The British parliament has narrowly voted in favour of a bill to legalise assisted dying for terminally ill people, marking a landmark moment of social reform in the country’s history.
The legislation passed by a vote of 314-291 in the House of Commons on Friday, clearing its biggest parliamentary hurdle, and will now undergo months of scrutiny in the House of Lords, Britain’s upper chamber.
The process could result in further amendments when it goes to the Lords, but the upper house is usually reluctant to block legislation that has been passed by elected members of parliament in the Commons.
Friday’s vote came after many hours of emotional debate, including references to personal stories, in the chamber. It followed a vote in November that approved the legislation in principle.
Prior to that, the House of Commons voted on the issue in 2015, when it rejected legalising assisted dying.
What is in the assisted dying bill?
The “Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life)” Bill gives mentally competent, terminally ill adults in England and Wales, who have six months or less left to live, the right to choose to end their lives with medical assistance.
Patients will have to be capable of taking fatal drugs by themselves after receiving a green light from doctors and a panel including a social worker, a senior legal figure and a psychiatrist.
Assisted suicide is different from euthanasia, where a healthcare practitioner or other person administers a lethal injection at a patient’s request.
Under current legislation, someone who helps a terminally ill person end their life can face a police investigation, prosecution and a prison sentence of up to 14 years.
Changes to the original draft of the new bill were made to include the appointment of independent advocates to support people with learning disabilities, autism or mental health conditions and the creation of a disability advisory board.
Logistics still need to be thrashed out, including whether the practice or any services supporting it would be integrated into the National Health Service (NHS) or would operate as a separate unit made available through third parties.
The bill will not apply in Northern Ireland or Scotland, which is holding its own vote on the issue.
What are the arguments for assisted dying?
Supporters of the bill say it will ensure dignity and compassion for people with a terminal diagnosis, who must be given a choice over whether or not to relieve their suffering.
Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who introduced the bill, told The Guardian newspaper that terminally ill people should be given rights over their bodies similar to those that allow a woman to choose an abortion.
“As much as I will fight for the rights of disabled people to be treated better by society, I will also fight for the rights of dying people,” she said.
Some advocates for the bill also argue that current legislation discriminates against the poor, who face possible prosecution for helping their loved ones die, while the wealthy can travel abroad to legally access the services.
Conservative MP Peter Bedford spoke against this perceived inequality. “At least one Brit every week is taking the stressful and often lonely journey to Switzerland for an assisted death, at the cost of £12,000 ($16,100),” he said. “This bill isn’t about shortening life, it is about shortening death.”
Labour MP Maureen Burke spoke about her brother David, who suffered from pancreatic cancer. “He could never have known that I would ever have the opportunity to stand in this place and ask colleagues to make sure that others don’t go through what he went through,” she said. “I’ve done right by my brother by speaking here today.”
Opinion polls show that a majority of United Kingdom citizens back assisted dying. Sarah Wootton, chief executive of the UK-based Dignity in Dying campaign, said the vote sent “a clear message” and that “parliament stands with the public and change is coming”.
While there is no timetable for the implementation of the bill, under the terms of the legislation, it must begin within four years of the law being passed.
What do opponents say?
Opponents worry that vulnerable people could be coerced into ending their lives or feel pressured to do so for fear of becoming a burden to their families and society.
Protesters who rallied outside parliament as the vote was taking place on Friday held up banners urging politicians not to make the state-run health service, the NHS, the “National Suicide Service”.
Several MPs withdrew their support for the bill after the initial vote last year, saying safeguards had been weakened. One of the most important changes to the bill from last November was the dropping of the requirement that a judge sign off on any decision. The latest vote passed by a majority of 23, a narrowing of support from the 55 majority (330 votes to 275) in November.
Care Not Killing, a group that opposes the law change, called the bill “deeply flawed and dangerous” and argued that politicians had not been given enough time to consider its implications.
“Members of Parliament had under 10 hours to consider over 130 amendments to the bill, or less than five minutes per change. Does anyone think this is enough time to consider changes to a draft law that quite literally is a matter of life and death?” said the group’s CEO, Gordon Macdonald.
Opponents also raised concerns about the impact of assisted dying on the finances of the state-run NHS, whether it could allow it to sidetrack requests to fund improvements to palliative care and how it might change the relationship between doctors and their patients.
Outright opponents of the legislation include Tanni Grey-Thompson, a disabled MP and Paralympic medallist. In an interview with Sky News, she said nobody needs to die a “terrible death” if they have access to specialist palliative care.
“I’m really worried that disabled people, because of the cost of health and social care, because that’s being removed, that choice is then taken away, so the only choice they have is to end their lives,” she said.
Where else is assisted dying legal?
Assisted dying laws have been introduced in several countries. About 300 million people around the world have legal access to this option, according to Dignity in Dying.
In March, the Isle of Man became the first place in the British Isles to pass an assisted dying bill, allowing terminally ill adults with a prognosis of 12 months or less to choose to end their lives.
Switzerland legalised assisted dying in 1942, making it the first country in the world to permit the practice on the condition that the motive is not selfish.
In Europe, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal and Austria have some form of legalised assisted dying.
In the United States, the practice is known as “physician-assisted dying” and is legal in 10 states, while in Australia, it has been legal in every state since 2022.
In Latin America, Colombia legalised euthanasia for terminally ill adult patients in 2014, while Ecuador opted to decriminalise euthanasia and assisted suicide in 2024.
Canada has one of the most liberal systems of assisted dying in the world. It introduced MAID, or Medical Assistance in Dying, in 2016 for terminally ill adults. In 2021, the requirement of suffering from a terminal illness was removed and it is now debating opening the scheme to people who suffer from a mental illness as well.
Which other countries are considering legalising it?
A bill on assisted dying is being considered in Scotland. It passed an initial vote in May, but it will now need two more rounds of parliamentary scrutiny before it can become law.
French President Emmanuel Macron has backed a bill allowing some people in the last stages of a terminal illness to access assisted dying. That was approved by the National Assembly in May and will now go to the Senate before a second reading in the lower house.
According to Death with Dignity, 17 US states are considering assisted dying bills this year.
The two towering sculptures comprising thousands of pounds of bronze and stainless steel took artist and filmmaker Sir Daniel Winn more than a year to complete.
They vanished in a weekend.
Police believe that on June 14 or 15 at least one thief made off with both “Icarus Within” and “Quantum Mechanics: Homme,” — sculptures valued at a combined $2.1 million — from a warehouse in Anaheim Hills. Other artwork and valuables inside the warehouse that would have been easier to move were untouched. Authorities have scant details about the heist.
“Unfortunately, we have little information but we are investigating,” Anaheim Police Sgt. Matt Sutter said.
The life-sized “Quantum Mechanics: Homme” artwork, composed of lucite, bronze and stainless steel, depicts a winged and horned man and was featured in the award-winning short film “Creation” in 2022. It’s valued at $1.8 million.
A second Winn piece, “Icarus Within,” based partially on the sculptor’s chaotic childhood escape from Vietnam, is a steel and bronze sculpture that also stands 8 feet tall, weighs a ton, and is valued at $350,000.
Both sculptures were being stored in a temporary facility and were last seen by warehouse workers in Anaheim Hills on Saturday, according to the Anaheim Police Department.
When the workers returned to the facility Monday, both pieces were missing, according to police.
Winn believes the pieces may have been stolen by an unscrupulous collector while an art recovery expert suspects the two sculptures will be destroyed for scrap metal.
“Typically these sculptures, when we do exhibitions, take about a dozen men and two forklifts to move it and a flatbed or a truck to carry it,” Winn said. “This is not an easy task.”
Winn told The Times that the last few days have been stressful and that his anxiety has been “through the roof.” Winn is considered a blue-chip artist, meaning his work is highly sought after and has a high monetary value.
The former UC Irvine medical student, who was once homeless after switching his major from medicine to art, said he blends fine art, quantum metaphysics and philosophy into his work.
The loss of his art has pushed Winn “to a dark place,” he said, though he’s found some catharsis in talking about the situation.
“These are my children,” he said of each of his individual works. “I have no physical, organic children. Every artwork I create is my child.”
The larger of two sculptures, “Homme,” was the seventh and only unsold work in Winn’s Quantum Mechanics series, which explores philosophical concepts, universal truths and tries to answer the enduring question: why are we here?
The smaller “Icarus Within” focused on Winn’s struggle around the age of 9 in emigrating to the United States in the final days of the Vietnam War. The sculpture was tied to Winn’s movie “Chrysalis,” based on his memoirs, that is supposed to premier this fall.
Winn said the level of sophistication in the theft led him to suspect he was targeted and that his pieces may be on the black market.
He turned over a list of individuals who have recently inquired about his sculptures to police, he said.
Sutter, the Anaheim Police sergeant, said this is the largest burglary he’s seen in his 25 years with the department.
“We’ve had our share of high-end homes that were burglarized, but this type of crime, involving forklifts, trucks, crews and the sheer size of the sculptures is something I can’t remember us having before,” Sutter said.
Sutter said investigators are asking businesses near the warehouse for any footage that could help them identify a suspect.
“I have no idea where these sculptures are,” Sutter said. “They could be in somebody’s house or in a shipping container somewhere. That’s what we’re trying to find out.”
Chris Marinello, founder of the dispute resolution and art recovery service named Art Recovery International, said the sculptures will likely be scrapped for their metals.
Marinello said scrap yards tear apart such works into thousands of small pieces to cloak the metal’s origin.
“Unfortunately, the criminals are not that bright and they don’t see artwork but, instead, a sculpture worth millions that is more valuable to them for the raw metals like steel and bronze,” Marinello said.
Marinello pointed to a two-ton Henry Moore bronze sculpture, known as the Reclining Figure, stolen from the artist’s foundation in Hertfordshire, England in 2005.
The piece was valued at 3 million pounds, but authorities believe it was scrapped for just 1,500 pounds.
“You can’t sell sculptures of this magnitude on the market,” Marinello said of the Winn’s stolen pieces.
The Love Island villa erupted into chaos yet again tonight, and it was a double blow for bombshell Emily after Conor expressed his interest in Megan as Toni called her irritating
It looks like the whole Love Island villa is in for a switch up as Islanders heads continue to turn. Last night, heads began to turn as Harry took Yasmin for a trip to the Hideaway Terrace. Tonight, the focus was on Emily and Toni as they erupted into a huge unexpected argument.
The confrontation came in the mist of Conor, who is currently coupled up with Emily making a beeline for Megan, who is currently in a strong couple with Tommy. However, it wasn’t the only blow for Emily, as Toni announced she was “irritating” her.
Surprising Meg and Dejon with her thoughts on Emily, Toni told them: “I can’t stand to listen to her… ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ all the time.”
Emily was left reeling by Toni’s words (Image: ITV/Shutterstock)
Later that night, it was made clear to Emily that Toni had been bad mouthing her.
Elsewhere, in a chat with Shakira, Toni expressed her interest in Conor, who she was coupled up with before Emily. Despite this, Toni insisted her problem with Emily wasn’t anything to do with Conor.
She later revealed her problems with Emily started when either Toni and Malisha were about to go home – claiming Emily was in a good mood during a bad situation. “Read the room,” she told her.
The two went back and forth as Emily exclaimed: “Some people just want to cause a problem.” Toni responded: “It has absolutely nothing to do with this, I don’t give a f**k if you’re with Conor.”
Toni insisted her problem with Emily had nothing to do with Conor (Image: ITV/Shutterstock)
Although some fans believed the reason was secretly Conor, others think they’ve worked why the two were arguing – believing something had happened off camera.
Taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, one fan penned: “Imma stick beside Toni cos theres defo something we aint seen for her to be so done,” while another agreed: “There must be more to the story because Emily handled the Callum thing so well and Toni seemed to appreciate that. I’ve not really seen them interact much since.”
Another suggested: “I think Toni didn’t just crash out on Emily for nothing. I think Emily seems like a nice girl but playing teams like taking info from Shakira X Toni’s team to the mean girls’ team of Megan Meg and Helena and nobody would be cool with that. Just my thought.”
Elsewhere, Harry’s head turned once again, and this time it’s back to Shakira. The pair coupled up on the second day, causing Sophie to be dumped from the villa. However, things didn’t work out when Harry moved onto Helena, but it looks like he’s now regretting not exploring things further with Shakira.
“I wanted to see how you were feeling, I think initially you were number one and I f****d it,” he said.
How will things unfold now everyone’s head has turned once again?
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is in its final month of debris removal in Altadena. It has already cleared thousands of properties destroyed in January’s devastating Eaton fire and is working on the toxic ash and refuse that remains. Once the immediacy of that task fades, years of accounting for the neighborhood’s many losses lie ahead, as does the ongoing rebuilding.
The California African American Museum is contributing to that work with “Ode to ’Dena: Black Artistic Legacies of Altadena,” an exhibition on view through Oct. 12. The exhibition — organized in just three months in response to the fire — is curated by Dominique Gallery founder Dominique Clayton. It seeks to illustrate the importance of the unincorporated foothill community to Black artists including midcentury figures like Charles White, as well as contemporary practitioners including Martine Syms and Kenturah Davis.
