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Fun things to do in SoCal this week: April 14-20
Entertainment Apr 12, 2023
Jousting at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire. | Photo by Aydin Palabiyikoglu via Flickr(CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
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The weekend can’t come soon enough! I will be at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire but if that’s not your speed then read on to see what SoCal has in store for you this week.
April 14
Gloria Gaynor
Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall | 615 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, CA 92626 | April 14-15 | pacificsymphony.org
The undisputed queen of disco performs her greatest hits with a full symphony. The program also includes a disco medley, songs from “Grease” and a soul medley.
‘Confession of Henry Jekyll, M.D.’
James Bridges Theater | 235 Charles E. Young Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90095 | April 14-16 | latw.org
Screenwriter David Rambo’s modern-day psychological thriller about the duality of human nature is inspired by “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” by Robert Louis Stevenson. As Jekyll records the history of his years-long struggle to maintain his reputation as a physician, venture capitalist and philanthropist while secretly attempting to suppress a voracious, amoral beast he has long felt lurking within his psyche, his harrowing story is revealed in a series of flashbacks.
Emo Night Brooklyn
The Observatory | 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana, CA 92704 | April 14 | emonightbk.com
Clean up your looks and dance, dance as DJs play the best emo and pop punk hits. Some of your favorite artists may be invited to surprise the crowd and join the party.
Culver City Arts District Night Market Spring Fling
Ivy Station lawn | 8840 National Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 | April 14 | instagram.com/p/CqeD6QQPQlB/
Shop handcrafted items from dozens of local vendors, plus enjoy food trucks, drinks, games, music, and more
‘Newsies’
El Capitan Theatre | 6838 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90028 | April 14-18 | elcapitantheatre.com
See Disney’s “Newsies” (1992) back on the big screen for a limited engagement at El Capitan. The film is set in 1899 as a brave group of New York City newsboys fight a newspaper tycoon.
April 15
Renaissance Pleasure Faire
Santa Fe Dam Recreation Area | 15501 Arrow Highway, Irwindale, CA 91706 | April 15-May 21 | renfair.com
Hear ye! Hear ye! The Renaissance Pleasure Faire returns to SoCal with entertaining shows ranging from falconry and magic to drinking songs and jousting. With delicious food, flowing drinks, a marketplace like nowhere else, and actors getting everyone into the spirit, you will undoubtedly have a good time. Huzzah!
Cherry Blossom Festival
Barnes Park | 350 S. McPherrin Ave., Monterey Park, CA 91754 | April 15-16 | montereypark.ca.gov
This free festival is the perfect opportunity to explore Japanese culture through food, dance, music, martial arts performances, participating in a tea ceremony, games, and hand-made crafts.
Rosé Bowl Rosé Festival
Rose Bowl Stadium | 1001 Rose Bowl Drive, Pasadena, CA. 91103 | April 15 | rosebowlwinefestival.com
The premier rosé event in the LA area features more than 40 rosés in addition to gourmet food and music.
Monrovia Wine Walk
Library Park | 321 S. Myrtle Ave., Monrovia, CA 91016 | April 15 | eventbrite.com
Stroll through Old Town, exploring all its unique offerings, while sampling various wines. Participants will get a tasting glass and tickets for 12 tastings.
Art In The Park In The Dark
Demuth Park | 4375 Mesquite Ave., Palm Springs, CA, 92264 | April 15 | fb.me/e/2hT9qukLx
This free event will feature performances, music, laser shows, art programs, chalk art, live large-scale painting, a night gallery art walk and more.
Pure Water Ride
Jeff Seymour Family Center | 10900 Mulhall St., El Monte, CA 91731 | April 15 | eventbrite.com
Bike around the emerald necklace with ActiveSGV and Pure Water Southern California to learn about new water sources in SoCal.
Easy Mornings
Grand Park | 200 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90012 | April 15 | grandparkla.org
Start your weekend with free relaxing activities for your family. This year’s Easy Morning program includes performance, activities and workshops highlighting dance, music, nature, health, wellness and art.
‘Symbiosis: Living Island’
Japan House | 6801 Hollywood Blvd., Level 2, Los Angeles, CA 90028 | April 15 – July 5 | japanhousela.com
The Inujima “Art House Project” creates a unique symbiosis between art, architecture, community, and ecology that has been transforming the landscape of the Japanese island of Inujima, which now is home to just 25 homes with more than half of the inhabitants over 70 years of age. The exhibition celebrates and transports visitors to this “living art” island through the sights and sounds of everyday island life, captured through an experiential diorama of the island and its art pavilions.
