann Noble, left, and Robin McDonald in “Dead Man.”

(Carolina Rodriguez)

Dead Man
Ann Noble writes, directs and performs in this clown noir murder mystery co-produced by Theatre Ghosts. Co-starring Christian Haines, Jeffrey Johnson and Robin McDonald.
8 p.m. Tuesdays, through Aug. 4. Echo Theater Company at Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave. echotheatercompany.ludus.com

UCBackrooms
A one-night-only immersive, participatory comedy experience turns the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre into an escape room.
Shows begin every 15 mins., 6-7:30 p.m. Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, 5919 Franklin Ave. ucbcomedy.com

THURSDAY

Falsettos
The O.C. theater company The Wayward Artist presents William Finn and James Lapine’s Tony Award-winning, sung-through musical set in 1979 and 1981 about a Jewish man who leaves his wife and son for his male lover, and the ensuing upheaval to their lives.
8 p.m. Thursday, July 24-26 and July 30-Aug. 2. Irvine United Congregational Church, 4915 Alton Pkwy. thewaywardartist.org

Arts anywhere

Jason Huber, from left, Scott G. Jackson and Dana Dewes in “The Price” at Pacific Resident Theatre.

(Ian Cardamone)

The Price
The critically acclaimed production of the Arthur Miller drama at Pacific Resident Theater closes this weekend. “‘The Price,’ directed by Elina de Santos, thrives in the intimacy of Pacific Resident Theatre’s main stage,” wrote Times theater critic Charles McNulty when he reviewed it in April. “There’s not a moment in the play that isn’t deeply inhabited by a cast that understands the value of listening.” But don’t worry if you are unable to make it to the Westside. The final two shows will be available from the League of Live Stream Theater for $35, which includes a 24-hour on-demand replay.
2 p.m. Saturday; 3 p.m Sunday. Pacific Resident Theatre, 703 Venice Blvd., Venice; streaming at lolst.org/theprice

— Kevin Crust

Culture news and the SoCal scene

Miller Friedman, Ashley Maimes, Jonathan Blandino and Torianna Turnbow in Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum.

(Ian Flanders)

Summer is the ideal time to see theater out of doors (well, maybe not this broiling week, but at other times), and Times theater critic Charles McNulty has compiled this breezy list of “11 enchanting places to see outdoor theater in Southern California.” Spoiler alert: Shakespeare is well-represented, but remember, the Bard’s work was originally staged in an open-air theater.

McNulty also headed to Pasadena Playhouse for the opening of the two-person hip-hop musical “Mexodus,” which tells the little-known story of an Underground Railroad route to Mexico. McNulty was taken with the show, which arrived at the Playhouse after its award-winning off-Broadway run, calling it “hands down the most charming, innovative and warmly embracing new musical I’ve seen in the last year.”

Artist Betye Saar is photographed at her home in Laurel Canyon on Tuesday, June 30, 2026.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

Betye Saar turns 100 on July 30, but the famed artist is still more interested in creating new work than discussing her groundbreaking legacy. Times contributor Tara Anne Dalbow wrote this lovely profile of Saar after a visit to her vibrant home studio in Laurel Canyon. “There are certain people who redefined what was a very narrow definition of American art, and Betye is absolutely one of them,” curator Zoé Whitley told Dalbow.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art this week revealed that artist Vija Celmins and filmmaker Denis Villeneuve will be honored at its upcoming Art + Film Gala, the first to be hosted since the spring opening of LACMA’s new David Geffen Galleries.

Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts — better known as the Soraya — on the campus of California State University Northridge.

(The Soraya)

If you’re interested in buying single tickets to shows that are part of the Soraya’s upcoming season, now is the time. The venue just opened up its access from membership presale to the general public. Sutton Foster, Dance Theatre of Harlem and Audra McDonald are all making their Soraya debuts, as is the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

And you thought making the “Mona Lisa” out of Legos was hard. The company has now paired with Vienna’s Belvedere Museum to release a 4,000-piece Lego set of Gustav Klimt’s “The Kiss.” You can buy the set, beginning Aug. 1, for $299.99.

I was in New York City with my family on the day Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce tied the knot at Madison Square Garden. Although our hotel was a few short blocks from the venue, which was surrounded by swooning fans, we managed to steer clear. Instead, we headed for the Nederlander Theatre on 41st Street to catch “Schmigadoon.”

The show, which took the Tony Award for best musical last month, was at the top of my must-see list, along with two other recent Tony winners — “Death of a Salesman” and “Giant,” — which I wasn’t sure would be as appealing to my 10-year-old.

There is a certain magic to Broadway despite the crush of commercial horrors a person must wade through in Times Square to get to a show, and “Schmigadoon” did not disappoint. I don’t remember the last time I laughed so hard during a live show. The jokes about a modern couple trapped in a magical town stuck more than 200 years in the past hit the mark with just the right amount of bawdy fun.

SNL alumn Ana Gasteyer is pitch perfect as the town’s vengeful moral crusader Mildred Layton, but the real hero of the show is McKenzie Kurtz, who plays Betsy, a love-hungry young farm girl desperate to catch a man and get married. Kurtz’s comic delivery is so over-the-top that laughter is the only option — and once you start laughing with her you can’t stop.

Like most Broadway musicals , “Schmigadoon” features an ensemble cast that represents the very best of the best when it comes to dancing and singing. It’s clear these actors like one another and know that they have a good thing. There is joy on the stage that transfers effortlessly to the audience. It’s one of those only-in-New-York experiences to be treasured. The show is scheduled to run through Jan. 3.

When we stepped out into the night after the show, we found it had rained. The temperature that day had reached 99 degrees and the city had wilted, but the downpour caused the mercury to plummet a good 10 degrees. The lights of Broadway sparkled in puddles as we made our way down the slick sidewalk, singing the show’s most catchy tune, “It’s not a metaphor, oh no it’s something more, it’s a literal bridge.”

I’m Arts editor Jessica Gelt wishing you a summer vacation that is also a journey. This is your arts and culture news for the week.

Arts anywhere

FRIDAY

John Travolta listens for evidence which he hopes will trap a killer in Brian De Palma’s 1981 suspense drama, “Blow Out.”

(Filmways Pictures)

Blow Out
The Academy Museum’s Summer Thrills series features a 35mm screening of Brian De Palma’s 1981 thriller about a movie sound tech who unwittingly uncovers a political assassination. John Travolta, Nancy Allen, John Lithgow and Dennis Franz star.
7:30 p.m. Academy Museum, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. academymuseum.org

SATURDAY

Defiantly Joni
The artist collective Muse/ique, in partnership with Center Theatre Group, presents a celebration of singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, featuring Chris Pierce, Effie Passero, the DC6 Singers Collective and the Muse/ique Orchestra led by artistic and music director Rachael Worby.
5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; 7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 16 and July 17; 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. July 18; and 2:30 p.m. July 19. Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. muse-ique.com

Installation view of Alex Hubbard Abstract or Regular? at Regen Projects, Los Angeles July 11–August 15, 2026

(Evan Bedford, courtesy the artist and Regen Projects)

Alex Hubbard
The exhibition “Abstract or Regular?” features video animations projected on wood cutouts by the Los Angeles-based artist, as well as a painting that demonstrates experimentation with the boundary between representational form and abstraction.
Opening, 5-7 p.m. Saturday; exhibition continues through Aug. 15. Regen Projects, 6750 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A. regenprojects.com

The Shoebox Museum: A Private Immersive Experience
A “narrative video game” is brought to life by theatrical and sensory vignettes that enhance the interactive audience’s examination of artifacts and memories of a past relationship.
Shows begin every 30-45 minutes, 1-10 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, through July 26. Afterhours Theater, 5628 Vineland Ave., North Hollywood. eventbrite.com

Earnestine Phillips, from left, Cynthia Kania, Susan Angelo and Ellen Geer rehearse “Waiting in the Wings.”

