I was unreasonably elated to discover that the Pasadena Playhouse is test-driving a program that offers Saturday childcare during the May 24 matinee of “A Dolls House, Part 2,” starring Jason Butler Harner and Elizabeth Reaser.

The program is open to kids 5 to 12 and offers theater-based activities inspired by the play and led by Playhouse teaching artists. The cost is $20 per child — far less than what a parent would pay for a sitter for the afternoon — and the group fun takes place on site while parents watch the show.

Here’s hoping more theaters develop similar programs. For so many parents, childcare is the No. 1 barrier to attending live shows and cultural events. A good sitter will set you back $15 to $25 per hour, plus tip. Add the cost of tickets, parking and even a modest dinner out, and a night on the town easily soars past $300.

Pasadena Playhouse is suited to hold such a program since it already runs youth theater classes and has a wonderful group of artists who regularly teach children. (Full disclosure: My daughter attends these classes.) But I can imagine a world in which other theaters, classical music groups and dance troupes begin offering similar programs. They would pay dividends in ticket sales and patron loyalty. There is no more grateful a human than a parent given a much-needed break.

I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt. I came for the childcare and stayed for the show. Here’s this week’s roundup of arts news.

‘Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me’

(Matthew Cavanaugh/For The Times)

With opening-weekend crowds behind us, now is an excellent time to experience Jeffrey Gibson’s show at the Broad museum, which Times contributor David Pagel noted in his recent profile has the Gibson artworks that wowed visitors at the 2024 Venice Biennale: “a giant, stylized bird, festooned with thousands of glistening beads; a laser-sharp painting, composed of up to 290 supersaturated colors; an array of lavishly patterned flags, from places no one has ever visited; or an evocative phrase, lifted from a novel, a pop song, a poem or a document, such as the U.S. Constitution.” Note that the museum, usually free, is staging this as a special exhibition with admission of $15.

Through Sept. 28, closed Mondays. The Broad, 221 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. thebroad.org

‘Cooley High’

Writer Susan King started a 2019 L.A. Times article with this great lede:

Robert Townsend, the acclaimed director of such films as 1987’s “Hollywood Shuffle” and 1991’s “The Five Heartbeats,” got his start in the biz as a teenager with a one-line role in the 1975 African American teen dramedy “Cooley High.”

“The movie changed my life,” recalled Townsend in a recent interview. “I remember after I made the movie and it finally premiered in the theater in downtown Chicago, I started to cry. It was like this is my life. … [Director] Michael Schultz really changed the landscape of cinema for people of color. He was the first one to paint with that brush of truly being human. We had never seen a movie where there was a young Black man talking about that he wanted to be a writer.”

On Monday, you’ll have the chance to see “Cooley High” on the big screen. The event at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood includes a Q&A with Schultz and actors Glynn Turman and Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, moderated by Townsend.

7:30 p.m. Monday, Egyptian, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., L.A. www.egyptiantheatre.com

L.A. Art Book Fair

The nonprofit Printed Matter returns with the eighth installment of its fair, which has drawn tens of thousands of fans with booths selling limited-edition prints, handcrafted artist books and obscure titles by small presses. (For a visual sampler, check out Carolina A. Miranda’s amusing photo tour from years ago.) The celebration, formerly held at the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Geffen Contemporary, this year moves to ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena. Although the location is different, much of the programming will be the same, including live music performances and the discussion series “The Classroom.”

6-9 p.m. Thursday, 1-7 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday (first two hours Sunday is a mask-required period). ArtCenter South Campus, 870 and 950 S. Raymond Ave., Pasadena. laabf2025.printedmatterartbookfairs.org

Culture news and the SoCal scene

Remnants of the old Japanese American fishing village on Terminal Island that may be demolished to make way for Port of Los Angeles expansion projects.

