performance

It’s Broadway’s time to shine Sunday when the 79th Tony Awards take New York City.

Broadcast live from Radio City Music Hall, the night promises plenty of onstage drama and hopefully some real-life intrigue. The number of new Broadway productions this year — 30 — shrunk from last year’s 42, but there are still some standout shows and performances to watch out for, from flashy revivals like “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” to Laurie Metcalf’s stunning turns in both “Death of a Salesman” and “Little Bear Ridge Road.”

Grammy Award winner Pink is hosting for the first time, and though the pop star lacks direct Broadway roots, her songs have been featured in the jukebox musicals “Moulin Rouge!” and “& Juliet.”

Here’s everything else you should know about this year’s ceremony, including how to tune in.

How can I watch?

The three-hour awards ceremony will air live on CBS on Sunday at 5 p.m. Paramount+ premium-level subscribers can also stream it on the app, while those with other membership tiers can watch the show on-demand after it airs.

The annual pre-show, “The Tony Awards: Act One,” will stream live on free service Pluto TV at 3:35 p.m. that same day. It is hosted by Tony Award nominee Laura Benanti and actor Tituss Burgess and includes the first round of Tony Award presentations.

Who is performing?

This year’s opening number, a show-stopping Tonys tradition, will feature more than 170 Broadway performers. It’s choreographed by Sarah O’Gleby and written by Benj Pasek, Justin Paul and Mark Sonnenblick.

As always, casts from the productions nominated for best musical — “The Lost Boys,” “Schmigadoon!,” “Titaníque” and “Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)” — and for best revival of a musical — “Cats: The Jellicle Ball,” “Ragtime” and Richard O’Brien’s “The Rocky Horror Show” — will perform during the ceremony.

Rachel Zegler will pay tribute to “A Chorus Line” and Tony Award winner Leslie Odom Jr. will perform “Without You” from “Rent” to honor the show’s 30th anniversary as well as those in the theater community who have died this year.

The “Chicago” revival will also celebrate its 30th anniversary on Broadway with a performance from stars including Queen Latifah, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal of Matron Mama Morton in the show’s 2002 film adaptation, and Tony Awards host Pink. The entire original cast of “The Book of Mormon,” including Tony Award nominees Josh Gad, Andrew Rannells and Rory O’Malley and Tony winner Nikki M. James, will also perform in celebration of the show’s 15th anniversary on Broadway.

Who is presenting?

Notable stars of stage, screen and music presenting awards include Grammy Award winner Megan Thee Stallion, who made her Broadway debut this year in “Moulin Rouge!”; Nicole Scherzinger, who won a Tony last year for her performance in the revival of “Sunset Boulevard”; and Academy Award winner Adrien Brody.

You can find the star-studded presenter lineup here.

What is nominated?

“Schmigadoon!” and “The Lost Boys,” both nominated for best musical, lead the pack with 12 nominations each going into Sunday’s awards ceremony. The “Ragtime” revival trails with 11 nominations, and lauded revivals “Death of a Salesman,” “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” and “The Rocky Horror Show” are each nominated for nine awards.

Find a full list of nominees here.

First-timers visiting the 35,000-square-foot Mercado La Paloma, take heed: The line likely trailing out the door and into the parking lot is specifically for Holbox, the most decorated and popular among the market’s seven food vendors. Chef Gilberto Cetina’s mariscos creations are revolutionary in their freshness and jigsaw-intricate flavors. Tuna tostada, scallop aguachile, coctel mixto and smoked kanpachi taco number among must-try dishes. Other wonderful options in the mercado await without the Holbox queues. Begin at Komal, where Fátima Juárez’s quesadillas and tacos, as beautiful as they are delicious, showcase the earthy-fragrant masa she crafts daily from heirloom corn varieties, and Chichén Itzá, where the Cetina family serves lush, orange-scented cochinita pibil and other specialties from the Yucatán. The mercado is such a vital sanctuary for the city that fellow critic Jenn Harris and I ranked it number one on our recent guide to the 101 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles.

WASHINGTON — An upcoming celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary, “The Great American State Fair,” recently had several musical guests back out, partly over the event’s ties to President Trump. Now, Trump himself is slated to headline the festivities.

“I understand Artists are getting ‘the yips’ having to do with their performance,” Trump posted on his social media platform Saturday. With a boastful and derisive flourish, he adding that he was thinking of bringing “the man who some say is the Greatest President in History (THE GOAT!), DONALD J. TRUMP, to take the place of these highly paid, Third Rate ‘Artists.’”

The group organizing the June fair on Washington’s National Mall, Freedom 250, confirmed the billing in a statement Saturday, writing, “We are excited to announce that President Trump will personally kick off this historic celebration on Wednesday, June 24.”

Danielle Alvarez, a spokesperson for Freedom 250, said the fair that is officially scheduled from June 25 through July 10 will feature exhibits, family friendly attractions, flyovers and musical performances — by those still remaining on the program.

Trump was dismissive of the acts that backed out, insulting them and suggesting in a follow-up post that the solution is to “Cancel it.”

“We should have a giant MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN RALLY, for 250, instead of having overpriced singers, who nobody wants to hear, whose music is boring, and yet who do nothing but complain,” he wrote.

Freedom 250 is billed as nonpartisan, but it was launched last year by Trump and is led by a former State Department appointee from the president’s first term. Several artists, including Bret Michaels, the Commodores and Martina McBride dropped out last week.

Michaels and other artists have said that they were misled about the theme of the shows or were otherwise wary of being caught up in a political fight. McBride, in a statement on Instagram, said she had been “presented with an opportunity to perform at a nonpartisan event but that turned out to be misleading.”

Other artists plan to attend, including Flo Rida, Fab Morvan of Milli Vanilli and Vanilla Ice. The latter’s representative previously said that the “Ice Ice Baby” rapper was “proud to help celebrate America’s 250th Anniversary!”

Bedayn and Binkley write for the Associated Press. AP writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

As someone who has been covering high school baseball championship games in Southern California for six decades, the pitching performance seen on Friday night by Julian Garcia of St. John Bosco moves into the top five, if not a share for No. 1.

Garcia struck out 14, walked none and surrendered only a first-inning double to Codey Brown in a 2-0 victory over Norco in the Southern Section Division 1 final at Cal State Fullerton. His fastball was reaching 95 mph. He was blowing fastballs past top hitters all night.

Probably the No. 1 pitching performance continues to be Bret Saberhagen of Cleveland in the 1981 City Section championship game at Dodger Stadium when he threw a no-hitter against Palisades.

Others that come to mind:

No pitcher has been as overpowering as Garcia was under the lights. And he needed to be near perfect to beat Norco pitcher Jordan Ayala, who also was outstanding.

What a memory to add to Southern California’s great pitching moments in championship games.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.

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Three weeks ago The Times published an article in which general manager Perry Minisian said the Angels are “very competitive” and “our best baseball is in front of us.” He then cited run differential and team ERA as examples. After getting swept by the Dodgers by a combined 31-3 the Angels had the worst run differential, worst won/loss record and are at or near the bottom in all pitching and hitting categories in MLB.

Since owner Arte Moreno believes that “winning is not a top priority,” he must be very pleased with both the work of his GM and the team’s performance so far this season. That the three games against the Dodgers were sold out was not because of fans’ desire to see this “very competitive” Angels team.

Rob Nelson
Dana Point

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The Angels’ ultimate indignity is its own hometown newspaper doesn’t regard it highly enough to staff its games with a full-time writer. The Angels are irrelevant in Southern California and the owner isn’t self aware enough to realize it.

Ron Yukelson
San Luis Obispo

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I just wanted to give praise to the Angels TV and radio broadcast teams. Even with the Angels having the worst record in baseball, and having suffered 10 straight losing seasons, the broadcast teams approach the games professionally and always with a positive attitude. As a lifelong Angels fan, it always reminds me of that saying “hope springs eternal.”

Steve Shaevel
Woodland Hills

What’s 2,030-feet long-by-167-feet wide and blue all over? If you guessed the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, you’re right!

Bonus points for triggering someone in your immediate orbit, because ever since President Trump announced his intention to apply blue paint to the basin of architect Henry Bacon’s 1923 pool, the mere mention of the project can make certain people’s heads explode. To wit, a lawsuit filed this month in district court by the Cultural Landscape Foundation and a former Park Service landscape architect, Charles Birnbaum, claims Trump’s actions have caused Birnbaum to suffer “aesthetic injury.”

The phrase might sound humorous at first read, but anyone who cares about art, architecture and the experience of shared public space knows there’s nothing funny about it. We’ve all felt the empty sorrow of staring into the abyss of a boxy Walmart superstore, and experienced a deep malaise of the soul when driving past an endless crush of fast food chains on the outskirts of a major metropolitan area.

It’s doubtful this sadness is shared by Trump, for whom an “aesthetic injury” might best be represented by a McDonald’s without its golden arches. Plus, our president clearly thinks a great deal of good will come from painting the reflecting pool at the center of the National Mall American Flag Blue.

Only a few days ago Trump posted what I can only assume was an AI-generated image of the final product on Truth Social. The blue in question is shockingly bright — like the sky over the Aegean Sea at noon on a cloudless day. That kind of blue can be breathtakingly beautiful, but in this case it swallows up everything around it, including the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, which it was built to reflect.

The blue pool, in other words, is the main event — and that is not what was intended by its creators. Indeed, Birnbaum’s lawsuit notes the value of various design choices including, “the grey, achromatic basin of the Reflecting Pool as the source of the pool’s profound reflective depth.”

The lawsuit continues, “The ongoing resurfacing of the basin in vivid blue has materially degraded Mr. Birnbaum’s aesthetic experience. Mr. Birnbaum’s aesthetic enjoyment of the Reflecting Pool — as a historic designed landscape whose character he has documented, championed, and personally appreciated over many years — is being concretely harmed by Defendants’ ongoing alteration of its character defining features.”

Many other critics and vocal members of the public have claimed similar harm resulting from the numerous renovations Trump is making in the nation’s Capitol — mostly without court approval or congressional oversight — including his demolition of the White House’s East Wing, his construction of a massive ballroom to replace it, the building of a towering triumphal arch, and the creation of a Hero’s Garden in a public park space along the Potomac river.

Painting the Reflecting Pool American Flag Blue may not be the most intrusive of these impulsive, self-aggrandizing acts, but it was the pigment that broke the camel’s back.

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

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic
The departing maestro and his colleagues are in the homestretch and it’s a busy one. This weekend, there are performances of world premieres of Roberto Sierra’s “Estudios Sinfónicos” (Friday and Sunday) and Angélica Negrón’s “Mundillo (Little World)” (Saturday, featuring YoYo Ma). Both new works are paired with Richard Strauss’ “Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40.” On Thursday, Dudamel celebrates the musicians of the L.A. Phil with an eclectic program including compositions by Rossini, Paganini, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky and Philip Glass, plus the world premieres of “Bravo Gustavo!” by John Williams and Gabriela Ortiz’s “Mujer Arena.”
Strauss, 11 a.m. Friday; 2 p.m. Sunday; Yo-Yo Ma, 8 p.m. Saturday; Celebrating the Musicians of the L.A. Phil, 8 p.m. Thursday. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com

Grangeville
A 2025 drama by the bard of Idaho, Samuel D. Hunter, the play considers the complex relationship of two half-brothers connecting virtually to discuss the care of their ailing mother. Tim Cummings and Jeff LeBeau star. Directed by John Perrin Flynn.
Through July 12. Ruskin Group Theatre, 2800 Airport Ave., Santa Monica. ruskingrouptheatre.com

How to Have Sex Again
The Rebel & the Warrior, a new theater producing collective, present their first L.A. production, the world premiere of a romantic comedy by Louis Reyes McWilliams.
8 p.m. Friday, Saturday, Sunday ; 7:30 p.m. Thursday; 8 p.m. June 5; 3 and 8 p.m. June 6; and 7:30 p.m. June 7. June Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. sanguinenyc.com

Jodie Landau
The composer-performer presents the West Coast premiere of “Performance of Self,” combining memoir, concert, cabaret with original chamber rock compositions, backed by a six-piece ensemble. Directed by Diana Wyenn. Part of OperaFest LA.
8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., downtown L.A. redcat.org

Let’s Get It On: The Wearable Art of Betye Saar
The exhibition highlights the role of costume design in the artist’s life and work, including more than 200 objects, including photographs, drawings, garments, jewelry, artworks and historical materials from the 1950s-1970s.
Opening reception, 5-7 p.m. Friday; exhibition continues through Aug. 22. Roberts Projects, 442 S. La Brea Ave. robertsprojectsla.com

Shelley Conducts America @ 250
Pacific Symphony concludes its season with incoming new music director Alexander Shelley conducting the premiere of Peter Boyer’s “American Mosaic,” with accompanying video imagery by award-winning photographer Joe Sohm.
8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, 615 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. pacificsymphony.org

UCLA Festival of Preservation
“Don’t miss your chance to see these rarely screened films on the big screen where they belong,” writes former Times movie critic Kenneth Turan in his preview of the event. The 22nd festival, which opens with Ossie Davis’ 1972 drama “Black Girl,” presents 11 feature films, four television programs and 30 short works, cartoons and newsreels, all newly preserved and restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive and its partners and funders.
Through Sunday. Billy Wilder Theater, UCLA Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood. cinema.ucla.edu

SATURDAY

America @ 250
The Pasadena Symphony’s season ending concert, celebrating the nation’s sesquicentennial, includes John Williams’ “Liberty Fanfare,” George Gershwin’s “Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra,” and Aaron Copland‘s “Appalachian Spring” Suite and “Lincoln Portrait,” the latter narrated by actor Alec Baldwin.
2 and 8 p.m. Ambassador Auditorium, 131 S. St. John Ave., Pasadena. pasadenasymphony-pops.org

Baroque in Bloom
Soprano Amanda Forsythe joins the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra for arias from Handel’s “Giulio Cesare” and Bach’s “Wedding Cantata.” The program also includes LACO’s principal bassoon Andrew Brady performing “Vivaldi’s Concerto for Bassoon in A minor, RV 497,” Telemann’s “Don Quixote Suite” and Biber’s “Battalia.”
7:30 p.m. Saturday. Rothenberg Hall, the Huntington, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino; 4 p.m. Sunday. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. laco.org

From Hell to Hollywood: Films Music’s First Golden Age and the Émigré Community
The Scott Dunn Orchestra performs the music of Arnold Schoenberg, Max Steiner, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Franz Waxman, Dimitri Tiomkin, Bronisław Kaper, Kurt Weill, Ernest Gold and Miklós Rózsa.
7:30 p.m. Saturday. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. thewallis.org

Life, Liberty, and Los Angeles
Through historical and contemporary objects, media, art and community collaborations, the exhibition brings together stories of diverse Angelenos and demonstrates the ways their hopes and dreams built the city while reflecting the values of a burgeoning nation.
Opening May 30-Jan. 31. Autry Museum of the American West, 4700 Western Heritage Way, Griffith Park. theautry.org

The Magic Flute
LA Opera music director James Conlon’s final production will be Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s fan favorite about a prince, a princess and an enchanted instrument. Starring Miles Mykkanen in his LA Opera debut as Prince Tamino, Sydney Mancasola as Princess Pamina, Kyle Miller as the sidekick Papageno, Aigul Khismatullina as Queen of the Night and Kwangchul Youn and Sarastro.
Through June 21 Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laopera.org

The Satie Project
The artists of Piano Spheres perform the complete four-hand works of French composer and pianist Erik Satie, plus seven newly-commissioned response pieces, alongside the experimental puppetry David Gordezky in what promises to be a truly zany show.
8 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. Boston Court Pasadena. 70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena. bostoncourtpasadena.org

SUNDAY

Bleak Week: The Cinema of Despair
Isabelle Huppert, Ari Aster, Denis Villeneuve, Werner Herzog and many others are the scheduled guests for the fifth edition of the global festival. The L.A. festivities, featuring 48 films from 18 countries, start with Béla Tarr’s 1994 film “Sátántangó” (2 p.m. Sunday at the Aero).
Through June 7. Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica; Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd.; Los Feliz Theatre, 1822 N Vermont Ave. americancinematheque.com

Marilyn Monroe: Hollywood Icon
A reevaluation of the actor’s artistry and image-making, the exhibition presents hundreds of original objects, including posters, portraits, photographs, production documents, letters, and rarely seen personal materials. A companion screening series also kicks off this week. Times culture critic Mary McNamara attended the opening and wrote about the enduring mystery that still surrounds the life and legacy of the film star 100 years after her birth.
“Gentleman Prefer Blondes,” 6:30 p.m. Sunday; “The Asphalt Jungle,” 7:30 p.m. Monday, with guests author and filmmaker Mark A. Fortin, actor Jack Huston, author, filmmaker and actor Joshua John Miller, and journalist Nancy Jo Sales; “Niagara,” 8 p.m. Wednesday; and “All About Eve,” 7:30 p.m. Thursday, with guest Vanity Fair contributing editor Lorraine Nicholson. Screening series runs through July 3; exhibition continues through Feb. 28. Academy Museum, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. academymuseum.org

Museums of the Arroyo Day
The theme is “Life in the Past Lane” as five local institutions celebrate Arroyo Culture with a day of free admission.
Noon-4 p.m. The Gamble House, 4 Westmoreland Place, Pasadena; Heritage Square, 3510 Pasadena Ave., L.A.; Los Angeles Police Museum, 6045 York Blvd., L.A.; Lummis Home, 200 E. Avenue 43, L.A.; Pasadena Museum of History, 470 W. Walnut St., Pasadena. museumsofthearroyo.com

