Goldstar

The Academy continues its comprehensive screening program of Oscar-winning documentaries from 1998-2003 with a double feature. Errol Morris' The Fog of War offers a penetrating examination of former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara and his role in the Vietnam War. The short Chernobyl Heart traces the effects of radiation on the children of Belarus after a nuclear disaster. Learn more...

The Groundlings are L.A.'s masters of Saturday Night Live-style comedy. Join them for their hilarious show, Sunday of the Dead, featuring the Sunday Company's revue of sketch and improvisational comedy, all performed by up-and-coming sketch comedians. Learn more...

International recording artist U-Nam hosts the One Soul Jazz Series and celebrates his birthday at The Cellar Nightclub, along with his six-piece band. Hailing from Paris, France, U-Nam is best known for his #1 instrumental single "Street Life" from the CD Back from the 80's, which topped the Billboard Top 10 chart for the entire year. Learn more...

American Grind sets out to capture what life is really like in America in 2009. From interviews conducted across the country by From the Ground Up Theatre company, American Grind is a glimpse through a keyhole into several lives and how they intertwine. From racism, to romance, to survival, to seeking purpose and truth in their lives, share a laugh as these characters struggle to navigate their way through it all. Learn more...

California Dance Academy, which offers the finest in professional quality dance training, has produced this wonderfully entertaining version of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker for the past several seasons at the Madrid. This classic holiday ballet for the entire family features a magical dreamland filled with characters like the Mouse King and the Sugarplum Fairy. Learn more...

Watch the sun go down before enjoying a romantic three-course dinner prepared fresh on board by our chefs. Then dance to live music or watch the Marina del Rey sights drift by from the outdoor decks. This dinner cruise includes ever-changing water views, DJ entertainment, a boarding glass of champagne, a delicious three-course seated meal and award-winning service. Learn more...

Join Out & About Tours for an in-depth, entertaining look at LGBT history and its hotspots not found in your average travel guide. From West Hollywood to Downtown and all points in between, the lively crew will blow the dust off more than a century of history, including stops at one of the last gay piano bars, L.A.'s first porn theatre, the bar that coined the phrase "Lipstick Lesbian," the site of L.A.'s "Stonewall," and much more. Learn more...

Sometimes an art museum visit can seem boring to a child, but not with Quick Culture. They transform the overwhelming museum experience into an entertaining artistic journey. They engage children in interactive conversations about how to look at and what to look for directly from a variety of artworks. This one-hour museum tour is designed for kids ages 6-12. Learn more...

A Noise Within presents Shakespeare's tragic masterpiece about a ruthlessly ambitious man who seeks the crown at any cost. One of literature's most memorable villains, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, uses charm, cunning and wit to move up the political ladder -- without hesitating to murder those who stand in his way. Learn more...

Held just once a year, LearnAboutWine's vintage port and fortified wine tasting offers an opportunity to sample some of the rarest and most collectible bottles of Port. LearnAboutWine founder Ian Blackburn will guide guests through a tasting of select fortified wines, including pours of a vintage 1963 Port and a 1935 Medeira valued at hundreds of dollars per bottle. Learn more...

Los Angeles-based improv/sketch comedy group The Gay Mafia headline a night of improvised humor at Macha Theatre. The Gay Mafia have headlined in clubs around the country since 2002, and have appeared on the Logo channel and in the movie Outlaugh!. Learn more...

In the heart of the world-famous 3rd Street Promenade in beautiful, balmy Santa Monica is a great night of comedy. With comedians seen on Letterman, Leno, Comedy Central and HBO, the Promenade Playhouse delivers serious laughs from great comics. Learn more...

Mary Lynn Rajskub performs her latest one-woman show at the Steve Allen Theater. She gained fame as a cast member on HBO's classic sketch series Mr. Show, and now stars as Chloe on Fox's 24. Other acting credits include Punch Drunk Love and The Larry Sanders Show. Learn more...

Performed in English with a Latin beat, this enchanting musical play blends the traditions of Mexican street theatre and Latin jazz featuring world class musician Marcos Loya and a funny, dark and touching script by renowned playwright Octavio Solis about the Christmas spirit lost, then found. Gracie is a young girl who joins her neighborhood posada on Christmas Eve. Along the way, she and her companions encounter colorful characters, including chocolate-gobbling sisters, graveyard spooks and a heartthrob rock singer. Learn more...

Tears of Joy Theater presents a comedic puppet show based on the beloved children's book by Janell Cannon. In Stellaluna, a baby fruit bat falls into a bird's nest, where she is taken in by the bird family but struggles as the odd one out. As she grows, she learns to accept her differences and find her own identity. Learn more...

Sacred Fools Theatre is proud to quietly present the world premiere of Jonas Oppenheim's Hamlet Shut Up. What this dialogue-free adaptation lacks in words, it makes up for in slapstick, music, clowning, vaudeville and sharks. Working off Oppenheim's outline, the physically gifted ensemble developed the piece beat by beat, scene by scene, concocting the funniest, most poignant way to present Shakespeare's masterpiece without the use of dialogue. Learn more...