626 Night Market Mini
Downtown Santa Monica | 1324 E. Fifth St., Santa Monica, CA 90401 | April 15-16 | 626nightmarket.com
Three dozen vendors selling food, merchandise and crafts gather in downtown Santa Monica this spring and admission is free.
818 Night Market
Kirk O’ the Valley Presbyterian Church | 19620 Vanowen St., Reseda, CA 91335 | April 15 | the818nightmarket.com
Stop by from 5-10 p.m. and do a little shopping from small vendors, get a bite to eat and enjoy some music.
April 16
Skirball Puppet Festival
Skirball Cultural Center | 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90049 | April 16 | skirball.org
Featuring puppets of all shapes and sizes, visitors will enjoy puppetry performances, live music and will have the chance to make their own puppet.
OcTech
Parson’s Nose Theater | 95 N. Marengo Ave., Pasadena, CA 91101 | April 16 | parsonsnose.com
“Motets Through the Ages” will take you through five centuries of choral music.
Long Beach Antique Market
Long Beach Veterans Stadium | 4901 E. Conant St., Long Beach, CA 90808 | April 16 | longbeachantiquemarket.com
Find a new treasure from over 800 vendors selling collectibles, home decor, vintage clothing, jewelry, food and beer.
April 17
Stories @ The Playhouse: Leap!
Sierra Madre Playhouse | 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre, CA 91024 | April 17 | sierramadreplayhouse.org
The event consists of true personal storytelling. The storytellers include: Michelle Bagnato, Enjoli Isys Ferrari, Rima Freeman, Wendy Hammers, Norman Johnson, Joe Smith and Carmen Thomas-Paris. A dance piece choreographed by Katie Marshall will be the prelude to the evening.
Country Line Dancing
The Pour House | 405 S. Myrtle Ave., Monrovia, CA 91016 | April 17 | eventbrite.com
Put on your cowboy boots for line dancing starting at 6 p.m. If you’re not familiar with line dancing, there are lessons starting at 7 p.m. for $8. There are also pool tables, music, drinks and food.
April 18
Camerata Pacifica: Virtuosic, Passionate & Lyrical
The Huntington | 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, CA 91108 | April 18 | huntington.org
Culminating in the premiere of new work for French horn, cello and piano by the Grammy-award-winning American composer Libby Larsen, this program brings together international musicians for a night of passionate music.
‘Journeys Continued: LA Communities Through The Eyes Of Artists’
Los Angeles Union Station | 800 N. Alameda St., Los Angeles, CA 90012 | April 18 | art.metro.net
Metro Art will launch its latest art exhibition, “Journeys Continued: LA Communities Through the Eyes of Artists” on April 18. The 12 featured pieces will focus on a specific area, neighborhood or city Metro serves within greater Los Angeles and will be on view in the Passageway Art Gallery, between Union Station East and West.
April 19
Blondie
The Greek Theatre | 2700 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027 | April 19 | lagreektheatre.com
The iconic rock band will be joined by LA’s own The Linda Lindas.
Classic Cinema Nights
The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel | 7000 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90028 | April 19 | eventbrite.com
Gene Kelly stars alongside Leslie Caron in “An American in Paris,” a jazz-inspired musical from George Gershwin.
San Dimas Farmers Market
San Dimas | 245 E. Bonita Ave., San Dimas, CA 91773 | April 19 Wednesdays through Sept. 13 | sandimasfarmersmarket.com
The San Dimas Farmers Market is opening up for the season. Pick up fresh produce or artisanal goods.
April 20
National Geographic Live: ‘Adaptation’
The Eli and Edythe Broad Stage | 1310 11th St., Santa Monica CA 90401 | April 20 | broadstage.org
Explore the remarkable ways people around the world are adapting to a changing climate with environmental anthropologist and filmmaker Alizé Carrère. Travel to locations like Bangladesh where farmers in low-lying areas facing sea level rise and flooding are reviving an old agricultural technique—floating gardens—that has inspired floating schools, libraries, hospitals, and playgrounds. Through her work documenting these stories, Carrère offers a hopeful look at the resilience, perseverance, and innovation of humankind
Disney On Ice: ‘Let’s Celebrate’
Toyota Arena | 4000 Ontario Center Parkway, Ontario, CA 91764 | April 20-23 | disneyonice.com
Fifty of your Disney friends skate across the ice in this show.
Montebello Night Market
Behind parking lot of Wells Fargo Bank | 777 W. Whittier Blvd,, Montebello, CA 90640 | April 20 | montebelloca.gov
Entertainment and vendors selling farmers market items, homemade goods, arts, crafts and food will gather from 6-9 p.m.
