Coronavirus is wreaking havoc on schools, stores, businesses and events. With in-person concerts, talks, comedy shows, food festivals and other gatherings cancelled, we have turned our events column into an events/nonevents column. It will remain this way as long as social distancing and stay-at-home orders are in effect.
During this difficult time, please consider contributing to your local arts organizations or to individual artists and performers.
Commemorate the legacy of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. at the start of this inauguration week. Watch Groundlings' storytellers reveal deep, dark and hilarious secrets. Celebrate the women-owned restaurants with a takeout food fest. View photos created during The Year of Not Knowing.
2021 MLK Day Celebration
The California African American Museum usually opens up its campus for a "Cake for King" festival and party. This year, the celebrations of music, culture and community are moving online (via Zoom). The 2021 festival highlights MLK's dedication to labor and workers' rights. The day opens with music from the Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles followed by a King Study Group, a panel discussion, family story time and a poetry workshop.
COST: FREE with RSVP; MORE INFO
Kingdom Day Parade
While there's no street parade (because, COVID), the virtual 2021 Kingdom Day Celebration will be broadcast on ABC 7 and streamed on the ABC7 Los Angeles app.
COST: FREE; MORE INFO
Virtual MLK Day Block Party & Clothing Collection
Nonprofit organization Big Sunday celebrates the dream of Dr. King via a Zoom block party with music, dancing, fun and ways to give back to the community. People can volunteer to sponsor the event, donate funds for laundry kits or winter SOS kits or donate clothing. Due to Covid-19, the organization is only accepting new clothing this year.
COST: FREE (block party); MORE INFO
MLK Jr. Day of Service - 2021
L.A. Works continues its long tradition of organizing Angelenos in service and activism (virtually and in-person) to honor King's legacy. Take part in virtual workshops on the intersection of criminal justice, homelessness, food insecurity and race. March on Washington virtually via Minecraft.
COST: FREE with RSVP; MORE INFO
Sh!t My Folks Don't Know
Groundlings alum Karen Maruyama directs this live virtual comedy show featuring Jillian Bell (Bless the Harts), Michael Hitchcock (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend), Jeremy Rowley (Bless the Harts), Gary Anthony Williams (Bless the Harts), Ian Gary (Top Gun: Maverick) and Michaela Watkins (The Unicorn). The cast shares some of their deepest, dirtiest secrets -- stories even their closest loved ones haven't heard... yet.
COST: $5 per person; MORE INFO
Disclosure Screening with Laverne Cox, Sam Feder & Amy Scholder
The film examines transgender depictions in film and TV, showing how Hollywood simultaneously reflects and manufactures deep anxieties about gender. The film becomes available to watch at 5 p.m., but the program begins with a panel moderated by producer and director Yance Ford with Disclosure director Sam Feder, producer Amy Scholder and Emmy Award-winner Laverne Cox. Viewers of the film have 72 hours to finish the film once started.
COST: FREE with RSVP; MORE INFO
In Conversation with Viggo Mortensen and Lance Henriksen
U.K. news outlet The Guardian welcomes the two actors to discuss their new film, Falling, the story of a father and son who navigate a new world as the father's dementia escalates. The movie also marks Mortensen's directorial debut.
COST: Tickets start at £5; MORE INFO
Secret Los Angeles
Former LAist writer Danny Jensen joins the Los Angeles Breakfast Club for a morning of songs, silliness and 95-year-old traditions followed by Jensen's presentation on his newest book, which delves into L.A.'s hidden history.
COST: $5; MORE INFO
10 Days RE:Her
RE:Her, an organization that supports women-owned restaurants in L.A., holds a food festival featuring more than 100 female restaurateurs. They include Lien Ta (All Day Baby/Here's Looking at You), Mary Sue Milliken (Border Grill) and Heather Sperling (Botanica), to name just a few. The event features diverse collaborations, takeaway menus and virtual programming.
COST: Varies; MORE INFO
Phoebe Bridgers Livestream
Enjoy the hazy pop stylings of L.A.-based Bridgers, who received four Grammy Award nominations for her sophomore album, Punisher. One of the tracks, "Savior Complex," has a video starring Paul Mescal (Normal People) and directed by that other Phoebe, Fleabag's Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
COST: $9.99+ (membership fee); MORE INFO
Virtual Stargazing - Tour of the Moon
The University of California, Riverside, hosts an online session that explores the moon's surface. Learn about its craters, marias, mountains and highlands. Test your knowledge in a trivia contest and enter the raffle to win prizes.
COST: FREE with RSVP; MORE INFO
Not a Moment, But a Movement
Center Theatre Group launches a series of events to amplify and center Black artists. The on-demand programs begin with an event introduced by Vanessa Williams and hosted by Bruce Lemon. Angelica Chéri's one-person play, Crowndation; I Will Not Lie to David, is paired with the music of Jessica Lá Rel and the work of visual artist Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle. (There's a free sneak peek streaming at 6 pm on MLK Day, preceded by a panel discussion moderated by artist and educator Erin Michelle Washington at 4 p.m.).
COST: $10 for nonmembers; MORE INFO
The Year of Not Knowing
This online exhibition features the work of 15 SoCal-based artists who began a workshop in January 2020, before the world went completely bonkers. They would develop personal photographic projects that they thought would ultimately be exhibited at the Los Angeles Center of Photography in early 2021. Now available for viewing online, the artists' images channel the changes in the world, their work or perspectives during a year of uncertainty. Artists' talks will take place on the third Tuesday of each month, from Tuesday, Jan. 19 through May 11.
COST: FREE; MORE INFO
Dine & Bash
Sebastian Joseph-Day, a starting nose tackle for the Los Angeles Rams, has launched a new YouTube series that focuses on L.A. culture through his love of food. He's highlighting local eateries, their origin stories and top dishes. He has already visited the Sammiche Shoppe in Inglewood and Nimbus Coffee in downtown L.A. COST: FREE; MORE INFO
Live from Storybook Theatre
For more than 30 years, the theater has been presenting interactive, nonviolent, nonscary musicals for children ages 3 to 9. Six of its audiences' favorite shows, adapted from classic tales and featuring beloved characters, are now available to watch on YouTube at any time. The shows run under an hour: Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, The Princess and the Frog, Jack and the Beanstalk and Goldilocks.
COST: FREE; MORE INFO
Some Kind of Heaven
Darren Aronofsky served as one of the producers for first-time feature director Lance Oppenheim's documentary about The Villages, America's largest retirement community. Some Kind of Heaven traverses its gates and manicured lawns to follow a small group of residents (and one outsider) who aren't happy with the pre-packaged paradise. MORE INFO
Who doesn't miss going out to eat or stopping by a bar for a drink? Here are a few options from restaurants and bars as we work our way back toward normal.