Between 1910 and 1970, approximately 6 million Black Americans migrated from the South to other parts of the U.S.. In Southern California, Altadena became an attractive place for Black families to settle. The area didn’t participate in the redlining practices of other neighborhoods, making it a relatively welcoming place.
Many of those residents were artists and musicians, including the famed assemblage artist and former director of the Watts Towers Arts Center, John Outterbridge, whose home and studio burned in the fire. (Outterbridge died in 2020.)
In an online description of the “Ode to ’Dena” exhibition, CAAM notes that Altadena was “hailed as the epicenter of Black arts activity in Los Angeles County,” during the 1950s and ’60s, although that artistic center of gravity later shifted toward Watts after the 1965 Watts Rebellion. Nonetheless, CAAM notes, “Altadena continued to develop as a vibrant and creative haven with a distinctive Black cultural imprint. Since then, Altadena and the adjacent city of Pasadena have served as home to an extraordinary array of Black artists, educators, musicians, intellectuals, entrepreneurs, and activists.”
In addition to Outterbridge, White, Syms and Davis, the CAAM exhibit includes work by Betye Saar, Richmond Barthé, Mark Steven Greenfield, Nikki High, Bennie Maupin, Marcus Leslie Singleton, La Monte Westmoreland and Keni “Arts” Davis.
The Times’ Noah Goldbergwrote a feature on Davis after the Eaton fire — highlighting how the retired 75-year-old Hollywood set painter spent 40 years creating watercolors of his beloved neighborhood. After the destruction, he began painting the wreckage.
For more information on CAAM and the exhibition, click here.
I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt here with an important Essential Arts update: From today forward, this newsletter will now run on Friday only — rather than Monday and Friday. Here’s this week’s slew of arts news.
Best bets: On our radar this week
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The Euterpides & Serenade It’s the last two weekends to catch young composer Alma Deutscher’s debut ballet, “The Euterpides,” a world-premiere collaboration with American Contemporary Ballet Director Lincoln Jones. The work is paired with George Balanchine’s “Serenade,” set to music by Tchaikovsky. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; June 26-28. Television City, 200 N. Fairfax Ave., Stage 33. acbdances.com
KCRW and CAAM Summer Nights What better way to kick off summer than an all-ages dance party? In between live sets from guest DJ Damar Davis and KCRW DJ Novena Carmel cool your heels in California African American Museum’s galleries, currently featuring solo exhibitions by Awol Erizku, Darol Olu Kae, Nellie Mae Rowe and Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, plus the aforementioned “Ode to ’Dena” and a group exhibition of artists inspired by the concept of reparations. There will also be food trucks, a beer garden and crafts. Best of all? It’s free with an RSVP. 7-11 p.m. Friday. California African American Museum, 600 State Drive, Exposition Park. caamuseum.org
Patrick Dailey, center, and the W. Crimm Singers will perform Saturday at BroadStage in Santa Monica.
(BroadStage)
Sing the Story: Celebrating Black Artistry From Gospel To Soul Patrick Dailey and the W. Crimm Singers, an ensemble devoted to the Black experience and its expression through music, take to the BroadStage for a genre-blending evening featuring spiritual medleys, soul classics and more. Part of a series of blues rhythms curated by the Reverend Shawn Amos. 8 p.m. Saturday. The Plaza, 1310 11th St. Santa Monica. broadstage.org/
Wendy Red Star, Indian Summer, 2016, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of Loren G. Lipson.
(Wendy Red Star)
Before You Now: Capturing the Self in Portraiture The Vincent Price Museum hosts a selection of photographs, prints, drawings, videos and installation art from LACMA’s collections that explores how American artists see and present themselves in their work. Laura Aguilar, Kwame Brathwaite, Kalli Arte Collective, Jennifer Moon, Wendy Red Star, Roger Shimomura, Cindy Sherman, Rodrigo Valenzuela and June Wayne are among the more than 50 artists redefining and expanding the concept of identity. Saturday through Aug. 30. Vincent Price Art Museum, East Los Angeles College, 1301 Avenida Cesar Chavez, Monterey Park. vincentpriceartmuseum.org
Woody De Othello, “Still Life (Luggage and Things in Hand, Ready to Go),” 2020. Acrylic, gouache, watercolor and crayon on paper, 25.75 x 20 x 1 in. Private collection.
(Courtesy of the artist and Jessica Silverman Gallery.)
2025 California Biennial: Desperate, Scared, But Social The latest edition of the large-scale, Golden State-focused exhibition explores the “richness of late adolescence, a stage of life full of hope and potential yet fraught with awkwardness, anxiety, and myriad pressures.” The show’s 12 featured artists include well-established veterans and some who are still teenagers: Seth Bogart; punk rock band Emily’s Sassy Lime (Emily Ryan, Amy Yao, Wendy Yao); rock band the Linda Lindas (Lucia de la Garza, Mila de la Garza, Eloise Won and Bela Salazar); Miranda July; Stanya Kahn; Heesoo Kwon; Woody De Othello; Laura Owens; Brontez Purnell; Griselda Rosas; Deanna Templeton; and Joey Terrill. The Biennial also features a presentation of paintings from the Gardena High School Art Collection, an assemblage of California Impressionism that began in 1919, and a program curated by present-day teenagers of works drawn from the Orange County Museum of Art collection. Saturday through Jan. 4. Orange County Museum of Art, 3333 Avenue of the Arts, Costa Mesa. ocma.art
When the Violin Choreographer/dancer Yamini Kalluri joins violinist Vijay Gupta for an evening of music by JS Bach and Reena Esmail. The program combines poetry, music and a combination of modern and traditional Kuchipudi dance. 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre. sierramadreplayhouse.org
Georgia O’Keeffe, 1918, by Alfred Stieglitz.
(National Gallery of Art)
Georgia O’Keeffe: The Brightness of Light A new documentary on the iconic American artist from Academy Award-winning director Paul Wagner (“The Stone Carver”). The film covers O’Keeffe’s life from Jazz Age New York to the New Mexico desert and features music by Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch and narration by Hugh Dancy, with Claire Danes as the voice of O’Keeffe. 7 p.m. Tuesday. Laemmle Royal, 11523 Santa Monica Blvd.; Aug. 2, Laemmle Newhall, Laemmle Glendale, Laemmle Town Center 5, Encino, Laemmle Monica Film Center and Laemmle Claremont 5. laemmle.com/film/georgia-okeeffe-brightness-light
Culture news
Kim Sajet, director of the National Portrait Gallery, in 2017.
(Kevin Wolf / AP Images for National Portrait Gallery)
The drama surrounding President Trump’s purported firing of National Portrait Gallery Director Kim Sajetreached a conclusion last week when Sajet decided to step down on her own terms. “It has been the honor of a lifetime to lead the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. This was not an easy decision, but I believe it is the right one,” Sajet wrote in a note to staff shared in an email by the Smithsonian Institution’s leader, Lonnie Bunch. Sajet’s announcement came two weeks after Trump claimed to have fired her for being, “a highly partisan person, and a strong supporter of DEI.” About a week later, the Smithsonian Institution released a statement asserting its independence in the face of Trump’s order, but that seems to not have been enough to persuade Sajet to stay.
The SoCal scene
Noah Davis, “1975 (8),” 2013, oil on canvas
(Kerry McFate)
The work of Seattle-born, L.A.-based artist Noah Davis — who died of a rare form of liposarcoma at the the age of 32 — is the subject of Times art critic Christopher Knight’slatest review. The Hammer Museum is staging a retrospective of Davis’ paintings. It’s only composed of about three dozen pieces, but Knight says it’s more than enough to show that “when Davis was good, he was very good indeed.” It is clear, Knight notes, that had his life not been cut tragically short, Davis was well on his way to further accomplishment. “The show affirms his gift for what it was: Davis was a painter’s painter, a deeply thoughtful and idiosyncratic Black voice heard by other artists and aficionados, even as his work was in invigorating development,” Knight writes.
The 2025 Ojai Music Festivalwas one of the best, writes Times classical music critic Mark Swed, of the annual event in the bucolic Ventura County town. Founded nearly 80 years ago by an East Coast music lover named John Leopold Jergens Bauer, the event was originally meant to be California’s answer to the Salzburg Festival. That aspiration never quite came to pass, but over the years the progressive gathering staged mostly at the Libbey Bowl has come to embody a groundbreaking ideal of new music. This year’s music director was the flutist Claire Chase, who, according to Swed, “collected concerned composers on a quest for a kind of eco-sonics capable of conjuring up the pleasure of nature and, in the process, saving our sanity.”
Last Saturday, Esa-Pekka Salonen, “conducted his San Francisco Symphony in a staggering performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, known as the ‘Resurrection.’ It was a ferocious performance and an exalted one of gripping intensity,” Swed wrote in a glowing review of the legendary conductor’s final show with the troubled orchestra he opted to leave when he decided not to renew his contact after five years of serving as its music director. “The audience responded with a stunned and tumultuous standing ovation,” Swed notes.
Times reporter Kailyn Brown headed to the Music Center on Sunday — a day after the city’s massive “No Kings” protests — to talk to audience members who attended L.A. Opera’s “Rigoletto” and Center Theater Group’s “Hamlet” despite the recent tumult and nighttime curfew in downtown L.A. In a series of interviews, accompanied by smiling photos, Brown’s reporting shows what many Angelenos have been trying to tell friends and family outside of the city: It’s not as bad as it may seem on your social media feeds. Downtown L.A. is more or less back to normal. And besides: It’s never a bad idea to show up in support of the arts.
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CAP UCLA announced its 2025-26 season — its second under its new Executive and Artistic Director Edgar Miramontes. This season’s offerings include 30 performances featuring more than 100 international artists. “As borders become more intensified, Miramontes is committed to continued international exchange of ideas and learnings to encourage more empathy, connection, and shared understanding through presentations by acclaimed artists from around the world, spanning genre-defying jazz, Afro-Latin fusion, 21st-century classical music, and exciting new works in dance and theater,” the season release explains. Shows include: the Mexican collective Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol; basoonist and composer Joy Guidry; the jazz singer Lucía; trumpeter and composer Milena Casado; and Cuban musicians Alfredo Rodriguez and Pedrito Martínez, along with many others. “This season is more than a series of performances — it is a call to community,” Miramontes wrote in a note to patrons. “Exciting new theater, revolutionary music, and dance remind us that unity is not an ideal — it is an act. The stage becomes our platform, our laboratory, our refuge. Here, we witness. We reckon. We rejoice.” For tickets and the full schedule, click here.
Playwright Michael Shayan has released a new Audible Original play titled “Cruising.” It’s directed by Robert O’Hara, who was nominated for a Tony Award for directing “Slave Play” and is also in the midst of presenting his world-premiere adaptation of “Hamlet” at the Mark Taper Forum. The comedy follows an aspiring gay playwright who — suffering from a summer of writer’s block and apathy in his Encino apartment — embarks on a flamboyant cruise in his imagination, only to discover that his real life is falling apart around him. “Cruising” features the voices of Christine Baranski, Tituss Burgess, Cecily Strong, André de Shields and Andrew Rannells, and can be streamed here.
Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra announced its 2025-26 season, which continues this year at the Wallis in the Bram Goldsmith Theater. Offerings include a concert of classics led by Music Director Jaime Martín, featuring the German French cellist Nicolas Altstaedt; guest conductor Dinis Sousa with German violinist Isabelle Faust; violinist Anthony Marwood; pianist Richard Goode playing Mozart; a Brahms concert; a Baroque salon featuring harpsichordist Pierre Hantaï; and a performance by soprano Amanda Forsythe. For tickets and more info, click here.
— Jessica Gelt
And last but not least
What? You say you’d like a good beef roll for lunch? Me too! Here’s a list for where to find the best eight in the city by Times Food columnist Jenn Harris.
Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to wage war on illegal immigration the likes of which the United States has never seen. His first big campaign — launched against Los Angeles and its surrounding communities, of course — has proceeded with predictably disastrous results.
On social media Sunday, Trump cawed that he has “directed my entire Administration” to concentrate on identifying and removing as many illegal immigrants as possible as quickly as possible. He vowed especially to crack down on sanctuary cities across the country to supposedly “reverse the tide of Mass Destruction Migration that has turned once Idyllic Towns into scenes of Third World Dystopia.” (His Restoration-era capitalization, not mine).
Yet in the president’s social media blathering last week came something shocking: an admission that deportations don’t really work.
For decades, study after study across the political spectrum have shown that illegal immigrants not only don’t take jobs away from native-born U.S. citizens or depress their wages, but that removing them usually makes the economy worse.
There’s the liberal-leaning American Immigration Council, which predicted last year that a decadelong campaign to achieve Trump’s goal of booting 1 million illegal immigrants a year would shave off at least 4.2% from the U.S. gross domestic product. That number is on par with the Great Recession of 2008.