(Ian Flanders)

Waiting in the Wings
Noël Coward’s 1960 play about a feud between two female residents in a retirement home for actors joins “Romeo & Juliet,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Treasure Island” in the Theatricum Botanicum’s repertory season.
7:30 p.m. Saturday, through Oct. 3 (check schedule for specific days and times). Theatricum Botanicum, 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga. theatricum.com

SUNDAY

Journey Through Cahuenga: Indigenous Storytelling and Dance
Generations of Native narratives are expressed through music, poetry and dance. Scheduled participants include Dennis Garcia (Fernandeño-Tataviam, Chumash, and Tongva), Chad Hamill/ čnaq’ymi (Spokane), Eric Hernandez (Lumbee), and Carolyn M. Dunn, Ph.D. (Cherokee, Muscogee Creek, Seminole, Cajun, French Creole, and Tunica-Biloxi). Hosted by Tonantzín Carmelo (Tongva). An LA Soundscapes Family Concert featuring a pre-show activity and participatory artmaking. Doors open at 10 a.m.
11:30 a.m. The Ford, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. E., L.A. theford.com

Mahjong Social With Mahjong Mistress
A full afternoon begins with a screening of the late Taiwanese American filmmaker Edward Yang’s 1996 film “Mahjong” followed by an open mahjong session for all experience levels led by Mahjong Mistress, a collective of four friends united by their love of the game and its use in fostering cultural connection and conversation.
1:30 p.m. UCLA Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood. hammer.ucla.edu

MONDAY

Hudson Hawk
A 35th-anniversary 35mm screening of the 1991 Bruce Willis heist satire with director Michael Lehmann and co-screenwriter Daniel Waters; introduced by Larry Karaszewski.
7:30 p.m. Brain Dead Studios, 611 N. Fairfax Ave. studios.wearebraindead.com

TUESDAY

“Apparition, ” circa 1880–1890 by Odilon Redon. Charcoal, powdered charcoal, black chalk, and black and yellow pastel with stumping on brown paper. 20 11/16 × 14 11/16 in.

(Getty Museum)

Odilon Redon: Otherworldly Visions
The exhibition includes charcoal drawings, lithographs and pastels by the French artist from the Getty’s collection, revealing the inspirations and imagination that helped create them.
Through Oct. 18. Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Drive, L.A. getty.edu

Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction
On what would have been the actor’s 100th birthday, Vidiots welcomes the 2013 documentary’s director Sophie Huber for a screening hosted by Cherry Jones and a conversation with Logan Sparks, writer-producer of Stanton’s final film, “Lucky.”
7:30 p.m. Eagle Theatre, 4884 Eagle Rock Blvd. vidiotsfoundation.org

National Museum of the Aftermath screening series
The final screening in the series pairs Reginald Alan Hudlin’s 1994 sci-fi short “Space Traders: Cosmic Slop” with William Greaves’ 1968 meta-documentary hybrid “Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One.”
8 p.m. Oxy Arts, 4757 York Blvd. oxyarts.oxy.edu

Tchaikovsky & Beethoven
Cristian Măcelaru conducts the L.A. Phil for Tchaikovsky’s “Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35” (with soloist Leonidas Kavakos on violin) and Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92.”
8 p.m. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com

THURSDAY

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring in Concert
The Pacific Symphony, soprano Kaitlyn Lusk, voices/LA and Los Angeles Children’s Chorus unite under conductor Ludwig Wicki for the 25th anniversary of Howard Shore’s Academy Award-winning score, performing live as director Peter Jackson’s epic film is projected on a 60-foot screen.
7 p.m. Thursday and Friday; 1 and 7 p.m. Saturday. Peacock Theater, 777 Chick Hearn Court, downtown L.A. peacocktheater.com

Mozart & Brahms
Spanish conductor Roberto González-Monjas leads the L.A. Phil on Korngold’s “Straussiana,” Mozart’s “Piano Concerto No. 19 in F major, K. 459” (with pianist Mao Fujita), and Brahms’ “Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98.”
8 p.m. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com

— Kevin Crust

Dispatch: Remembering a master actor

Trisha Miller, from left, Josey Montana McCoy, Peter Van Norden and Dan Lin in “Misalliance” at A Noise Within.

(Craig Schwartz)

Peter Van Norden, one of Los Angeles’ most accomplished stage actors, died Wednesday at age 75. A graduate of Colgate University, he worked steadily in film and television, wracking up notable credits (“The Accused,” “St. Elsewhere,” “Murder, She Wrote”) over four decades.

But it was in the classical theater where he distinguished himself with his command of language and depth of human understanding.

He didn’t need to be cast as the star to elevate a production. His textual fluency and incisive, unfussy intelligence set a standard for his fellow company members, who might not be able to match him but couldn’t help gaining inspiration from his veteran example.

Cast as pompous Polonious and the mordantly witty gravedigger in the 2022 Antaeus Theatre Company production of “Hamlet,” he made me wish I could have turned back the clock to see him as Hamlet. I felt similarly when I saw him play Alonso at the Shakespeare Theatre Center in the 2023 immersive production of “The Tempest.”

What might his Prospero be like, I wondered longingly? Later that year, he got the chance to show me in a rackety Antaeus Theatre Company revival that unfortunately failed to make the most of his poetic gifts.

He was better served by the graceful 2024 production of “Misalliance” at A Noise Within, where he played the wealthy underwear industrialist John Tarleton in a voluble comedy of ideas that proved Van Norden was as adept in crisp, rational, talky idiom of George Bernard Shaw as he was in the more supple iambic pentameter of Shakespeare.

He was slated to appear as Capt. Shotover in Antaeus’ upcoming production of “Heartbreak House,” Shaw’s masterpiece. It was a role he had long wanted to play, and I can’t imagine the part being better cast.

For his heroic service to Los Angeles theater, Van Norden received the 2024 Michael McCarty Recognition Award, honoring Los Angeles–based Actors’ Equity members who have built their lives in the theater. I remember cheering from my desk the moment the announcement landed in my email inbox. Sometimes the award gods get things right.

Van Norden, who is survived by his wife, Wendy, and his son, Robert, a film producer, inspired that kind of hearty, spontaneous, grateful applause. Whenever I saw his name in a theater program, I breathed more easily, knowing that whatever else might happen that evening I would at the very least have the pleasure and the privilege of another Van Norden master class.

— Charles McNulty

Culture news and the SoCal scene

Nael Nacer, from left, Andrea Martin and Susan Pourfar in “Meet the Cartozians” by Talene Monahon at Second Stage Theater.

(Photo: Julieta Cervantes)

Times theater critic Charles McNulty knows a good show when he sees one — but also when he reads one. And this past week he helpfully compiled a list of eight works that he’s read for award consideration — or seen outside of L.A. — that he believes deserve local productions. I’m not going to spoil it for you by listing them here, so you’ll just have to read the story.

Are you a budding artist, or even a seasoned one looking to step up your game? Times contributor Sarah Fensom put together a handy list of seven L.A. figure drawing events and classes that feature unique concepts including high fashion and nude muscle men. Find your perfect match, here.

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is set to open on Sept. 22, but it announced some exciting news this week: It is giving free annual passes to its South L.A. neighbors in the 90037 ZIP code. The LM37 passes entitle holders to reserve tickets for themselves along with a guest. Tickets for non-pass holders go on sale July 21 and cost $25 for adults and $21 for seniors. Kids 17 and under are free.

On the heels of its 60th season, East West Players, the largest and longest-running Asian American theater in the country, announced its 2026-27 slate. “This season is the first chapter of East West Players’ next sixty years, a bold invitation to imagine what Asian American theater can become,” said artistic director Lily Tung Crystal in a statement. “By centering new voices, we’re not just honoring our legacy, but shaping the canon for generations to come.” The mainstage season will include the Southern California premiere of Jaclyn Backhaus’ comedy “Wives,” the Los Angeles premiere of the eponymously titled work “Kristina Wong, #Foodbankinfluencer” by the Pulitzer Prize finalist and East West Players’ New Works Festival. The group is also enticing theatergoers with new ticketing options: Pay-What-You-Will for every show and the Emerging Artist Membership, a free program for theatergoers ages 18 to 35, which guarantees $20 orchestra seats for them and a guest.