Now Be Here: 2026 Los Angeles Anniversary
A decade ago, the organization launched as a means to “give visibility to women and non-binary artists, bringing equity to the art world,” and was commemorated by the above group photo. To mark the moment, Now Be Here and OXY ARTS present a free day of events (including a new community photo) open to all on the Occidental College campus.
9 a.m.-3 p.m. Occidental College, 1600 Campus Road. oxyarts.oxy.edu/events

Tierra
Craft Contemporary’s 4th Clay Biennial focuses on the work of Latinx, Indigenous and Black artists, emphasizing their deep connections to the geographies that yield the materials they work with. Also opening this week is “Earthen Comforts: Airing Earth,” a courtyard installation led by architect Liz Gálvez, the latest partnership in the ongoing experimental architectural project curated by M&A (Materials & Applications).
Sunday-Oct. 25. Craft Contemporary, 5814 Wilshire Blvd. craftcontemporary.org

TUESDAY

The Sun Rises in Harlem: Black Brilliance and the Harlem Renaissance
The performing arts collaborative MUSE/IQUE, led by artistic and music director Rachael Worby, pays tribute to this transformative era in American arts featuring the music of jazz greats such as Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway and Bessie Smith. With Kecia Lewis, Sy Smith, Leo Manzari, DC6 Singers Collective and the MUSE/IQUE Orchestra.
7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Wednesday. The Huntington, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino; 3 and 7:30 p.m. June 7. Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. muse-ique.com

WEDNESDAY

Colburn Celebrity Recital: Joshua Bell/Jeremy Denk
Frequent collaborators, the acclaimed violinist and pianist perform works by Schubert, Grieg, Ives, Ysaÿe and Ravel in their first joint appearance at Disney Hall since 2010.
8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com

THURSDAY

Bodytraffic
The contemporary dance troupe closes out a 20-year run with its final three hometown shows, including works by choreographers Fernando Magadan, Cayetano Soto, Joan Rodriguez, Richard Siegal and Trey McIntyre.
7:30 p.m. Thursday and June 4; 2 p.m. June 6; the Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. thewallis.org

Arturo Sandoval
The legendary trumpeter and bandleader, a protégé of jazz great Dizzy Gillespie, performs an eight-show residency at the Blue Note.
7 and 9:30 p.m., Thursday-June 7. Blue Note LA, 6372 W. Sunset Blvd. bluenotejazz.com

Spectacular Balanchine!
American Contemporary Ballet continues its deep dive into the master choreographer’s work with dances from “Who Cares?,” “Stars and Stripes,” “Western Symphony” and “Union Jack” to music by George Gershwin, John Philip Sousa and Hershey Kay.
8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, through June 20. Bank of America Plaza, 333 S. Hope St., downtown L.A. acbdances.com

Arts anywhere

New and recent releases of arts-related media.

Miles: The Autobiography
May 26 would have been jazz legend Miles Davis’ 100th birthday and Simon & Schuster has released a centennial edition of his award-winning 1989 memoir, in which he reflects on his career, relationships and battles with racism and addiction. Also check out filmmaker Stanley Nelson’s 2020 documentary, “Miles Davis: The Birth of Cool,” featuring studio outtakes from Davis’ recording sessions, rare photos and interviews with Quincy Jones, Carlos Santana, Clive Davis, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Davis’s family and other notables.
Simon & Schuster: 448 pages, $23; “Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool,” streaming on PBS platform.

— Kevin Crust

Culture news and the SoCal scene

The big news of the week was the long-awaited, much-speculated-upon announcement of who will become the next music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic when Gustavo Dudamel departs later this summer to take his new role at the New York Philharmonic. Surprise (or rather not too much of a surprise depending on who you are and how closely you were watching), the L.A. Phil’s 12th music director will be Daniel Harding, a 50-year-old, Oxford-born conductor and part-time Air France pilot who made his U.S. debut as a young prodigy conducting the L.A. Phil at the 1997 Ojai Festival, writes Times classical music critic Mark Swed.

The Times scored an exclusive ride-along with Harding the day after the L.A. Phil’s big announcement. His day included stops at In-N-Out Burger, the Beckmen YOLA Center and the Hollywood Bowl. The evening was spent at a Dodgers game with Dudamel where the two sported matching jerseys emblazoned with their names.

We also got a first look at a new video installation scheduled to light up the underside of LACMA’s new David Geffen Galleries where it forms a bridge over Wilshire Boulevard. Designed by artist Diana Thater, the installation was filmed in Claude Monet’s garden in Giverny, France, and will officially debut in the fall, after which it will run from dusk to dawn, 365 days per year.

Times contributor Jane Horowitz sat down with photographer Catherine Opie to chronicle a moment in time that finds Opie experiencing “one of the most visible stretches of her career, with work appearing simultaneously across Europe and Los Angeles. This includes a career-spanning survey at London’s National Portrait Gallery that will travel to Edinburgh’s Royal Scottish Academy, as well as exhibitions in Kassel, Germany, and Trondheim, Norway. Closer to home, a new exhibit, ‘Holding Blue,’ opens May 28 at Regen Projects.”

Alicia Keys’ musical “Hell’s Kitchen” made its L.A. debut at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre this week, and Times intern Katie Simons chatted with Keys to get at why this particular moment means so much to her. “We spent 13 years developing this piece,” Keys said. “I believe in this deeply. I stand behind it. I stand for it.”

Swed also wrote a review of the L.A. Phil’s performance of Wagner’s “Die Walküre,” which represented Dudamel’s last grand project with the orchestra, and featured sets designed by Frank Gehry before he died, including paper-sculpture clouds and galloping Valkyrie horses, as well as a fanciful organ-pipe tree.

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

You know you want to read this interview with Barry Manilow by Times music critic Mikael Wood. Trust me, everyone else is.

That sound of breaking glass? It’s Hong Kong-born conductor Elim Chan, 39, shattering a particularly stubborn ceiling after being named the first woman to lead the San Francisco Symphony in its 115-year history. Her title is currently Music Director Designate, and when she officially steps into the job of music director in September 2027, she will become the first woman to lead a major American orchestra.

Chan arrives as the orchestra’s 13th music director at a precarious moment for the organization, which in 2024 was rocked by the resignation of its last music director, Esa-Pekka Salonen, who declined to renew his contract after five years and said he didn’t share the same vision as the orchestra’s board of governors. Like many arts organizations, the symphony is still struggling with a pandemic-precipitated drop in attendance and a shrinking budget.

Fans will get their first chance to see Chan in action on June 5 and 6 when she’ll take the stage in a program including Richard Wagner’s Prelude from “Tristan und Isolde,” Hector Berlioz’s “Les Nuits d’été” wih mezzo-soprano soloist Sasha Cooke, and Claude Debussy’s “La Mer.”

“In Elim Chan, we have found a musician of unusual gifts and a leader of equal substance — a rare combination, and the one behind her remarkable international rise,” said San Francisco Symphony Chief Executive Matthew Spivey in a news release. “What sets her apart on the podium is the conviction she brings to the music itself. Works orchestras have played a hundred times sound newly made under her hand, lit by a feeling for structure, color, and emotional architecture that audiences hear before they can name.”

Chan studied piano and cello in Hong Kong before moving to the U.S. to attend Smith College. She went to graduate school at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she ultimately earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in 2015. The year before that she became the first woman to win the prestigious Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition, and was named assistant conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra.

Chan made her conducting debut with SF Symphony in January 2023 and has conducted the orchestra twice since. A rep for the the group said the feedback they’ve received from “our Orchestra, press, our audiences, and donors has been remarkable.” Chan is, indeed, a electrifying presence to behold onstage, a fact that no doubt played a major role in the search committee’s decision.

And now audiences get to delight in her fresh, invigorating approach to the conductor’s podium. Glass ceilings should be broken more often.

I’m Arts editor Jessica Gelt rooting for something new and different. This is your arts and culture news for the week.

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

Limonade Tous les Jours: A Paris Love Story
Romance in the City of Lights from Obie Award-winning playwright Charles L. Mee, in which a young chanteuse and a reserved American in his 50s ponder amour amid classic French cabaret songs.
8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 4 p.m. Sundays, through June 28. City Garage, 2525 Michigan Ave., Building T1, Santa Monica. citygarage.org

Three Lives
Written, directed by and starring Alex Xander Luu, this solo theater performance shares the dramatic, sometimes humorous, story of the Luu family’s escape from Saigon in 1975 through the perspectives of a father, son and grandson.
8 p.m. Friday-Saturday; 2 and 8 p.m. Sunday. Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd. sierramadreplayhouse.org

Tiny Furniture
Multi-hyphenate Lena Dunham’s breakout 2010 indie feature about a new college graduate adrift in New York City screens with “Welcome to Bushwick a.k.a The Crackcident,” an episode from Dunham’s series “Girls.”
7:30 p.m. Friday; 6 p.m. Saturday. The Eastwood (Oxford Underground), 1089 N Oxford Ave. eastwoodpac.stagey.net

SATURDAY

Darkness and Humanity: The Complete Akira Kurosawa
The series continues with 35 mm screenings of “Ran,” the filmmaker’s 1985 adaptation of Shakespeare’s “King Lear” transported to 16th century Japan; and “Kagemusha,” a 1980 feudal epic executive produced by George Lucas that helped revive Kurosawa’s career and cement his legacy.
“Ran,” 7:30 p.m. Saturday; “Kagemusha,” 6:30 p.m. Sunday. 6067 Wilshire Blvd. academymuseum.org

Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind
The first solo museum exhibition in Southern California of the singular artist, musician and activist, organized in collaboration with Tate Modern, London, includes work from her seven-decade career; direct participation by visitors will be invited in many of Ono’s transformational works.
Through Oct. 11. The Broad, 221 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. thebroad.org

Kyungmi Shin
The L.A.-based artist will discuss her work, including the current exhibition “My Fantasy’s Burdens,” with Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander, curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Cantor Arts Center and co-director of the Asian American Art Initiative at Stanford University. “My Fantasy’s Burden” includes both paintings and ceramics by Shin, featuring the artist’s practice of interrogating the Asian American diasporic identity, focusing on the cultural, economic and scientific consequences of colonialism.
4 p.m. Saturday; the exhibition concludes May 30. Perrotin Los Angeles, 5036 W Pico Blvd. perrotin.com

SUNDAY
Bob Dylan double feature
It’s the music icon’s 85th birthday and what better way to celebrate than with screenings of his 2021 concert film “Shadow Kingdom,” directed by Alma Har’el, and the 1987 musical melodrama “Hearts Of Fire” — one of Dylan’s forays into acting — directed by Richard Marquand.
7:30 p.m. Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica. americancinematheque.com

An Evening With Stephen Schwartz
Katharine McPhee, Joey McIntyre, Loren Allred and other performers join the celebrated composer-lyricist for a benefit concert to help the Altadena Music Theatre recover from the Eaton fire. Schwartz has won three Oscars, three Grammys, four Drama Desk Awards, a Golden Globe and the Richard Rodgers Award for Excellence in Musical Theater, in addition to six Tony nominations for shows including “Wicked,” “Pippin” and “Godspell.” Preceded by a VIP cocktail hour.
7:30 p.m. Manoukian Cultural Performing Arts Center, 2495 E. Mountain St., Pasadena. altadenamusictheatre.com

Arts anywhere

New and recent releases of arts-related media.

An Evening with Nicole Scherzinger

The lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls crowned her triumphant, Olivier- and Tony-winning turn as Norma Desmond in the musical revival of “Sunset Boulevard” with a series of solo concerts at prestigious venues (including Walt Disney Concert Hall). The latest edition of “Great Performances” captured Scherzinger’s performance at London’s Royal Albert Hall in October 2025, when she sang showtunes, covers and songs from her own repertoire. 9 p.m. Friday on PBS and streaming on the PBS app

Reading Pictures: A History of Illustration

In this visual chronicle, D.B. Dowd, a professor of design and American culture studies at Washington University in St. Louis, follows this unique art form from relief prints and woodcuts in ancient China and Japan, through the development of the printing press in 15th century Europe, and on to modern developments such as illustrated news, recreational reading and ad-driven consumer culture. Dowd reconsiders the traditional narrative to view illustration in the context of race, gender, literacy and cultural memory. The book examines the integration of reading and looking, the increasing prevalence of images in the digital age, and what it means to be literate in the 21st century. Princeton University Press: 400 pages, $60

— Kevin Crust

Culture news and the SoCal scene

Theater lovers rejoice: “Brigadoon” at the Pasadena Playhouse may be the “best local staging of a musical” Times theater critic Charles McNulty has seen in 20 years covering the scene for The Times. The revival, directed by Katie Spelman with an updated book by playwright Alexandra Silber, is “the high-water mark so far of Pasadena Playhouse producing artistic director Danny Feldman’s ongoing reexamination of the American musical canon,” McNulty writes. In the same column, McNulty notes that another classic musical revival, “Flower Drum Song” at East West Players, does not hit its mark.

The Skirball Cultural Center‘s latest exhibit takes on the genesis of Punk rock in the 1970s, and traces its rise from the UK to New York and Los Angeles. The exhibit, “Outsiders, Outcasts, Rebels + Weirdos: Punk Culture 1976-86,” pegs punk’s year zero to 1976, “when the Ramones debuted their self-titled record. That same year, the Sex Pistols cursed on live TV, John Holmstrom and Legs McNeil co-founded Punk magazine, and the Damned released the first British punk single, ‘New Rose’.”

As the world celebrates the centennial of jazz legend Miles Davis, a unique photo show is happening at Musichead Gallery on Sunset Boulevard. “The show celebrates the late jazz musician’s centennial through imagery captured over a career spanning nearly five decades,” writes staff writer Julius Miller, noting that some of those photos have not even been seen by members of the Davis family.

Times classical music critic Mark Swed sat down for an exclusive interview with Los Angeles Philharmonic Music and Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel as he readied to play his final shows with the orchestra at Walt Disney Concert Hall before departing for the New York Philharmonic. “I’m living here and I’m not living here,” Dudamel told Swed. “The connection will always be here.”

Swed also weighed in on two performances marking composer Philip Glass’ 90th birthday (which arrives at the end of January): Paris Opera’s “shocking” new “noir” production of Glass’ “Satyagraha”; and a UC Santa Barbara Arts & Lectures-commissioned show called “Philip Glass and the Poets,” which premiered at Campbell Hall featuring readings by performance artist Taylor Mac and dancer/choreographer Lucinda Childs.

The Times got an exclusive first look inside the soon-to-open Hospital of Emotions, which features 70 artists in a takeover of 80 rooms at the shuttered St. Vincent’s Medical Center on the outskirts of downtown L.A. The sprawling immersive art project is divided into various departments including joy, fear and sadness, and shines a spotlight on wellness and mental health.

Meow Wolf L.A. won’t open until later this year, but The Times got an early look at a new character that will be featured in the immersive art space. Its name is WoWoW and it’s the creation of the experimental video art collective Everything Is Terrible. Read all about the “20-foot-tall, 1,000-pound amoeba-like creature” here.

Barnsdall Friday Wine Nights are returning for a 17th year. The event is set to begin May 29 and run through Sept. 11, every Friday evening from 5:30 to 9:00 p.m. Located on the West Lawn of Frank Lloyd Wright’s magnificent Hollyhock House, the gathering occupies one of the city’s most magical outdoor spots. A $55 general admission ticket gets you four glasses of wine from Silverlake Wine, along with a rotating lineup of food trucks. DJs also regularly perform throughout the series. Best of all: Proceeds support arts programming and preservation at Barnsdall Art Park. A rep for the event notes that, “this year’s fundraiser is especially critical amid proposed budget and staffing cuts to the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.”

Break out your best picnic basket and blanket: Independent Shakespeare Co. has announced this summer’s Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival, which runs outdoors every year at the park’s Old Zoo. This year’s lineup includes the Bard’s “Coriolanus” and “The Comedy of Errors.” Performances are free, but registration is requested at www.IndieShakes.org.

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

Times restaurant critic Bill Addison declares the 10-table Wilde’s the new “crown jewel” of Los Feliz.

Professional visual artists hate generative AI. This should come as no surprise, but a new survey released last month by a trio of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University breaks down just how much: 99% of respondents out of a pool of 378 verified professional visual artists noted their dislike for the technology, with 92% categorizing it as “strong dislike.”

Even more jarring, the survey found that 80% of respondents believe that they’re in competition with the technology. The artists expressed deep concerns about the impact AI is having on their careers, with 54% saying it has diminished their income, 75% their job and clientele security, and 90% their income opportunities. Another 77% said it had negatively impacted their career growth, 61% the future of their career, and 74% their career sustainability.

The jobs most heavily affected include commercial artists, graphic designers and concept artists in entertainment whose work is sometimes entirely replaced — or largely commandeered — by images generated using tools like Midjourney, Adobe Fireplay or DALL-E; but fine artists working in traditional media are also experiencing a devaluation of their work and a shrinking pool of employers.

“I’m working on getting out of the field and planning to get my PhD in something non-art related because I can’t see my current work as being sustainable when I see them actively replacing me [with] chatGPT,” a costume designer and illustrator said in the survey, which notes, “Demoralization, disempowerment, disrespect, stress, and fear are also commonly expressed, not only regarding individual careers but also extending towards the field at large.”

“It’s been pretty demoralizing at times seeing a lot of younger artists giving up because they don’t see a future in art. That they’re abandoning their creative passions because of AI,” another illustrator said. A comic artist, writer and painter noted that AI underscores that art is not important to the general public. “It has been demoralizing largely because generated AI images look like crap but there is a segment of the population who seem to not care,” the artist said.