There’s the 618-page tome released in 2017 by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine and overseen by 14 professors. It concluded that “immigration has an overall positive impact on long-run economic growth in the U.S.” and also noted that “the rate of unemployment for native workers decline” with “larger immigration flows.”
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected last year that the surge in migration during the Biden administration would at first depress wages of native-born workers and legal immigrants but eventually help them increase over a decade.
Center for Immigration Studies director of research Steven Camarota — a man whose whole public persona is arguing that too much immigration of any kind is detrimental to the U.S. — claimed in prepared remarks before Congress last year that his group had “good evidence that immigration reduces wages and employment for some U.S.-born workers.” But he also admitted that parsing out how illegal immigration impacts the job market “is difficult.”
Meanwhile, a 2024 Brookings Institute paper found that three of the five professions with the highest number of illegal immigrants were in the hospitality, agricultural and restaurant industry and that U.S. citizens don’t work in those fields at the rate undocumented people do.
No wonder that later in the day after Trump’s social media about-face, the New York Times reported that a memo went out to ICE regional leaders urging them to “hold on all work site enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and operating hotels.”
So why pursue mass deportations at all if there’s mucho evidence that they negatively effect American-born workers, a group Trump claims he wants to restore to greatness?
There’s really only one explanation: terror.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller speaks with the media outside the White House.
(Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images)
Trump’s main adviser on all things immigration is Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who has long advocated for a scorched-earth campaign and dressed down ICE agents just last month for not nabbing and deporting people faster, damn the cost.
The Santa Monica native absorbed this apocalyptic vision from conservative activists in California, who cast the fight against illegal immigration while he was growing up in the 1990s and 2000s not just in economic terms but cultural ones. Xenophobia has always colored this nation’s past crackdowns on immigration legal and not, but the Golden State became a noxious cauldron whose anti-immigrant fumes have infested Americans in a way not seen in a century.
That’s what makes Trump’s campaign so dangerous. His seeming softening against farmers, restaurateurs and hoteliers shows that he knows the country can’t weather the disruptions that deportations cause to important sectors of our economy. If he just took a dollars-and-cents approach to illegal immigration and stopped the language about “Migrant Invasion” destroying big cities, Trump wouldn’t get such righteous pushback from so many.
But that’s not who he is. He inveighs the way he does because he wants undocumented people and the people who care for them to live in fear, to see him as a potentate who can deport people or leave them alone at his mercy and whim.
The historical precedent that Trump wants la migra to follow is Operation Wetback, an Eisenhower administration program the immigration authorities claimed back then deported 1.3 million illegal immigrants in 1954 alone and improved the economic conditions of Americans. Then and now, authorities said people without papers were ruining it for citizens, were causing too much crime and that our southern border was out of control.
The only book-length study of the campaign remains Juan Ramón García’s 1980 “Operation Wetback: The Mass Deportation of Mexican Undocumented Workers in 1954.” The professor went through newspaper clippings, congressional testimony and government reports to paint a picture of a government hell-bent on splashy headlines to scare Mexican migrants into returning to their homeland and deterring others from making the trek to el Norte.
Garcia found that government officials had exaggerated their claims because “they realized that the more impressive the figures, the better congressional response might be to requests for increased budgetary support.”
A 1954 photograph of undocumented Mexican workers (identified as “wetbacks” in a handwritten notation on the negative) awaiting deportation by U.S. authorities to Mexico.
(Los Angeles Times)
Operation Wetback didn’t usher in a new era of American worker prosperity but rather emboldened employers to exploit legal immigrants and citizens who filled in the jobs that illegal immigrants once occupied, Garcia found. It also “helped to strengthen feelings of alienation from U.S. society and to cause further mistrust of the government” for Mexican Americans. You’re seeing that play out right now, as young Latinos wave the flags of Mexico and other Latin American countries and U.S. citizens are being detained by la migra.
Most damningly, the book concluded that Operation Wetback didn’t stop illegal immigration at all — a fact borne out by the fact that here we are arguing about the subject 71 years later. The mass deportations were just a “stopgap measure, doomed to go the way of most stopgap measures,” Garcia wrote, because this country can never quit “the seemingly insatiable appetite for cheap labor” that it’s always had.
Someone tell that to Trump so he stops this madness once and for all.
The modest but pungent survey of paintings by Noah Davis at the UCLA Hammer Museum is a welcome event. It goes a long way toward demythologizing the Seattle-born, L.A.-based artist, who was heartbreakingly struck down by a rare liposarcoma cancer in 2015, when he was barely 32.
The show affirms his gift for what it was: Davis was a painter’s painter, a deeply thoughtful and idiosyncratic Black voice heard by other artists and aficionados, even as his work was in invigorating development. Talented artists often come into a steadily mature expression in their 30s, the moment when Davis’ accelerating growth was brutally interrupted. The show’s three dozen paintings are understandably uneven, but when Davis was good, he was very good indeed.
That intriguing capacity resonates in the first picture, “40 Acres and a Unicorn,” which hangs alone in the show’s entry to mark the start of his career. Davis was 24 and had studied at Cooper Union in New York and the artist-run Mountain School of Arts in L.A.’s Chinatown. The 2007 painting is not large — 2½ feet tall and slightly narrower — but it casts a spell.
In Western art, a man on a horse is a classic format representing a hero, but here Davis sits a young Black man astride a mythic unicorn — notably white — its buttery beige horn shining amid the painting’s otherwise neutral palette. It’s easy to see the youth as signifying the artist, and the replacement for an art-historical horse likewise standing in for a mule. That animal was famously promised to thousands of formerly enslaved people near the end of the Civil War, along with 40 acres of Confederate land on which they had worked, uncompensated and abused, making the white planter class rich.
Noah Davis, “40 Acres and a Unicorn,” 2007, acrylic and gouache on canvas
(Anna Arca)
The 1865 pledge to redistribute confiscated lands as restitution to African Americans for their enslavement didn’t last a year before being annulled — reparations as rare, unique and desirable as a unicorn, offered by an untrustworthy white ruling class. (Had the 1865 redistribution happened, imagine where we might be today, as racist cruelties initiated by the federal government are running rampant.) Davis, placing his at least symbolic self on the unicorn’s back, plainly asserts his social and cultural confidence. Art is imagination made real, and as a Black American artist, he’s going to ride it forward.
Perhaps the canvas’ most beautiful feature is the rich skin of black acrylic paint within which he and his steed, both rendered in soft veils of thin gouache, are embedded. The luminous black abstraction dominating the surface was visibly painted after the figures, which feel like they are being held in its embrace.
Thirty-nine paintings on canvas and 21 on paper are installed chronologically, the works on paper selected from 70 made during Davis’ lengthy hospitalization. The layering of topicality, color sensitivity, art-historical ancestors and figuration and abstraction in “40 Acres and a Unicorn” recurs throughout the brief eight-year period being surveyed. (The traveling show was organized by London’s Barbican Art Gallery with Das Minsk, an exhibition hall in Potsdam, Germany.) The most abstract painting is on a wall by itself in the next room, and it demonstrates Davis’ unusual exploratory strategies.
Titled “Nobody,” a four-sided geometric shape is rendered in flat purple house paint on linen, 5 feet square. The layered difference in materials — an image built from practical, domestic paint on a refined and artistic support — is notable. The irregular shape, however two-dimensional, seems to hover and tilt in dynamic space. It suggests a 2008 riff on the long, rich legacy of Kazimir Malevich’s radical, revolutionary geometric abstractions from 1915.
Noah Davis, “Nobody,” 2008, house paint on linen
(Christopher Knight / Los Angeles)
The reference to the Russian avant-garde recalls that Malevich’s art was dubbed Suprematism, which bumped aside the academic hierarchy of aesthetic rules in favor of “the supremacy of pure artistic feeling,” most famously represented as a painted black square. Here, it twists into an inevitable jab at an ostensibly liberal Modern art world, still in fact dominated by unexamined white supremacy.
“Nobody” weaves together art and social history in surprising ways. It’s one of three geometric abstractions Davis made, their shapes based on the map contour of a battleground state in the revolutionary election year that brought Barack Obama to the presidency.
Colorado, a state whose shape is a simple rectangle, flipped from George W. Bush in 2004, while the secondary color of Davis’ choice of purple paint was created by combining two primary pigments — red and blue. The color purple also carries its own recognizable, resonant reference, embedded in popular consciousness for Alice Walker’s often-banned Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and Steven Spielberg’s hit movie of the book, a record holder of dubious distinction, tied for the most Oscar nominations (11) without a single win. Davis’ torqued purple rectangle looks to be in mid-flip.
That Davis exhibited but ultimately painted over the other two works in his geometric series might suggest some dissatisfaction with their admittedly obscure nature. (“Nobody” almost requires footnotes.) He returned to painting the figure — “somebody” — but often embedded it in visually sumptuous abstract fields. The hedge behind “Mary Jane,” a young girl in a striped pinafore, visually a cousin to the little girl engulfed in billowing locomotive steam clouds in Édouard Manet’s “The Railway,” is a gorgeously writhing arena of spectral green, gray and black forms.
Noah Davis, “Mary Jane,” 2008, oil and acrylic on canvas
(Kerry McFate)
So is the forest of “The Missing Link 6,” where a hunter with a rifle sits quietly at the base of a massive tree trunk, virtually secreted in the landscape, like something rustling in the dense foliage in a Gustave Courbet forest. The missing-link title declares Davis’ intention to join an evolutionary chain of artists, the hidden hunter adding an element of surprise.
Art history is threaded throughout Davis’ work. (He spent productive research time working as an employee at Art Catalogues, the late Dagny Corcoran’s celebrated bookstore, when it was at MOCA’s Pacific Design Center location.) The tension between established and new art, which seeks to simultaneously acknowledge greatness in the past while overturning its rank deficiencies, is often palpable. Nowhere is the pressure felt more emphatically than in the knockout “1975 (8),” where joyful exuberance enters the picture, as folks cavort in a swimming pool.
The subject — bathers — is as foundational to Modern art as it gets, conjuring Paul Cézanne. Meanwhile, the swimming pool is quintessentially identified with Los Angeles. (Another fine pool painting, “The Missing Link 4,” has a Modernist Detroit building as backdrop, painted as a grid of color rectangles reminiscent of a David Hockney, an Ed Ruscha or a Mark Bradford.) Bathers are an artistic signal for life crawling onto shore out of the primordial ooze or basking in a pastoral, prelapsarian paradise.
For America, the swimming pool is also an archetypal segregationist site of historical cruelty and exclusion. Davis seized the contradiction.
Draining public swimming pools to avoid integration in the wake of civil rights advances happened in countless places. It showed the self-lacerating depth to which irrational hate can descend, as policy advocate Heather McGhee wrote in her exceptional book, “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together.” People were willing to harm everyone in a community by dismantling a popular public amenity rather than accept full equality. In “1975 (8),” the title’s date is within just a few years of the Supreme Court’s appalling ruling in Palmer vs. Thompson, which gave official blessing to the callous practice McGhee chronicled.
Noah Davis, “The Missing Link 4,” 2013, oil on canvas
(Robert Wedemeyer)
The 2013 painting’s composition is based on a photograph taken by Davis’ mother four decades earlier. A bright blue horizontal band in an urban landscape is dotted with calmly bobbing heads. A leaping male diver seen from behind dominates the lower foreground, angled toward the water. The soles of his bare feet greet our eyes, lining us up behind him as next to plunge in.
Davis suspends the aerial diver in space, a repoussoir figure designed to visually lead us into the scene. Like the unicorn rider, he assumes the artist’s metaphorical profile. A moment of anticipatory transition is frozen, made perpetual. Waiting our turn, we’re left to contemplate the soles of his feet — a familiar symbol of path-following humility, whether in Andrea Mantegna’s Italian Renaissance painting of a “Dead Christ” or countless Asian sculptures of Buddha.
The marvelous painting was made at a pivotal moment. A year before, Davis and his wife, sculptor Karon Davis, joined four storefronts on Washington Boulevard in Arlington Heights to create the Underground Museum. Their aim was to create a self-described family-run cultural space in a Black and Latino neighborhood. (Money came from an inheritance from his recently deceased father, with whom Davis was close.) A year later, the ambitious startup expanded when the project took on the internationally acclaimed Museum of Contemporary Art as an organizing partner. One room in the show includes mock-ups of classic sculptures — imitations — by Marcel Duchamp, Dan Flavin, Robert Smithson and Jeff Koons, which Davis made for an exhibition to reference the classic 1959 Douglas Sirk movie about racial identity, “Imitation of Life.” The appropriations ricochet off the feminist imitations of Andy Warhol and Frank Stella paintings that Elaine Sturtevant began to make in the 1960s.
Not all of Davis’ paintings succeed, which is to be expected of his youthful and experimental focus. An ambitious group that references raucous daytime TV talk programs from the likes of Maury Povich and Jerry Springer, for example, tries to wrestle with their trashy exploitation of identity issues as entertainment — DNA paternity tests and all. But a glimpse of “Maury” with a crisp Mondrian painting hanging in the background just falls flat. The juxtaposition of popular art’s messy vulgarity with the pristine aspirations of high art is surprisingly uninvolving.