The Smithsonian Museum of American History on the National Mall in Washington.

(Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press)

A new White House report calls leadership of the Smithsonian Institution radical activists who “cannot be trusted to tell America’s story honestly and in a way that is inspiring, unifying, and worthy of our great republic.” The report specifically singles out the National Museum of American History, and culture watchers fear it’s paving the way for Trump to install his own team of leaders as he did at the Kennedy Center.

Speaking of the Kennedy Center, Trump appealed a court decision to remove his name from the building’s facade, but this week an appeals court denied his request.

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

We can all stop taking our kids to live-action remakes of Disney classics. Seriously. Times film critic Amy Nicholson breaks down why in this crushing review of the new live-action “Moana.”

The country will celebrate its 250th birthday Saturday, and it seems nobody quite knows how to feel about it. Being a thoughtful American in 2026 has become an art form unto itself — a balancing act two-and-a-half centuries in the making. Marking the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence requires the acceptance of a paradox so profound that it feels almost insurmountable: The great American experiment has failed; and it is also a triumph.

I’m writing this at near midnight on a muggy night in Pennsylvania — about 300 miles from Philadelphia, where in 1776 the Continental Congress adopted a document bearing one of the most famous and idealistic lines ever written: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Hundreds of years later, the course of human events has once again made it necessary for us to dissolve certain bonds, only the resulting revolution has been metaphorical and waged largely online. We have become a people pitted against one another in thought and in action. In the words we write on social media, the news we choose to consume on our siloed feeds, and the way we treat those who believe differently than we do.

How do we come together to celebrate the monumental achievement of this improbable democracy, which should be made stronger through our respectful disagreements and ability to compromise in search of a higher truth? It may be foolish to say we must lead with kindness when so much raw anger abounds, but that is all we can do. It is what we must do.

Art can help — the music, paintings, dances and plays that remind us in myriad ways that we are not alone. You’ll have access to plenty of such sustenance on this highly anticipated anniversary weekend. So if you are, like me, facing the fireworks with trepidation, find a way to lock into a favorite song, or read a poem that moves you, and the worry will pass. It always does.

I’m Arts editor Jessica Gelt, watching the fireflies. This is your arts and culture news for the week.

The week ahead: A curated calendar

SATURDAY

Richard Dreyfuss, left, Roy Scheider and Robert Shaw in the 1975 movie “Jaws.”

(Universal Pictures)

Jaws
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the theater, a series of shark attacks are expected across the city Saturday afternoon as Steven Spielberg’s 1975 blockbuster screens at the Academy Museum’s David Geffen Theater (in 4K), the American Cinematheque’s Aero Theatre (in 35 mm) and Vidiots’ Eagle Theatre.
2:30 p.m. Saturday. Academy Museum, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. academymuseum.org; 3 p.m. Saturday. Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica. americancinematheque.com; 1 and 4:30 p.m. Vidiots Eagle Theater, 4884 Eagle Rock Blvd., Eagle Rock. vidiotsfoundation.org

TUESDAY

National Museum of the Aftermath screening series
Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena N. Harolds’ short film “Foosball: U. of Virginia Charlottesville, VA 1976” (2013), inspired by a photograph of two students playing a game, examines Black life at UVA; and Andrea Fraser’s feature documentary “This meeting is being recorded” (2022) gathers a group of a self-identifying white women to discuss unconscious racism and their own roles in white supremacy.
6 p.m. Oxy Arts, 4757 York Blvd. oxyarts.oxy.edu

WEDNESDAY

Brian Quijada, left, and Nygel D. Robinson in “Mexodus.”

(Thomas Mundell)

Mexodus
Direct from an award-winning off-Broadway run, this new musical created and performed by Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson illuminates a lesser-known fork of the Underground Railroad, one that branched south across the Rio Grande.
Previews, 8 p.m. Wednesday, 7 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. July 10, 2 and 8 p.m. July 11; continues through Aug. 2. Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave. pasadenaplayhouse.org

New Swan Shakespeare Festival.

(New Swan Shakespeare Festival)

New Swan Shakespeare Festival
The annual summer-long event, featuring professional theater artists, UC Irvine alums, current graduate and undergraduate drama students and faculty, returns for another repertory season of classics under the stars at its intimate, 130-seat, portable, mini-Elizabethan space. “Romeo & Juliet,” directed by Rachael VanWormer, resets the tragic romance to the American Dust Bowl; “The Merry Wives of Windsor Cove,” adapted by Anna Fitzgerald & Eli Simon, with music by Zachary Dietz and directed by founding Artistic Director Eli Simon, brings the rollicking comedy to a 1950s SoCal surf town, powered by a live skiffle band.
“Romeo & Juliet,” 8 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday, and various dates through Aug. 29. “Merry Wives,” 8 p.m. Wednesday, and various dates through Aug. 30. UC Irvine campus, 4000 Campus Drive. newswanshakespeare.com

Wilkins Conducts Bernstein & Ellington
Thomas Wilkins guides the L.A. Philharmonic in a program of classical Americana featuring selections from Valerie Coleman, William Grant Still, a newly arranged song cycle from Shaina Taub’s Broadway hit “Suffs,” Leonard Bernstein and Duke Ellington.
8 p.m. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com

Zoot Suit
Join writer-director Luis Valdez and star Edward James Olmos for a 45th anniversary screening of the film, an adaptation of Valdez’s groundbreaking play, the truly L.A. story of the 1942 Sleepy Lagoon case and Zoot Suit Riots. Audiences are encouraged to come in costume and arrive early for the “Pachuco Boogie!” Produced in partnership with the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival, Self Help Graphics and Pachuco Car Club.
8 p.m. The Ford Ampitheatre, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East. theford.com

THURSDAY

Randal Goosby.

(L.A. Phil)

The Classical World Cup
Tito Muñoz conducts the L.A. Phil in a salute to “the beautiful game” (soccer to Americans) with works spanning the Americas by Alberto Ginastera, Samuel Barber (with Randal Goosby on violin), Silvestre Revueltas and Aaron Copland; plus the world premiere of “The Art of the Goal,” an original mixed-media concept film by director Josh Kahn and composer Adam Schoenberg. Commissioned by the L.A. Phil, the piece blends footage of elite training and match play featuring the Los Angeles Football Club with orchestral music.
8 p.m. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com

The SoCal scene

(Matt Chase / For The Times)

Celebrations for the country’s 250th birthday have been muted thus far (at least compared to the bicentennial 50 years ago), but our Entertainment and Arts team noted the moment by examining the ways the artists we cover have interpreted the nation’s complex history. Times theater critic Charles McNulty wrote that a “cohort of playwrights, breathtakingly diverse demographically as well as aesthetically, has been rejuvenating American theater.” Contributor Shana Nys Dambrot looked to local museums and identified nine works of art “exploring and expounding upon, in celebration and critique, what it means and what it feels like to be an American.” Times classical music critic Mark Swed compared the artistic and institutional responses of 2026 to the past, lamenting that “None of this comes close to comparing with the attempted civic zest of 1976.” Check out the rest of the collection of stories and essays, including Mary McNamara’s column reminding us that even in troubled times 250 years is worth celebrating because “the Constitution was written ‘in order to form a more perfect union.’ Not ‘perfect,’ but ‘more perfect.’ As in better,” and a list of 10 essential movies that capture crucible moments in U.S. history; find out what Times pop music critic Mikael Wood calls the “quintessential American song,” and which books are being read in L.A. high schools and which classics remain relevant.

Carene Rose Mekertichyan , left, and Brent Charles in “Coriolanus” at the Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival.