Then there is the unnervingly meta task of artists trying to prove they are human, or that they did not generate their work using AI.

“I find users online to be more critical, looking at art less to enjoy it and more so to figure out if it’s AI generated or not. There’s a lot of pressure and anxiety in proving you are a real person now,” one illustrator and designer said. Another artist and sculptor said, “I have seen false accusations for use of AI in work from other artists who do not use AI and I am fearful of being accused of this as well, I now record the creation process of most things so that I have proof AI was not utilized.”

This study affirms the findings of a less formal ongoing survey conducted by Brian Merchant, a former Times technology columnist who now writes an indispensable newsletter on Substack called “Blood in the Machine,” which keeps razor-sharp track of the ways AI is affecting labor, and the pattern of Big Tech deflecting responsibility for harm. As part of an ongoing series titled, “AI Killed My Job,” Merchant invited visual artists to write to him about their experiences, and published the most compelling — and crushing — responses.

In that column, Merchant discusses the “good enough” principle of AI-generated art, noting, “Creative workers aren’t typically worried that AI systems are so good they’ll be rendered obsolete as artists, or that AI-generated work will be better than theirs. Their fear is that clients, managers, and even consumers will deem AI art ‘good enough’ as the companies that produce it push down their wages and corrode their ability to earn a living.”

An idea highlighted in the following letter published by Merchant from an anonymous source:

“I’ve been out of work for a while now. I made children’s book illustrations, stock art, and took various art commissions.

Now I have several maxed out credit cards and use a donation bin for food. I haven’t had a steady contract in over a year. two weeks ago, when a client who has switched to AI found out about this he gave me $50 out of ‘a sense of guilt.’ Basically pity for the fact that Illustrator, as a job, does not exist anymore.”

One thing Merchant is exceedingly good at is reminding readers that there is a surge of dissent swelling from the proletariat — and that after you’re done feeling the necessary despair, you can join the anti-AI resistance. For visual artists that can be as simple as utilizing a growing number of defensive tools when it comes to protecting art, most notably Glaze and Nightshade. The former adds the smallest pixel-sized changes to your artwork, which serves to confuse AI so it can’t train on your style; the latter — as the name implies — acts more like a poison that corrupts AI training data so it can’t scrape from a protected image.

I’m Arts editor — and proud Luddite — Jessica Gelt. This is your arts and culture news for the week.

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

Experiencing the Dream: MLK the Musical
The show’s 26 songs will be recorded live with an orchestra of 27 musicians under the direction of Leon Lacy, with orchestrations by Felipe Paccagnella, vocal arrangements by Tony Jones and musical direction by arranger/producer William Taylor. The cast includes Eric Dawkins, Bishop Jonathan Mason, Yolanda Gibbons, Patricia Jackson, James Singleton, Melvin Crispell, Pam Blackmon Kendle and Celeste Butler-Clayton. Written by Kesha L. Ealy and Marcus S. Mason. Mason also composed the music.
7 p.m. Greater Emmanuel Temple, 3740 E. Imperial Hwy., Lynwood. MLKthemusical.com

Riverdance 30 — The New Generation
The Irish music and dance phenomenon marks its three decades with a special anniversary tour.
7:30 p.m. Friday; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday. Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. scfta.org

SATURDAY

Ryuichi Sakamoto
Contemporary music sextet Bang on a Can All-Stars pay tribute to the Japanese composer with works from his album “1996,” which included pieces from his film scores, including “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence” (1983), “The Last Emperor” (1987), for which he won an Academy Award, “The Sheltering Sky” (1990) and “Little Buddha” (1993).
7:30 p.m. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. thewallis.org

Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith
The longtime collaborators perform music from their 2025 album “Defiant Life” which Iyer noted “was shaped by our ongoing sorrow and outrage over the past year’s cruelties, but also by our faith in human possibility.”
8 p.m. UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu

Radiance + Reverie
Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra music director Jaime Martín leads the group in Mozart’s “Haffner” Symphony, “Selah,” a world premiere of a new Double Concerto by Christopher Cerrone performed by violinist Anthony Marwood and cellist Coleman Itzkoff, and Tchaikovsky’s “Mozartiana.”
7:30 p.m. Saturday. Zipper Hall, 200 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A.; 4 p.m. Sunday. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. laco.org

Pusher trilogy
Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn’s gritty triptych takes us through the violent criminal underworld of Copenhagen in three interconnected films, each with a different protagonist: “Pusher” (1996), starring Kim Bodnia; “Pusher II: With Blood On My Hands” (2004), starring Mads Mikkelsen; “Pusher III: I’m The Angel Of Death,” starring Zlatko Burić.
5 p.m. Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd. americancinematheque.com

Jodi Siegel
The singer-songwriter and guitarist is joined by guitarist Greg Porée and percussionist Justin Porée for an evening of blues, R&B, soul and jazz.
8 p.m. Sierra Madre Playhouse, Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd. sierramadreplayhouse.org

SUNDAY
Celebrating Photography
The Getty has a series of events inspired by the exhibition “Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985” (which continues through June 14). It begins Sunday with a free, daylong Family Festival featuring live music, dance, storytelling and interactive workshops. On Wednesday evening, moderator Karen Grigsby Bates and authors Dr. Karin L. Stanford and Mark Speltz discuss the new book “Marching West: The Los Angeles Civil Rights Movement in Photographs.” Thursday morning, the panel “Backstage: An Unfurling of the JPC: Black Photography & Visual Culture” examines how the Johnson Publishing Company and its photographers impacted Black visual culture and the larger field of photography. Finally, on June 7, authors Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe (“Viewfinders: Black Women Photographers”) and Deborah Willis (“Black Photographers, 1840 to 1940: An Illustrated Bio-Bibliography”) discuss their work as artists and historians.
Family Festival, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday; “Backstage: An Unfurling of the JPC,” 10 a.m. Thursday (also online); “Marching West,” 7 p.m. Wednesday (also online); “Viewfinders,” 4 p.m. June 7 (also online). Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Drive, L.A. getty.edu

F For Fake
A 35 mm screening of Orson Welles’ 1973 enigmatic docudrama profiles professional art forger Elmyr de Hory as a starting point for examining authenticity and authorship.
6 p.m. Brain-Dead Studios, 611 N. Fairfax Ave. studios.wearebraindead.com

Philip Glass and the Poets
The first major Philip Glass 90th birthday celebration (he was born Jan. 31, 1927) features Timo Andres on piano and spoken word performance by Taylor Mac, with special guest appearances by Lucinda Childs and the San Francisco Girls Chorus and their artistic director Valérie Sainte-Agathe.
7 p.m. UC Santa Barbara, Campbell Hall. artsandlectures.ucsb.edu

TUESDAY

Die Walküre
Conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the L.A. Phil, along with director Alberto Arvelo, tackle the second installment in Wagner’s epic Ring Cycle in three stand-alone parts with opera stars Jamez McCorkle, Jessica Faselt, Christine Goerke and Ryan Speedo Green, and scenic designs by Frank Gehry.
Act I, 8 p.m. Tuesday and Friday; Act II, 8 p.m. Wednesday and Saturday; Act II, 8 p.m. Thursday and 2 p.m. Sunday. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com

WEDNESDAY
Being There
Peter Sellers received an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of a simple gardener catapulted into the media spotlight and presidential politics in Hal Ashby’s prescient 1979 satire. Shirley MacLaine, Jack Warden and Melvyn Douglas co-star. Screening in 35 mm with an appearance by cinematographer Caleb Deschanel.
7:30 p.m. Academy Museum, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. academymuseum.org

Life of Mozart
The Pasadena Choral Society presents the composer’s unfinished “Requiem” within a dramatic framework using Mozart’s own words. Milo Brody plays Mozart, accompanied by pianist Tali Tadmor, with solos by soprano Erika Boychenko, alto Ali Frazzini, tenor Eric Wernerand bass Chris Tickner.
7:30 p.m. San Marino Community Church, 1750 Virginia Rd #0412. givebutter.com/lifeofmozart

Primary Trust
Times theater critic Charles McNulty described Eboni Booth’s 2024 Pulitzer Prize-winning play as “a quirky, small-scale, quietly reflective work that’s as tenderhearted as it is spryly comic and as poignant as it is ultimately uplifting,” when it had its West Coast premiere at La Jolla Playhouse. Once again directed by Knud Adams, it arrives in Los Angeles with a cast that includes Ugo Chukwu, Rebecca S’manga Frank, Petey McGee and James Urbaniak, with music by Luke Wygodny.
Through June 28 Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. centertheatregroup.org

Skirball Spring Exhibitions
The Skirball Cultural Center launches three new exhibitions next week: “Inventing America: The Comic Book Revolution”; “Outsiders, Outcasts, Rebels + Weirdos: Punk Culture 1976–1986”; and “Robert Russell and Lisa Edelstein: A Palace in Time.” All three open May 20, Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. skirball.org

THURSDAY

Ain’t Misbehavin’
Grammy Award-winning artist Ledisi headlines this Ebony Repertory Theatre production, in association with Fig Street Films, of the Tony Award-winning revue, a tribute to the music of Fats Waller. Directed by Wren T. Brown, with choreography by Dominique Kelley and music direction by William Foster McDaniel. Chester Gregory, Connie Jackson, Marty Austin Lamar and Natalie Wachen co-star.
May 21 through June 8. Nate Holden Performing Arts Center, 4718 W. Washington Blvd. L.A. ebony rep.org.

Arts anywhere

New and recent releases of arts-related media.

Suffs
When the national tour of Shaina Taub’s musical about the suffragette movement marched through the Hollywood Pantages last fall, Times theater critic Charles McNulty wrote that it “is as informative as it is uplifting. It is above all a moving testament to the power of sisterhood. The struggle for equality continues to face crushing setbacks today, but Taub wants us to remember what can happen when people stand united for a just cause.” Captured on Broadway in December 2024, “Suffs,” starring Taub, who also wrote the book, music and lyrics for the show, debuted on PBS’ “Great Performances” earlier this month and is streaming online until the end of July. pbs.org

— Kevin Crust

Culture news and the SoCal scene

Artist Gary Baseman staged his first hometown show in more than a decade at the long-shuttered, but still iconic Johnie’s Coffee Shop along Miracle Mile on Wilshire Blvd. The Googie-style structure opened its doors for the exhibit, which featured a variety of Baseman’s drawings on menus from L.A.-area restaurants.

The critic Rex Reed died this week at the age of 87 and Times theater critic Charles McNulty wrote an appreciation of the often acerbic provocateur. “He didn’t mince words or allow nuance or second thoughts to stand in the way of a zingy phrase or a colorful wisecrack. Unbridled opinion was his stock-in-trade,” McNulty wrote.

McNulty also weighed in with a review of a revival of Eugène Ionesco’s “Exit the King,” directed by Michael Michetti at A Noise Within. Ionesco, a Romanian-born French playwright, is one of the pillars of the Theatre of the Absurd, McNulty writes, adding, “The existential philosophy of Camus and Sartre, self-evident truths for these absurdist writers, is conveyed less through the content than through the style of their plays. Language is no longer a means of communication but a mark of the unbridgeable distance between human beings.”

You can order a Diet Coke, or bomb Iran in a new video game about the Iran war called “Operation Epic Furious: Strait to Hell,” which was installed near the National Mall in Washington, D.C. by the anonymous arts activist group Secret Handshake. For the past year and a half the group has secured permits to erect an ongoing series of satirical public sculptures — mostly about President Trump’s alleged ties to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein — on and around the National Mall. This is the group’s first foray into video games.

Times classical music critic Mark Swed devoted a recent column to the genius of the American theater director, playwright and performer Robert Wilson, who died last year at the age of 83. “So far this year, there have been, or will be through the end of June, major Wilson opera and theater productions in Moscow; Paris; Ljubljana, Slovenia; Düsseldorf, Germany; Adelaide, Australia; Kaunas, Lithuania; Vienna; Rome; Tokyo; Luxembourg City, Luxembourg; Berlin; Riga, Latvia; and Sophia, Bulgaria. That is to say, pretty much Wilson business as usual,” Swed writes, before examining two new performances of Wilson’s work in Brooklyn and Houston.

Iris Kwok marked the opening of L.A. Metro’s new D Line extension by profiling four of the artists behind the public artwork in three new stations. Nine artists in total worked on site-specific installations: Mariana Castillo Deball, Eamon Ore-Giron, Ken Gonzales-Day, Todd Gray, Karl Haendel, Soo Kim, Fran Siegel, Susan Silton and Mark Dean Veca.

Julius Miller broke the news that a series of seven digital billboards promoting peace will go up across the city as part of the Broad Museum’s upcoming exhibit, “Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind,” which opens May 23. The billboards arrive nearly 57 years after Ono and John Lennon “erected a billboard near the Chateau Marmont emblazoned with the words, “WAR IS OVER! If You Want It.”

Culver City’s Wende Museum of the Cold War announced it will build a $16-million expansion in Hawthorne. It plans to transform a newly purchased Midcentury Modern building into a research institute and interactive storage facility for its collections — “a ‘living archive,’ as it’s calling the facility,” writes Deborah Vankin. The opening is currently set for 2028.

The Music Center announced its lineup this week for the 2026–27 season of Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center. Highlights include the Joffrey Ballet’s West Coast premiere of “The Sleeping Beauty,” Compañía Nacional de Danza’s North American premiere of “Don Quixote,” and the Los Angeles premiere of a Jerome Robbins ballet festival curated by Tiler Peck. Alvin Ailey Dance Theater is also part of the lineup, and choreographer Sonya Tayeh will unveil an L.A. premiere set to the music of Sinéad O’Connor.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic has announced the 2026 summer season at the Ford. The open-air venue across from the Hollywood Bowl is now in its seventh season under LA Phil leadership, and shows are set to run through Oct. 31. Grab your picnic basket and select a date from a wide variety of shows including dance, music and film. Stand-out acts include Bilal and DJ Rashida, Matteo Bocelli, Jacob Collier, Judy Collins and Bruce Cockburn, Ani DiFranco and Valerie June, Helado Negro and Reyna Tropical, Joe Hisaishi, Iron & Wine, the L.A. Phil, and Punch Brothers.

The Institute of Latino Art has opened in Pomona, with a grand opening reception scheduled for June 13. Occupying the former Latino Art Museum space, the new gallery was founded by artist Oscar Magallanes. A news release notes, “ILA represents a new artist-led institution in the Inland Empire, working to connect regional communities with contemporary Latin American and Chicano art. The inaugural exhibition, ‘Reclamation: Art in Contested Spaces,’ features NSRGNTS, Lapiztola, and Rubén Ortiz-Torres.”

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

Times columnist Mary McNamara went to Yorkshire and wrote that it was the bucket-list literary trip of her dreams. Mine too!

For the sixth and final time before votes are counted, the leading contenders for California governor gathered Thursday night for a televised debate, this one a 90-minute session in San Francisco.

Times columnists Gustavo Arellano, Mark Z. Barabak and Anita Chabria absorbed the rhetorical blows, followed the heated back-and-forths and took in each and every one of the candidates’ myriad policy prescriptions. Here’s their assessment:

Arellano: Near the end of the debate, co-moderator and San Francisco Examiner editor-in-chief Schuyler Hudak Prionas groaned as candidates talked over each other while trying to answer a question that was supposed to elicit a yes or no response.

That’s pretty much how California voters have reacted to this primary.

In an era where politics are far too often about choosing the least worst option, voters in this election are left with the political version of the Angels baseball team.

No candidate has polled higher than 20-some percent — a testament to how many are in the running, but also an indication that none of them has truly captured the zeitgeist of today’s California.

This year’s debates have done little to catapult anyone to the top, and tonight was more of the same. I still don’t know who I’m going to vote for, and no one inspired me to side with them. No one offered a clear vision of how they would pull Californians out of a spiritual malaise that has so many of us leaving the state, or thinking about leaving.

Instead, what I heard too many of the candidates evoke was the glories of the past — their past.

Antonio Villaraigosa’s closing remarks made a mantra out of “Dream with me,” a slogan he used back when he was L.A. mayor — that was 13 years ago.

Xavier Becerra bragged about how he stood up to President Trump as California attorney general — that was five years ago.

Katie Porter pulled out a white notebook with something written on it and directly challenged Becerra to answer a question — a callback to her time as a congressmember grilling people on Capitol Hill with a whiteboard and a marker, which she first made famous seven years ago.

The two Republicans, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton, spoke of a halcyon California destroyed by feckless Democrats and vowed a return to those days.

The only candidates who didn’t live in the past were San José Mayor Matt Mahan and hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer — but they seemed particularly out of their league, with Steyer too often looking down at notes instead of speaking off the cuff with his well-rehearsed populist pluck.

The word “nostalgia” first emerged to describe what doctors back then considered a malady, thinking it unwise to long for the past. It’s a concept historically antithetical to California, long boosted as the land of today and tomorrow by everyone from the Mission fathers to orange barons, developers to politicians. Indeed, nostalgia has sometimes been a dangerous factor in California politics, unleashing the Spanish fantasy heritage movement, Prop. 13, Prop. 187 and all sorts of other nonsense.

The two candidates who advance to the general election would be wise to offer Californians a hope for the future that doesn’t call back to our yesterdays. For now, the only real winners are the political consultants, and the only real losers are Californians, because we still don’t know for sure that any of the candidates can make things better.

All we can expect is that they’ll turn things for the worse.

Barabak: A popular expression — which Steyer mentioned — defines insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

By that measure, was the audience for Thursday night’s throwdown insane? Masochistic? Or a group of high-minded, dutiful, quite-conscientious California voters?

The leading gubernatorial candidates have been at this so long that they’re like actors in a stage troupe, delivering well-rehearsed lines, or an old band getting together to play their greatest hits, though far less melodious.