Still, most of the exhibition rewards close attention. It handily does what a museum retrospective should do, securing the artist’s reputation. At any rate it’s just a sliver of some 400 paintings, sculptures and drawings the artist reportedly made. Whatever else might turn up in the future, the current selection at the Hammer represents the brilliant early start of Davis’ abbreviated career. Forget the mythology; the show’s reality is better.
Noah Davis, “Imitation of Jeff Koons,” 2013, mixed media
(Christopher Knight / Los Angeles Times)
‘Noah Davis’
Where: UCLA Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood When: Through Aug. 31. Closed Monday. Info: (310) 443-7000, hammer.ucla.edu
It took Crystal Strickland years to qualify for Medicaid, which she needs for a heart condition.
Strickland, who’s unable to work due to her condition, chafed when she learned that the U.S. House has passed a bill that would impose a work requirement for many able-bodied people to get health insurance coverage through the low-cost, government-run plan for lower-income people.
“What sense does that make?” she asked. “What about the people who can’t work but can’t afford a doctor?”
The measure is part of the version of President Trump’s “Big Beautiful” bill that cleared the House last month and is now up for consideration in the Senate. Trump is seeking to have it passed by July 4.
The bill as it stands would cut taxes and government spending — and also upend portions of the nation’s social safety net.
For proponents, the ideas behind the work requirement are simple: Crack down on fraud and stand on the principle that taxpayer-provided health coverage isn’t for those who can work but aren’t. The measure includes exceptions for those who are under 19 or over 64, those with disabilities, pregnant women, main caregivers for young children, people recently released from prisons or jails — or during certain emergencies. It would apply only to adults who receive Medicaid through expansions that 40 states chose to undertake as part of the 2010 health insurance overhaul.
Many details of how the changes would work would be developed later, leaving several unknowns and causing anxiety among recipients who worry that their illnesses might not be enough to exempt them.
Advocates and sick and disabled enrollees worry — based largely on their past experience — that even those who might be exempted from work requirements under the law could still lose benefits because of increased or hard-to-meet paperwork mandates.
Benefits can be difficult to navigate even without a work requirement
Strickland, a 44-year-old former server, cook and construction worker who lives in Fairmont, North Carolina, said she could not afford to go to a doctor for years because she wasn’t able to work. She finally received a letter this month saying she would receive Medicaid coverage, she said.
“It’s already kind of tough to get on Medicaid,” said Strickland, who has lived in a tent and times and subsisted on nonperishable food thrown out by stores. “If they make it harder to get on, they’re not going to be helping.”
Steve Furman is concerned that his 43-year-old son, who has autism, could lose coverage.
The bill the House adopted would require Medicaid enrollees to show that they work, volunteer or go to school at least 80 hours a month to continue to qualify.
A disability exception would likely apply to Furman’s son, who previously worked in an eyeglasses plant in Illinois for 15 years despite behavioral issues that may have gotten him fired elsewhere.
Furman said government bureaucracies are already impossible for his son to navigate, even with help.
It took him a year to help get his son onto Arizona’s Medicaid system when they moved to Scottsdale in 2022, and it took time to set up food benefits. But he and his wife, who are retired, say they don’t have the means to support his son fully.
“Should I expect the government to take care of him?” he asked. “I don’t know, but I do expect them to have humanity.”
There’s broad reliance on Medicaid for health coverage
About 71 million adults are enrolled in Medicaid now. And most of them — around 92% — are working, caregiving, attending school or disabled. Earlier estimates of the budget bill from the Congressional Budget Office found that about 5 million people stand to lose coverage.
A KFF tracking poll conducted in May found that the enrollees come from across the political spectrum. About one-fourth are Republicans; roughly one-third are Democrats.
The poll found that about 7 in 10 adults are worried that federal spending reductions on Medicaid will lead to more uninsured people and would strain health care providers in their area. About half said they were worried reductions would hurt the ability of them or their family to get and pay for health care.
Amaya Diana, an analyst at KFF, points to work requirements launched in Arkansas and Georgia as keeping people off Medicaid without increasing employment.
Amber Bellazaire, a policy analyst at the Michigan League for Public Policy, said the process to verify that Medicaid enrollees meet the work requirements could be a key reason people would be denied or lose eligibility.
“Massive coverage losses just due to an administrative burden rather than ineligibility is a significant concern,” she said.
One KFF poll respondent, Virginia Bell, a retiree in Starkville, Mississippi, said she’s seen sick family members struggle to get onto Medicaid, including one who died recently without coverage.
She said she doesn’t mind a work requirement for those who are able — but worries about how that would be sorted out. “It’s kind of hard to determine who needs it and who doesn’t need it,” she said.
Some people don’t if they might lose coverage with a work requirement
Lexy Mealing, 54 of Westbury, New York, who was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2021 and underwent a double mastectomy and reconstruction surgeries, said she fears she may lose the medical benefits she has come to rely on, though people with “serious or complex” medical conditions could be granted exceptions.
She now works about 15 hours a week in “gig” jobs but isn’t sure she can work more as she deals with the physical and mental toll of the cancer.
Mealing, who used to work as a medical receptionist in a pediatric neurosurgeon’s office before her diagnosis and now volunteers for the American Cancer Society, went on Medicaid after going on short-term disability.
“I can’t even imagine going through treatments right now and surgeries and the uncertainty of just not being able to work and not have health insurance,” she said.
Felix White, who has Type I diabetes, first qualified for Medicaid after losing his job as a computer programmer several years ago.
The Oreland, Pennsylvania, man has been looking for a job, but finds that at 61, it’s hard to land one.
Medicaid, meanwhile, pays for a continuous glucose monitor and insulin and funded foot surgeries last year, including one that kept him in the hospital for 12 days.
“There’s no way I could have afforded that,” he said. “I would have lost my foot and probably died.”
Mulvihill writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Susan Haigh in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.
UC Irvine and Orange County Museum of Art have signed a nonbinding letter of intent, which, if approved by the University of California Board of Regents in the fall, would bring the museum under the university’s control, effectively merging it with UC Irvine’s Langson Institute and Museum of California Art.
The news comes two months after OCMA’s CEO, Heidi Zuckerman, announced her intention to step down in December, and a week before the museum launches its 2025 California Biennial, “Desperate, Scared, But Social,” set to run Saturday though Jan. 4.
“This represents a thoughtful next step in OCMA’s evolution,” said OCMA board chair David Emmes in an email. “Partnering with UC Irvine would offer new opportunities to strengthen our mission, expand educational impact, and position the museum as a lasting and dynamic cultural anchor for the region. We look forward to next steps and the possibilities of this collaboration.”
The $93-million, 53,000-square-foot OCMA building, designed by Morphosis, debuted in October 2022 as the crown jewel of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa — a full 35 years after it was announced as an ambitious plan by the small Newport Harbor Art Museum.
Its opening drew more than 10,000 visitors in its first 24 hours, and admission for the first decade of operation was made free thanks to the financial largesse of Newport Beach’s Lugano Diamonds. Cracks soon began to appear, though, as architectural critics and columnists, including The Times’ Carolina Miranda, noted that the pricey building did not seem to be fully finished.
OCMA’s contemporary collection has a broader scope than UC Irvine’s, which focuses on California art, including early 20th century California Impressionism. If the merger happens, UC Irvine would no longer build a planned new museum on its campus and instead fold that effort into OCMA. UC Irvine is in the early stages of searching for a director for its museum, but the parameters of that search are likely to change, too. OCMA has not yet launched its search for Zuckerman’s replacement, so the two efforts would probably be combined. No logistics for how that might work are yet available.
A merger would add the impressiveBuck Collection to OCMA’s treasures, which real estate developer Gerald Buck bequeathed to UC Irvine upon his sudden death in 2017. Buck had amassed more than 3,200 paintings, sculptures and works on paper by some of the state’s most important artists, including Joan Brown, Jay DeFeo, Richard Diebenkorn, David Hockney and Ed Ruscha.
“OCMA has long contributed to the cultural vibrancy of our region, and UC Irvine is honored to explore this promising partnership,” said UC Irvine Chancellor Howard Gillman in an email. “As a university committed to discovery, creativity, and public service, we see great potential in combining our strengths to expand access to the arts, deepen engagement with California’s artistic legacy, and support new generations of creators and scholars.”
The Board of Regents will vote on the merger in the fall. In the meantime, both institutions are in the exploratory stages of figuring out how a merger would work.
I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt looking to merge with some vacation time this summer. Here’s this week’s arts roundup.
Best bets: On our radar this week
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Actor Peter Weller, left, and author William Burroughs, right, with director David Cronenberg on the set of the 1991 movie “Naked Lunch,” loosely based on Burroughs’ drug-infused novel of the same title.
(Jean-Louis Atlan / Sygma via Getty Images)
Naked Lunch Vidiots hosts the local premiere of anew 4K remastering of David Cronenberg’s 1991 adaptation of William S. Burrough’s quasi-autobiographical novel. “I’m not trying to do ‘Naked Lunch’ literally,” Cronenberg told The Times upon the film’s release. “I’m doing something else. I’m writing about writing, so in a way I’m writing about the process of writing ‘Naked Lunch.’ ” But even that is motivated by something Burroughs says in the book: “There is only one thing a writer can write about: what is in front of his senses at the moment of writing … I am a recording instrument … I am not an entertainer.” The film’s star, Peter Weller, will be in attendance, signing his new book, “Leon Battista Alberti in Exile.” 7:30 p.m. Monday. Vidiots, Eagle Theater, 4884 Eagle Rock Blvd. vidiotsfoundation.org
Chris Shyer, Alison Ewing and the national touring company of “Parade,” opening at the Ahmanson Theatre on June 17.
(Joan Marcus)
Parade Michael Arden’s triumphant Tony-winning 2023 Broadway revival of Alfred Uhry and Jason Robert Brown’s musical drama proved that one of more challenging works in the modern musical repertory is an indisputable classic. This breathtakingly ambitious show tells the story of the 1913 trial ofLeo Frank, a gross miscarriage of justice that culminated in his antisemitic lynching. While parsing the social and political context, the musical never loses sight of the protagonist and his wife, finding room for the heartbreaking personal side of an American tragedy that reveals the dark side of our collective past. Tuesday through July 12, Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. centertheatregroup.org
Gay Liberation March on Times Square, 1969. Gelatin silver print.
(Diana Davies/Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations)
Queer Lens With a provocative title that centers queer imagery within established photographic history since the mid-19th century, this exhibition will examine the ways in which the accessibility and immediacy of camerawork have shaped perceptions of LGBTQ+ people. Organized chronologically, “Queer Lens” spans from “Homosocial Culture and Romantic Friendships, 1810-1868” to “The Future is Queer, 2015-2025,” with sections covering language and identity, the gay liberation movement, the AIDS crisis and more. Tuesday through Sept. 28. J. Paul Getty Museum, 1200 Getty Center Drive, L.A. getty.edu
Culture news
President Trump stands in the presidential box as he tours the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington on March 17.
(Associated Press)
President Trump made a grand red carpet appearance at the Kennedy Center premiere of “Les Misérables” on Wednesday. This marked the first time the president has attended a show at the theater since firing its board and installing himself as chairman. With First Lady Melania Trump on his arm, the president took his seat in the president’s box. The Washington Post reported that he was greeted by boos before “cheers and chants of ‘U.S.A.!’ sought to compete.” The following day, the White House Office of Communications issued a press release titled “President Trump, First Lady Met with Standing Ovation at Kennedy Center,” which went on to describe “thunderous applause.” A video in the Post story depicts a different reality.
The SoCal scene
Miami City Ballet’s “Swan Lake.”
(Alexander Iziliaev)
Miami City Ballet is bringing Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” to the Segerstrom Center for the Arts’ Segerstrom Hall for five performances June 20-22. It’s a special version of the classic ballet choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky — the former director of Moscow Bolshoi Ballet who left Russia in in 2008 and later became an artist in residence at both American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet. Ratmansky reimagined “Swan Lake” using historical information and archival documents dating to an 1895 premiere at St. Peterberg’s Mariinsky Theatre, choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov. That revival, based on an 1877 ballet titled “The Lake of the Swans,” became the favored version going forward, and Ratmansky has used this historical context to anchor his interpretation, with music played live by Pacific Symphony. Tickets are available at scfta.org.
Orange County Museum of Art is throwing a free block party from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday, to celebrate the opening of its 2025 California Biennial, ”Desperate, Scared, But Social.” The event will feature a curator-led tour of the exhibit as well of plenty of food trucks and artist-themed snacks at the museum’s cafe Verdant. Guests are also invited to make their own risograph posters and zines and to craft screen printed tote bags and shirts. A concert for the whole family will kick off at 7 p.m. with performances by the Linda Lindas,Seth Bogart & The Punkettes and Brontez Purnell, as well as a reunion by Emily’s Sassy Lime.
“In the Pocket Painting,” Jonas Fisch.