(Grettel Cortes)

It’s summer and that means that outdoor theater is upon us and McNulty reviewed the Independent Shakespeare Co.’s Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival production of “Coriolanus.” “It’s hard to love ‘Coriolanus,’ but it’s equally hard not to be impressed by its ambition, originality and dramatic rigor,” wrote McNulty. This “production isn’t going to win awards for subtlety, but the storytelling is crisp and vivid. And even those unfamiliar with the tale — the vast majority of attendees, in all likelihood — should find it engrossing.”

It’s hard to believe that the ABBA jukebox musical “Mamma Mia!” premiered 25 years ago. Times staff writer Eloise Rollins-Fife went backstage at the Ahmanson Theatre to visit with the behind-the-scenes crew who put so much joy into the sequin-bedazzled extravaganza on display in the show’s anniversary tour — many of whom worked on the original production and tours.

Katie Simons profiled 99-year-old Sierra Madre resident Monson de Kansky, a onetime top ballerina who went to teach Parisian royalty, raise a family and still teaches ballet.

Hollywood set painters whose work in the Tinseltown dream machine often went overlooked and uncredited are getting their due in “Staging California in Early Hollywood” at the UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art in Costa Mesa. Times staff writer Julius Miller spoke with museum director Kathryn Kanjo and assistant curator Michaëla Mohrmann about the institution’s first exhibition since UC Irvine acquired OCMA last September and Kanjo’s appointment in December.

Culture news

Rosalie Tucker, executive director of Pieter Performance Space (standing left); Andrew Pearson of Bodies in Play (second from left); Lena Martin (second from right) and Mandolin Burns (right) of Crawlspace; Dani Burd of Indigo Dance Company (bottom left); and Adie San Diego (bottom right).

(Ariana Drehsler/For The Times)

The last few years have been rough for most arts institutions and many L.A. dance spaces have closed. Contributor Steven Vargas reported on how surviving dance companies and artists are forging ahead in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic and diminished funding.

The Centre Theatre Group announced that a world tour of the acclaimed stage adaptation of Hayao Miyazaki’s Academy Award-winning animated film “Spirited Away” will open the Ahmanson Theare’s 2027-28 season. “We are honored to bring the wonder of ‘Spirited Away’ to the Ahmanson Theatre for an exclusive US engagement, offering our community the gift of experiencing one of the most cherished stories of our time, reimagined for the stage in a once-in-a-generation theatrical experience,” said Douglas C. Baker, Center Theatre Group producing director, in a statement. The production, from Toho Co., will open at the National Theater in Taipei on Dec. 16, before continuing on a national tour of Japan from March-August 2027, followed by stops at the Princess of Wales Theatre, Toronto (May-August 2027), and the Ahmanson (September–October 2027). The tour will conclude with a return to the London Coliseum (March-July 2028), where it had its European premiere in 2024 following a sold-out tour of Japan in 2022. Casting will be announced at a later date.

The British theater lost two stalwarts this week. Penelope Keith, best known for the sitcoms “The Good Life,” which aired on PBS in the U.S. as “Good Neighbors,” and “To the Manor Born,” has died at age 86. Keith joined the Royal Shakespeare Co. in 1963, won a BAFTA Award in 1977 for “The Good Life” and continued her stage career into her 80s. The New York Times reported that Michael Byrne, a noted actor of stage and screen, also died this week at 86. Byrne created the role of the suspected torturer Dr. Miranda in the premiere production of Ariel Dorfman’s 1991 play “Death and the Maiden” in London. Other notable theater roles were with Siân Phillips in “Juliet and Her Romeo,” Polonius in “Hamlet,” Cassius in “Julius Caesar” and Prince Hal in “Henry IV.” The actor also appeared in films such as “Force 10 from Navarone,” “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” “Braveheart,” “Gangs of New York” and “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.”

— Kevin Crust

And last but not least

If pyrotechnics (or drone shows!) are your thing and you’d like to celebrate the Fourth of July with a bang, Times staff writer Christopher Buchanan compiled 52 places and favorite spots to watch the festivities in Southern California.

As summer heats up alongside the exhausting news cycle, it’s crucial to find ways to unplug and wind down. Golden Hour in the newly renovated sculpture garden at the Norton Simon Museum is just the thing. Taking place tonight (Friday), and on two more Fridays this season (July 31 and Aug. 28), the event lasts from 4:30-6:30 p.m. and features a different musical group each time.

Tonight is the Verbena Quartet; a North Indian ensemble and a jazz trio are upcoming.

The fun is free with museum admission, and guests are encouraged to bring blankets to relax in the grass. I took my family of four to a recent event and it proved to be the rare occurrence when both the 10-year-old and the 17-year-old were happy. The museum provides all kinds of great art supplies on a big table by the entrance, including sketch paper, clipboards, colored pencils and charcoal drawing utensils.

There are also sheets of paper encouraging creative ways to approach drawing various sculptures in the garden, alongside a family-friendly Golden Hour bingo card with squares including “Spot something framed by tree branches” and “Look at the space between two objects.”

I did some drawing with my toes in the grass while my kiddos curved their necks over their own mini masterpieces. My husband read a book. The sun slanted low as the afternoon melted into early evening, casting lovely shadows on the families, couples, friend groups and solitary artists scattered around the garden sipping wine and snacking on cheese and crackers from the nearby cafe.

When we had our fill of relaxing, we ambled into the museum. My daughter wanted to gaze at the Picassos and the Van Goghs. As did I. I never don’t cry when I look at “The Mulberry Tree.”

“Can you imagine what he was thinking?” I asked my 10-year-old as we regarded the painting. “The pain and the beauty of it?”

She nodded sagely, gently smoothing her thumb against her own recent drawing, her deep inner world a mystery to me. The beauty and the pain of it. I was glad we had cuddled together in the late afternoon sunshine.

I’m arts editor Jessica Gelt, wishing you and your loved ones peace. This is your arts and culture news for the week.

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

Antigone
The Bebelos Players present a back-to-basics production of Sophocles’ classic drama about a young woman who defies a king to honor her dead brother.
7 p.m. Friday-Sunday. Theosophy Hall, 245 W. 33rd St. eventbrite.com

“Horse,” by Rick Bartow, 2014, wood, tar, wax, false teeth, nails. 56 x 42 x 12 in.


(Yubo Dong, ofstudio)

Rick Bartow
Last chance to catch “All of these things have happened,” an exhibition of works on paper by the late Native American artist that touch on tragedies from throughout his life, as well as “Horse,” a 2014 sculpture covered in tar, wax, false teeth and nails that is “a study of sustained resilience.”
Noon-5 p.m. Friday-Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday (last day). Timothy Hawkinson Gallery, 7424 Beverly Blvd. timothyhawkinsongallery.com

Spencer Finch
“Balboa of House and Garden,” composed entirely of new work, is the artist’s first exhibition in Los Angeles. The show includes more than 50 unique works on paper, a site-specific skylight installation and a monumental outdoor sculpture. Finch’s “Memory Landscape (Nairobi, Chicago, Honolulu, Jakarta),” 2025, a commissioned tile wall mural inspired by places from President Barack Obama’s formative years, was recently installed at the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.
Opening, 6-8 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, through Aug. 22. Lisson, 1037 N. Sycamore Ave. lissongallery.com

Bodo Mato
The pseudonymous multidisciplinary artist uses a subconscious dreamworld to access a legendary lost city to find real-world parallels in the exhibition “Atlantis: Echoes of Hubris.”
Opening reception, 6-10 p.m. Friday. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday-Tuesday. 7811 Gallery (West), 7813 Melrose Ave. 7811gallery.com

Raymond Saunders, “Layers of Being,” 1985. Mixed media on canvas, 81 x 59 15/16 x 1 in.

(Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh / Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William Block / © 2025 Estate of Raymond Saunders)

Raymond Saunders
“Flowers From a Black Garden” is a career-spanning look at the painter (1934-2025) as he moved from Dada, expressionism and assemblage to Fluxus, Pop and postmodernism, beginning in the 1960s.
11 a.m.-6 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday, through Jan. 3. UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 3333 Avenue of the Arts, Costa Mesa. langson.uci.edu

SATURDAY

Chrysalis prototypes deployed in Joshua Tree, 1970, reproduction.

(Chrysalis Corporation)

Alternative Palm Springs: Other Desert Architectures
In some parallel reality there may exist a Coachella Valley unlike anything you’ve ever imagined. In lieu of that, this exhibition shares the unbuilt visions of prominent architects, off-grid designs of the counterculture, and private and public worlds created by the LGBTQ+ during the 20th century, yielding an expanded view of the area’s architectural ambitions.
10 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday-Sunday; noon-8 p.m. Thursday; through Jan. 4; closed June 26 and July 4. Architecture and Design Center, Edwards Harris Pavilion, 300 S. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs. psmuseum.org

Declarations of Independence
Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles and guest artist Justin Tranter celebrate national and individual freedom and pride for America’s 250th anniversary.
7 p.m. Saturday; 3:30 p.m. Sunday. Saban Theatre, 8440 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills. gmcla.org/declarations

A Great Night in Hip-Hop
The Roots return for their third year at the Bowl, joined by Nas, with appearances from T.I., Bun B, De La Soul and more.
7:30 p.m. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com

Rota Fortunae
A one-night-only experimental opera featuring Jordan Slaffey reimagines the four women of the 1996 crime thriller “Set It Off” using movement, live music and fashion. Directed by Chris Emile, music by composer and DJ Cody Perkins and designs by James Flemons.
7:30 p.m. Indoor Swap Meet, 128 S. La Brea Ave., Inglewood. eventbrite.com

Peter Stampfel
An innovator of anti-folk, freak-folk and psych-folk, the 87-year-old co-founder of the Holy Modal Rounders makes a rare West Coast appearance.
8 p.m. McCabe’s Guitar Shop, 3101 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica. mccabes.com

THURSDAY

Ojai Film Society Summer Screening Series
Annual presentation of independent, foreign, documentary, critically acclaimed and classic films kicks off Thursday with Taika Waititi’s 2016 adventure comedy “Hunt for the Wilderpeople,” starring Sam Neill. Other screenings: “Selena Y Los Dinos” (July 10); “Cookie Queens” (July 17); “Best in Show” (July 24); “Arrival” (Aug. 20); and “Jurassic Park” (Aug. 27).
7:30 p.m. Thursday; various dates through Aug. 27. Libbey Bowl, 210 S. Signal St., Ojai. ojaifilmsociety.org

Tank and the Bangas
The Grammy-winning New Orleans music group shares its signature blend of funk, soul, hip-hop, rock and spoken word. Featuring an opening set by Butter Funk Family and DJ sets by Tosstones.
7 p.m. Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd. skirball.org

Arts anywhere

Meryl Streep, from left, and Amanda Seyfried, Rachel McDowall and Ashley Lilley in the 2008 movie version of “Mamma Mia!”

(Peter Mountain / Universal Pictures)

Broadway unbound

Two of the biggest hit musicals ever are in town simultaneously starting this week — “Mamma Mia!” is at the Ahmanson through July 19 and “Phantom of the Opera” plays the Hollywood Pantages through Aug. 9. If you want to bone up beforehand or relive the hits after you’ve been to the theater, the cinematic adaptations of both are widely available. The 2008 movie version of “Mamma Mia!” starring Meryl Streep and Amanda Seyfried streams on Prime through the end of June and the 2004 “Phantom” with Gerard Butler and Emmy Rossum is streaming on Prime and Apple TV. Both films are available to rent or buy on various platforms and, if you’re into physical media, relatively inexpensive Blu-ray and DVD versions can be had online. Public libraries are also great resources for arts-related content.

— Kevin Crust

Culture news and the SoCal scene

Passengers wait to board the first train to arrive at the Metro D Line at the Wilshire/Fairfax Station in Los Angeles on May 8, 2026.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

With the new Metro D Line subway extension up-and-running with new stations at Wilshire/La Brea, Wilshire/Fairfax and Wilshire/La Cienega, we asked architecture writer Sam Lubell to take an aesthetic look at these new displays of public art. “Suddenly the city feels different. Not transformed, exactly. But more connected,” wrote Lubell. “The fracturing grip of the city’s incomprehensible expanses, clogged arteries and stagnant governance — all intimidating barriers to healthy civic life — feels a little looser. … The stations, too, feel more connected, with art, architecture and infrastructure blending seamlessly into a cohesive experience … But above ground, it’s a tale of two (transit) cities. Outdoor plazas lack the kind of textured civic presence that’s been created below.”

The Hollywood Bowl opened its summer season with a lavish production, “The Best of Broadway,” starring Lea Salonga, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Darren Criss, Renée Elise Goldsberry and Halle Bailey, and hosted by Billy Crystal. The program including a selection of Broadway tunes old and new, was delivered with flair to an appreciative audience. “I had a lovely time,” reports Times theater critic Charles McNulty, “but I can’t say the concert lived up to its title. Not that impressive virtuosity wasn’t on display, but Broadway is truly at its best when musical numbers are embedded in a story, allowing the performers to feed off each other and reach heights that they might not be able to reach on their own. Too much of the bill required the actors to stand and deliver, ‘American Idol’-style. It was a little unfair to place such a heavy burden on them.”

McNulty also reviewed the Geffen Playhouse’s Los Angeles premiere of Pearl Cleage’s “Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous,” about an American expat actor angling for her big comeback. The play, wrote McNulty, “is hamstrung with exposition. More time is devoted to setting up the dramatic situation than to activating it. … The intentions are noble and the themes are handled with admirable complexity, but the writing is sluggish. The plot is like an old car whose engine just refuses to start on a cold winter morning.”

After 20 years as LA Opera Music Director James Conlon will step down.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

The final show of L.A. Opera’s production “Marriage of Figaro” last Sunday also marked the end of James Conlon’s tenure at the podium as the organization’s music director. Stepping down after 20 years, Conlon spoke to Times classical music critic Mark Swed. “I love L.A. and I’m not going to leave,” said Conlon. “I am absolutely happy at this point in my life. You know my age is 76. It is not a secret. I wear it proudly. But I’ve been a music director for 47 years, and I don’t want to be a music director any longer. I will still conduct.” Will he return regularly to L.A. Opera? “That’s the theory,” he said

Another maestro who can’t quit L.A. is Esa-Pekka Salonen. Last weekend, the beloved composer and conductor, who is back with the L.A. Phil as creative director, returned to the Ojai Music Festival after a quarter-century absence. “Salonen found renewal not from the desperation of rethinking but from freshening, illuminating the perception of exceptional young musicians first encountering greatness,” wrote Swed in his review of the four days. “In these uncertain times, that may be the most remarkable act of artistic optimism.”

Spanish artist Nieves Gonzalez stands next to one of her paintings that is part of her solo show at the Richard Heller Gallery at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica on June 18, 2026.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Not yet 30, Spanish painter Nieves González is a burgeoning international art star with an exhibition at Richard Heller Gallery in Santa Monica. “Fashion inspires me,” she told writer Jane Horowitz in a recent interview. “Just as 17th century artists drew inspiration from the fashion of their day — often creating paintings that served as catalogs of current styles — I do the same. The goal is to not merely convey a specific message or ideology but to create a testament to a generation and the era in which we live.”

“California Gothic: A Bus Tour,” an avant-garde sightseeing event organized by the New Theater Hollywood, turns Tinseltown “into a stage, drawing locals for a mash-up of state history, gothic storytelling and public-intellectual riffing on the broken California dream,” wrote Times staff writer Eloise Rollins-Fife. The tour ended its latest run in mid-June, but will reopen during the last week of October for a special “ghost tour” edition.