Among those reprising familiar roles were Steyer as the boastful billionaire; Bianco as the angry white avenger; Hilton as the chipper doomsayer; Mahan as the kid brother insinuating his way into the conversation; Porter as the left-wing tribune promising a progressive Valhalla; and Villaraigosa as the old political war horse.

Once more, Becerra was the focal point of attacks, befitting his newfound status as the candidate to beat. “This is what happens when you take the lead in polls,” he rightly noted.

And so rivals again assailed Becerra’s performance as state attorney general and Health and Human Services secretary in the Biden administration. They accused of him being a shill for Big Oil. They tried, implying guilt-through-association, to rope Becerra into the scandal involving his former aides who embezzled from a dormant campaign account.

(Becerra, crisper and more lively than he’s previously been, noted that prosecutors in the case have described him as a victim and not a perpetrator or co-conspirator.)

It’s hard to see all the jostling and thrown elbows making a huge difference. The promises made and attacks scattered like buckshot on the San Francisco soundstage all seem much less important than the numbers that show up in opinion polls between now and Election Day.

Many Democrats, spooked by the prospect of their party being frozen out in June’s top-two primary, have been clinging to their ballots, intending to vote at the last moment for whichever Democrat appears likeliest to finish first.

In that way, the race seems to be shaping up as less a competition than a self-fulfilling prophecy. And Thursday night’s performance, while not wholly irrelevant, was just another television rerun broadcast to a less-than-mass audience.

Chabria: Here’s what I’ll say about Thursday night: It was a debate. The old-school kind where everybody is mostly well-behaved and polite, and the audience scrolls on their phones to stay awake.

The candidates themselves seemed low-energy, even with their jabs — which were largely directed at Becerra, as Mark said.

But no sparks also means we have more clarity. Barring an Eric Swalwell-style blow-up, the top three — Becerra, Steyer and Hilton — are really the only true contenders.

But I’ll give a shout-out to Porter, who had her best performance to date with answers that were clear and laid out policy with detail. Still, I fear it’s too little, too late.

Becerra, on the other hand, seemed subdued to the point of flat (sorry, Mark, he came off crisp like a week-old apple to me) often relying on the line that he sued Trump more than a hundred times as attorney general of California during Trump’s first term. I’m not sure that’s inspiring, though it did lead to some court victories.

Granted, Becerra has had a hard week, with a gaffe with a reporter that went viral and a plea deal by a former aide in that case of money misappropriated from his dormant campaign account. It’s not clear yet if voters care about either of those glitches — but if they stick in people’s minds, that could open a path for Steyer to scrape up the small margin he needs to get through the primary.

But Thursday night also did little to help Steyer’s cause — or hurt it. He made some clear, forceful points that positioned him as the changemaker progressive, especially around his policies on moving away from fossil fuels. He also had some convoluted answers that didn’t land. He didn’t give undecided voters much to work with.

I’ll end with one answer from Hilton that women should pay attention to: He said that if elected, he would allow California abortion providers to be extradited to states such as Louisiana to face criminal charges for mailing abortion medications.

Women across the U.S. now must rely on states such as California for any access to abortion care. Hilton’s position is not just bad for California but presents a risk to women everywhere.

For me, that answer should disqualify him for the highest office in our pro-choice state.

TONIGHT, Delta Goodrem is hoping to turn Australia’s Eurovision fortunes around.

The Born To Try singer is banking on her track Eclipse to get her country into Saturday’s grand final for the first time in three years.

She will compete in the second Eurovision Semi-Final live in Vienna alongside the UK’s entry Look Mum No Computer and former Love Island
star Antigoni Buxton .

The reality star is representing Cyprus with her song Jalla.

Australia, who have competed in the contest since 2015, has failed to make it past the semi-finals since 2023, when Voyager’s track Promise saw them finish in ninth place in Liverpool.

Speaking to Bizarre, Delta revealed she has put just as much effort into the production of her performance as she has the song itself.

Delta said: “I have definitely been learning on the job.

“This is my first ever Eurovision. The staging is just as important as the song.

“When I was working on the track, I wanted to make sure there was a lyric that lends itself to a journey in the production.

“I wrote it thinking about what the staging looks like and what exactly we are saying in the song.”

Admitting she was like a kid in a candy store when choosing her stage
effects, Delta added: “You can do all sorts of things.

“They give you a long list.. honestly, what an amazing opportunity.

“You can have fire, wind, you name it. I felt like I was going shopping.”

Last year’s 2025 contest in Basel, Switzerland, was watched by a
staggering 166 million people.

However, Delta insists she isn’t fazed by the massive global audience
set to watch her tonight.

She said: “It doesn’t matter if it’s Hackney, the Commonwealth Games,
Eurovision, or my outdoor pop-up in Camden earlier this year, I care
just as much about every single performance.

“My game plan is simple, stay true to myself and bring it.”

While Delta is determined to make her country proud, she isn’t taking
things too seriously.

In fact, she says bonding with fellow contestants has been a highlight.

Delta said: “Eurovision is completely its own world. I met a lot of artists in Oslo earlier this year and you naturally find your friends. Denmark’s Soren Torpegaar came up to me and told me how he went to one of my shows the last time I was in Denmark. It was really sweet.

“Honestly, the whole process has been amazing.”

Love may not be all you need these days, but a picture with it might help. This you can get beginning later this year when the Huntington installs its newly acquired “LOVE” sculpture by Robert Indiana near the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art.

Indiana first unveiled the iconic sculpture almost 60 years ago — also just a few days before Mother’s Day — as part of his 1966 solo exhibition at Stable Gallery in New York. While this early version measured only 12 inches high, the Huntington’s edition is 12 feet tall and 12 feet wide, making it an ideal vessel for you and your, ahem, loved ones to snap a pic with.

The polychromed aluminum sculpture is third in an edition of five, with two artist’s proofs, and will be the only “LOVE” sculpture in Southern California available to the public. It arrives at the museum’s San Marino campus as a gift of Terri and Jerry Kohl, who also provided funding for installation and long-term care.

“LOVE” is one of the most recognizable pieces of Pop art ever created — a ubiquitous symbol associated with a variety of social causes, movements and groups, including the LGBTQ+ community during the height of the AIDS crisis.

Indiana’s design for “LOVE,” featuring an L and slightly askew O stacked atop a V and E, first appeared on the Museum of Modern Art’s annual holiday card in 1965, and was apparently among the institution’s most popular holiday cards of all time. The artist completed his first monumental love sculpture, made from steel, in 1970. That sculpture is part of the Indianapolis Museum of Art’s collection.

In a news release, Huntington President Karen R. Lawrence said that Jerry Kohl believed that “LOVE,” “belonged in a place where it would be seen and experienced by millions of visitors in the years leading up to the Los Angeles Olympics, during the games, and far beyond. He recognized The Huntington as a cultural destination uniquely positioned to steward the work and share it with a broad public audience.”

“LOVE” will join a number of other outdoor installations across the Huntington’s expansive grounds and gardens, including two recently acquired sculptures by the Cuban-born artist Enrique Martínez Celaya, in addition to pieces by Sam Francis, Tony Smith and Harry Bertoia.

The sculpture also serves to expand the Huntington’s collection of American art dating from the mid-20th century on, joining works by Andy Warhol, Betye Saar, Elizabeth Catlett, Isamu Noguchi, Paul Manship, Gaston Lachaise, Elie Nadelman, Daniel Chester French, Sargent Claude Johnson, Richmond Barthé and Wilhelm Hunt Diederich.

If you’re planning a Mother’s Day jaunt to the picturesque Huntington, you won’t see the sculpture just yet, but you should still go. (This is where I wish all who celebrate a very happy Mother’s Day. Hi, hardworking, selfless moms everywhere: I see you.)

I’m Arts editor Jessica Gelt and I choose LOVE. This is your arts and culture news for the week.

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

Freeways 2026
Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra fellows Alejandro Lombo, flute, Eder Rivera, oboe, and Nicolás Valencia, viola, and other emerging musicians perform works by Dranishnikova, Piazzolla, Mozart, Dvořák, Gaubert, Julia Moss and Ravel.
7:30 p.m. Colburn School, Zipper Hall, 200 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laco.org

My Birthday Party
Based on stories by Carl Sandburg and Viggo Mortensen, this immersive theatrical experience includes acrobats, aerialists and clowns from Cirque du Soleil and features surprise guests, with music by Veronika Krausas. Opening night performance by Thelma Houston.
8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday, through May 7. Fais Do-Do, 5257 W. Adams Place, L.A. playwithsprung.com

Rachmaninoff’s ‘Second Symphony’
In his L.A. Phil debut, flamboyant Italian-Swiss conductor Lorenzo Viotti and violinist Lisa Batiashvili join the orchestra for a fiery program of late-Romantic works.
8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com

Picasso: Le Monstre Sacré
Peter Tate’s solo performance piece, adapted by the actor and director Guy Masterson from Terri D’Alfonso‘s “The Loves of Picasso,” explores the complicated artist’s legacy from within.
8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 3 p.m. Sunday, through May 17. Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. odysseytheatre.com

TJ Shin
The L.A.-based artist’s solo exhibition “Delta,” rooted in game theory, consists of a multi-channel video installation, drawings and a newly commissioned text by writer and professor Sunny Xiang.
11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, through June 11. Ehrlich Steinberg, 5540 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A. ehrlichsteinberg.com

The Sound of Music
The Hollywood Hills (and San Diego and Costa Mesa) are alive with the sound of Rodgers & Hammerstein on this tour of the latest revival of the classic romantic musical set in Austria as Nazi Germany moves to annex it.
Through May 24. Hollywood Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd.; May 26-31. San Diego Civic Theatre, 1100 Third Ave.; June 2-14. Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. soundofmusicontour.com

SATURDAY

Ascent
This world premiere of a play by the late Henry Ong details the true story of aerospace engineer and cyberneticist Qian Xuesen, who co-founded Jet Propulsion Laboratory and was instrumental in United States’ World War II efforts before being unjustly forced to return to China. Direction and dramaturgy by Diana Wyenn.
8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays, through June 14. Skylight Theatre Company, 1816 ½ N. Vermont Ave, L.A. skylighttheatre.org

Maintenance Artist
The Laemmle “Culture Vulture” series continues with a 2025 documentary about Mierle Laderman Ukeles, who, inspired by Marcel Duchamp, inaugurated the idea that routine activities could be seen as performance art. Directed by Toby Perl Freilich.
10 a.m. Saturday and Sunday; 7 p.m. Monday. Laemmle Glendale, 207 N. Maryland Ave.; Laemmle Town Center 5, 17200 Ventura Blvd., Encino; Laemmle Monica Film Center, 1332 2nd St. laemmle.com 6 p.m. May 16. Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Drive, L.A. getty.edu

Wild Up: The Center Is Between Us
The eclectic ensemble performs Robert Ashley’s “The Park” and “The Backyard,” narrated live by Christopher Rountree, from the 1978 avant-garde spoken work album “Private Parts,” before being joined by the santoor and tabla duo of Kamaljeet and Jas Ahluwalia, along with cellist Chris Votek, for new work.
8 p.m. UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu

SUNDAY

Los Angeles Children’s Chorus
LACC presents two spring concerts: Sunday, featuring the Apprentice Choir, Intermediate Choir and Chorale; and May 17 with the Concert Choir, Young Men’s Ensemble and Chamber Singers.
7 p.m. Sunday and May 17. Pasadena Presbyterian Church, 585 E. Colorado Blvd. lachildrenschorus.org

MOMentum Place
Celebrate Mother’s Day in the great outdoors with aerial and circus performers, dancers and musicians, preceded by a brunch from chef David Gussin and Prose Restaurant.
Brunch, noon; performance, 2 p.m.; Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga. theatricum.com

Terms of Endearment
James L. Brooks won Academy Awards for writing, producing and directing this adaptation of Larry McMurty’s novel, which should resonate with anyone who has or had a challenging relationship with their own mother on this Mother’s Day. Featuring a stacked cast including Oscar winners Shirley MacLaine and Jack Nicholson, and nominees Debra Winger and John Lithgow, as well as Jeff Daniels and Danny DeVito. Presented in 35mm.
2 p.m. Academy Museum, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. academymuseum.org

MONDAY

ASCAP Foundation Musical Theatre Workshop
Three new musicals presented as live readings with musical accompaniment and expert feedback panels: “Lilyville” by Antonius Anand Nazareth (Monday); “The Waiting” by Maria Isabella Andreoli and EmmaLee Kidwell (Tuesday); and “Legendary” by Cheeyang Ng (Wednesday).
7 p.m. Monday-Wednesday. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. thewallis.org

TUESDAY

After Dark My Sweet
Actor Jason Patric presents a screening of his personal 35mm print of director James Foley’s 1990 neo-noir adapted from the Jim Thompson novel. Introduced by Alex Winter and followed by a Q&A with Patric and writer/film critic Travis Woods.
7:30 p.m. Vidiots, 4884 Eagle Rock Blvd. vidiotsfoundation.org

Sarah Andon
“Eclectic Engagement: Explorations in Sound, Space, and Collaboration” features the L.A.-based flutist and an all-star ensemble, including percussionist Nick Terry, pianists Todd Moellenberg, Bryan Pezzone and Aron Kallay, flutist Sarah Wass, violinist Shalini Vijayan and electronicist Cristina Lord performing works by Toru Takemitsu, Sungji Hong, Gabriela Lena Frank, Nicolás Lell Benavides, Herman Beeftink, Jerry Goldsmith, Ennio Morricone and Nino Rota.
8 p.m. Monk Space, 4414 W. 2nd St., L.A. brightworknewmusic.com

WEDNESDAY

Brigadoon
Tyne Daly headlines this new adaptation by Alexandra Silber of the classic Lerne & Loewe musical about a mysterious Scottish village that only appears once a century. Directed by Katie Spelman, with original dances created by Agnes Demille.
Through June 14. Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molina Ave. pasadenaplayhouse.org

A Sea Symphony
Pasadena Chorale performs Walt Whitman’s words with Vaughan Williams’ music, featuring solos by sopranos Rachel Adcock and Asha Srikantiah and baritones Eric Werner and Tobin Sparfeld.
7:30 p.m. First United Methodist Church Pasadena, 500 E. Colorado Blvd. pasadenachorale.org

THURSDAY

Camerata Pacifica
The ensemble performs a program that includes works by Beethoven, De Mey and Bunch, and concludes with Shostakovich’s “Symphony No. 15 for Piano Trio and Percussion,” arranged by Viktor Derevianko.
8 p.m. Thursday. Colburn School, Zipper Hall, 200 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A.; 7 p.m. May 15. Academy of the West, 1070 Fairway Road, Santa Barbara. 8 p.m.; 3 p.m. May 17. Bank of America Performing Arts Center, Scherr Forum, 2100 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd.; 7:30 p.m. May 19. The Huntington, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino. cameratapacifica.org

Arts anywhere

New and recent releases of arts-related media.

Open-Door Playhouse
Playwright Bernadette Armstrong launched this online venture during the pandemic to help other authors get their work heard by audiences. The endeavor has continued, producing dozens of audio versions of 10-minute and one-act plays delivered as podcasts. The latest release, “Holy Hell,” written by Barbara Lindsay, features a man (played by Gary Lamb, who also directed) and a woman (Elaine Mello) separately recounting the tragedy that united them. Open Door Playhouse is free, relying on listener donations.
opendoorplayhouse.org

Rupert García: The Making of an American Artist, a Testimonio
An oral history 30 years in the making, the book chronicles the life and career of the American Chicano visual artist and activist, whose work as a painter, pastellist and screen printer both documented and galvanized cultural movements from the 1960s onward. The book’s author, historian Mario T. Garcia of UC Santa Barbara, will be in town for a book signing at 7:30 p.m. on Friday at Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. vromansbookstore.com
Rutgers University Press: $35, 215 pages.

Sangú
Trumpeter, bandleader and composer Arturo Sandoval’s latest album — the title is a malapropism of “sounds good” made during the studio sessions — features 12 tracks of Afro-Cuban funk, blending bebop, fiery jazz fusion and batá-inspired rhythms. Sandoval will perform June 4-7 at Blue Note Los Angeles.
Self-released: digital download, $9.50. arturosandoval.com

— Kevin Crust

Culture news and the SoCal scene

Tony Award nominations were announced early this week with musicals “The Lost Boys” and “Schmigadoon!” leading nominations with 12 each, followed by “Ragtime” with 11. Malia Mendez has the full list, here, and Times theater critic Charles McNulty followed up with a story on 10 standout Broadway performances and shows worth celebrating, including Laurie Metcalf in both Samuel D. Hunter’s “Little Bear Ridge Road” and this spring’s revival of “Death of a Salesman.”

The Pulitzer Prizes were announced the day before the Tony nominations, and Bess Wohl’s play “Liberation” took home the 2026 Pulitzer for drama. The win foreshadowed what would come next: “Liberation” was nominated for five Tonys, including best play and director.

McNulty also rounded up three major Broadway musicals in one handy, sweeping review: “Cats: The Jellicle Ball,” “The Lost Boys” and “Titanique.” “Cats,” notes McNulty, has managed to distance itself from its kitschy reputation and checkered past to become “one of the hottest tickets of the Broadway season. It didn’t take a miracle, only a complete conceptual overhaul.” Happily, “The Lost Boys” also won McNulty over despite his “antipathy to vampire schlock.” “Titanique” was not McNulty’s favorite, but he noticed that his fellow theatergoers couldn’t get enough.