(Jonas Fisch / Saatchi Art )
Saatchi Art,an online gallery with two L.A.-based executives, is celebrating its 15th anniversary. CEO Sarah Meller and Director of Sales and Curation Erin Remington have built the platform into an online marketplace that helps launch careers including that of Jackie Amezquita, who started out with Saatchi and last year won the Audience Award at the Hammer’s Made in LA Biennial.
With curfew exemptions from L.A. City Council, performances resumed Thursday night at the Music Center but audiences were reluctant to return downtown. L.A. Opera said attendance at “Rigoletto” was 554, roughly 1,000 less than its projected attendance. Center Theatre Group said slightly more than 300 ticket holders showed up for “Hamlet” at the Mark Taper Forum, which seats 739 and had been at 85% capacity (about 630 seats filled) prior to the introduction of a curfew. A representative said the company heard no reports of problems getting in or out of downtown.
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Times music writer August Brown interviewed Beach Boys co-founder Al Jardine about Brian Wilson, who died last week at 82. “I just lost my best friend and mentor. It’s not a good feeling, but I’m going to carry on and continue to play our music and perform with the Pet Sounds Band,” Jardine told Brown.
Wildfire Days: A Woman, a Hotshot Crew, and the Burning American West
By Kelly Ramsey Scribner: 338 pages, $30 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.
Fire changes whatever it encounters. Burns it, melts it, sometimes makes it stronger. Once fire tears through a place, nothing is left the same. Kelly Ramsey wasn’t thinking of this when she joined the U.S. Forest Service firefighting crew known as the Rowdy River Hotshots — she just thought fighting fires would be a great job.
But fire changed her too.
In her memoir, “Wildfire Days: A Woman, a Hotshot Crew, and the Burning American West,” Ramsey takes us through two years of fighting wilderness fires in the mountains of Northern California. She wrote the book before January’s deadly Altadena and Pacific Palisades fires, and what she encountered in the summers of 2020 and 2021 was mostly forests burning, not city neighborhoods. But at the time, the fires she and her fellow crewmen fought (and they were all men that first year) were the hottest, fastest, biggest fires California had ever experienced.
“My first real year in fire had been a doozy, not just for me but my beloved California: 4.2 million acres burned,” she writes, in the “worst season the state had endured in over a hundred years.” That included the state’s first gigafire — more than 1 million acres burned in Northern California.
The job proved to be the hardest thing she’d ever done, but something about fire compelled her. “At the sight of a smoke column, most people feel a healthy hitch in their breath and want to run the other way,” she writes. “But all I wanted to do was run toward the fire.”
Ramsey’s memoir covers a lot of ground, skillfully. She learns that being in good shape isn’t enough — she has to be in incredible shape. She learns how to work with a group of men who are younger, stronger and more experienced than she is, and she figures out how to find that line between never complaining and standing up for herself in the face of inappropriate behavior.
She also writes about the changes in her own life during that time: coming to terms with her alcoholic, homeless father; pondering her lousy record for romantic relationships; searching for an independence and peace she had never known.
“It wasn’t fire that was hard; it was ordinary life,” she concludes.
Sometimes her struggles with ordinary life threaten to take over the narrative, but while they humanize her, they are not the most interesting part of this book. What resonates instead is fire and all that it entails — the burning forest and the hard, mind-numbing work of the Hotshots. They work 14 days on, two days off, all summer and fall, sometimes 24-hour shifts when things are bad. They sleep rough, dig ditches, build firebreaks, set controlled burns, take down dead trees and, in between, experience moments of terrifying danger.
Readers of John Vaillant’s harrowing 2023 book “Fire Weather” — an account of the destruction of the Canadian forest town of Fort McMurray — might consider Ramsey’s book a companion to the earlier book. “Wildfire Days” is not as sweeping or scientific; it’s more personal and entertaining. It’s the other side of the story, the story of the people who fight the blaze.
Ramsey’s gender is an important part of this book; as a woman, she faces obstacles men do not. It’s harder to find a discreet place to relieve herself; she must deal with monthly periods; and, at first, she is the weakest and slowest of the Hotshots. “Thought you trained this winter,” one of the guys tells her after an arduous training hike leaves her gasping for breath. “I did,” she said.
“Thinking you shoulda trained a little harder, huh,” he said.
But over time she grows stronger, more capable, and more accepted. In the second year, when another woman joins the crew, Ramsey is torn between finally being “one of the guys” and supporting, in solidarity, a woman — but a woman whose work is substandard and whose attitude is whiny.
“Was I only interested in ‘diversity’ on the crew if it looked like me?” she asks herself. “Had I clawed out a place for myself, only to pull up the ladder behind me?”
But competence is crucial in this dangerous job, and substandard work can mean deadly accidents.
For centuries, natural wildfires burned dead trees and undergrowth in California, keeping huge fires in check. White settlers threw things out of whack.
“The Indigenous people of California were (and still are) expert fire keepers,” Ramsey writes. “Native burning mimicked and augmented natural fire, keeping the land park like and open.”
But in the 20th century, humans suppressed fires and forests became overgrown. “Cut to today,” she writes. “Dense forests are primed to burn hotter and faster than ever before.”
Ramsey’s descriptions of the work and the fires are the strongest parts of the book.
“We could hear the howl — like the roar of a thousand lions, like a fleet of jet engines passing overhead — the sound of fire devouring everything,“ Ramsey writes.
Later, she drives through a part of the forest that burned the year before to see “mile upon mile of carbonized trees and denuded earth, a now-familiar scene of extinguished life.”
But she also notes that the burned areas are already beginning to green up. “New life tended to spring from bitterest ash,” she writes.
“The forest wouldn’t grow back the same, but it wouldn’t stop growing,” she observes earlier.
There is a metaphor here. Ramsey’s memoir is a moving, sometimes funny story about destruction, change and rebirth, told by a woman tempered by fire.
Hertzel’s second memoir, “Ghosts of Fourth Street,” will be published in 2026. She teaches in the MFA in Narrative Nonfiction program at the University of Georgia and lives in Minnesota.
Center Theatre Group temporarily canceled “Hamlet” at Mark Taper Forum; the Los Angeles Philharmonic scuttled the final night of its Seoul Festival at Walt Disney Concert Hall; the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles’ Geffen Contemporary and the Broad museum are both closed through the weekend; and the Japanese American National Museum fenced off its pavilion to prevent further vandalism — these are just some of the immediate effects felt by downtown Los Angeles’ many arts organizations as ICE protests, an ongoing curfew and the arrival of thousands of federal troops upend daily life in the city’s civic core.
(On Thursday, Los Angeles city officials carved out a curfew exemption for ticket holders of indoor events and performing arts venues downtown including the Music Center, paving the way for evening performances of Center Theatre Group’s “Hamlet” and Los Angeles Opera’s “Rigoletto.”)
The Trump administration says it will deploy 4,000 National Guard members and 700 Marines to L.A. to protect immigration agents and federal buildings at a reported cost of $134 million. On Tuesday, the state of California requested a temporary restraining order blocking the deployments, so it’s anyone’s guess as to how this will ultimately unfold.
The uncertainty, including how long Mayor Karen Bass’ 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew will remain in effect, has added to the pall over downtown L.A., where businesses and restaurants are also struggling with security issues and the many unknowns of the swiftly evolving crisis.
On Wednesday, I reached out to many of downtown’s arts leaders, and they all issued statements in support of Los Angeles and all of its inhabitants.
“As Los Angeles’ largest theatre company, located in Downtown LA, we are heartbroken by the events unfolding around us and affecting so many in our beautiful and diverse city,” CTG said. “Our mission is to be a home for everyone who calls themselves an Angeleno.”
This is a sentiment that abounds throughout this proud city of immigrants, where many with friends or neighbors who are undocumented feel sorrow to see the violence and destruction.
I’m arts and culture reporter Jessica Gelt, standing with my community in support of all its members. Here’s this week’s arts news.
Best bets: On our radar this week
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Huntley Ritter, from left, Kirsten Dunst, Nathan West and Eliza Dushku in the 2000 movie “Bring It On.”
(Getty / Universal Studios)
Academy screenings The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presents two very different films this weekend. On Friday, the North American premiere of a new 4K restoration of 1975 best picture winner, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” starring Jack Nicholson, screens with supervising film editor Richard Chew and editor Lynzee Klingman joining screenwriter Larry Karaszewski to discuss the film. Then, the academy’s Teen Movie Madness! series continues Saturday with a 25th anniversary screening of cheerleading cult fave “Bring It On” in 35mm, preceded by a conversation with actor and artist Brandi Williams, who played Lafred in the film. “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” 7:30 p.m. Friday; “Bring It On,” 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Academy Museum, David Geffen Theater, 6067 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. academymuseum.org
Cinderella Los Angeles Ballet closes out its 2024-25 season with this fairy tale classic featuring choreography by Edwaard Liang set to the music of Sergei Prokofiev. This reimagined version adds a modern sensibility, new twists, fantasy and humor to the story of a young woman, mistreated by her stepmother and stepsisters, who is transformed for a date with a prince by a fairy godmother. 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Dolby Theatre, 6801 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood. losangelesballet.org
Soprano Renée Fleming will headline the performance “Renée Fleming & Friends” on June 14.
(Andrew Eccles / Decca)
Renée Fleming & Friends Broadway and opera come together as vocalists Tituss Burgess, Lindsay Mendez and Jessie Mueller join the legendary soprano for a one-night-only concert presented by L.A. Opera. When Fleming appeared in the musical “Light in the Piazza” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in 2019, Times theater critic Charles McNulty wrote that the singer “delivers the goods in the show’s climax … Sound and sense are at last joined, making the distinction between Broadway and opera irrelevant.” (The performance is still planned as originally scheduled. Please check with L.A. Opera for updates.) 7:30 p.m. Friday. Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laopera.org
Poster for the movie “The Bull-Dogger” starring actor Bill Pickett,1925. Lithograph on paper.
(Autry Museum)
Black Cowboys: An American Story Beyoncé earned accolades (including her first best album Grammy) for “Cowboy Carter,” bringing the iconography of the Black West to the mainstream. For those whose appetites have been whetted for more, this exhibition at the Autry Museum of the American West, conceived and organized by the Witte Museum in San Antonio, delivers a deep dive into that underreported slice of history. Tales of how Black men and women deployed their equestrian skills to great effect as they tamed and trained horses, tended livestock and embarked on cattle drives across the country come to life through historical and contemporary objects, photographs and personal recollections. The Autry’s presentation also highlights Hollywood’s influence on the Black cowboy image with movie memorabilia, including vintage film posters and the costumes used in the 2021 Netflix film “The Harder They Fall.” Saturday through Jan. 4. Autry Museum of the American West, 4700 Western Heritage Way, Griffith Park. theautry.org
Culture news
Denzel Washington, left, and Jake Gyllenhaal attend the “Othello” Broadway production media day at Tavern on the Green on Feb. 10 in New York.
(C.J. Rivera / Invision / Associated Press)
“Broadway finally got its groove back. The 2024-25 season was the highest-grossing season on record and the second-highest in terms of attendance,” Times theater critic Charles McNultywrites in a column about last Sunday’s Tony Awards. That resurgence could be attributed to the many high-powered film and television stars on New York stages including George Clooney, Kieran Culkin, Jake Gyllenhaal, Denzel Washington, Bob Odenkirk and Sarah Snook — but the real reason audiences flocked to live theater this season, McNulty concludes, was “unadulterated theatrical fearlessness.”
The Smithsonian Institution’s standoff with President Trumptook a new turn Monday evening when the Smithsonian issued a statement that could be read as a rejection of Trump’s late-May firing of National Portrait Gallery director Kim Sajet. The Smithsonian said the organization’s secretary, Lonnie G. Bunch, “has the support of the Board of Regents in his authority and management of the Smithsonian,” after a lengthy meeting by the board. This seems to imply that, for now, Sajet isn’t going anywhere.
An installation view of “The Land Carries Our Ancestors: Contemporary Art by Native Americans” at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
(Carolina A. Miranda / Los Angeles Times)
On Wednesday, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., announced a major gift of modern and contemporary drawings from longtime museum supporters Lenore and Bernard Greenberg. The collection of more than 60 works of art includes pieces by Vija Celmins, Willem de Kooning, Alberto Giacometti, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Franz Kline, Brice Marden, Bruce Nauman, Susan Rothenberg, Ed Ruscha, Shahzia Sikander and Cy Twombly.
“Adrien Brody’s art is horrendous. Why are some people pretending it isn’t?” senior ARTnews editor Alex Greenberger argues in a pointed, sometimes hilarious takedown of the Oscar-winning star’s paintings. “Adrien Brody has received due attention for his acting abilities: his Oscar-winning performance in last year’s film The Brutalist is the kind of work most actors would be lucky to pull off once in their lifetime. Last week, however, he started receiving undue attention for the hideous art he debuted in New York at Eden Gallery, which — based on its press coverage, anyway — is one of the most talked-about exhibitions of the summer,” the column begins. If you need a chuckle, it’s worth reading in its entirety.