Ongoing
‘The Tempest: An Immersive Experience’
Shakespeare Center LA | 1238 W. First St., Los Angeles, CA 90026 | Through April 16 | shakespearecenter.org
In this reimagined immersive performance based on William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” the audience will find themselves shipwrecked onto the shifting sands of an island under the spell of supernatural powers. Guests can excavate clues and solve puzzles, while indulging in themed artisan elixirs and island vibrations.
Company Focus & Company Chaliwaté ‘Dimanche’
The Eli and Edythe Broad Stage | 1310 11th St., Santa Monica CA 90401 | Through April 16 | broadstage.org
Between fantasy and reality, “Dimanche,” which means Sunday in French, paints the portrait of a humanity gripped by the chaos of climate change and totally out of step with its time. In it, a family is about to spend the day at home. While everything around them changes and collapses, we see the surprising inventiveness of human beings unfold in an attempt to preserve their daily life to the point of absurdity. At the same time, on the roads, traveling the world, a team of animal reporters are preparing a documentary testifying to the life of the last living species on Earth. Company Focus and Company Chaliwate, two companies from Belgium, have woven together puppetry, clowning, physical theatre, low-fi effects, and video, into a witty and tender portrait of humanity surprised by the uncontrollable.
SpringTopia
Topanga Promenade Mall | 6100 Topanga Canyon Blvd., Woodland Hills, CA 91367 | Through April 16 | springtopiafest.com
Ovey rides, food, games and seven immersive lands featuring light shows, real puppies, a 3D circus, a Winter Wonderland, a pirate ship, a silent disco, and two spooky mazes.
‘That Perfect Place’
Atwater Village Theatre | 3269 Casitas Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90039 | Through April 23 | echotheatercompany.ludus.com
Writer/actor Brent Jennings imagines what his mentally challenged brother might have said, had he been able to speak. “The stories presented in ‘That Perfect Place’ are a representation, a musing, a meditation on the lives of the family I grew up a part of, presented by its most challenged member,” says Jennings. “A member that may have been the most soulful, wisest and compassionate one of us all.”
‘Little Women The Musical’
Palm Canyon Theatre | 538 N. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs, CA 92262 | Through April 23 | palmcanyontheatre.net
Based on the classic book by Louisa May Alcott, sisters Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy learn about loss, love, sibling rivalries, war, friendship and loss. The show is presented through a special arrangement with Music Theatre International.
‘Unrivaled’
Boston Court Pasadena | 70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena, CA 91106 | Through April 23 | bostoncourtpasadena.org
Unrivaled is a fictional account of two of Japan’s most beloved female writers, 11th-century ladies-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu and Sei Shonagon. This ultimate frenemy tale explores the complicated relationship between two women who simultaneously respect and resent each other’s talent. This hilarious and poignant world premiere is about friendship, heartbreak, and what it means to be a female artist. Perhaps most of all, it’s about no matter how much things change, the more they stay the same.
‘Kiss Of The Spider Woman’
A Noise Within | 3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91107 | Through April 23 | anoisewithin.org
In a South American prison cell in a country under authoritarian rule, two polar opposites discover that love may spring in the most unlikely of places. Poignant, chilling, funny and sensual, this intimate two-hander is the story of Valentin, a macho political prisoner whose commitment to the Marxist cause takes precedence over everything else, and queer, movie-loving Molina, who escapes the harsh reality of prison life by retelling beloved film noir classics and emulating their glamorous leading ladies. Forced to share a cell in Buenos Aires’ notorious Villa Devoto prison during Argentina’s “Dirty War,” the two forge an unlikely relationship.
‘The Thin Place’
Atwater Village Theatre | 3269 Casitas Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90039 | Through April 24 | echotheatercompany.com
Can we talk with the dead? Communicate with loved ones we’ve lost? In this mesmerizing new play, Linda promises that we can. If you listen — really listen — she can take you to the “thin place,” the fragile boundary between our world and the next. Are psychic abilities real, or merely a cunning illusion that awakens our deepest desires?
‘Yaacobi & Leidental’
Odyssey Theatre | 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025 | Through April 30 | odysseytheatre.com
An absurdist tale about a love triangle gone wrong, Yaacobi & Leidental is a comic escapade through the failings of friendship and love. Even as we laugh at the antics of brash Yaacobi, insecure Leidental and not-as-sweet-as-she-looks Ruth Shekhash, we are reminded of our own shared human frailty in the face of desire and suffering. The cheerful songs stand in stark contrast to the cruelties visited on one another by these three friends.