There was not one free moment in McNulty’s New York itinerary in early March. While attending a flurry of shows, our critic also sat down to a brunch interview with director Joe Mantello during rehearsals for the new Broadway revival of “Death of a Salesman.” “A two-time Tony-winning director (‘Assassins,’ ‘Take Me Out’), Mantello has a résumé so extensive that it can be startling to recall that he’s the original Broadway director of “Wicked,” the blockbuster that has allowed him to write his own ticket. There aren’t many theater directors who can pick and choose their projects without worrying about their next paycheck, but he has become the Mike Nichols of our era in terms of the breadth and consistency of his theatrical success,” writes McNulty,

The Times got the scoop that Holocaust Museum LA will reopen June 14 as part of the new $70-million, 70,000-square-foot Goldrich Cultural Center. The center doubles the museum’s original 35,000-square-foot footprint and broadens the institution’s “focus on inclusion and community, with a diverse range of events and ramped-up educational offerings,” writes Times contributor Solvej Schou.

Times contributor Tim Greiving, who is also the author of a biography on John Williams, covered a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new John Williams Performing Arts Center at North Hollywood High — the famed film composer’s alma mater. Williams, 94, was in attendance and gave a few brief remarks in front of a crowd filled with other notable school alumni and friends including Kathleen Kennedy.

The Times published an exclusive on Pasadena Playhouse’s new 2026-27 season, which includes the post-Broadway debut of “Real Women Have Curves: The Musical.” Other offerings include a new production of Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s tragicomedy “The Visit,” the L.A. premiere of “Passing Strange,” and a revival of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”

Comedian Kathy Griffin is staging her first-ever residency at the Plaza Theatre in Palm Springs. “Can You Handle This Heat? The Kathy Griffin Palm Springs Residency,” is scheduled to run from Jan. 31 to Feb. 26, 2027. Tickets go on sale today.

The Soraya has announced it 2026-27 season featuring eight noteworthy debuts and 45 performances, including Sutton Foster with Chris Walden and the Pacific Jazz Orchestra; the eclectic band Snarky Puppy; Majo Aguilar con Mariachi y Banda; Dance Theatre of Harlem; National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine; Los Angeles Philharmonic; Audra McDonald; and the National Symphony Orchestra. The new lineup also introduces Chad Hilligus as the Soraya’s new executive and artistic director.

Grand Performances announced its 40th annual Summer Concert Series featuring free outdoor shows in downtown L.A.’s California Plaza from June 6–Aug. 29. Highlights include a June 13 anniversary celebration with Jungle Fire, Healing Gems and DJ Liza Richardson; a tribute to the music of Stevie Wonder with DJ Spinna, Monalisa and MC Cognito; and a tribute to Roy Ayers led by composer Sly5thAve with a 12-piece ensemble including drummer Kassa Overall.

This week, IATSE filed unfair labor practice charges against management at the beleaguered John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, alleging the center broke its union contract by permanently eliminating union jobs ahead of its controversial temporary closure.

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

Looking for a great classic diner? Me too! This Food story will help.

The 61st Venice Biennale — the world’s most celebrated international exhibition of contemporary art — made headlines Thursday when its awards jury resigned amid a growing controversy over its April 23 decision to exclude countries charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.

In the current moment, this specifically meant Israel and Russia, and an uproar ensued — particularly with regard to Israel. The Israel Foreign Ministry blasted the decision on social media, writing in an April 26 post that the boycott “is a contamination of the art world. The political jury has transformed the Biennale from an open artistic space of free, boundless ideas into a spectacle of false, anti-Israeli political indoctrination.”

The jury posted its brief statement of resignation online four days later “in acknowledgment” of its original decree, in which it wrote, “At this edition of the Biennale, we wish to set out our intention — to express our commitment to the defense of human rights,” before explaining it would not consider certain countries for awards.

The Biennale moved swiftly to reverse course after the jury’s resignation, issuing a news release that noted, “All National Participations included in the 61st Exhibition … are eligible … following the principle of inclusion and equal treatment among all participants. This is consistent with the founding spirit of La Biennale, based on openness, dialogue, and the rejection of any form of closure or censorship. La Biennale seeks to be — and must remain — a place of truce in the name of art, culture, and artistic freedom.”

To that end, the awards ceremony originally scheduled to take place on May 9 has been pushed to November 22 — the last day the exhibition is open to the public. There is precedent for “exceptional circumstances” delays, and the last one took place in 2021 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Without precedent, however, are the newly established awards, created to replace the coveted Golden Lion awards that the jury traditionally hands out to two winners each year. This year, instead of the Golden Lion for best national participation at the Biennale; and the Golden Lion for best participant in the Biennale’s central exhibition, the Biennale has established two Visitors’ Lions to be awarded in the same categories.

Instead of a jury deciding the winners this year, the honor will be left — as the new award name specifies — to the exhibition visitors.

“Visitors eligible to vote for the Visitors’ Lions are ticket holders who have visited both Exhibition venues,” the release reads.

“Visits to both venues will be verified through the ticketing system’s tracking. Each ticket holder may cast one vote for each of the two awards, in one single session.”

Whether Visitors’ Lions will become a Biennale mainstay remains to be seen — but I can imagine the democratic idea might keep its place when the Golden Lions make their return next year.

I’m Arts editor Jessica Gelt doing my best to tread water in difficult times. This is your arts and culture news for the week.

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

Celebrating 30 Years of Margin Films
Award-winning filmmaker Quentin Lee and his production company mark three decades in the business with a weeklong screening series. Lee’s breakout 1997 debut “Shopping for Fangs,” co-directed by Justin Lin, is the opening film. Also screening: “Ethan Mao,” Saturday; “The People I’ve Slept With,” Sunday; “The Unbidden,” Monday; “Rez Comedy,” Tuesday; “Last Summer of Nathan Lee,” Wednesday; and a sneak peak of three episodes of the Canadian TV series “Comedy InvAsian III,” Thursday. Selected screening includes a Q&A. Lee is also releasing a book, “Cinemasianamerica,” commemorating the occasion.
Each film screens one day, 1:30, 4:30 and 7:30 p.m., through Thursday. Laemmle Royal, 11523 Santa Monica Blvd., West L.A. laemmle.com

Dvořák and Korngold
Conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada and the Los Angeles Philharmonic pay tribute to Michael Tilson Thomas, who died April 22, with his composition “Agnegram,” and perform Korngold’s “Concerto in D major for Violin and Orchestra” with violinist María Dueñas. The evening concludes with “Symphony No. 7 in D minor” by Dvořák.
8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com

Warsaw
The world premiere of British playwright and “Selma” screenwriter Paul Webb’s drama about the fate of a woman whose life links two monumental historic moments, World War II and Sept. 11.
7:30 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays, through May 17. International City Theatre, 330 E. Seaside Way, Long Beach. ictlongbeach.org

SATURDAY

Kronos Quartet
The West Coast premiere of the group’s latest large-scale multimedia project, “Three Bones,” which combines live performance, video, visual art, recordings and environmental sound to explore the histories of Indigenous, Gullah Geechee and Chinese American communities in the United States.
6 p.m. UC Santa Barbara campus, Campbell Hall. artsandlectures.ucsb.edu

The Prestige
Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale square off as rival magicians in a 20th anniversary 35mm screening of Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi thriller.
7:30 p.m. Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica. americancinematheque.com

Carlota: Alhajero de Secretos
Writer-directors Rodrigo García and Ugho Badú reimagine Federico García Lorca’s tragedy “The House of Bernarda Alba.” The co-production between San José-based LGBTQ+ ensemble Teatro Alebrijes and L.A.’s Latino Theater Company is in Spanish with English supertitles.
8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays, through May 24. Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring Street, downtown L.A. latinotheaterco.org

SUNDAY

Exit the King
Eugène Ionesco’s classic absurdist comedy about a desperate monarch who refuses to admit his time has come, translated by Donald Watson and directed by Michael Michetti.
Previews, 2 p.m. Sunday; 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and May 8; opening night, 7:30 p.m. May 9; runs through May 31. A Noise Within, 3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena. anoisewithin.org

Anna Lapwood
The popular organist performs work from “The Da Vinci Code,” “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” “The Lord of the Rings,” “Star Wars Episode I – The Phantom Menace,” “Flight” and “Pirates of the Caribbean,” as well as Olivia Belli’s organ solo “Limina Luminis,” in this recital.
7:30 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com

TUESDAY

Willie Birch: Stories to Tell
This career retrospective details Birch’s exploration of the Black American experience since the 1960s, posing difficult questions along the way in his work as an artist, community organizer and “cultural provocateur.”
10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays to Saturdays; 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays, through Oct. 21. California African American Museum, 600 State Drive, Exposition Park. caamuseum.org

Jazz in Long Beach
Two jazz-influenced acts come to the Carpenter Center next week. Lucía brings her signature mix of traditional American jazz and Latin folk in a Spotlight Sessions concert on the Cabaret Stage. She’ll also be performing songs from her forthcoming album. “The Magic of Manhattan Starring Benny Benack III” is a tribute to the Big Apple and the songs and singers most associated with it, including Blossom Dearie, Frank Sinatra and Billy Joel.
Lucía, 8 p.m. Tuesday; Benny Benack III, 7 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday. Carpenter Center, 6200 E. Atherton St., Long Beach. carpenterarts.org

Smith, Cabezas & Childs
Molly Turner conducts the LA Phil New Music Group, with multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Gabriella Smith, cellist Gabriel Cabezas and jazz pianist Billy Childs in a program of eco-friendly music curated by Smith, including compositions by Smith, Childs, Michael Gordon, John Cage and Esa-Pekka Salonen.
8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com

WEDNESDAY
Andrés Jaramillo: A Journey of Immigrants, Part II
The Colombian American pianist follows up on his January 2025 program with a celebration of the global cultural exchange created by immigrants, placing Latin American composers within the Romantic tradition. Featuring works by Chopin, Calvo, Mejía, Barber, Lecuona, Friedhoff-Calvo and Pinzón-Arroyo. Presented by Piano Spheres.
8 p.m. Wednesday. Thayer Hall at Colburn School, 200 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. pianospheres.org

Seven
A 4k screening of David Fincher’s 1995 thriller about two cops on the trail of a serial killer. Appearances by production designer Arthur Max and set decorator Clay Griffith.
7:30 p.m. Academy Museum, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. academymuseum.org

THURSDAY

Dancing With Bob: Rauschenberg, Brown & Cunningham Onstage
This kinetic retrospective captures the cross-disciplinary collaborations between vanguard artist Robert Rauschenberg and choreographers Trisha Brown (“Set and Reset,” with an electronic score by Laurie Anderson) and Merce Cunningham (“Travelogue,” created with John Cage).
7:30 p.m. Thursday and May 8; 2 p.m. May 9. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. thewallis.org

The Physicists
Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton are residents of an insane asylum beset by murder, mayhem, espionage and questions about the morality and ethics of science in this 1962 German satire by Friedrich Dürrenmatt. Directed by Brent Hinkley.
8 p.m. Thursdays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays, through June 20. The Actors’ Gang Theater, 9070 Venice Blvd., Culver City. theactorsgang.com

Arts anywhere

New and recent releases of arts-related media.

The Adding Machine
Currently running at the Theater at St. Clement’s in Hell’s Kitchen, New York City, through May 17, this New Group production with a revised script by Thomas Bradshaw receives a one-time livestream next week. “[Elmer] Rice’s expressionist drama is known for being a tale of man vs. machine in an age of merciless efficiency, but inhumanity in a broader sense is its true core subject,” wrote Laura Collins-Hughes in a recent New York Times review. “The happy news about Scott Elliott’s handsome yet under-realized revival … is what a delight Daphne Rubin-Vega is to watch as Mr. Zero.” The cast also features Sarita Choudhury, Michael Cyril Creighton and Jennifer Tilly. The League of Live Stream Theater: 4 p.m. Tuesday. $40, includes 24-hour replay.

Art Work
Photographer and writer Sally Mann weighs in on the creative process with stories, advice and life lessons, all illustrated with photos, journal entries and letters, making for a compelling, often surprising journey. Abrams Books: 272 pages, $35

Insomnia and Seven Steps to Grace
The new album by Joy Harjo, the first Native American to be named United States Poet Laureate, serving from 2019 to 2022, combines jazz, funk, rock and Native music sounds with her signature “vibration of love” as she boldly confronts injustice and draws inspiration from ancestral memory and the political turmoil of the moment. The double LP’s packaging features original art by Harjo and the poet’s extensive liner notes. Five-time Grammy winner Esperanza Spalding produced as well as contributed vocals and played bass on the project. Smithsonian Folkways: Double vinyl LP ($33), CD ($17), hi-res digital download ($13), digital download ($10).

— Kevin Crust

Culture news and the SoCal scene

Times classical music critic Mark Swed wrote a lovely appreciation of conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, who died last week at the age of 81. Tilson Thomas, Swed wrote, “made music matter by making hope matter. He was, moreover, one of us. He achieved greatness though an epic amplification of a uniquely L.A. positivity in which grumpy became wistful.”

LA Opera music director James Conlon is preparing to step down after a record 20 seasons with the company, and in a recent story, Swed cataloged his impressive numbers: “More than 500 performances of 70 different operas at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and occasional neighboring venues, such as the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.” Swed attended a recent farewell gala and noted some highlights, including excerpts from “The Marriage of Figaro.”

Times theater critic Charles McNulty spent a recent trip to New York almost entirely in various Broadway theaters, catching up on what he says is a “strange season by all accounts.” McNulty notes that Broadway is still the place acting powerhouses like Adrien Brody, John Lithgow and Laurie Metcalf go in search of the kind of depthy material increasingly unavailable onscreen. He looks at four such shows — and their epic leading actors — including “Death of a Salesman,” “Giant,” “The Fear of 13” and “Dog Day Afternoon.”

Malia Mendez wrote a great piece about a trio of classic musicals running concurrently in L.A. She takes a closer look at “Flower Drum Song,” adapted for East West Players by David Henry Hwang; “Brigadoon,” adapted for Pasadena Playhouse by Alexandra Silber; and “The Sound of Music” at the Hollywood Pantages. All three were originally written by two of the 20th century’s most dynamic and celebrated writing duos: Rodgers and Hammerstein (“Flower Drum Song” and “The Sound of Music”) and Lerner and Loewe (“Brigadoon”). And all still resonate in modern times.

Mendez also wrote about a special event taking place this weekend called Night at the Library — held as part of the downtown Central Library’s centennial celebration. “The four-hour extravaganza Saturday will feature more than 200 artists and 25 to 30 activations peppered throughout the library campus, plus DJ sets and local food truck fare. Highlighted performers include Bob Baker Marionette Theater and Los Angeles Master Chorale,” Mendez writes.

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art unveiled its inaugural exhibitions this week — noting that all 20 were curated by George Lucas himself. The $1-billion museum will open to the public on the first day of fall and the exhibits will be shown in more than 30 galleries spread over 100,000 square feet of exhibition space. And, yes, “Star Wars” memorabilia will be part of the “cinema” exhibit with large-scale vehicle installations, production designs, props and costumes.

The board of directors of San Diego’s Old Globe named Trish Santini as the theater’s new managing director. Santini joins Artistic Director Barry Edelstein as a co-chief executive, and enters her new role on July 1. Among other arts leadership posts, Santini was the inaugural executive director of Little Island in New York City, and led the launch of the $250-million public park and performance venue.

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

The Times Food section calls to me yet again with this headline: “L.A.’s best rotisserie chicken may be at this former gas station in Pasadena.”

So that Game 3 overtime win Friday in Houston was fun, huh?

The Lakers needed it, of course. The Lakers wanted it.

The Lakers are paying for it.

Because LeBron James hasn’t looked superhuman since playing those 45 minutes, including all five gutsy minutes of ovetime.

He hasn’t looked great.

Not even particularly good, not by his lofty standards.

And the Lakers need their not-quite-ageless wonder to be at least great to beat these Houston Rockets one more time. They need James’ best can-you-believe-he’s-41? act if they hope to close out this challenging best-of-seven first-round series without Luka Doncic.

The Lakers went up 3-0 largely thanks to James’ contributions.

After weeks of willingly playing third-wheel behind Doncic and Austin Reaves, James made it look like playing the alpha was like riding a bike in Game 1’s 107-98 victory: He got right on it and gave the Lakers 19 points, 13 assists and eight rebounds.

Then James had 28 points in the 101-94 victory in Game 2. And there was his monster effort in Game 3, when he had 29 points and 13 assists and, in overtime, a key steal and block in the Lakers’ 112-108 victory.

But James has been much more mortal in the two games since, and the Lakers have lost both.

With a chance to finish off the Rockets in Game 4 on Sunday at the Toyota Center, James had almost as many turnovers as points: eight and 10, respectively.

With a second chance to finish off the Rockets in Game 5 at Crypto.com Arena on Wednesday, despite a second day of rest, James had a jagged performance that looked like a lot of work in the Lakers’ 99-93 loss.

He had a game-high 25 points on nine-of-20 shooting, but he missed all six of his three-point attempts. He smoked layups. And missed three of his 10 free-throws, short on those attempts like he was on many of his misses Wednesday.

And while he had only two turnovers, they were the type to turn a tide, the type we’re not accustomed to witnessing from James. That type the Lakers can’t afford for him to make.

If he were a quarterback, he could have been called for intentional grounding, he overthrew Rui Hachimura by so much in the second quarter, when the Lakers were trying — and failing — to hang onto their early lead.

And then James got rhe ball ripped away from him by Reed Sheppard, the Rockets’ 21-year-old, allegedly 6-foot-2 guard, who raced up the court for a fast break dunk with 2:22 to play. That made it 92-85 and effectively doused the Lakers’ comeback.