The SoCal scene
Patrick Ball, from left, Ramiz Monsef and Gina Torres in “Hamlet” at the Mark Taper Forum.
(Jeff Lorch)
Unlike his assessment of Broadway’s season, Charles McNulty wasn’t so positive about a recent L.A. theater offering. He did not enjoy director Robert O’Hara’s world-premiere adaptation of “Hamlet,” starring Patrick Ball from MAX’s hit show “The Pitt.” The new material places the story in a noir landscape in modern-day L.A. and features a second-act twist when a detective comes to investigate the play’s bloodbath a la “CSI.” “O’Hara’s audacious antics are stimulating at first, but there’s not enough dramatic interest to sustain such a grueling journey,” McNulty writes.
A massive Barbara Kruger mural titled “Questions” on the side of MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary began appearing in news broadcasts and social media posts across the country as ICE protests unfolded over the weekend. This proved prophetic, since the 1990 artwork is composed of a series of pointed questions that interrogate the very nature of power and control. Read all about it here.
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Pasadena Playhouse has announced its 2025-26 season, its first since buying back its historic 1925 building. Theater lovers can gear up for the shiny new Tony Award-winning best revival of a play, “Eureka Day,” as well as Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus,” a world-premiere adaptation of “Brigadoon” and the novel two-person hip-hop musical, “Mexodus.”
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration directed immigration officers to pause arrests at farms, restaurants and hotels after the president expressed alarm about the impact of his aggressive enforcement, an official said Saturday.
The move marks a remarkable turnabout in Trump’s immigration crackdown since he took office in January. It follows weeks of increased enforcement since Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff and main architect of Trump’s immigration policies, said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers would target at least 3,000 arrests a day, up from about 650 a day during the first five months of Trump’s second term.
Tatum King, an official with ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit, wrote regional leaders on Thursday to halt investigations of the agricultural industry, including meatpackers, restaurants and hotels, according to the New York Times.
A U.S. official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed to the Associated Press the contents of the directive. The Homeland Security Department did not dispute it.
“We will follow the president’s direction and continue to work to get the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens off of America’s streets,” Tricia McLaughlin, a Homeland Security spokesperson, said when asked to confirm the directive.
The shift suggests Trump’s promise of mass deportations has limits if it threatens industries that rely on workers in the country illegally. Trump posted on his Truth Social site Thursday that he disapproved of how farmers and hotels were being affected.
“Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,” he wrote. “In many cases the Criminals allowed into our Country by the VERY Stupid Biden Open Borders Policy are applying for those jobs. This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!”
While ICE’s presence in Los Angeles has captured public attention and prompted Trump to deploy the California National Guard and Marines, immigration authorities have also been a growing presence at farms and factories across the country.
Farm bureaus in California say raids at packinghouses and fields are threatening businesses that supply much of the country’s food. Dozens of farmworkers were arrested after uniformed agents fanned out on farms northwest of Los Angeles in Ventura County, which is known for growing strawberries, lemons and avocados. Others are skipping work as fear spreads.
ICE made more than 70 arrests Tuesday at a food packaging company in Omaha. The owner of Glenn Valley Foods said the company was enrolled in a voluntary program to verify workers’ immigration status and that it was operating at 30% capacity as it scrambled to find replacements.
Tom Homan, the White House border advisor, has repeatedly said ICE will send officers into communities and workplaces, particularly in “sanctuary” jurisdictions that limit the agency’s access to local jails.
Sanctuary cities “will get exactly what they don’t want, more officers in the communities and more officers at the work sites,” Homan said Monday on Fox News Channel. “We can’t arrest them in the jail, we’ll arrest them in the community. If we can’t arrest them in the community, we’re going to increase work-site enforcement operation. We’re going to flood the zone.”
Madhani and Spagat write for the Associated Press.
Billy Bob Thornton reflects on life in the tabloid spotlight with Angelina Jolie, Jason Isaacs discusses the ‘shocking’ scrutiny of ‘The White Lotus’ cast and more tales from the Envelope Drama Roundtable. READ HERE
Comedy
Nathan Lane recalls the Friars Club Roast from hell, Kate Hudson opens up about needing to fight for roles beyond the rom-com and more tales from The Envelope Comedy Roundtable. READ HERE
Limited Series / TV Movie
Elizabeth Banks explains why comedy is harder than drama, Brian Tyree Henry recalls being mistaken for his characters and more tales from our limited series / TV movie Roundtable. READ HERE
Writers
Writers from six of the year’s most entertaining and acclaimed TV series open up about runaway production, the binge model and tuning out (or into) social media. READ HERE
“Hacks” won the comedy series Emmy last year on the strength of a campaign that proclaimed: Vote for us! We’re actually a comedy (unlike, you know, “The Bear”).
So what happens this year when the show stopped being funny?
I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope newsletter. There’s not much to laugh about these days, so let’s pick our spots and consider the TV series vying for television’s top award.
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‘Hacks’ Season 4 leaves room for a new winner
Let me just say at the outset that I enjoy “Hacks.” And like everyone else on the planet, I adore Jean Smart and appreciate that Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky created a role worthy of her talents. Comparing notes with Smart on the best sad sing-along songs is a memory I’ll always treasure, and even inspired me for a time to dip back into listening to “love songs on the Coast.”
At its essence, “Hacks” is a love story between Smart’s stand-up legend Deborah Vance and Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder), the young writer who helped Deborah reinvent her career. They come from different generations and possess distinct comic sensibilities. They fight, hurt each other, separate and ultimately reunite after realizing that they’re better together. They get each other. Or at least, Ava gets Deborah. And that’s enough because Deborah is the star and she doesn’t really need to bother understanding Ava’s Gen Z peculiarities. She can just roll her eyes.
Their mutual dependence is believable enough. They both live for work. So much so that at the end of “Hacks’” third season, Ava has blackmailed Deborah, an act that lands her the head writer job that Deborah had promised to give her on her late-night talk show. Ava was but the learner, now she’s the master. Well played, Dark Lady of the Sith.
It was, as our old friend Jeff Probst would say, an epic blindside, and you can understand why this current season would begin with bitter acrimony between the two women, a situation so toxic that the network brought in a human resources rep to keep them from harming each other.
The animosity wasn’t fun to watch. The tone was shrill and off-putting. Was there a joke that landed in the season’s first half? I don’t remember one, but maybe that’s because I was curled up in a fetal position watching the plot unfold.
At least amid the drama of “The Bear,” I could get some some inspiration for a good set of kitchen knives.
Julianne Nicholson’s “Dance Mom” was a bright spot of “Hacks” Season 4.
(Max)
Of course, Deborah and Ava got back together, which was a relief because that HR lady was annoying. The season’s penultimate episode was ridiculous, but in all the best ways, surprising and emotionally satisfying. Helen Hunt finally scored a big moment. And Julianne Nicholson showed some moves as Dance Mom that I never imagined her possessing. Get that character to rehab and into Season 5.
Yes, “Hacks” can still entertain. Even the anticlimactic final episode gave Smart the opportunity to play boozy and bored, showcasing her depth as a dramatic actor. One would think that after what transpired, Deborah would have more opportunities, even with a noncompete clause, to parlay her ethical stance into something more meaningful than a sad casino gig in Singapore. But the finale set up one final comeback — final because “Hacks” was pitched with a five-season arc. And we’re on the doorstep.
At least they won’t have to contrive to separate Ava and Deborah again.
So, by all means, nominate “Hacks” for comedy series again. I’d rather rewatch it than nod off during the tepid “Four Seasons.” And maybe since the show’s creators have known (since 2015) what the final scene will be, we’ll have a persuasive fifth season possessing the energy of a great Deborah Vance comeback.
In the meantime, keep last year’s mandate going and give the Emmy to a show that was consistently funny.
LOVE Island fans reckon they have the first Casa Amor bombshell sussed after an explosive two days on the 2025 series.
Their suspicions flooded in shortly after ITV2viewersthreatened to call Ofcomafter Shakira Khan, 22, was left single – when American bombshell Toni, 24, chose her man Ben, 23, to couple up with.
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Love Island fans are convinced they’ve sussed the first Casa Amor bombshellCredit: Eroteme
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It came after Shakira Khan was left single after just hours in the villa – and forced to graft and re-coupleCredit: Eroteme
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Influencer Sophie Lee was evicted last nightCredit: Eroteme
Manchester model ShakirapickedHarry Cooksley, 30, during the most recent re-coupling ceremony – meaningSophie Lee, 29, was dumped from the island immediately.
Now eagle-eyed Love Island regulars are convinced the TV star, who wasleft scarred for lifefollowing a terrifying accident, will be back.
She also added fuel to the fire as she admitted “summer isn’t over,” during her exit interview.
Now fans think a spot in the Love Island spin-off villa would be a perfect comeback, and one wrote on Instagram: “Get her back for Casa cos she came across so sweet definitely was hoping Alima was gunna go.”
A second put: “Get her back on!!!! we loved her!!!”
A third noted: “Bring her back in Casa Amor! She deserves another chance,” as a fourth put: “Get her back in for Casa!! She seems so genuine.”
One then added: “BRING SOPH BACK!”
Love Island bosses have form for calling back former show stars for the second villa.
I was driving while listening to the news Sunday when I heard House Speaker Mike Johnson justify President Trump’s move to send National Guard troops to Los Angeles.
“We have to maintain the rule of law,” Johnson said.
I almost swerved off the road.
Maintain the rule of law?
Steve Lopez
Steve Lopez is a California native who has been a Los Angeles Times columnist since 2001. He has won more than a dozen national journalism awards and is a four-time Pulitzer finalist.
Trump pardoned the hooligans who ransacked the Capitol because he lost the 2020 presidential election. They clashed with police, destroyed property and threatened the lives of public officials, and to Trump, they’re heroes.
Maintain the rule of law?
Trump is a 34-count felon who has defied judicial rulings, ignored laws that don’t serve his interests, and turned his current presidency into an unprecedented adventure in self-dealing and graft.
And now he’s sending an invading army to Los Angeles, creating a crisis where there was none. Arresting undocumented immigrants with criminal records is one thing, but is that what this is about? Or is it about putting on a show, occupying commercial and residential neighborhoods and arresting people who are looking for — or on their way to — work.
Protesters and members of the National Guard watched one another in front of the federal building in Los Angeles on Monday.
(Luke Johnson/Los Angeles Times)
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned that U.S. Marines were on high alert and ready to roll, and in the latest of who knows how many escalations, hundreds are headed our way.
What next, the Air Force?
I’m not going to defend the vandalism and violence — which plays into Trump’s hands—that followed ICE arrests in Los Angeles. I can see him sitting in front of the tube, letting out a cheer every time another “migrant criminal” flings a rock or a scooter at a patrol car.
But I am going to defend Los Angeles and the way things work here.
For starters, undocumented immigration is not the threat to public safety or the economy that Trump like to bloviate about.
It’s just that he knows he can score points on border bluster and on DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), so he’s going full gasbag on both, and now he’s threatening to lock up Gov. Gavin Newsom.
To hear the rhetoric, you’d think every other undocumented immigrant is a gang member and that trans athletes will soon dominate youth sports if someone doesn’t stand up to them.
I can already read the mail that hasn’t yet arrived, so let me say in advance that I do indeed understand that breaking immigration law means breaking the law, and I believe that President Biden didn’t do enough to control the border, although it was Republicans who killed a border security bill early last year.
I also acknowledge the cost of supporting undocumented immigrants is substantial when you factor in public education and, in California, medical care, which is running billions of dollars beyond original estimates.
But the economic contributions of immigrants — regardless of legal status — are undeniably numerous, affecting the price we pay for everything from groceries to healthcare to domestic services to construction to landscaping.
Protesters shut down the 101 Freeway in Los Angeles on Sunday.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
Last year, the Congressional Budget Office concluded that a surge in immigrants since 2021 — including refugees, asylum seekers and others, legal and illegal — had lifted the U.S. economy “by filling otherwise vacant jobs,” as The Times reported, and “pumping millions of tax dollars into state, local and federal coffers.”
According to a seminal 2011 study by the Public Policy Institute of California, “many illegal immigrants pay Social Security and other taxes but do not collect benefits, and they are not eligible for many government services.”
In addition, the report said: “Political controversies aside, when illegal immigrants come, many U.S. employers are ready to hire them. The vast majority work. Estimates suggest that at least 75 percent of adult illegal immigrants are in the workforce.”
Trump can rail against the lunatic radical left for the scourge of illegal immigration, but the statement that “employers are ready to hire them” couldn’t be more true. And those employers stand on both sides of the political aisle, as do lawmakers who for decades have allowed the steady flow of workers to industries that would suffer without them.
On Sunday, I had to pick up a couple of items at the Home Depot on San Fernando Road in Glendale, where dozens of day laborers often gather in search of work. But there were only a couple of men out there, given recent headlines.
A shopper in the garden section said the report of federal troops marching on L.A. is “kind of ridiculous, right?” He said the characterization by Trump of “all these terrible people” and “gang members” on the loose was hard to square with the reality of day laborers all but begging for work.
