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What to expect
Every week, Essential Arts covers the depth and breadth of Southern California’s complex cultural sphere: the latest biennial, the avant-garde building design, a groundbreaking opera and the Pulitzer Prize-winning play — along with all the bits of related news emerging from the region and beyond.
This begins with the voices of our award-winning critics, who bring a depth of reporting and experience to the region’s cultural scene: Christopher Knight’s profound knowledge of art in Los Angeles; Mark Swed’s longtime immersion in classical music; Charles McNulty’s deep understanding of theater, and his ability to identify the idea that stays with you long after the performance is over.
But it also includes our reporting: investigations, profiles, interviews, photo essays and explanatory pieces produced by a team of longtime journalists who know what’s happening in the creative corners of L.A. — and beyond.
Latest Essential Arts newsletters
It may not be the best show, but ‘Back to the Future: The Musical,’ now playing at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre, will transport you to simpler times.
Plus, MOCA and orchestral collective Wild Up host a free postelection arts hub, and more arts news you might have missed.
Vote and take in a museum to calm your election day anxiety; later in the week, Sophia Loren and ‘Waiting for Godot,’ starring Rainn Wilson and Aasif Mandvi, come to town.
Disney+’s new John Williams documentary is available to stream, but find out where you can see it in a theater with the sound that his music deserves.
LACMA’s David Geffen Galleries has shed its scaffolding and announced an opening date of April 2026.
Plus, Halloween offerings around town and IAMA Theatre Company’s latest performance, given at the unveiling of a luxury hotel in Laguna Beach.
Take a leisurely stroll through history at one of the world’s leading research universities using PST Art installations as your guide.
Plus, a “Symphony of Rats” and a listen to Lin-Manuel Miranda and Eisa Davis’ “Warriors” concept album.
The Mark Taper Forum has officially reopened with Green Day’s ‘American Idiot’ after a yearlong closure that shocked the theater world.
Plus, Derrick Adams’ selected works, and the arts news you might have missed.