“Just bang-bang plays,” James said at his locker, with a shrug. “Try to flush this one … we got to be better on Friday.”

The Lakers will have just two more shots at winning a series they weren’t supposed to before it started.

Their third attempt at closing out the Rockets comes quickly, when they play Game 6 on Friday at Houston. The Lakers will need something resembling the best version of James if they’re going to win and avoid the spectacle of a Game 7 showdown Sunday.

That would bring the Lakers to the brink of becoming the first team in NBA history to blow a 3-0 series lead. It would be an unavoidable blotch at the bottom of James’ 23-season resume that otherwise is highlighted by a 3-1 comeback against the Golden State Warriors in the 2016 NBA Finals.

But James and the Lakers aren’t thinking about that now — or about whatever chatter is coming out of the Rockets’ now-confident camp (on Tuesday, Jabari Smith Jr. told reporters “We’re obviously the better team.”)

“Ask one of them young guys that question,” James said, unmoved. “I’m too old for that.”

But not too old — the Lakers hope — to carry them to one more victory and save them from infamy.

Dylan Carter, a contestant on Season 24 of “The Voice,” died in a car accident on Saturday.

According to the NBC affiliate serving the Lowcountry region of South Carolina, the musician died in a single-vehicle crash on a rural road in Colleton County. He was 24.

Country music legend Reba McEntire, who was Carter’s coach on “The Voice,” posted a tribute on social media Monday morning, writing, “We will miss Dylan so much. He was a brilliant, kind and talented young man who brought a huge ray of sunshine to The Voice. Rest in peace, my dear friend.”

Moncks Corner Mayor Thomas Hamilton Jr. also memorialized the Lowcountry singer, writing on Facebook that his family was “heartbroken” to hear about the accident.

“As a gifted singer, he frequently entertained our community with his performances at Town events,” read the post. “His kindness and charm earned him immense respect, and his absence will be deeply felt.

“To the loved ones and acquaintances of Dylan, we offer our sincerest condolences during this difficult period. The Town of Moncks Corner, its Council, and entire staff extend their deepest sympathies. He was much more to our family than an entertainer he was our friend and we are deeply saddened.”

Carter was slated to perform Monday night at the town of Moncks Corner’s “Music on Main” event. The organizer posted that the event had been canceled, and the comments section was filled with an outpouring of shock and grief.

Carter competed on Season 24 of “The Voice” in 2023. During his blind audition, he sang Whitney Houston’s “I Look to You,” which he dedicated to his mother, who had died the year before. During his audition, all four judges turned their chairs for the contestant, with Gwen Stefani hitting her red button during the song’s first verse.

“You only get four chairs if you really move the room,” said judge Niall Horan, who called his performance spectacular.

McEntire was choked up and said she could feel and hear Carter’s emotion while he sang. “That’s when you know you’ve got a great song and a great singer,” she said. “When it touches your heart.”

“When I saw y’all turn around, I saw my mom,” Carter told the judges. “She passed back in October and she wanted me to sing it at her funeral, so I did it — I tried, but I couldn’t make it through it. This was the best second chance. I just made her so proud.”

After Carter was eliminated from the competition series, he posted on Instagram, reflecting on his experience: “Well last night did not go as we all were hoping, but I am proud to say that I went out there on that stage and gave it MY ALL.”

Carter admitted that he felt defeated when he was eliminated, adding, “but it did not take me long to realize that I actually didn’t lose anything, instead I gained EVERYTHING!”

“I came to The Voice unsure of myself, unsure of my future, and still grieving the loss of my mom. I left LA with confidence in myself and my future, with a sure purpose as to why I was put on this Earth, and with peace of mind moving on from my mom’s death. I’ve been afraid of moving on from my mom’s death because I thought moving on meant forgetting her. Boy was I wrong!!! I’m moving forward with her, as she shines through me! All she ever wanted was for me to find myself, to find my voice, and for me to be happy…. I left LA with all of that plus more!!! I even gained all of you guys.”

The South Carolina Highway Patrol is investigating the accident.

FORMER X Factor winner Matt Cardle is set to come face to face with Simon Cowell on live TV again – 16 years after winning the ITV talent show.

I can reveal that Matt is being lined up to perform at one of the Britain’s Got Talent live finals in the coming weeks.

Rather than performing new solo music, Matt will take to the stage as part of a special performance of West End hit Kinky Boots.

He is starring in the musical at the London Coliseum alongside Strictly Come Dancing’s Johannes Radebe.

A source said: “Simon is a huge fan of musicals and the bosses at Britain’s Got Talent are keen to push the arts as much as possible.

“With that in mind, a number of the live acts booked for the finals this year come from West End shows.

“Matt and the Kinky Boots cast are set to perform in a few weeks’ time – it really will be a full circle moment for him.”

This weekend, former BGT winner Sydnie Christmas will perform her new single – Run.

Bizarre’s Jack hung out on the set of her music video earlier this year, so we can’t wait to see that one live.

Zara‘s feeling f-Lush

Zara Larsson has me counting down the days to my summer holiday after hopping on this float to promote her Main Rose swimwear brand.

She was living her own Lush Life as she soaked up some rays ahead of headlining Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Sunderland next month.

This Friday she will release the deluxe version of her fifth album, Midnight Sun: Girls Trip, packed with collaborations, including Tyla and Shakira.

And it’s testament to Zara trusting herself.

On writing and recording the track, which came out last year, she said: “I stopped focusing so much on what I thought other people would want from me or what I thought radio would want, and just started focusing on what I wanted to do.

“Ironically that’s when people start caring.”

Liam family praise for Louis’s heartfelt concert

Liam Payne’s loved ones made a lowkey trip to his One Direction bandmate Louis Tomlinson’s tour.

Some of Liam’s relatives including sister Nicola were in a VIP box to see Louis perform at Birmingham’s Utilita Arena last weekend.

During the show, Louis was visibly emotional when singing Dark To Light – a track he wrote about Liam’s death.

Taking to Instagram, Nicola said: “Thank you Louis Tomlinson for last night.

“It was extremely emotional, but really beautiful, and it meant a lot to be there.

“Your staging and your songs are beautiful. A truly special night.”

Louis has previously spoken warmly about Liam.

He said: “I could talk all day about how amazing he was.

“We all looked up to him, he was vastly experienced before any of us had done anything.

“If he could just for five minutes live in my head or your head and see how we perceive him, he would be so shocked.

“He was pure.”

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The wait for Madonna and Sabrina Carpenter’s collaboration is almost over, as it’s being released this Friday.

The superstars recently performed Bring Your Love at Coachella and now they are putting out the official audio.

The pair made the announcement yesterday when they shared a new photo of themselves with the caption: “We’ve got something to say about it,” which is a reference to Madonna’s 1989 song Express Yourself.

It will be the first official single from the Queen of Pop’s forthcoming album Confessions On A Dancefloor: Part II, after she released a teaser track, I Feel So Free, earlier this month.

Humanize 102 words

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Pink girl’s a leg-end

Pink has sold out stadiums and had No1s across the globe, but as far as daughter Willow is concerned she’s top of the charts as an embarrassing mum.

At the opening night of The Lost Boys musical in New York they posed for photots on the red carpet.

But while standing in front of the snappers, Pink gestured at the slit in Willow’s skirt and said, “Show off your legs,” to which the youngster snapped: “No!”

Alan’s tequila stunrise

Alan Carr once fell in the Serpentine in London’s Hyde Park after drinking “hallucinogenic tequila” on his Chatty Man TV show.

The comedian said he was still feeling the effects the next day as he walked his dogs and suffered a mishap.

He explained he’d had a tequila the night before but was given a hallucinogenic one by mistake.

He added: “I couldn’t sober up and I fell in the Serpentine, p***ed.

“My old dog Bev, bless her, she dropped the ball in the Serpentine and I went forward to pick it up. And I think all the tequila rushed to the front of my head and I just fell in.”

Speaking on his Life’s A Beach podcast, he added: “In films, the dogs are meant to jump in and save you, but they were just wagging their tails, like, ‘What’s this p***head done again?’

“So I was just soaking wet and I had to walk . . . You know, when people are pulling their kids away, ‘Come away from the strange man,’ and all that.”

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Capital’s Summertime Ball is returning to London, taking over Wembley Stadium to entertain 80,000 fans on June 6.

The line-up will be revealed by Jordan North, Chris Stark and Sian Welby on Capital Breakfast this morning and tomorrow, before tickets go on sale through the Global Player app at 9am on Thursday.

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Gracie has secret follow-up

Gracie Abrams is back, two years after her album The Secret Of Us topped the charts.

The American singer released a teaser on Instagram yesterday, and it appears to be a snippet from the lead single for her upcoming third album.

The record is rumoured to be all about falling for Normal People actor Paul Mescal, although it doesn’t sound like it’s been smooth sailing.

They were reported to have briefly split in early 2025, and the song will do little to shut down that speculation.

Gracie sings: “I used to see clearly but it’s bloodshot. And I want you so badly but I closed off.

“I used to think we’d get married. But I guess not.”

Last summer we revealed Paul was at Gracie’s Glastonbury set, singing along to every word.

In February, they made their red-carpet debut at the Baftas in London.

And last month I told how Gracie had moved from LA into Paul’s London home, while he films the upcoming Beatles biopics.

Her last album was all about heartbreak, but I’m expecting some sunnier moments this time around.

As the 2026 Stagecoach Country Music Festival rides off into the sunset, enjoy the last day of the performances from the comfort of your home. The festival will be livestreaming most of the performances, so you’ll be able to watch Post Malone and Warren Zeiders from the couch. You can also take a trip down memory lane with Hootie & the Blowfish, Brooks & Dunn and Third Eye Blind. Close out the festival by watching Loud Luxury, DJ Pauly D and Ludacris onstage.

The festival will be livestreamed on Amazon Music, Prime Video and Twitch. On Sirius XM’s The Highway (Channel 56), you can listen in to exclusive interviews and live performances. Their station Y’Allternative will also be covering the festival on Sunday.

Here are updated set times for the Stagecoach livestream Sunday performances (times presented in PDT):

Channel 1

3:05 p.m. Jake Worthington; 3:25 p.m. Ink; 4 p.m. Bayker Blankenship; 4:25 p.m. Hudson Westbrook; 5 p.m. Kameron Marlowe; 5:55 p.m. Brett Young; 6:50 p.m. Brett Young; 6:50 p.m. Brooks & Dunn; 8:50 p.m. Hootie & the Blowfish; 10 p.m. Post Malone; 11:30 p.m. Ludacris

Channel 2

3:05 p.m. Adam Sanders; 3:25 p.m. Amos Lee; 4 p.m. Cameron Whitcomb; 4:40 p.m. Zach John King; 5:15 p.m. Max McNown; 6 p.m. The Wallflowers; 6:55 p.m. Eli Young Band; 7:25 p.m. Ty Myers; 8:25 p.m. Third Eye Blind; 9:25 p.m. Wyatt Flores; 10:30 p.m. Loud Luxury; 11:20 p.m. DJ Pauly D

Sirius XM The Highway

3:05 p.m. Hudson Westbrook; 4 p.m. Kameron Marlowe; 5:15 p.m. Brett Young; 6:30 p.m. Warren Zeiders; 7:50 p.m. Brooks & Dunn; 9:30 p.m. Post Malone

Sirius XM Y’Allternative

7 a.m. Larkin Poe; 9 a.m. S.G. Goodman; 11 a.m. Ole 60; 1 p.m. Sam Barber; 3 p.m. Red Clay Strays; 4 p.m. Marcus King Band; 6 p.m. Treaty Oak Revival; 7 p.m. Charles Wesley Godwin; 9 p.m. Wyatt Flores

Writing obituaries is a sacred, tricky task. Major news organizations compose advance obits on major figures, a just-in-case endeavor that feels both hugely important and somewhat macabre.

Several years ago, it fell to me to compose an advance death notice for the legendary conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, who was confronting a terminal brain cancer diagnosis by doubling down on his performance schedule and delivering — by all accounts — spectacular performances.

The piece lay blessedly dormant for longer than anyone thought possible as Tilson Thomas persevered in the face of his illness — an inspiration to all who knew and loved him. And then, yesterday morning, it became necessary to publish. There was a rush to update the writing, to fact-check the timeline, to be sure that all salient points were included. Here was the final story of a remarkable human’s life. The sense of responsibility cannot be overstated.

I was surprised to learn that a former colleague at the paper had also written an advance obit on Tilson Thomas, so my editor worked to meld the two together. The other writer included information that I had missed and vice versa, so in many ways it turned out to be a good thing that we had mistakenly doubled up on the weighty task.

One detail that the other writer included that was formerly unknown to me: A Times story from 1985 reported Tilson Thomas walking off the stage at the Hollywood Bowl nearly 15 minutes into the hourlong second movement of Part II of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 8. Tilson Thomas did this, according to the archived news clip, because a noisy police helicopter simply would not go away.

A reader wrote in after the obituary went live to say that he had been there when it happened, and offered up this fresh insight:

“I was at the concert. The helicopter was hovering long, low and loud(!) with a bright searchlight scanning the trees behind the shell. It was an impossible situation which [Tilson Thomas] handled with quiet dignity. And when he returned to the stage he opted to re-start the Second Movement of Mahler VIII from the top! It was a long and memorable night at the Bowl.”

Our obituary described Tilson Thomas as storming off the stage. Not so, said the reader.

“More determination than storm,” he wrote.

And suddenly I could picture it, that moment from more than 40 years ago, with Tilson Thomas displaying the singular determination and love for his craft that would sustain him much later in life when he faced down death with the same quiet grace, the same unwavering resolve. And the music … I can hear it over the chop-chop-chop of the helicopter, until Tilson Thomas is all that remains.

I’m Arts editor Jessica Gelt feeling grateful for stories past. This is your arts and culture news for the week.

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

CLAY LA
Emerging and established ceramic artists gather their wares for Craft Contemporary’s ninth annual fundraiser, a vibrant marketplace with complimentary refreshments, music and hands-on air-dry clay activities. Fun fact: The museum was founded by Edith R. Wyle, grandmother of “The Pitt’s” Noah Wyle.
Market Preview Night, 6-9 p.m. Friday, $20 general admission, $15 members; weekend market, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday (free with $9 museum admission) and Sunday (pay-what-you-wish admission); regular museum hours, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday; noon-8 p.m., the first Thursday of the month. Craft Contemporary, 5814 Wilshire Blvd. craftcontemporary.org

James Conlon Farewell Concert
The maestro, who is stepping down after 20 years as LA Opera’s music director, leads the organization’s full orchestra and chorus for an evening of Mozart, Verdi and Wagner as his grand finale. The event is followed by a celebratory gala on the stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
7 p.m. Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laopera.org

SATURDAY
John Adams & Conrad Tao
The LA Phil’s John and Samantha Williams Creative Chair conducts the orchestra in a program that includes Piazzolla’s “Two Tangos,” Stravinsky’s “Song of the Nightingale” and Prokofiev’s “Lieutenant Kijé Suite,” plus pianist Conrad Tao performing Adams’ composition “Century Rolls,” inspired by 1920s self-playing pianos.
8 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com

Brewery Artwalk & Open Studios
This free semi-annual event at the former Pabst Blue Ribbon Brewery north of downtown features more than 100 artists sharing, discussing and (ideally) selling their work in the very spaces that much of it is created.
11 a.m.-6 p.m Saturday and Sunday. Brewery Arts Complex, 2100 N. Main St., L.A. breweryartwalk.com

Fremont Ave.
The world premiere of Reggie D. White’s multi-generational drama about three Black men in L.A. and the woman who is the glue in their lives. Directed by Lili-Anne Brown. Part of the Pacific Playwrights Festival.
Previews, 8 p.m. Saturday; 7 p.m. Sunday and Tuesday-Thursday; opening night, May 1; regular performances, May 2-23. South Coast Repertory, Segerstrom Stage, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. scr.org

The Liminary
It’s 2042 in Last Call Theatre’s latest immersive experience and the U.S. is run by a nationalistic, isolationist government. Do you dare join the resistance? With interactive exhibits on immigration, community and hope, plus multiple endings and narratives inspired by the saga of immigrants.
8 p.m Saturday; 8 p.m. May 1-2, May 7-9 and May 14-16. 1919 3rd Ave. L.A. lastcalltheatre.com

planchette
A group exhibition featuring contemporary abstract sculptures and paintings by influential artists Rachel Harrison, Liz Larner and Rebecca Morris.
Opening reception, 6-8 p.m.; exhibit runs through May 23. Regen Projects, 6750 Santa Monica Blvd. L.A. regenprojects.com

SUNDAY
Gabriel Kahane & Roomful of Teeth
The eclectic singer-songwriter-composer teams up with the multi-Grammy-winning vocal group to perform music from their recently-released collaborative album, “Elevator Songs.”
7 p.m. Sid The Cat Auditorium, 1022 El Centro St., South Pasadena. sidthecat.com

WEDNESDAY

Australian Chamber Orchestra
The ensemble from down under performs Purcell’s “Fantasia on One Note,” Handel’s “Concerto Grosso in A Major, Op. 6 No. 11,” a new work by John Luther Adams titled “Horizon,” Vaughan Williams’ “The Lark Ascending” (arranged by Adam Johnson), and Schubert’s ”Death and the Maiden” in the candlelit intimacy of the Samueli Theater.
7 p.m. Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. scfta.org

Hymn
In this drama by British playwright Lolita Chakrabarti, best known for her stage adaptations of the novels “Life of Pi” and “Hamnet,” two Black men meet at a funeral and discover a life-changing connection. Gregg T. Daniel directs this co-production between the Odyssey Theatre and the Lower Depth Theatre.
Previews 8, p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and May 1; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays (an Wednesday, May 27); 3 p.m. Sundays (except May 31), through June 14. Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. odysseytheatre.com

THURSDAY

‘Giselle’
The Los Angeles Ballet’s staging of this classic supernatural romance features the original 1841 choreography by Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot (updated by Marius Petipa) and score by composer Adolphe Adam.
7:30 p.m. Thursday-May 2 and 2 p.m. May 3. Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. losangelesballet.org

TCM Classic Film Festival
Hollywood Boulevard comes alive with four days of movie magic beginning with the opening night presentation of the 1967 romantic comedy “Barefoot in the Park,” starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda. Other screenings include “Alice In Wonderland” (1951), “A Place In The Sun” (1951), “Gaslight” (1944), “Out Of The Past (1947) , “Modern Times” (1936), “The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951) and “The Magnificent Seven” (1960), with appearances by Fonda, Barbara Hershey, Carol Burnett, John Turturro and many more.
Thursday-May 3. TCL Chinese Theatre IMAX, 6925 Hollywood Blvd.; Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel; TCL Chinese 6 Theatres multiplex, 6801 Hollywood Blvd.; El Capitan Theatre, 6838 Hollywood Blvd.; Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd. filmfestival.tcm.com

Arts anywhere

New and recent releases of arts-related media.