I found one of them in a far corner of the Home Depot lot, behind a fence. He told me he was from Honduras and was afraid to risk arrest by looking for work at a time when battalions of masked troops were on the move, but he’s got a hungry family back home, including three kids. He said he was available for any kind of jobs, including painting, hauling and cleanup.
Two men in a pickup truck told me they were undocumented too and available for construction jobs of any type. They said they were from Puebla, Mexico, but there wasn’t enough work for them there.
I’ve been to Puebla, a city known for its roughly 300 churches. I was passing through about 20 years ago on my way to a small nearby town where almost everyone on the street was female.
Where were the men?
Protesters shut down the 101 Freeway in Los Angeles on Sunday.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
City workers repair broken windows at LAPD headquarters on Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles on Monday.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
I was told by a city official that the local economy was all about corn, but local growers couldn’t compete with American farmers who had the benefit of federal subsidies. So the men had gone north for work.
Another reason people head north is to escape the violence wrought by cartels armed with American-made weapons, competing to serve the huge American appetite for drugs.
In these ways, and more, the flow of people across borders can be complicated. But generally speaking, it’s simply about survival. People move to escape poverty or danger. They move in search of something better for themselves, or to be more accurate about it, for their children.
The narratives of those journeys are woven into the fabric of Los Angeles. It’s part of what’s messy and splendid and complicated about this blended, imperfect corner of the world, where many of us know students or workers or families with temporary status, or none at all.
That’s why this overheated invasion looks so ugly and feels so personal.
We’re less suspicious of our neighbors and the people we encounter on our daily rounds than the hypocrites who would pardon insurrectionists, sow division and send an occupying army to haul away members of our community.
The Getty announced a $420,000 grant to the L.A. Conservancy for a cultural asset mapping project that will help track, chronicle and maintain Altadena’s cultural, historic and architectural heritage in the wake of January’s devastating Eaton fire.
Community participation will be crucial to the effort as the conservancy works to document buildings and sites, as well as more ephemeral heritage such as local traditions, oral histories and cultural practices. There is also interest in cataloging longtime businesses that contributed to the social fabric of Altadena’s various neighborhoods. The results of this work will be used in collaboration with the L.A. County Department of Regional Planning to ensure that policy discussions and decisions take Altadena heritage into account when it comes to building back what was lost.
Rebuilding efforts in Altadena — an unincorporated section of Los Angeles County — have been complicated by the lack of concrete cultural mapping, including sites of historic interest. By contrast, Pacific Palisades, another area that was brutalized by fire, had already established an official record of its cultural heritage via SurveyLA, a historic resources survey conducted by the city.
“Tackling this incomplete record of Altadena’s cultural resources, both built and intangible, is critical for the community as it contemplates rebuilding,” Joan Weinstein, director of the Getty Foundation, said in a news release. “L.A. Conservancy is an excellent partner to lead an alliance of community-based organizations and preservation professionals who are working to ensure that Altadena’s vibrant cultural history is not lost in redevelopment efforts.”
L.A. Conservancy has a special interest in historic preservation and the grant will allow for a complete inventory of Altadena’s heritage sites — to be made available in an online map.
Related to this effort is the news that Artists at Work, which provides artists with employment, benefits and a steady salary for 18 month terms, has released its list of 2025-26 participants. Four Los Angeles artists are among them, including Altadena resident Alma Cielo, who is set to collaborate with L.A. Conservancy during her term. Cielo, a ceramicist, lost her home in the Eaton fire and plans to focus on post-fire recovery.
I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt marveling at the resilience of Altadena residents in the face of their losses, and firmly invested in supporting them as they rebuild. Here’s this week’s arts and culture news.
Best bets: On our radar this week
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“Self-Portrait as a Female Martyr,” about 1613-14, by Artemisia Gentileschi (Italian, 1593-1654). Oil on panel. 12 1/2 by 9 3/4 inches. Private collection, United States.
(Bridgeman Images)
Artemisia’s Strong Women: Rescuing a Masterpiece Five years ago, a massive explosion ripped through the port of Beirut, killing more than 200 people and injuring thousands more. The aftermath of the tragedy revealed a previously unknown painting by the great 17th century Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi amid the rubble. “Hercules and Omphale,” an oil-on-canvas work that manifests Gentileschi’s penchant for classical subjects, was severely damaged and sent to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles for restoration. That painstaking conservation process is now at the center of an installation featuring four other paintings by the artist, who has become a modern feminist icon. In 2022, when the Getty acquired another painting, “Lucretia,” that is part of the new exhibition, Times art criticChristopher Knight wrote of Gentileschi, “Happily, in the last two decades, the study of her paintings has been widening in productive and exciting ways, giving us a fuller understanding of her challenging involvement with social, political, literary and intellectual currents of her day. There’s a long way to go, and more discoveries are inevitable.” Through Sept. 14 . J. Paul Getty Museum, 1200 Getty Center Drive, L.A. getty.edu
Mumford & Sons performing at a Kamala Harris rally in October 2024.
(Morry Gash / Associated Press)
Mumford & Sons It’s hard to believe that it’s been nearly 17 years since Mumford & Sonsmade their local debut at the Hotel Cafe. Since then, the British folk-rock band — Marcus Mumford, Ted Dwane and Ben Lovett — have toured the world several times over, crafted hit songs such as “Little Lion Man,” “The Cave” and “I Will Wait,” and won a best album Grammy for 2012’s “Babel.” This week, the group is back in L.A. (minus longtime member Winston Marshall, who left in 2021 following controversial social media posts) and playing the Hollywood Bowl in support of their latest album, “RUSHMERE.” The English indie rock duo Good Neighbours — Oli Fox and Scott Verrill — will open the show. 7:30 p.m. Thursdays. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood. hollywoodbowl.com
Culture news
“Purpose” actor Glenn Davis, left, who commissioned the play for Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins accept the award for best play during the 78th Tony Awards on Sunday, June 8, 2025, at Radio City Music Hall in New York.
(Charles Sykes / Charles Sykes/invision/ap)
The 2025 Tony Awardshonored Broadway’s best and brightest last night at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. The surprise hit “Maybe Happy Ending” won best musical and led all productions with six wins, while the musical “Buena Vista Social Club,” inspired by the legendary Cuban ensemble, earned four. Earlier in the week, Times theater critic Charles McNultymade a prescient arument for why Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ “Purpose” deserved to win the Tony for best play over Cole Escola’s, “Oh, Mary!” The campy melodrama had a wave of giddy popularity at its back, but “Purpose” is the more complex piece of writing and could more readily benefit from the prestige of a Tony win when it comes to rallying support for future productions, wrote McNulty. “There was a time not so long ago when the future of the Broadway play was in serious doubt. The threat hasn’t gone away, and Tony voters shouldn’t pass up an opportunity to honor true playwriting excellence.” Escola did not go home empty-handed, however, winning the Tony for best lead actor in a play and drawing what may have been the largest applause of the night.
The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
(Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press)
The business outlook is not good for the Kennedy Center in the wake of President Trump’s takeover. The Washington Postrecently reported that subscriptions were down by about $1.6 million, or 36%, from the previous year — with the hardest hit coming in theater subscriptions, which are down 82%. “At this time in last year’s subscription campaign, the center had generated $1,226,344 in revenue from selling 1,771 subscriptions. This year it has sold 371 subscriptions, totaling $224,059, a difference of more than $1 million,” the Post reported. The numbers were leaked to the paper by former Kennedy Center employees and confirmed by a current staff member, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution.
Journalist Stephanie Elizondo Griest has a new book coming out this month through Beacon Press titled “Art Above Everything,” which chronicles the lives — and countless sacrifices — made by more than 100 female artists around the world in service of their vocations. At the core of Griest’s explorations in Rwanda, Romania, Qatar, Iceland, Mexico, New Zealand, Cuba and the U.S., is the question: What is the pursuit of art worth?
The SoCal scene
Quinn Kelsey as Rigoletto in Los Angeles Opera’s new production of Verdi’s opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
(Corey Weaver / L.A. Opera)
”L.A. Opera unveiled a violent, politically disquieting production in which a tortured jester faces mob rule,” Times classical music critic Mark Swed writes in his review of the company’s season closer,Verdi’s “Rigoletto.” L.A. Opera has tackled the show before, usually to lackluster effect, Swed notes. This show, however, is different. Thanks to outgoing music director James Conlon’s deft approach to Verdi, this production — featuring a truly terrifying clown suit — sizzles with visceral energy. “After 32 years of failed attempts, L.A. Opera has finally moved the ‘Rigoletto’ needle in the right direction,” Swed says.
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Cynthia Erivo poses for a portrait October 28, 2024, in New York.
(Victoria Will/For The Times)
Once you’ve read Times music critic Mikael Wood’s recent interview with Cynthia Erivoabout her new album “I Will Forgive You” and what she’s doing during her break from “Wicked,” be sure to check out the talented multiplatform artist’s lengthy June 2 profile in Billboard. Erivo discusses the world’s reaction to her being queer. For the most part, she says, she didn’t experience much difficulty in the wake of her decision to come out. But there was a major exception, she told Billboard: a massive conservative backlash earlier this year after the Hollywood Bowl announced that Erivo would play Jesus in its summer production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical “Jesus Christ Superstar.” “You can’t please everyone. It is legitimately a three-day performance at the Hollywood Bowl where I get to sing my face off. So hopefully they will come and realize, ‘Oh, it’s a musical, the gayest place on Earth,’ ” Erivo says in the article.
— Jessica Gelt
And last but not least
There are 600 L.A. landmarks on the National Register of Historic Places, and lifelong Angeleno Etan Rosenbloom is determined to visit them all. Thankfully, for us, Rosenbloom has highlighted his picks for the top 10 in a handy map.
Arrests for illegal work have surged this past year as police focus on “unscrupulous” employers who exploit undocumented migrants, the government says.
Immigration officers arrested more than 6,400 people in the past year in raids at businesses across the UK, data released by the Home Office shows. It said the figure is 51% higher than the previous year.
It did not provide numbers as to how many arrests led to charges, convictions or deportations.
It said immigration enforcement officials had “intensified” their work to “tackle those abusing the UK immigration system and exploiting vulnerable people”.
Officers had visited more than 9,000 businesses – among them restaurants, nail bars and construction sites – to check paperwork and working conditions.
Such businesses had often subjected migrants to “squalid conditions and illegal working hours” as well as below-minimum wages.
The Home Office said there were a range of industries exploiting migrant workers.
In one case in Surrey, officers arrested nine people at a caravan park who had been working as delivery drivers.
At one one major operation in March, officers arrested 36 people at a building site in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter. Some had breached visa conditions while others didn’t have working rights.
Immigration Enforcement director Eddy Montgomery said there were many cases where people travelling to the UK were “sold a lie by smuggling gangs that they will be able to live and work freely in the UK.
“In reality, they often end up facing squalid living conditions, minimal pay and inhumane working hours,” he said.
Dame Angela Eagle, the minister for border security and asylum, said the government would “continue to root out unscrupulous employers and disrupt illegal workers who undermine our border security”.
The government said it had also returned nearly 30,000 people over the past year who did not have the right to be in the UK.
It has said it is cracking down on illegal migration, setting out its plans in a White Paper to tighten work visas and those overstaying. It scrapped a special visa for care workers introduced during the pandemic, noting that this had been a pathway exploited by some.
There was mixed reaction to the plans, with some business sectors decrying the restrictions on work visas, while some Conservative opponents said the reforms didn’t go far enough to stop illegal migration.
The most recent data shows that approximately 44,000 people have entered the UK illegally in the year to March 2025, more than 80% through small boat journeys.
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles threw a glitzy bash at the institution’s Geffen Contemporary in Little Tokyo Saturday, raising $3.1 million and honoring architect Frank Gehry, artist Theaster Gates and philanthropist Wendy Schmidt. Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi — a surprise guest — showed up to pay tribute to Gehry, while Ava DuVernay celebrated Gates and Jane Fonda honored Schmidt.
The special program honoring “visionaries” who helped shaped the museum’s trajectory is part of a new gala tradition called MOCA Legends, which will continue with new honorees next year.
The night began with cocktails in the plaza and private access to the Olafur Eliasson exhibition, “OPEN.” The Japanese American drumming group TAIKOPROJECT played while guests found their seats for dinner.
MOCA director Johanna Burton welcomed attendees with a speech about the power of art and its ability to bring communities together.
“As we celebrate our annual gala, we are not just honoring individual achievements, but reaffirming our collective belief in the power of art to connect and challenge; uplift and endure,” Burton said, according to a news release about the event.
After Pelosi’s introduction of Gehry, which included mention of his 1983 renovation of the Geffen Contemporary, the 96-year-old legend noted how much the museum has meant to him over the years.
“Artists brought me into their club — it’s where I wanted to be, and they opened my eyes to another world,” Gehry said.
I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt, and I’m here for all the celebrations of art and artists — the more the better. Here’s your weekend rundown of arts news.