Times columnist Patt Morrison reported from the City of Lights on Paris-born street artist JR’s “La Caverne du Pont Neuf,” which she describes as “an enormous art installation, a trompe l’oeil inflatable snow-clad mountain range … an homage to the innovative work of groundbreaking environmental artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude.” The work uses about 200,000 square feet of printed fabric on the city’s oldest bridge to create the illusion and the artist told Morrison, “Your eye wants to believe it, and for a moment you let yourself. That gap between knowing and believing is where the play happens, and people love being inside that gap.”

Stewart McLaurin, president of the White House Historical Assn., displays a newly-acquired suite of four interrelated paintings by Norman Rockwell titled, “So You Want to See the President!” at the association’s offices Wednesday, June 10, 2026, in Washington.

(John McDonnell / Associated Press)

In the 1940s, Norman Rockwell spent time in the visitor’s lobby of the White House sketching U.S. senators, members of the military, the press and a Miss America as they awaited entry into the Oval Office to see President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Eight decades later, four of the sketches have been acquired by the White House Historical Assn. for $7 million, according to the Associated Press. Titled “So You Want to See the President!” the sketches will be on public display through June 2027 at the historical association’s “The People’s House” education center near the White House.

It was a busy week for announcing some of this fall and winter’s Broadway openings. Lincoln Center Theater’s Vivian Beaumont will host a revival of Aaron Sorkin’s “A Few Good Men,” starring Bradley Whitford and Tom Blyth, directed by six-time Tony winner Michael Arlen, starting Oct. 8. In March 2027, LCT Artistic Director Lear deBessonet will helm a new production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music,” for its first Broadway run in nearly 30 years. A revival of Richard Greenberg’s “Three Days of Rain” lands in February 2027 at a Shubert Organization-owned theater to be announced with Anna D. Shapiro directing. The cast will include “Heated Rivalry’s” François Arnaud and David Corenswet of “Superman” in their Broadway debuts, joined by Yvonne Strahovski of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” The play was previously on Broadway in 2006 with Julia Roberts, Bradley Cooper and Paul Rudd. Walter Hill’s 1979 gang saga “The Warriors” will make the leap from screen to stage as a musical, with a book, music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Eisa Davis. Previews begin at Broadway’s Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in March 2027 with an opening slated for April. Jenny Koons will direct.

— Kevin Crust

And last but not least

We cover a lot of awards in this space, but today we get to give a shout-out to one of our own. Times theater critic Charles McNulty was awarded the prestigious Nell Minow Award for Cultural Criticism by the National Press Club this week. His submission included a reflection on the Los Angeles wildfires through the poetry of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”; a tribute to South African anti-Apartheid trailblazer Athol Fugard; and an essay on the complexities of Audra McDonald’s performance in “Gypsy,” among others. The Times also won the Breaking News Award in the print/online category for its reporting on the January 2025 L.A. firestorms. A presentation ceremony and dinner will take place Aug. 27 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. For the complete list of winners, visit press.org.

The Washington National Opera filed a lawsuit on Thursday that demands more than $17 million from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The opera company claims it is owed millions in donations that have been withheld.

The lawsuit claims that after the opera company and the Kennedy Center parted ways in January, center officials have not returned more than $17 million in gifts and donations that belong to the opera company. The lawsuit lists the federal government as a defendant because the Kennedy Center was established by Congress.

According to the suit, the opera company and the Kennedy Center had a longstanding contract in which WNO produced its operas at the Kennedy Center, which in return, provided a number of services and other support for the opera company including managing its donations.

In late 2025, after approximately 15 years of affiliation, the suit claims that the Kennedy Center stopped performing the obligations of their agreement, which included marketing, fundraising and administrative support, as well as timely reporting on the growth of the opera company’s funds. When the opera company requested the Kennedy Center remedy the issue, center officials asked to sever ties.

“Five months have now passed since the termination of the affiliation, and the Kennedy Center still has not returned the funds to WNO,” reads the suit. “To the contrary, according to the Kennedy Center’s Chief Financial Officer, the Kennedy Center has put a significant portion of WNO’s money at risk by using it to collateralize the Kennedy Center’s line of credit.”

In an emailed statement responding to the lawsuit, Roma Daravi, a spokeswoman for the Kennedy Center, told The Times that the contract between the opera house and the center financially burdened the center for more than a decade. The statement claimed that taking into account the company’s endowment, an external accounting firm calculated that the opera company had “accumulated a $72 million deficit to the center” between 2011 and 2026.

“The Center has acted transparently and in the best interests of the public throughout this process,” the statement reads. “This lawsuit is meritless, and we plan to pursue a countersuit to defend the institution.”

The legal action comes during a tumultuous time for the Kennedy Center. Last year, President Trump fired the board and appointed himself chairman of the Kennedy Center.

In December, President Trump’s name was installed on the exterior of the center the day after his handpicked board of trustees voted to change the institution’s name to the “Trump-Kennedy Center.” Last month, a federal judge ordered President Trump’s name to be removed from the exterior of the building within two weeks and a halt to the Trump administration’s planned two-year closure of the venue.

On Friday, the court-ordered deadline for removing his name sparked widespread interest and crowds gathered outside the center. A live cam was also placed near the structure.

The Times arts editor Jessica Gelt contributed to this report.

A site of big changes, the Music Center has become farewell central. Alongside the Gustavo Dudamel hullabaloo at Walt Disney Concert Hall, James Conlon has begun his final appearances in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion as music director for two decades of Los Angeles Opera, with his own signature form of enchantment in Mozart’s “Magic Flute.”

The silent-movie panache of Barrie Kosky’s production, which opened Saturday night at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and runs through June 21, is on its way to becoming a perennial. This is the third revival since L.A. Opera first staged it in 2013 — all four times with Conlon in the pit. The production operates like an operatic graphic novel and live animated film charmingly all in one. The scene is a giant movie screen broken up in sections and upon which is projected witty, fantastical background animation, while the characters are the live singers, dressed as though silent film stars.

The orchestra plays Mozart’s score as though it were, as orchestras did in the old days, accompanying a silent movie but to radically different effect. Fulgurous cinematic spectacle may immerse your attention, but the opera’s essence is transferred from the stage to the pit. The singers, meanwhile, function to an unusual degree as choreographed characters in a cartoon, leaving little opportunity for body language, allowing, instead, individual expression almost exclusively to their voices.

In Mozart’s opera, Tamino, a prince in a fairyland of mystic temples and mystifying gods, relies on his supernatural flute that turn sorrow into joy to get him out of jams. The genius of Kosky’s singularly musical production is that it magically makes the orchestra itself a compendious magic flute. It more than ever becomes an agent of delight.

That is where Conlon comes in. He has, while leading L.A. Opera for 20 seasons (half the company’s existence), served as an advocate for the core operatic repertory — notably Mozart, Verdi and Wagner — much of it little heard in our late-blooming former operatic desert. He has also been an international champion of his “recovered voices” project, salvaging the neglected operas of composers in the first half of the 20th century who were silenced by Nazi Germany.

“The Magic Flute,” one of the world’s two or three most popular operas, needs no such patronage. Written at the end of Mozart’s life as a popular entertainment, its a singspiel, or sung play. As a proto-Broadway musical operatic genre of spoken word and musical numbers, it appeals on all levels. The fairy-tale libretto is child-friendly. Mozart’s score is tune heaven.

The troublesome Queen of the Night dazzles with high notes that shoot out like daggers. The main lovers, Tamino and Pamina, are lyrical wonders. The comical bird-catcher, Papageno, is everyone’s darling. The domineering Sarastro, an all-powerful priest, bellows spiritual profundities. But if you start digging under the surface, deeper than the symbolic Freemasonry and all, you may never find bottom.

The opera begins with three ceremonial chords in the orchestra that signal a brief, sober introduction quickly undercut by an exhilarating fast-forwarding overture. Those three chords can be made to mean many things. Often, they come across as commands by an orchestra to sit up straight and pay attention. They may be dignified or downright quirky and playfully no big deal, just a here-we-go.