Chausson
This concert album pairs two pieces by French Romantic composer Ernest Chausson: “Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Quartet, Op. 21.,” performed by violinist Renaud Capuçon, the late pianist Nicholas Angelich and the Ébène Quartet, and “Poème” for violin and orchestra, featuring Capuçon and the Brussels Philharmonic led by conductor Stéphane Denève. The show was recorded live in 2020. Warner Classics/Erato: Digital ($10) and CD ($17).

The City Unseen
Emmy-winning producer-director Daniel Sackheim, whose credits include “Law & Order,” “The X-Files” and “The Americans,” is also a serious photographer. His new book of black-and-white images casts Los Angeles as the protagonist in a noir landscape of nocturnal beauty where its darkest secrets lurk in the deepest shadows. Hat & Beard Press: 108 pages, $60.

International Jazz Day
The 15th annual event is Thursday in Chicago, but you can celebrate early with PBS’ broadcast of last year’s International Jazz Day All-Star Concert from Abu Dabai. Hosted by Jeremy Irons, the lineup includes Herbie Hancock, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Kurt Elling, Jose James, John McLaughlin, Helene Mercier, Danilo Perez, Arturo Sandoval and more.
10 p.m. Friday. PBS SoCal and streaming at pbssocal.org

— Kevin Crust

Culture news and the SoCal scene

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art news did not stop last week as it threw a glitzy opening gala for the new David Geffen Galleries, and — a few days later — welcomed members for previews prior to opening its doors to the general public on May 4. I attended the gala and checked in with a number of wonderful artists, including Mark Bradford, Ed Ruscha and Jeff Koons, about their thoughts on the new building. Then, on Sunday, we sent a team to get member reactions to the new space. Later in the week we published critic Leah Ollman’s review of the inaugural installation. Spoiler alert: Nope, not gonna give you one. You’ll have to read it.

We also ran a lovely profile by contributor Tara Anne Dalbow about Eileen Harris Norton whose jaw-dropping art collection is currently on display at Hauser & Wirth in downtown L.A. “Few people have done more to shape Los Angeles’ art scene than Eileen Harris Norton,” writes Dalbow. “The third-generation Californian, born and raised near Watts Towers in South Los Angeles, bought her first artwork at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, co-founded Art + Practice in Leimert Park, and has spent 50 years collecting artists who were, in many cases, her friends and neighbors.”

Times theater critic Charles McNulty was — as always — incredibly busy, publishing two reviews and a feature in the past week. First up, his take on “For Want of a Horse” by Olivia Dufault, currently receiving its world premiere in an Echo Theater Company production at Atwater Village Theatre. “The subject is zoophilia, not to be confused with bestiality, though for many of us it will be a distinction without much of a difference,” McNulty writes. Curious? Read on.

McNulty also delivered a thoughtful profile Nicholas Christopher, who he dined with on a recent trip to New York. “A new Broadway star emerges each season, and this year the spotlight has alighted on Nicholas Christopher, who has been dazzling audiences and insiders alike as part of the awe-inspiring triumvirate powering the thrilling new revival of the musical ‘Chess,’” McNulty writes.

Finally, McNulty reviewed “Eat Me,” by Talene Monahon, having its world premiere at South Coast Repertory. A fan of Monahon‘s previous work, McNulty was not as impressed at he would have liked. The play, he writes, “is a relentlessly quirky work that gorges on its own dark whimsy.”

In other news, I got the scoop that new media artist Refik Anadol’s museum of AI arts, Dataland has set its opening date for June 20.

South Coast Repertory announced an expanded 2026-27 season, featuring nine productions, including “Hamlet,” starring Raymond Lee; Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s “Into the Woods;” Lauren Yee’s “Mother Russia;” and Oscar Wilde’s classic, “The Importance of Being Earnest.” “The 2026-27 season reflects programming changes established in SCR’s recently adopted strategic plan, which includes more classics, modern masterpieces and the continuation of an annual musical on the Segerstrom Stage,” a news release notes.

“GUAC,” the heartbreaking one-man show by a father who lost his son in the 2018 Parkland school shooting, returns Tuesday to Center Theatre Group’s Kirk Douglas Theatre after playing to a packed house last September. Manuel Oliver’s devastating plea for gun control runs for three weeks only, through May 17.

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

If you’re sad that you missed Coachella, this story about how much people paid to attend will make you feel all better.

WASHINGTON — Many of the groups that helped elect Donald Trump as president again are deeply unhappy with his performance, according to a new AP-NORC poll.

Trump’s return to the presidency was fueled by a wide-ranging coalition that built on his loyal base of supporters. Now that Trump has been in the White House for more than a year, the survey of more than 2,500 U.S. adults from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that many key groups — including Hispanic adults, younger adults and men — are increasingly dissatisfied with his presidency.

The poll was conducted from April 16 through Monday, as oil prices fluctuated and Americans spent more at the gas pump.

It’s a particularly bad moment for Trump, a Republican whose economic approval slumped over the past month as the Iran war drives prices higher. But AP-NORC polls show that discontent has been building among critical segments of the population over the past year.

Trump’s overall approval among Hispanic adults has fallen 16 percentage points since March 2025, and his support has declined by 9 percentage points among men.

And while Trump’s base is still largely behind him — most Republicans approve of his performance — there are signs that his second term may not be living up to their expectations.

Here’s what polling shows about Trump’s current status with four important groups:

Hispanic adults

Hispanic Americans have grown increasingly discontented with Trump over the past year.

About one-quarter of Hispanic adults approve of how he’s handling the presidency in the new poll, down from about 4 in 10 in March 2025.

That decline has been visible since late last year — suggesting that it’s not just the war in Iran or recent spikes in gas prices that are leaving this group unhappy.

Trump’s restrictive immigration approach may be playing a role. Only about one-quarter of Hispanics approve of his handling of immigration, down from 36% at the beginning of his term.

His immigration tactics appear to be particularly unpopular among younger Hispanics — a group with which he made gains in 2024. Only 18% of younger Hispanic adults approve of his performance on immigration, compared with 40% of Americans overall.

There is also broad discontent about the state of the U.S. economy among Hispanics. Only about one-quarter of Hispanic adults approve of how Trump is handling that issue, and about 2 in 10 say they approve of his approach to the cost of living. Few Hispanic adults, about 2 in 10, describe the nation’s economy as “good.”

Young adults

Trump’s overall approval with Americans under age 45 has slid over the past year, falling from 39% in March 2025 to 28% in the latest poll.

Younger women have a particularly dim view of Trump’s handling of the economy.

Only about 2 in 10 women under age 45 approve of how Trump is handling the economy, including only 7% of younger Hispanic women who approve of his economic approach. More young men, about 3 in 10, approve of him on this issue.

Trump’s struggles among young adults extend to other groups, too. Only about one-third of white adults under age 45 approve of his overall performance, compared with 45% of white adults age 45 or older.

A downtick among men

Trump made broad appeals to men throughout his 2024 campaign, and most male voters backed Trump in the presidential election over Democrat Kamala Harris. In particular, he made slight but significant gains with Black and Hispanic men, who were drawn by his vows to revitalize the economy.

Since he reentered office, though, American men have become slightly less likely to approve of his performance, declining from 47% at the start of his second term to 38% in the most recent poll.

There are signs that Black men, in particular, aren’t seeing Trump’s economic promises pan out. Black men are more likely than white or Hispanic men to disapprove of Trump’s approach to the presidency, as well as his approach to the economy, the cost of living and Iran. Only about 1 in 10 Black men say they approve of how Trump is handling the cost of living, and roughly 2 in 10 approve of how he’s handling the economy.

Hispanic men, too, have a relatively dim view of Trump’s overall performance. About 3 in 10 approve of how Trump is handling the presidency, regardless of their age. That support is stronger among white men, with about half approving of Trump.

While young Republicans are frustrated, MAGA still backs Trump

Trump has benefited from Republicans’ loyalty for years, but there are recent signs of frustration even within his base.

Roughly two-thirds of Republicans approve of Trump’s job performance. That is down slightly from 82% near the start of his second term and is generally in line with the GOP low point from his first term.

But only about half of Republicans overall approve of Trump’s approach to the cost of living, and a majority of Republicans under age 45 disapprove of him on that issue.

Trump is still buoyed by the support of his MAGA base, even as he faces backlash from conservative media figures on some of his recent actions in Iran.

About 9 in 10 MAGA Republicans — those who consider themselves supporters of the “Make America Great Again” movement — approve of Trump’s job performance, and a similar share approve of his handling of Iran.

It’s a good sign for Trump that his most robust supporters are still in his corner, but not all Republicans identify with MAGA. About half of Republicans, 54%, say they consider themselves MAGA supporters.

Among non-MAGA Republicans, Trump’s approval is much lower, at 44%.

Sanders and Thomson-Deveaux write for the Associated Press. The AP-NORC poll of 2,596 adults was conducted April 16-20 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.

Karol G is taking her 2025 album, “Tropicoqueta,” worldwide.

After wrapping two bombastic headlining sets at Coachella this year, the Colombian superstar announced a stadium world tour on Instagram Tuesday morning.

The “Viajando Por El Mundo Tropitour” will kick off July 24 at Chicago’s Soldier Field. The “Provenza” artist will then head out to Las Vegas on Aug. 7 before making a stop at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood on Aug. 14. She’ll grace California with one more performance on Aug. 21 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.

The 35-year-old singer will wrap up the U.S. leg of her tour with a performance in Dallas on Oct. 15 before commencing the international section of the tour in Monterrey, Mexico, on Nov. 6. This string of shows is scheduled to finish exactly a year after commencing, with a July 24, 2027, set in Milan, Italy.

Karol G was the first Latina to headline Coachella in the desert fest’s 27-year history. She was only the second Latin music artist to get top billing at the event, with Bad Bunny being the first to ever do it with his 2023 headlining performances.

“This is for my Latinos that have been struggling in this country lately,” she told her fans during her history-making performance. “We stand for them. I stand for my Latina community. I am very proud because this brings out the best in us: unity, resilience and a strong spirit. We do this because we want everyone to feel welcome to our culture, so I want everyone to feel proud of where you come from.”

During her Coachella shows, which took place across two weekends in April, she brought out a cavalcade of guest performers — including L.A.’s own Becky G, the Colombian reggaeton revivalist J Balvin and Greg Gonzalez from Cigarettes After Sex.

The “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido” artist first teased that she’d be embarking on a tour at the end of her set during the second weekend of Coachella. Text reading “Nos Vamos de Tour” (We’re going on tour) was displayed as she played her final song.

DENVER — The Dodgers announced Monday that Edwin Díaz will undergo surgery to remove “loose bodies” in his right elbow and the closer isn’t expected to return until some point in the second half of the season.

Díaz, 32, has a 10.50 ERA in seven appearances this season for the Dodgers, who made a splash signing the high-profile free agent to a three-year $69-million deal, a record for a reliever.

The Dodgers recalled 27-year-old left-handed long reliever Jake Eder to replace Díaz on the roster.

Díaz gave up three runs and failed to get an out in the Dodgers’ 9-6 loss to the Colorado Rockies in a non-save situation Sunday, in what was his first appearance in nine days.

He entered the game and gave up a walk and three base hits, including a two-RBI single to Edouard Julien. Afterward, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts expressed concern about Díaz’s performance: “I know what it’s supposed to look like, and when it doesn’t look like that, it gets a little concerning, really.”

Before the Dodgers played their final game of the four-game series against the Colorado Rockies on Monday, Roberts said that the diagnosis provides some clarity, and that Díaz only began feeling discomfort in his elbow Sunday.

Before that Roberts said the plan was to “tread lightly” with the pitcher’s workload, unsure why the velocity of his pitches was down.

“Obviously, we all saw the stuff [Sunday], and it sent up red flags,” Roberts said. “And so, after the game, he had a conversation with our training staff, and felt that he had some elbow discomfort. So we just wanted to be proactive, and felt that it was smart to get an MRI, get imaging, which we did do, and it showed loose bodies.”

Having experienced the same thing as a player, Roberts explained, “you have loose bodies and they’re asymptomatic until they’re not.”

A 10-year veteran, Díaz is a three-time All-Star. For his career, he has 257 saves in 300 opportunities with 849 strikeouts.

General manager Brandon Gomes said the Dodgers are “as confident as we can be” that Díaz will return to top form.

“Our understanding is that it’s a pretty straightforward procedure,” Gomes said. “We’re going to take our time with getting him back and being mindful of the buildup, and make sure he’s in a really good position to come out and compete at the highest level of what we expect.

“It’s the benefit of having a deeper staff and a talented team that it’s never easy to lose somebody like Edwin, but we’ll get through it and it’ll be a collective effort to keep winning baseball games.”

Roberts said he doesn’t plan to name a substitute closer in Díaz’s place, and the manager acknowledged that the news will significantly alter how he’ll use the bullpen.

“It does change it. In a big way,” Roberts said. “I do think being able to deploy guys in their right lanes or pockets has been helpful. But with that, I do think that Alex [Vesia] has been throwing the baseball really well. Tanner [Scott has] been throwing the baseball really well, and outside of last night, Blake [Treinen] was throwing the baseball really well.

“But it does kind of not allow us to work from the back end, which is certainly a luxury.”

The Dodgers have had unfortunate luck signing big-name relievers. In 2025 they signed left-hander Scott to a four-year $72-million deal. He then led the league with 10 blown saves last season and the Dodgers removed him from their postseason roster, replacing him with left-hander Justin Wrobleski, who was set to start Monday as the team played for a series split at Coors Field.

MADONNA has been left heartbroken as she revealed that someone has “stolen” her vintage clothes after performing at Coachella.

The 67-year-old music legend teamed up with Espresso singer Sabrina for a show-stopping finale – dressed-to-impress in purple lingerie.

Two decades after her own epic headlining slot at the Californian festival, the queen of pop turned heads in a flesh-flashing frilly outfit.

Wearing a purple corset with matching lilac gloves, purple stockings and knee-high stiletto boots, the comeback queen accessorised with tinted shades and her long blonde hair down in waves.

She joined a lingerie-clad Sabrina, 26, who wowed in a white lace sparkly bodice and heels during her headline set at Coachella.

But now pop icon Madonna has been left with a sour taste in her mouth after precious pieces from her wardrobe went missing following the set.

She shared on Instagram today: “Still flying high since Friday night at Coachella!

“Thank you to Sabrina and everyone who made it possible.

“Bringing Confessions II back to where it began was such a thrill.

“This full circle moment hit different until I discovered that the vintage pieces that I wore went missing – my costume that was pulled from my personal archives – jacket, corset, dress and all other garment.”

The musician stressed how irreplaceable these items are and issued an appeal for them to be returned.

Madonna continued: “These aren’t just clothes, they are part of my history.

“Other archival items from the same era went missing as well.

“I’m hoping and praying that some kind soul will find these items and reach out to my team.

“I’m offering a reward for their safe return. Thank you will all my heart.”

Over the weekend, Madonna and Sabrina delighted the crowds with classic hits including Vogue, Like A Prayer and I Feel So Free from Madonna’s new album.

Sabrina had been mid-performance when an instrumental tease of Madonna‘s 1990 hit song Vogue weaved in.

Madonna told the cheering audience: “Wow, thank you.

“Sabrina, thank you so much for inviting me on your show.”

Holding hands, she replied: “No thanks needed, Madonna.”

“Well, I have a few things I want to get off my chest. So, 20 years ago today I performed at Coachella,” admitted the Ray of Light singer.

“I was in the dance tent and it was the first time I performed Confessions On The Dance Floor part one in America.

“It’s a full circle moment, you know? Very meaningful for me.” 

She urged: “Let’s try to be together. Let’s try to avoid disagreements.

“And to that point, the great thing about music is that it brings people together. 

“It’s the one place that people have to put their differences aside, put their s**t down and just everybody have a good time together, right?

“So I am thrilled to be a part of that healing experience…”

The Vogue singer confirmed this week that she will release her first record in seven years this July — a sequel to her 2005 smash Confessions On A Dance Floor.

The original, inspired by disco and Eighties electropop, shifted more than 10million copies.

It featured No1 singles Hung Up and Sorry, and ushered in a new era of dance music.

In 2024, Sabrina paid ­tribute to Madge by attending the MTV VMAs in a vintage strapless gown previously worn to the Oscars by her musical hero in 1991.

