Learn how to hula for AAPI Heritage Month. Listen to Keke Palmer talk about her new movie and visual album. Watch classic noirish thrillers and melodramas in 35mm.
Crowded House
The Wiltern
3790 Wilshire Blvd., Koreatown
Hey now, hey now, the ’80s pop rock band is currently on the North American leg of the Dreamers Are Waiting Tour. Led by original members Neil Finn and Nick Seymour, the band plays its older repertoire and new tunes.
COST: Tickets start at $45; MORE INFO
Tom Kitt & Friends
The Bourbon Room
6356 Hollywood Blvd., 2nd Floor, Hollywood
Tony-, Grammy-, Emmy- and Pulitzer Prize Award-winning composer Tom Kitt performs a second night of songs and stories from his Broadway, Off-Broadway, and upcoming musicals including Next to Normal, Almost Famous, If/Then, Flying Over Sunset, Freaky Friday. He’ll be joined by some famous friends, including Carmen Cusack, Ana Gasteyer, Elizabeth Gillies, Emma Hunton, Chris Mann, Idina Menzel, Henry Platt and Abby Quinn. (Guests are subject to change.) The club has a two-item minimum.
COST: $40; MORE INFO
Tuesday Night Dance: Hula
Segerstrom Center for the Arts
600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa
To celebrate AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) Heritage Month, the Segerstrom Center offers evenings of hula lessons and performances. Led by Toni Kemehana Pasion, an Inland Empire-based dancer, educator, and community organizer who specializes in Indigenous Hawaiian and Philippine dance practices, the nights are designed for all ages and abilities.
COST: FREE with RSVP; MORE INFO
It’s Funny Now
The Crow
2525 Michigan Ave., #Unit F4, Santa Monica
Frank Traynor presents comedians and storytellers who tell true stories that they don't wish on anyone else. The lineup includes Fielding Edlow, Margot Leitman, Chambers Stevens, Federico Pellejero and Sean Ewert.
COST: $15; MORE INFO
Imitation of Life / Mildred Pierce
New Beverly Cinema
7165 Beverly Blvd., Fairfax
Watch a double feature of these two classics in 35mm. Up first is the 1959 film directed by Douglas Sirk about two widowed mothers and their troubled daughters as they try to find happiness through racial injustice. The film stars Lana Turner, John Gavin, Sandra Dee and Mahalia Jackson. It’s followed by Joan Crawford in the film noir melodrama Mildred Pierce, directed by Michael Curtiz.
COST: $13; MORE INFO
Reel To Reel: Big Boss Featuring Keke Palmer in Conversation
The Grammy Museum
800 W. Olympic Blvd., downtown L.A.
Join the actress and singer at the museum as she shares her new film Big Boss — about her experiences in the music industry — followed by a conversation with the artist about the making of the film and visual album, which is out on Friday, May 12.
COST: $30; MORE INFO
PEN America: World Voices Festival
Various locations
The literary festival is the premier celebration of international literature in the U.S. Taking place in both New York City and Los Angeles, listen to more than 80 writers from 25 countries participate in 30 cross-cultural exchanges, debates, conversations, and events. Programming in L.A. includes the Farhang Foundation panel, Woman, Life, Freedom: The Role Of Art In The Struggle For Human Rights, on Wednesday at the Skirball Cultural Center; and Earthly Delights: History, Race And Environmental Consciousness with Leah Thomas, Camille T. Dungy at the California African American Museum on Wednesday.
COST: Many events are FREE with RSVP; MORE INFO
The Man Behind the Monsters
Hollywood Heritage Museum
2100 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood
Learn about the mostly forgotten legacy of influential film producer Carl Laemmle Jr. At age 21 he was put in charge of Universal Studios and during his reign from 1929 to 1936, he was personally responsible for launching The Universal Monsters. Julian David Stone, author of the new novel, "It’s Alive!" — which tracks Laemmle’s work to get the 1931 version of Frankenstein made — shares a presentation on the movie mogul’s career. A panel discussion follows with some of Laemmle’s family members.
COST: $10 - $20; MORE INFO
Surviving Homelessness & Foster Care
Mark Taper Auditorium, Central Library
630 W. 5th St., downtown L.A.
The ALOUD series presents a conversation between David Ambroz, best-selling author of A Place Called Home, and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass. Ambroz shares how he survived on the streets of New York City and later through violence in foster care. He lays out his ideas, “informed through lived experience and policy expertise, to fix foster care, address homelessness, and build a more humane and compassionate nation.”
COST: FREE with RSVP; MORE INFO
Pop Cultured
The Lyric Hyperion Theater
2106 Hyperion Ave., Silver Lake
The pop culture-comedy game show returns with three comedians competing in improvised games vying to become the Pop Cultured champion. Hosted and judged by comedian Jimmy Pardo, this week’s contestants are Jodie Sweetin, Dan Telfer and Olivia DeLaurentis.
COST: $15, streaming option available; MORE INFO
The American Way
Holocaust Museum LA
100 The Grove Dr., Fairfax
This real-life adventure, written by Bonnie Siegler and Helene Stapinski, traces the story of Jules Schulback (Siegler’s grandfather), who escapes from Nazi Germany with the sponsorship of DC Comics’ publisher and by pretending he is Clark Gable’s agent. Once settled in New York City, he happens to shoot the only known remaining film footage of Marilyn with her dress blowing up over a subway grate. The story brings together old Hollywood history with the birth of the comic book and the Holocaust. Siegler and Stapinski chat with Melissa Rivers about the book and real-life superheroes at the museum.
COST: FREE; MORE INFO
The Wages of Fear (Le salaire de la peur)
Before he directed Les Diaboliques (Diabolique), French filmmaker Henri-Georges Cluzout directed The Wages of Fear (1953), a taut adventure thriller where the main characters agree to drive two trucks full of explosive nitro-glycerin through the South American jungle for a lot of cash. But without chemical stabilizers, the slightest bump, turbulence, or obstacle could make the truck go “boom.” Cluzout was one of Hitchcock’s contemporaries, and their works are often compared, so here’s your chance to see for yourself as the Secret Movie Club screens The Wages of Fear on Thursday, May 11 at 7:30 p.m. in downtown L.A.
Here are a few dine and drink options to indulge in this week.