The Hollywood Ten At 75
Academy Museum | 6067 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036 | Through April 30 | academymuseum.org
In 1947, 10 Hollywood writers and directors refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and were held in contempt of Congress. The Hollywood Ten, as they came to be known, were blacklisted from the film industry and in April 1948 were sentenced to serve a year in federal prison. This series highlights key films made by and about members of the Hollywood Ten and their blacklisted colleagues.
‘Connections: Asia’
Getty Center Museum | 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90049 | Through May 7 | getty.edu
The exhibit features five works of Asian art made between the 14th and 18th centuries in China, India, Korea and Japan on loan from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and displayed alongside European paintings and sculpture in the Getty’s collection made around the same time. “This juxtaposition creates visual and thematic dialogues that highlight the form and function of devotional images, woodcarving techniques, traditions of painting landscapes and portraits of prominent individuals, and the trade of luxury goods,” according to the Getty.
‘1776’
Ahmanson Theatre | 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90012 | Through May 7 | centertheatregroup.org
This Tony Award-winning Best Musical will make you rethink the birth of the nation. The production, featuring a diverse cast, explores what it takes to get two dozen powerfully passionate, exceedingly complicated, and all-too-human individuals to settle their differences, while they hold the very future of a nation in their hands.
Desert X 2023
Coachella Valley | Through May 7 | desertx.org
Site-specific art installations throughout the Coachella Valley examine how humans shape and impact their environment, and the environment of others, in both beneficial and detrimental ways. “The desert is full of mythologies, ones that equip people with a strong will to survive in conditions some might think to be impossible, and this combination of tenacity through storytelling contributes to the important role of ‘the desert’ in many cultures around the world,” says co-curator Diana Campbell. “One of the many challenges of this project is not to over-romanticize this ‘tenacity’ and to work with art, artists, and storytelling to address real problems (that are not just stories) facing humans and non-humans who live in the Coachella Valley today.”
‘The Pilot Who Crashed The Party’
Broadwater Theatre Main Stage | 6320 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90038 | Through May 7 | onstage411.com/Pilot
Written and directed by Tony Award winning actor and Second City alum Paul Sand, “The Pilot Who Crashed the Party” is an off-beat homage to the drawing room dramas of the ’30s set in the Santa Monica Mountains on a violent, stormy night filled with rain, lightning and thunder. Friends at the intimate soirée are suspicious. The caterer might be in love. “As the partygoers take turns caring for (the pilot), each projects a part of themself onto the pilot as they try to figure him out,” says Sand.
‘(Im)migrants Of The State’
The Actors’ Gangat The Ivy Substation | 9070 Venice Blvd., Culver City, CA, 90232 | Extended through May 13 | theactorsgang.com
Created by and based on the real-life experiences of formerly incarcerated actors, these stories run the full gamut of emotions, and the creators have found a way to employ humor, joy, and hope as they face even the darkest moments. An ensemble of Prison Project alumni with over 240 years of combined incarceration who have found their way to freedom now want to share their stories with audiences. “People have shared with us that they’re [coming] to the theater for the very first time because they heard the play would contain stories that represented their lived experiences,” shared co-director Jeremie Loncka. “While some regular theatergoers said that the cast’s courage and vulnerability restored and inspired their belief in theater to create change.”
‘The Hilton Als Series: Njideka Akunyili Crosby’
The Huntington | 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, CA 91108 | Through June 12 | huntington.org
The exhibit features a selection of works by Nigerian-born, Los Angeles–based artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby in the final exhibition curated by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author and New Yorker magazine critic Hilton Als, in collaboration with the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) and Akynyili Crosby. The two selected five collage-based paintings from “The Beautyful Ones,” Crosby’s ongoing series of intimate portraits of Nigerian children, including members of her own family.
Butterfly Pavilion
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County | 900 Exposition Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90007 | Through Aug. 13 | nhm.org
The Natural History Museum’s seasonal Butterfly Pavilion featuring hundreds of butterflies of various species, native plants and natural light is finally opening.
Shakira, Shakira: The Grammy Museum Experience
The Grammy Museum | 800 W Olympic Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90015 | Through Winter 2024 | grammymuseum.org
If you’ve had “Las mujeres ya no lloran, las mujeres facturan” stuck in your head the last few weeks then you’ll want to stop by this exhibit honoring the multi-Grammy Award-winning and Latin Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, producer, dancer, philanthropist and international icon. The exhibit explores the artist’s musical evolution, from her origins as a Latin rock-loving singer-songwriter in Barranquilla, Colombia, to a global superstar whose catalog spans multiple genres, from bhangra and bachata to rock and reggaetón. The exhibit features interactives, artifacts from Shakira’s personal archive, three original films, handwritten lyrics, costumes, guitars and more.