(Al Seib / For The Times)

America’s most endangered historic places

The only two surviving buildings from Terminal Island’s days as a thriving Japanese American fishing village in the early 1900s have been placed on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s 2025 list of America’s 11 most endangered historic places. The buildings are in danger of being razed by the Port of Los Angeles, and the hope is that the visibility afforded by the list will help preservation efforts. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Terminal Island was the first place from which Japanese Americans were uprooted and sent to government camps such as Manzanar in the Owens Valley.

NEA grants canceled

The Trump administration is attempting to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts in its latest budget proposal, and the NEA recently sent a wave of letters to arts organizations across the country canceling grants. Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, South Coast Repertory, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Industry and L.A. Theatre Works are just some of SoCal nonprofits that got the bad news last week. The loss of this longstanding funding has left many organizations scrambling.

Participatory theater

Features columnist Todd Martens participated in the fourth Immersive Invitational, an interactive theater experience that gives participating companies 48 hours to create a 10-minute production and perform it multiple times on the event’s final day. “With the limited time frame, participating theater crews have to quickly establish a place and a sense of purpose, lending the audience, which must immediately contort to their role as actors, a call to action,” writes Martens of the fast-paced and joyful proceedings.

Jackie Castillo

Terracotta tiles in Jackie Castillo’s installation evoke the used building materials tossed from a roof, their value and history destined for a dumpster.

(Jeff McLane / ICA LA)

The latest show at Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, is from an artist who has long been compelled by the visible and invisible labor of immigrant communities. Times contributor Tara Anne Dalbow notes how Castillo’s work draws attention to the workers responsible for building construction, maintenance and repair. “Beneath the facade of every home, school, business and community center lie layers of material meaning and memory that bear forth records of the minds and hands that envisioned and assembled them,” Dalbow writes.

Wednesdays-Sundays through Aug. 31. ICA LA, 1717 E. 7th St., L.A. theicala.org

South Coast Rep’s upcoming season

South Coast Repertory announced a 2025-26 season lineup that includes Edward Albee‘s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” and Yasmina’s Reza‘s “God of Carnage,” running from late January to March in rotating repertory.

The season opens this September with the jukebox musical “Million Dollar Quartet,” featuring the music of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins. That’s followed by the Lloyd Suh play “The Heart Sellers,” about the chance connection between two immigrant women, one Filipino and one Korean, preparing a Thanksgiving meal. Also on the schedule: SCR’s “A Christmas Carol” tradition, carried on for the 45th year; the Karen Zacarias musical “Cinderella: A Salsa Fairy Tale,” part of the Theatre for Young Audiences and Families programming; two world premieres opening in April, “Fremont Ave.” by Reggie D. White and a second title to be announced later; and “Hershey Felder, Beethoven,” in June 2026, and the one-night-only “Hershey Felder’s Great American Songbook Sing-Along,” on June 14, 2026. More details and production dates are at scr.org.

A few more news bits

Los Angeles Youth Orchestra is holding auditions for new members on Saturday and Sunday at First Presbyterian Church, 4963 Balboa Blvd., Encino. Applicants must have had at least two years of private instruction on their instrument. LAYO has more than 100 student musicians from more 50 schools in the region.

The National Children’s Chorus under Artistic Director Luke McEndarfer has partnered with Compton Unified School District in establishing scholarship-funded vocal training classes at Compton High School. The classes, which began this semester, take place three times per week and include ensemble singing, vocal technique, music theory, sight-singing and performance practice.

Leave it to Baltimore to stage the absurdly fun Kinetic Sculpture Race, hosted by the American Visionary Art Museum. This year’s 25th anniversary event featured a massive pink dog sculpture, “Fifi,” that was part of a group of wild creations to be pushed, biked and otherwise maneuvered on a 15-mile long race track.

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

The president and director of the Art Institute of Chicago is taking time off while the museum investigates a news report that he began stripping off his clothes on a flight from Chicago to Munich after drinking alcohol and taking prescription meds.