FASHION: Inside Project Runway hits Beverly Hills tonight. Get a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the production, the catfights and, oh yeah, the fashion. Heidi Klum will be there, and organizers promise a few surprise guests. (The main auditorium is sold out, but a few tickets remain for the overflow theatre.) 7 pm // The Paley Center for Media // 465 N. Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills // $7 for closed-circuit viewing room. OPERA:The LA Opera brings......

Last night I was out with my family going to dinner in downtown when we noticed the Christmas Tree was already up at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. They had a cherry picker going applying decorations. We walked over to check out out, and what did we see? Paint. 40 Gallons of Green Paint. I guess they could not find a tree just that right shade of green for Los Angeles. More pictures after the......

Monday Allen Rucker presents The Best Seat in the House 7pm @ Vroman’s David Mamet & Howard Norton sign their new books 7pm @ Dutton’s Brentwood Tuesday Sam Sheridan presents A Fighter’s Heart 7pm @ Book Soup Bich Minh Nguyen presents Stealing Buddha's Dinner 7pm @ Vroman’s Rafe Esquith discusses Teaching Shakespeare 7pm @ Central Library Wednesday John M. Wieskopf presents The Ascendancy 7:30pm @ Barnes & Noble Third Street Promenade Kate Jacobs signs......

Hope for DVDs in your stockings and lots of trips to your cinema center - this weekend and next week will be reruns of just about everything including late night programming. I guess the idea is that you're supposed to be spending time with people you love or like or something. Today - Saturday College Basketball is scattered all over the tube from morning 'til night. "A Christmas Carol" (TCM, 11:00 a.m.) This is......

I call it Performance Row. That stretch downtown along Grand Avenue between Temple St. and the California Plaza. You can easily walk between 9 performance spaces in 5 minutes. Starting at the Music Center Plaza at Temple and heading South, you first are at the Ahmanson, Center Theatre Group's (CTG) proscenium stage that is used for dance, musicals and other traditional performances. Next is the Mark Taper Forum, a theatre used for newer theatrical......

Excerpt from Day 2 (Nov. 16): Father Comes Home From The Wars (Part 1) Father: Hi honey, Im home. Mother: Yr home. Father: Yes. Mother: I wasnt expecting you. Ever. Father: Should I go back out and come back in again? Mother: Please. We're going to say this right now and get it over with: get off your arses and participate in this yearlong national theatre festival. which is being held simultaneously around the......

You might think that a cold, rainy evening in downtown LA sounds kind of miserable, but it all depends on where you stand. LAist was next to the Mark Taper auditorium, looking toward the plaza with the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in the background, and we thought it was more than all right.......

Xmas shopping procrastinators rejoice: Amoeba Records opens early (10am) and doesn't close until 8:30pm tonight. If shopping traffic makes you look for liquid solace, Silverlake Wine has special xmas eve hours: 9am-7pm. The LA County Arts Commission sponsors, for the 41st year, 6 hours of free holiday entertainment at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Choirs, dance theaters, and special guests the Blind Boys of Alabama are on the bill. First come, first served; doors open......

As if there's no greater proof that there's a higher power at work in LA, may we draw your attention to the fact that Oliver Stone & David Corn will be conversing about politics tonight 7 PM at the UCLA Armand Hammer Museum of Art, Westwood, while across town four past governors of California will discuss whether California is governable at 7:00 p.m. in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Music Center. Talk about a......

The Grand Avenue Committee invites "you to join us and to learn of our progress in preliminary planning of the Grand Avenue project which aims to transform LA’s downtown, stimulate reinvestment in the community and create a new civic and cultural heart of the city for all Angelenos." The next phase of the public process begins this Tuesday, February 22nd at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Grand Hall in Downtown (135 Grand Ave). Other outreach......

Well, we're almost at the climax of the Christmas-Consumer Feast Days that usher in the winter season. If you are like us, you're cash poor but gift rich, and we've got to get through about 10 more days until payday. Here's some suggestions for making merry in LA on a budget: *Take part in the Las Posadas procession depicting the journey of Mary and Joseph at El Pueblo, downtown LA 7:15 p.m. on Thursday,......