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Best bets: On our radar this week
Noah Davis at work in Los Angeles in 2009.
(Patrick O’Brien-Smith)
Noah Davis A collection of more than 50 figurative paintings made by the late Los Angeles artist, who died at 32 in 2015, just as Davis’ career was beginning to attract wide attention, arrives after stops in Potsdam, Germany, and London. Davis’ paintings, often built around found photographs, regularly balance on a knife-edge between daily life and dream. The exhibition represents the first institutional survey of Davis’ work. Sunday-Aug. 31. UCLA Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood. hammer.ucla.edu
Hong Yoo, on the daegeum, performs at the L.A. Phil’s “Seoul Festival” on June 3.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Seoul Festival The L.A. Phil turns to the South Korean capital this week for a follow-up to its revelatory Reykjavik and Mexico City festivals. Unsuk Chin, today’s best-known Korean composer, is the curator. Despite a seeming wealth of renowned performers, Korea remains a musically mysterious land. The mostly youngish composers and performers in the first festival event, an exceptional concert of new music on Tuesday night, were all discoveries. The festival continues with weekend orchestra concerts featuring different mixes of four more new Korean scores commissioned by the L.A. Phil, Chin’s 2014 Clarinet Concerto and a pair of Brahms concertos. A chamber music concert with works by Schumann and Brahms played by Korean musicians is the closing event Tuesday. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
Emily Yetter and Jack Stehlin in “Lear Redux” at the Odyssey Theatre.
(John Dlugolecki Photography)
‘Lear Redux’ While Center Theatre Group reworks Shakepeare’s “Hamlet” at the Mark Taper Forum (see item below), across town, Odyssey Theatre renews its collaboration with theater artist John Farmanesh-Bocca for a madcap adaptation of the Bard’s “King Lear,” another entry in the director-playwright’s Redux series. Veteran stage actor Jack Stehlin stars as the titular monarch in the production, which Stage Raw’s Deborah Klugman described as “wildly idiosyncratic.” In 2016, Times’ contributor Philip Brandes made Farmanesh-Bocca’s “Tempest Redux” at the Odyssey (also starring Stehlin) a Critic’s Choice, writing that the work “boldly transposes Shakespeare’s play to a darker, more unsettling key, but the inventive staging and solid command of source text make for a memorable re-imagining.” Wednesday-Sunday, through July 13. Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. odysseytheatre.com
Dispatch: ‘Good Night, and Good Luck’
George Clooney in “Good Night and Good Luck” on Broadway.
(Emilio Madrid)
When CNN broadcasts a live performance of “Good Night, and Good Luck” from the Winter Garden in New York City on Saturday (4 p.m. PDT), it’s apparently the first time a Broadway play will be shown live on television, and the timing could not be better.
An adaptation of George Clooney and Grant Heslov’s 2005 film, which chronicled CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow’s heroic crusade against Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s communist witch hunts, the broodingly elegant production, sharply directed by David Cromer and starring a quietly committed Clooney in the role of Murrow (played in the film by David Strathairn), was not only one of the most stirring offerings of the Broadway season but also one of the most necessary.
As media companies face a campaign of intimidation from the Trump administration, the figure of Murrow, standing tall in the face of demagogic adversity, is the courageous example we need right now.
I don’t know how different the experience will be watching at home, but “Good Night, and Good Luck” made me reflect on what theatergoing might have been like in ancient Greece. Athenian citizens would gather at an open-air theater as a democratic privilege and responsibility. Playwrights addressed the polis not by dramatizing current events but by recasting tales from the mythological and historic past to sharpen critical thinking on contemporary concerns.
Clooney and Heslov aren’t writing dramatic poetry. Their more straightforward approach is closer to documentary drama, but the effect is not so disparate. We are affirmed in the knowledge that we are the body politic.
— Charles McNulty
Culture news and the SoCal scene
Gina Torres from “Suits” and Patrick Ball from “The Pitt” pose for a portrait as they rehearse for “Hamlet” at the Mark Taper Forum.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Director and playwright Robert O’Hara’s world premiere adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” opened Wednesday at the Mark Taper Forum starring Patrick Ball from “The Pitt” and Gina Torres from “Suits.” The Times sat down with the trio of creatives for an interview about how the show came together — as well as the many novel ways it diverges from the traditional script. O’Hara presents a modern-day vision that questions whether Hamlet is a tragic hero or a murderous psychopath. The mystery is solved “CSI“-style and the tone is very L.A. noir. For his part, Ball can’t believe any of this is really happening, having been a relative unknown before “The Pitt” premiered in January.
Domingo Hindoyan was named the new music director of L.A. Opera.
(Chris Christoloudou)
L.A. Opera announced Domingo Hindoyanas its new music director. Hindoyan — chief conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic — will replace outgoing music director James Conlon when he steps down at the end of the 2026 season. When Hindoyan, a native of Venezuela, made his L.A. Opera debut last November with “Roméo et Juliette,” Times classical music critic Mark Swed speculated he might be in the running for the coveted position. Turns out he was right.
“Los Angeles Before the Freeways: Images of an Era 1850-1950” by Arnold Hylen with Nathan Marsak.
(Angel City Press at the Los Angeles Public Library)
Times contributor Nick Owchar talks with architectural historian Nathan Marsak about the Angel City Press reissue of photographer Arnold Hylen’sbook of mid-20th century photos, “Los Angeles Before the Freeways: Images of an Era 1850-1950.” Marsak curated and expanded the new edition, which details a fascinating world of lost streets, civic buildings, shops and restaurants.
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Heidi Zuckerman at the construction site of the Orange County Museum of Art in 2021.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Orange County Museum of Art executive director Heidi Zuckerman — who announced she will step down in December — has launched a new online platform called “About Art.” It’s home to her “Why Art Matters” newsletter and “About Art” podcast, as well as a number of lifestyle offerings including an entry on Zuckerman’s love of matcha and how to prepare the perfect cup. In a news release about the venture, Zuckerman notes that her work has gathered a community of 40,000 art enthusiasts.
The summer Hollywood Bowl season is upon us, and with it comes the complimentaryMarket Tasting Series with wine picks by chef Caroline Styne. The fun begins with the Roots Picnic this Sunday in the Plaza Marketplace near the box office. Tastings start an hour before doors open, and you can meet with vintners and reps from Habit Wines, Skurnik Wines, Grapevine Wine Company, Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant, Elevage Wines and more. The final tasting will take place before the John Legend concert on Sunday, Sept. 28.
Guests enjoy wine and friendship at the Barnsdall Art Park Foundation’s weekly wine tasting.
(Photo by Janna Ireland; courtesy of Barnsdall Art Park Foundation)
Speaking of wine, Barnsdall Art Park Foundation is back — beginning tonight at 5:30 p.m. — with its 16th annual Barnsdall Fridays wine tasting fundraiser (the first two Fridays are already sold out). Proceeds from the events, scheduled to run through Sept. 26, support cultural programming at the park. The popular summer series comes as proposed city budget cuts imperil the park’s finances. Guests are invited to relax on Olive Hill, as well as the west lawn of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House — the only existing UNESCO World Heritage site in the city of Los Angeles. Wines come courtesy of Silverlake Wine, and there are always a variety of local food trucks onsite, as well as a DJ. While there, visitors can check out exhibitions and artist-led presentations at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery and Barnsdall Junior Arts Center Gallery.
— Jessica Gelt
And last but not least
I’m happy to report that I’ve been to 14 of the 17 eateries on The Times Food section’s list of L.A.’s oldest restaurants. Some, like Musso & Frank Grill, I’ve ambled into many times (that martini!), and others, like Mijares Mexican Restaurant, I’ve stumbled upon while walking around town. I’ll spend this weekend visiting the remaining three.
If a movie inspires you to get up in the middle of a Koreatown steakhouse and do the robot with your waiter, isn’t that worthy of some kind of award, even if it’s not an Oscar?
I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope newsletter. Let’s talk about “The Life of Chuck,” the latest Stephen King adaptation, a film possessing the pedigree of an Oscar best picture contender.
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Can ‘Chuck’ extend Toronto’s Oscar streak?
The last 12 movies to win the Toronto International Film Festival’s People’s Choice Award have gone on to earn an Oscar nomination for best picture. It’s a list that includes eventual Oscar winners like “12 Years a Slave,” “Green Book” and “Nomadland.” Two years ago, Cord Jefferson’s “American Fiction” premiered at Toronto and parlayed the momentum from its People’s Choice prize into an adapted screenplay victory for Jefferson.
Suffice it to say, it’s a prime precursor.
Which makes the arrival of “The Life of Chuck,” last year’s People’s Choice winner, all the more of a curiosity. Neon, the indie studio behind best picture winners “Anora” and “Parasite,” bought the film out of Toronto after it won the award, voted on by festivalgoers. With not enough time to craft a marketing or awards season campaign, the studio slotted the movie for the summer of 2025. It opens in limited release today — you can find it in five theaters in the Los Angeles area — and will expand nationwide next week.
“The Life of Chuck,” adapted from a 50-page Stephen King story published in 2020, is feel-good tale about the end of the world. It is indeed about the life of Chuck, a prototypical King everyman, an ordinary accountant we don’t meet until the the second part of the movie’s backward-moving triptych. But we know about him because in the film’s opening section, the one with the world ending and California tumbling into the sea (Steely Dan was right!), Earth’s inhabitants are inundated with baffling billboards and ads featuring a picture of Chuck, thanking him for 39 great years.
Tom Hiddleston, star of “The Life of Chuck,” at the 2024 Toronto Film Festival.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
We eventually learn that Chuck, played as an adult by Tom Hiddleston, is a remarkable dancer and has lived a life filled with loss. In between the tragedies, there were moments of pure, unadulterated joy. The movie, faithfully adapted and competently directed by Mike Flanagan (the man behind Netflix’s “The Haunting of Hill House” and other horror tales), wants to leave you with the message that such moments are enough. And also to remind you that when these occasions come, we should recognize them and store them away as found gold.
It’s an original story arriving in a summer movie landscape dominated by sequels and retreads. Call it counterprogramming. Critics have been split, which isn’t surprising. You either suspend disbelief and settle into this movie’s vibe or you find yourself unmoved and checking the time, thinking that, in the momentary pleasure department, a root beer float would go down easier. I liked it well enough, but given the choice, I’d probably opt for the ice cream.
For “The Life of Chuck” to be an awards season play, moviegoers will need to fall for it as hard as audiences did at Toronto. That feels like a long shot, though maybe the film’s sweetness and optimism will resonate in the current moment. Times film critic Amy Nicholson was mixed on the movie and yet, as I mentioned at the outset, it did make her “make magic out of the mundane” and boogie with a waiter. She sent me the video. Don’t let her tell you otherwise … she’s a dancing machine.
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Since I’m being a little wistful here, let me call your attention to a recent column I wrote about the late, great Linda Lavin, a singular talent who never won an Emmy.
That may surprise you, particularly if you were around when Lavin headlined the long-running CBS sitcom “Alice,” in which she played a widowed mom working as a waitress while pursuing her dream of singing. The series ran from 1976 to 1985, piling up more than 200 episodes, a spinoff for Polly Holliday (Flo, the “kiss my grits” sass-flinger) and a lasting reputation for presenting an early, understated feminist role model. Alice wasn’t nearly as brash as Bea Arthur’s Maude or quite as lovable as Jean Stapleton’s Edith Bunker, but like her contemporary Mary Tyler Moore, she could turn the world on with her smile.
Lavin, who died in December at 87, did earn two Golden Globes for the role and, after “Alice” ended, she won a Tony Award in 1987 for lead actress in a play for her turn as a Jewish mother navigating a changing world in Neil Simon’s “Broadway Bound.”
“It was one of the greatest stage performances I have ever seen, and I told her that the first day I met her,” says Nathan Lane, who had the opportunity to share his enthusiasm with Lavin when they worked together on the Hulu sitcom “Mid-Century Modern.” Lane recalls watching the play and choking up when Lavin absent-mindedly wiped off a phone receiver — her character was always cleaning — right after a wrenching phone call.
“She could do anything and make it look effortless,” Lane says. “Working with her was the happiest experience I’ve ever had in television.”
(Photo illustration by Susana Sanchez / Los Angeles Times; Getty Images / CBS Photo Archive)
In Emmy history, 33 actors — 22 men and 11 women — have been posthumously nominated. Most recently, Treat Williams earned a nod last year for his supporting turn in the FX limited series “Feud: Capote vs. the Swans.” Ray Liotta was nominated in 2023 in the same category for “Black Bird.” And in 1978, Will Geer received three posthumous nominations, including his last season on “The Waltons.” (He lost all three.)
Lavin has a legitimate case. She elevates “Mid-Century Modern” every time she’s onscreen with her vitality and comic timing. In April, she picked up a comedy supporting actress nod from the Gotham Television Awards.
You can read the entire column, which includes some terrific stories from “Mid-Century Modern” showrunners Max Mutchnick and David Kohan, here.
Have a great weekend. Hope you find a moment to dance.