Conlon handles them as a sweet, perfectly tuned, almost amorous invitation to pleasure, implying this will be a genial, gracious, laid-back “Flute.” Among his accomplishments in L.A. has been to make the opera’s orchestra capable of producing just such velvety, flowing Mozart, as well as terse, tight theater.

Here, Conlon offers a lesson in the kind of leadership generally lacking in modern society, by simultaneously staying out of the way yet being at the essential center of things. Depth here is not announced, but the care of phrasing implies that there is more to everything Mozart is saying than first meets the ear, that, under it all, the “Magic Flute” is not fantasy but a spiritual lesson in morality.

Many in the cast, this revival, are young singers, not yet well known and new to the company. Sydney Mancasola and Miles Mykkanen, as Pamina and Tamino, are likable, lyric lovers. Kyle Miller catches Papageno’s vulnerable charm. Aigul Khismatullina, Queen of the Night, impresses with the silvery pricks of her high notes, while Kwangchul Youn’s Sarastro, unsteady in middle register, takes on weight at the bottom of his bass. Zhengyi Bai’s lustful Monostatos, disguised in the production as a hammy vampire, almost steals the show a time or two. The Three Ladies and Three Spirits provide vocal allure.

One of the evening’s most theatrical moments, though, came after the music stopped when what sounded like a gun interrupted curtain calls. But as if rescued by a magic flute, an instant of fear turned to joy, glittery gold graffiti filling the Chandler and celebrating Conlon.

The World Cup arrives in L.A. on Thursday. This marks the first time the festivities have taken place in the Southland since 1994, when Pasadena’s Rose Bowl hosted the final between Brazil and Italy, which famously ended in a scoreless tie and was decided by a penalty shootout that led to Brazil winning its fourth World Cup title. (The U.S. hosted the Women’s World Cup in 1999 and 2003, with the finals at the Rose Bowl and Home Depot Center [now known as Dignity Health Sports Park], respectively.)

Soccer is art and art is soccer and soccer is life — and also one of the most beloved sports on the planet — and thankfully for you, dear arts lover, you can mix your passion for art and fútbol by heading to a free public viewing party at a number of local museums and cultural institutions.

This year sees Spain and France as favorites, with England, Brazil, Portugal and defending champions Argentina all in the running. No matter who your team is, there is a museum watch party for you. Here are your top choices, in no particular order:

The Getty Center: A variety of watch parties will take place on newly installed big screens at the museum’s Trellis Bar & Lounge and Garden Terrace Cafe, which will also feature themed menu items and drinks. The Getty will stay open until 9 p.m. on June 12, 19, 26 and July 3 to accommodate evening games. Normal Friday hours will resume July 10. Admission is free, but a reservation is required. Parking is free after 5 p.m.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art: The museum is hosting two free outdoor watch parties on large screens located on its Smidt Welcome Plaza on Wilshire Boulevard. Mexico vs. Korea can be seen from 6 to 8 p.m. on June 18; and Uruguay vs. Cape Verde will take place at 3p.m. on June 21.

LACMA is also hosting a few soccer-themed events, including “Andell Family Sundays: ‘Fútbol Is Life’,” set to take place on June 7, 14 and 28 from 12:30 to 3:30 pm. The event features art-making workshops inspired by the museum’s ‘Fútbol Is Life’ exhibit featuring soccer miniatures by Lyndon J. Barrois Sr., and led by artists Karl Petion and Patricia Yossen. There is also an event called “Let’s Play: Soccer Juggling,” from noon to 3 p.m. on June 21. This is also tied to the exhibit and offers lessons in soccer basics through a drop-in juggling and accuracy workshop led by representatives from American Youth Soccer Organization. All ages and experience levels are welcome. RSVP required.

The Autry Museum of the American West: The Autry’s free Griffith Park watch party will take place at 4 p.m. June 12 when Paraguay takes on USA. The event will feature food trucks, themed cocktails, soccer-inspired games and activities, and local vendors selling specialty wares. Free, but an RSVP is required.

The Music Center: It’s not a museum, but it’s one of the city’s most beloved cultural centers. It’s also hosting a free public screening of Spain vs. Uruguay from 5 to 7 p.m. on June 26 on its lovely Jerry Moss Plaza, including family-friendly activities and themed refreshments. Bring a picnic or pick your dinner from an on-site restaurant. Stick around after the game for a free global dance party celebrating the start of the 22nd season of the Music Center’s Dance DTLA.

I’m Arts editor Jessica Gelt putting my game face on. This is your arts and culture news for the week.

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

Gustavo Dudamel: Celebrating 17 Years
In his final concert as L.A. Phil music director at Disney Hall, the maestro joins his Venezuelan and American identities, conducting two poetry-inspired choral symphonic works. John Adams’ “Harmonium” borrows texts from Emily Dickinson and John Donne to explore time, harmony and rhythm. “Cantata Criolla” by composer Antonio Estévez follows a Venezuelan troubadour who squares off against the devil.
8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com

Haunted
In this one-act dance opera, composer Paul Salerni unites poetry and music to share a tale of doomed love entwined with a ghost story with an unexpected conclusion. Based on a libretto by former California Poet Laureate Dana Gioia.
8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd. sierramadreplayhouse.org

SATURDAY

Family Fest: Pride
A free, outdoor event celebrating love, identity and inclusivity, featuring Bob Baker Marionette Theater, Iwalani Music, Everybody Dance LA, Drag Story Time, Color Me Face Painting and more.
11 a.m.-2 p.m. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. thewallis.org

“Catapult” by Alex Gardner, 2025. Acrylic on canvas.
48 1/16 x 96 1/16 inches.

(Wild Don Lewis Photography; courtesy of Alex Garden and Perrotin)

Alex Gardner, Gabriel Rico and Makiko Kudo
A trio of new exhibitions connected through the natural world and the creatures, great and small, who inhabit it: In “Animals,” painter Alex Gardner explores his experience of fatherhood; Gabriel Rico’s “Gabrielinos (I Am You And What I See Is Me),” the artist’s first solo show in Los Angeles, uses textile, assemblage and sculpture to encourage viewers to think about the world around them; the life and death of Japanese painter Makiko Kudo’s pet cat inspired “Reincarnation,” a series of oil paintings.
Opening reception, 6-8 p.m.; exhibitions run through July 11. Perrotin Los Angeles, 5036 W. Pico Blvd. perrotin.com

Magnificent Mozart & Mahler
Eckart Preu conducts the Long Beach Symphony in two classical masterpieces, “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” and Mahler’s Fifth.
7:30 p.m. Long Beach Terrace Theater, 300 E. Ocean Blvd. longbeachsymphony.org

Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum
The summer repertory season launches with Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in the great outdoors of Topanga Canyon.
“Romeo and Juliet,” 7:30 p.m. Saturday-Sept. 26; “A Midsummer’s Night Dream,” Sunday-Oct. 10. Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, 1419 Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga. theatricum.com

SUNDAY

Juneteenth Block Party
Debbie Allen Dance Academy (DADA) hosts its annual free community celebration featuring free dance master classes, live performances, carnival rides, games, food trucks, music and a marketplace for local and minority-owned businesses. Noon-7 p.m. Debbie Allen Dance Academy, 1850 S. Manhattan Place, L.A. debbieallendanceacademy.com

L’Chaim America!
The Braid theater company performs real stories of American Jewish life centered on gratitude and possibility.
2:30 p.m. Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., L.A. skirball.org

MONDAY
National Museum of the Aftermath
The project, conceived and titled by Cauleen Smith and curated by Jon Rubin and Harrison Kinnane Smith, travels from city to city adopting a different name and form in each location. For two months, it will operate within Oxy Arts, challenging the status quo of history and speculating on the future.
11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday; through Aug. 8. Oxy Arts, 4757 York Blvd., L.A. oxyarts.oxy.edu

WEDNESDAY

Denise Burse, from left, Charlayne Woodard and Deborah Joy Winans in rehearsal for “Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous” at Geffen Playhouse.