Sabrina said of Madonna last year: “She’s so lovely and exactly how you expect her to be — just, like, so magnetic.”

Bombs are in and art is out as the Trump administration’s proposed 2027 budget requests $1.5 trillion in defense spending (up 44% from last year), while again attempting to snuff out the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

The budget proposal released earlier this month calls for just enough money to permanently wind down the operations of each agency: $29 million for the NEA (down from $207 million); $38 million for the NEH (down from $207 million); and $6 million for the IMLS (down from $291.8 million).

Congress has the final say about whether or not these cuts actually get made, and Sept. 30 is the deadline to pass next year’s budget. (Failure to do so could result in yet another government shutdown.) It’s worth remembering that Trump tried to defund these organizations last year and was thwarted by Congress. But the administration did successfully choke off funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which ceased operations in January.

It’s hard to know how this renewed threat to agencies that collectively support thousands of arts programs and initiatives across all 50 states, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., will play out, especially because the only constant in this administration is its mercurial temperament. Plus, Congress doesn’t have a great track record of keeping Trump in check (see Venezuela, Iran, the White House East Wing, the Kennedy Center, etc.). The ongoing war in Iran, which pundits warn could last until the midterms, may also impact how Congress decides to vote.

In times of conflict and chaos, we need the arts — a sentiment so obvious it normally goes without saying. But this moment somehow feels different. There were many alarming moves that Trump wanted to make during his first term that the so-called adults in the room allegedly kept him from achieving. Those adults are gone and he is now surrounded with enablers. This means the unthinkable is now possible — as we have seen time and again over the past 15 months.

In a country without the NEA, NEH and IMLS, hundreds of small local arts groups would likely cease to exist entirely — and with them, the community, education and enlightenment that underpin our increasingly fragile, fractured society. We can close our eyes until it happens, or we can start urgently ringing the alarm bells. I vote for the latter. Here’s a link to get you started.

I’m Arts editor Jessica Gelt banging a gong. This is your arts and culture news for the week.

Dispatch: mots take on AI at Flux Festival

Artist duo mots is staging one of its exploratory AI-centered exhibits — “The Pledge” — at the upcoming Flux Festival at Bloom Gallery in Culver City (April 24 and 25). Last year, mots received quite a bit of attention for its U.S. premiere of “AI & Me,” part of Tribeca Festival’s Immersive Program. That piece, according to mots website, “dives into the weird dynamics between humans and artificial intelligence,” by placing people in a confessional style booth while AI tells them exactly what it thinks of them.

“The Pledge” takes that concept further by inviting participants to stand on a stage while AI-generates a statement about them— one that is solely based on appearance. The person then must decide whether to read the AI feedback aloud into a microphone or leave. If you decide to share, you become part of the permanent video installation.

In this moment of deep AI anxiety, the mots’ work is tapping into more than just a playful back and forth between man and machine.

“On one hand, we’re thrilled to see people lining up to interact with the pieces we build; on the other, we’re trying to gather the courage to destroy them and stop this madness before it’s too late,” the mots write on their website.

— Jessica Gelt

Dispatch: Monster Party

“Monster Party” starts with a moment of ecstasy. Then the adult-centric interactive play gets demented — a bit demonic, even. We meet characters shrouded in mystery. Guests at a cocktail party, there’s a writer working on a book about supernatural creatures, a vacuum salesman with a closely guarded secret, a repressed religious fanatic and more. None of them can remember how or why they ended up at this soiree, hosted by the confidently cryptic Baroness, a character who clearly delights in creating sin and madness. We’ll soon find out this isn’t an event for the lucky.

But that’s not just what makes “Monster Party” special. Remounted after a short theatrical run in 2024, the work from immersive creator Matt Dorado intermixes the personal and political. Lurid, humorous and sexy, “Monster Party” is also a scathing critique of how political systems can drive one mad.

Set during the Lavender Scare, the anti-communist purge of LGBTQ+ people from the U.S. government in the 1950s, “Monster Party” opens with camp and then descends into very real horrors of life in the United States. You’ll drink, play parlor games and gradually uncover one dark skeleton after another.

The intimate production is limited to 50 guests per showing, and cocktails are included in the $159.45 ticket. Come ready to socialize.

8 p.m. Thursdays and Friday; 3 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, through April 26. Rita House, 5971 W. 3rd Street monsterpartyshow.com

— Todd Martens

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY
Chaya Czernowin
Monday Evening Concerts presents the U.S. premiere of the Harvard-based Israeli composer’s “Poetica,” which she describes as “a journey of one into themselves,” performed by percussionist Steven Schick and the percussion ensemble Red Fish Blue Fish.
8 p.m. Zipper Hall at the Colburn School, 200 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. mondayeveningconcerts.org

The Last Days of Judas Iscariot
O.C. theater companies the Wayward Artist and Larking House team up for Stephen Adly Guirgis’ bold, darkly comedic courtroom drama set in Purgatory. Directed by Lizzy McCabe.
7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and April 23-35. Irvine United Congregational Church, 4915 Alton Pkwy., Irvine. thewaywardartist.org

Harry Fonseca
“Portrait of the Artist as a Young Coyote,” an exhibition of more than 30 paintings, prints and works on paper, follows the path of the late Native artist’s alter-ego, the Trickster Coyote, an exploration of his own identity and a means of challenging existing narratives. Also being exhibited is “Sedej Tuulémisé (Blood Relations),” featuring paintings by emerging artist Deerstine Suehead.
Noon-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, through July 3. PDC Design Galleries, 750 N San Vicente, West Hollywood. pacificdesigncenter.com

Shostakovich & Sibelius
Ryan Bancroft conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic with cellist Alisa Weilerstein playing one of her specialties, Shostakovich’s “Second Cello Concerto.”
8 p.m. Friday; 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com

Liu Xiaodong
For the work presented in the exhibition “Host,” the figurative painter trained his eye on a Detroit tattoo artist with a penchant for medieval battle recreations.
10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturday, through June 13. Lisson, 1037 N. Sycamore Ave., L.A. lissongallery.com

SATURDAY
Back to Oz
MUSE/IQUE salutes a truly American fairy tale through music with pieces from “The Wonderful Wizard,” “The Wiz,” and “Wicked,” performed by Carmen Cusack, LaVance Colley, Nathan Granner, DC6 Singers Collective and the MUSE/IQUE Orchestra.
5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; 7:30 p.m. Thursday and April 24; 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. April 25; and 2:30 p.m. April 26. Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. muse-ique.com

Colored People’s Time: A History Play
From Civil War to civil rights, Leslie Lee’s drama, directed by Ben Guillory, examines the lives of Black Americans through a century of struggle.
8 p.m. Thursday-Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays, through May 17. Los Angeles Theatre Center, Theatre Four, 514 S. Spring St., downtown L.A. therobeytheatrecompany.org

The Expanding Field: MOCA’s Collection from the 1940s to 1970s
Works by Mark Rothko, Luchita Hurtado, Piet Mondrian, On Kawara, Robert Rauschenberg, Betye Saar, Anne Truitt and others illustrate the breadth of the museum’s holdings.
Saturday through Sept. 20. Museum of Contemporary Art, 250 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. moca.org

Falstaff
Craig Colclough stars in LA Opera’s production of the energetic Verdi comedy about two wives turning the tables on an unwanted suitor in merry olde England.
7:30 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. April 26; 7:30 p.m. April 30, May 2 and 6; 2 p.m. May 10. Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laopera.org

For Want of a Horse
Olivia Dufault’s comedy about an unusual love triangle involving a horse opens Echo Theater Company’s 2026 season. Directed by Elana Luo.
Opening night, 8 p.m. Saturday; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 4 p.m. Sundays; 8 p.m. Mondays, through May 25. Echo Theater Company, Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave. echotheatercompany.com

Hear Now Music Festival
A chamber concert doubleheader (separate admissions): The matinee features Lyris Quartet, Brightwork Ensemble and HEX performing Hugh Levick’s “No Pasaran” for brass quintet; Ania Vu’s “Small Tenderness” for vocal ensemble and string quartet; Liviu Marinescu’s “String Quartet No. 1”; Bryan Chiu’s “Anthology” for piano and horn; and Tom Flaherty’s, “Recess” for string quartet. Lyris Quartet and Brightwork Ensemble return for the evening show with mezzo-soprano Peabody Southwell, and the music of Peter Knell, “Canciones de Agua” for mezzo-soprano and violin; Sean Heim, “there is no such thing as time” for mixed ensemble; Vera Ivanova’s “The Firebird’s Feather,” for flute solo; and Jordan Nelson’s “Join” for string quartet.
Chamber Concert 1, 3 p.m. (2 p.m. preview); Chamber Concert 2, 8 p.m. (7 p.m. preview). First Lutheran Church of Venice, 815 Venice Blvd. hearnowmusicfestival.com

Claudia Keep
In the exhibition “Water, Water, Everywhere,” the painter finds fascinating details in the life-giving liquid and all its forms, including rivers, ocean waves, clouds and afternoon coffee.
Opening reception, 4-6 p.m. Saturday; the exhibition runs through May 30. Parker Gallery, 6700 Melrose Ave., L.A. parkergallery.com

Kinship & Community: Selections from the Texas African American Photography Archive
The exhibition, a collaboration between Art + Practice and the California African American Museum, shares the work of Black photographers who documented life in the urban neighborhoods and rural villages of eastern Texas from 1944 to 1984. Saturday evening, exhibition curator and NYU professor Nicole R. Fleetwood and Getty Research Institute curator LeRonn P. Brooks will discuss the exhibition and the volatile time of great change that it captures.
The exhibition opening is 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and runs through Sept. 5. Art + Practice exhibitions space, 3401 W. 43rd Pl. L.A. Conversation, 6-7:30 p.m. Saturday. Art + Practice programs space, 4334 Degnan Blvd., L.A. artandpractice.org

Majestic Tango
Directed and produced by Miriam Larici and Leonardo Barrionuevo, this program features 13 dancers and six musicians using music, movement and storytelling to convey the passionate energy of Buenos Aires.
8 p.m. Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Dr. thebarclay.org

Richard Mayhew
“Understory” surveys the artist’s work created between 1960 and 2023, when he saw his expressive landscapes as “an artistic reclamation of the land stolen from his Black, Shinnecock, and Cherokee-Lumbee ancestors.”
Opening reception, 6-8 p.m. Saturday; exhibition runs through May 30. Karma, 7351 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A. karmakarma.org

Natural HERstory
Drag performance meets real science in this 30-minute STEAM musical, developed by Drag Arts Lab and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and designed to engage elementary-aged learners.
11 a.m. Annenberg Community Beachhouse, 415 Pacific Coast Hwy., Santa Monica. eventbrite.com

Parsons Dance
David Parsons’ New York City-based troupe marks its 40th anniversary with a program set to the music of Milton Nascimento; Giancarlo De Trizio; Champion, Four Set & Skrillex (featuring Naisha); Miles Davis; Sheila Chandra; and Yusuf/Cat Stevens
7:30 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. BroadStage, Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center, 1310 11th St. broadstage.org

The Storyteller of East LA
The Latino Theater Co. has the world premiere of Evelina Fernández’s magical realist drama about a 90-year-old woman with dementia and the challenges faced by her family and caregivers. Directed by Jose Luis Valenzuela.
8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays, through May 17. Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S Spring St., downtown L.A. latinotheaterco.org

Verdi in España
The Verdi Chorus performs sequences from the composer’s operas “Don Carlo,” “Il Trovatore,” “La Traviata” and “Ernani,” alongside Bizet’s “Carmen” and selections from Spanish composers Catán, Granados, Giménez, Torroba and De Falla.
7:30 p.m. Saturday; 4 p.m. Sunday. First Presbyterian Church, 1220 2nd St., Santa Monica. verdichorus.org

SUNDAY
Mozart’s Requiem
Grant Gershon conducts the Los Angeles Master Chorale in Mozart’s final masterpiece, plus the West Coast premiere of Fanny Mendelssohn’s “Oratorio on Scenes from the Bible.”
7 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. lamasterchorale.org

TUESDAY
Yuja Wang and Mahler Chamber Orchestra
The celebrated pianist continues her long-standing collaboration with MCO for a program featuring works by Segei Prokofiev and Alexander Tzfasman.
8 p.m. Tuesday. McCallum Theatre, 73000 Fred Waring Dr., Palm Desert; 8 p.m. Wednesday. Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa; 7 p.m. Thursday. Granada Theatre, 1214 State St, Santa Barbara; 8 p.m. April 25. The Saroya, 18111 Nordhoff Street, Northridge. mahlerchamber.com

WEDNESDAY
Khorus Harmonia
Katey Sagal and Kurt Sutter are producing ten performances of this choral concert to benefit the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights and The Wounded Warrior Project.
8 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays; 4 p.m. Sundays, through May 2. Hudson Backstage Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd. onstage411.com

This Ends Badly
The theater collective Frank’s presents an evening of short plays by Frank Demma, Marlane Meyer, John Pellech, John Pollono, Benjamin Weissman and Sharon Yablon.
8 p.m. Wednesdays, through May 13. Echo Theater Company, Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave. echotheatercompany.ludus.com

Arts anywhere

New and recent releases of arts-related media.

British Museum
As excitement builds for the opening of the new Geffen Galleries at LACMA on Sunday (for priority members; May 4 for the general public), one’s appetite may be whetted to visit other museums. Why not start in London with the British Museum? The sprightly 273-year-old institution boasts a collection of eight million works and draws more than six million visitors each year. But there’s no need for a plane ticket or a Tardis to see it. Google Arts & Culture offers virtual tours that allow you to wander the halls and grounds for free (and it won’t rain!). artsandculture.google.com

Philip Glass

Two opportunities to see the work of one of the finest American composers will soon be available with the click of a button or a tap of a screen. First up is “The Complete Philip Glass Piano Etudes featuring 10 Pianists” (which was performed at Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2024) streaming live from the 3,500-seat Hill Auditorium on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. 4:30 p.m. Saturday and on demand through April 28. youtube.com

Six days later, the Paris Opera offers its current, sold-out production of “Satyagraha,” Glass’ revelatory, triptych portrait of Gandhi. Directed by choreographers Bobbi Jean Smith and Or Schraiber, with a cast including Anthony Roth Costanzo and Davóne Tines — all four members of AMOC*, American Modern Opera Company — the show will be presented live on the Paris Opera Play streaming platform (for $14) at 10:30 a.m. April 24. POP’s live broadcasts are typically available on demand for 30 days following transmission. play.operadeparis.fr

— Kevin Crust

Culture news and the SoCal scene

With the U.S. at war with Iran, “This is an important moment to experience ‘English,’ Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, set in an English-language classroom outside of Tehran in 2008,” writes Times theater critic Charles McNulty. “The play, now having its L.A. premiere at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, reminds us of the lives — the hopes, the dreams, the sorrows — on the other side of the headlines.”

It’s been an anxious journey for Bob Baker Marionette Theater since 2019 when it was forced out of its downtown home of 55 years. After a lengthy search, the nonprofit signed a 10-year lease for a former cinema-turned-Korean Church in Highland Park. With that, however, came the accompanying stress of being renters in L.A. But good news has arrived: the beloved theater “has entered into an agreement to purchase its [current] home at the corner of York Boulevard and North Avenue 50,” reports Times features columnist Todd Martens.

California Science Center has completed construction on its new $450-million Samuel Oschin Air & Space Center, which houses the Endeavor shuttle. Staff writer Malia Mendez headed onsite to get the scoop on the, “sleek 20-story, 200,000-square-foot new building rising over Exposition Park,” nearly doubling the museum’s exhibition space.

The impossibly trendy SoCal health food retailer Erewhon is launching a cafe at Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s new David Geffen Galleries. And, like almost everything about the new building, public opinion is split on whether or not that’s a good idea.

Architecture writer Sam Lubell put together a fascinating Q&A with Peter Zumthor in which the Geffen Galleries’ architect addresses a number of ongoing criticisms about his creation, including its loss of square-footage.

In case you missed it: Pop singer Pink has will host the 79th Tony Awards. “The award ceremony returns to New York City’s Radio City Music Hall on June 7, with nominations announced May 5,” writes Times reporting fellow Iris Kwok.

It’s been a decade since the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts began awarding Infinite Expansion Grants to local contemporary arts organizations. The money has always mattered, but means even more during a time of great uncertainly about federal support for the arts (as I wrote in my newsletter intro). This year’s round of grantees was just announced, with nine L.A. contemporary arts groups sharing $400,000 in support. These groups, a news release says, “exemplify risk-taking, critical inquiry, and community engagement,” and include Art in the Park Community Cultural Programs; Color Compton; Cal State University, Northridge Foundation on behalf of CSUN Art Galleries; Barnsdall Art Park Foundation on behalf of Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (LAMAG); Los Angeles Performance Practice; Monday Evening Concerts; Clockshop; Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA); and the Vincent Price Art Museum Foundation.

Big change is coming to the Soraya and California State University, Northridge. Artistic and Executive Director Thor Steingraber, is leaving his position after 12 years to become president and chief executive at Vivo Performing Arts in Boston. The Soraya has also announced Steingraber‘s replacement: Chad Hilligus. Hilligus arrives at CSUN from the Gallo Center for the Arts in Modesto where he served as chief executive and curated more than 100 multidisciplinary live performances.

And another leadership shakeup has come to the Los Angeles Master Chorale, which announced that its current president and chief executive, Scott Altman, will step down on June 5 to become executive director of Miami City Ballet. Master Chorale board member William Tully will serve as interim president while the group launches a national search for a replacement.

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

It doesn’t get much weirder than this: Hegseth recites ‘Pulp Fiction’ speech at Pentagon prayer service