(Isaak Berliner.)

Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous
An expat actor of a certain age returns to the U.S. primed for a comeback, only to face a new generation with very different ideas from her own. Written by Pearl Cleage and directed by LaTanya Richardson Jackson. Denise Burse, Olivia Washington, Deborah Joy Winans and Charlayne Woodard star.
Through July 12. Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood. geffenplayhouse.org

The Revolutionists
Playwright Lauren Gunderson turns France’s Reign of Terror on its ear in this raucous comedy about women fighting for égalité. Directed by Jamie Torcellini.
Previews, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday; 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays, through June 28. International City Theatre, 330 E. Seaside Way, Long Beach. https://ictlongbeach.org/therevolutionists/

THURSDAY

Double Take: Photographs in Pairs
An intriguing exhibition matching photographs based on their formal qualities: the angle of a body, the geometry of a space, the relationship between figures and the interpretation of color. Photographers featured include Diane Arbus, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Lauren Greenfield, Mary Ellen Mark, Helmut Newton, Irving Penn, Herb Ritts, Sam Taylor-Johnson, Bruce Weber and Bastiaan Woudt.
Opening reception 7-9 p.m. Thursday; exhibition runs through July 18. Fahey/Klein Gallery, 148 N. La Brea Ave. faheykleingallery.com

Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2025.

(David Swanson/For The Times)

Ojai Music Festival
This year’s music director, Esa-Pekka Salonen, is in the spotlight as a composer with the U.S. premiere of his new work for violin and cello and the first complete performance of his “Six Preludes” for piano, and other works; Salonen also conducts the Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening concerts. In its 80th year, the festival pays tribute to its defining musical figures and welcomes L.A. Phil New Music Group, Colburn Orchestra, L.A. Dance Project and many other noteworthy artists.
Through June 14, 2026. Libbey Bowl, 210 S Signal St., Ojai. ojaifestival.org

Rheology
This experimental play by Pulitzer Prize finalist and Obie winner Shayok Misha Chowdhury is a collaboration with his mother, physicist Bulbul Chakraborty, filled with dramatic urgency.
8 p.m. Thursday, and June 12-13. REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., downtown L.A. redcat.org

Thursday Night Jazz
Weekly series featuring guest musicians backed by the Jack Lieberman Trio. Upcoming guests include the Tyler Hammond Jazz Experience (June 11); Ido Eylon and Willem Jochems (June 18); and Joey Du Bois with Kahlil Childs (June 25).
8 p.m. Thursdays. The Spotlight, 1601 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. thespotlight.la

Arts anywhere

New and recent releases of arts-related media.

Ann Patchett and her novel “Whistler.”

(Los Angeles Times illustration; images from Emily Dorio, Harper)

Ann Patchett, ‘Whistler’
What does a literary novelist have to do with the performing and visual arts? In Patchett’s stories, the past is often inextricably entwined with the present and within those threaded timeframes lie traces of genetic code leading to the arts and art-adjacent worlds. In “Taft” (1994), the protagonist is a former jazz musician turned Memphis bar owner; “The Magician’s Assistant” (1997) finds the title character unraveling the illusions of her own life; “Bel Canto” (2021) features a famous American soprano at the center of a hostage crisis; and “Tom Lake” (2023) revolves around a Michigan woman’s long ago love affair with a soon to be famous actor during a summer stock production of Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town.” Of the writer’s latest book, “Whistler,” Times contributor Leigh Haber wrote, “This exquisite writer has once again delivered an incandescent work of fiction — sweet, but never sentimental, infinitely wise and suffused with love. It’s also an ode to New York City itself.” And that ode notably begins with the protagonist and her husband at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A place that Haber notes, “one gets the sense, they know by heart.” This connection to art may prove to be tangential — I’ve only read a quarter of the book — but Patchett’s appreciation of these worlds is anything but.
Harper: 304 pages, $30

— Kevin Crust

Culture news and the SoCal scene

Jeff LeBeau, left, and Tim Cummings in the West Coast premiere of Samuel D. Hunter’s “Grangeville” at the Ruskin Group Theatre Arts Center, dairected by John Perrin Flynn.

(John Perrin Flynn)

Times theater critic Charles McNulty reviewed the West Coast premiere of playwright Samuel D. Hunter’s “Grangeville,” directed by John Perrin Flynn, at the Ruskin Group Theatre. The play, which explores the lives of two estranged half brothers from a small Idaho town, is “beautifully acted,” McNulty writes, adding, that Hunter, “the bard of Idaho,” is “one of the theater’s outstanding American realists.”

McNulty also loved the Alicia Keys jukebox musical, “Hell’s Kitchen,” which staged its L.A. debut last week at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre. The musical tells the story of Key’s upbringing in the Manhattan neighborhood of the show’s title, but the story isn’t where the show shines, writes McNulty, noting that the joy comes from the way Keys’ music is seamlessly integrated into the narrative.

Yo-Yo Ma plays the solo for the premiere of Angelica Negron’s “Mudillo” on Thursday, May 28, 2026.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

“Our streets are garlanded with ‘Gracias, Gustavo’ banners and billboards. The Walt Disney Concert Hall shop has become a Dudamel-torium, aisles bursting with Gustavo T-shirts, hoodies, tote bags, refrigerator magnets and this and that,” writes Times classical music critic Mark Swed in a review of Dudamel’s penultimate weekend at Walt Disney Concert Hall, including one featuring cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Dancers from choreographer Benjamin Millepied’s L.A. Dance Project rehearse at LACMA’s David Geffen Galleries on Friday, May 22, 2026, in Los Angeles.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

Benjamin Millepied’s L.A. Dance Project is staging a free, two-week-long series of public shows called “City of Dance” which take place at nine Southern California landmarks, including LACMA, Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Tongva Park and Stearns Wharf. Read all about how the project came to be, including its use of Philip Glass’ score from the critically acclaimed 1982 documentary film, “Koyaanisqatsi.”

Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts announced its 2026-27 season.

(Jason Kempin / Getty Images for Wallis Annenber)

Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts has unveiled its 2026-27 season, its first under the leadership of its new executive director and CEO, Jean Davidson. Highlights include music by Joshua Redman Quartet; Ronald K. Brown and his dance company Evidence, comedy and cabaret by performers including Sandra Bernhard and designer Isaac Mizrahi; recitals by L.A. Opera, concerts featuring Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and much more. “At the heart of this season is a belief in the power of live performance to connect people to ideas, to one another, and to the shared human experience. We are proud to support artists who spark curiosity, foster empathy, and invite dialogue, while continuing to strengthen The Wallis as a vibrant gathering place for all audiences,” said Davidson in a news release. See the full schedule here.

Pacific Jazz Orchestra also announced its 2026-27 season led by composer, arranger and conductor Chris Walden. The 40-piece string orchestra and big band hybrid is entering its fourth season with five programs dedicated to jazz, swing, soul R&B, Broadway and pop, staged in six venues across the region, including in Beverly Hills, Irvine, Northridge, Palm Desert, Santa Barbara and Ventura. Featured guest artists include Broadway star Sutton Foster, pianist David Benoit and vocalist Nayanna Holley. See the full schedule here.

UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance has announced “Far Away, Here,” a new multiyear international opera initiative that will launch in the 2026-27 season with the U.S. premiere of a new adaptation of “Kafka’s Letter to His Father, “ scheduled to run Nov. 12-14 at the UCLA Nimoy Theater. The initiative will continue to present U.S. premieres of under-the-radar operas by artists from around the world, and is curated and produced by tenor Timur Bekbosunov, in collaboration with CAP UCLA’s executive and artistic director, Edgar Miramontes.

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

I told you where to watch the World Cup at area museums, but here’s a list for folks who would like to watch the old-fashioned way, at restaurants and bars.