In this evening of short plays by Joshua James and Johnna Adams, Interwoven mixes multi-media presentations with live performance -- comedic and dramatic -- to cover a range of conflicting relationships, including two sisters struggling to find their place in the world, a father striving for redemption, a husband and wife searching for closure, a couple submitting to their unconventional love and an angel delivering an apocalyptic message. Learn more...

The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra finds inspiration in the burgeoning talent of two American artists. Four years ago, lyric coloratura Laura Claycomb wowed Los Angeles audiences as Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos. Now she brings her delicacy, refinement and theatricality to LACO in a program that culminates in her show-stopping interpretation of the Strauss aria. Learn more...

If you like Whose Line Is It Anyway? then you'll love ComedySportz, a fun, fast-paced comedy show that's great for the whole family. See two teams battle for laughs and points as they make up scenes, games and songs on the spot with audience participation and suggestions incorporated into the act. Learn more...

Loosely based on Leonid Andreyev's 1915 classic He Who Gets Slapped, Circus Welt makes its world premiere at the Whitefire Theatre. Set in 1933, the drama revolves around a German traveling circus made of up of Jews, blacks, gays and a communist, who hope that the growing Nazi storm will blow over. Then, a mysterious stranger arrives, asking to be a clown. Learn more...

Come down for an amazing night of obscure, naughty and lovely tunes from the 1910s, 1920s and the 1930s. Janet and her band members, The Parlor Boys will treat you to spirited and inspired renditions of Tin Pan Alley, early hot jazz, vaudeville, Yiddish novelty numbers, ragtime and other lovable, rare and rustic tunes. Learn more...

Inspired by classic screwball comedies, Grace Kim & The Spiders from Mars tells the story of Grace, a young Korean American woman, who has withdrawn from the world after the death of her mother ten years ago. But Grace's life is thrown upside down when she meets her sister's fiancé and falls in love with him. Learn more...

The L.A. Connection Comedy Group dubs Reefer Madness at the Laemmle Royal, plus a special bonus screening of the hit TV series Mad Movies. The concept is simple. The actors sit in the front row armed with microphones and a live sound musician. LAC then eliminates the original soundtrack and the actors dub in a brand new hilarious comedy soundtrack live. Learn more...

Macha Theatre/Films and Odalys Nanin present Naked in the Tropics, a comedy with music. Andy a teenager falls for a gay porn star. His girlfriend is pregnant, his mother is a lesbian, immigration wants him deported and the one person that can save him is nowhere to be found. Written, Directed and Produced by Macha Producing Artistic Director and President Odalys Nanin. Learn more...

Theatre Banshee presents Tent Meeting, written by Banshee's own Rebecca Wackler. Convinced that the poor misshapen creature to which his daughter has given birth is the Messiah, the Reverend Ed Tarbox, with his browbeaten daughter and son in tow, heads off in their mobile home toward the Promised Land--Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Their journey culminates in a blasphemous yet outrageously funny epiphany. Learn more...

One of America's most renowned choral ensembles, the Westminster Choir, has performed with major orchestras under virtually every internationally known conductor of the last 70 years, including more than 300 performances with the New York Philharmonic alone. Now join them for an evening of beautiful music at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center. Learn more...

The 2005 French drama Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas) comes to the Warner Grand's big screen. Inspired by a true story, this heartwarming, Oscar-nominated tale takes place during World War I on Christmas Eve, 1914. As the French, Scottish and German soldiers prepare to open their presents, a momentous event occurs that changes the destinies of four people. Learn more...

Dungeon Master is a hybrid of theater and improv performed on a stage using actors as the background...and a 6-person party of adventurous audience members, chosen from a list of voluntarily-submitted names before the play begins. The party is supplied with costumes, weapons (foam of course), the use of ten spells (which must rhyme) and given a task which must be completed in the allotted time. Learn more...

Murders, arsons, kidnappings, robberies, suicides, oddball happenings...it's an alternate history of Pasadena that's as fascinating as it is creepy. Join Esotouric's ace researchers on a four-hour guided luxury coach tour as they dip into the confidential files of old Pasadena -- from RFK's assassination to Eraserhead star Jack Nance's strange end and the 1926 Rose Parade grandstand collapse. Learn more...

Comedy group Two-Headed Dog presents Clowntown City Limits. This show combines dark comedy and slapstick to tell the eerie story of three down-and-out clowns. Cast members include David "Gruber" Allen (Freaks and Geeks, The Naked Trucker) and Craig Anton (The Office, MADtv). Learn more...

Get down to your favorite disco/freestyle classics all night at Caddies at Almansor Court. Featuring DJ Martin Rodriguez (the original Circus Disco DJ 1978-84), DJ Theo Vaness, DJ Mike Enchantment, DJ Domingo and Playgirl Musique. Learn more...

Andreas, born and raised in the Bavarian Alps was obsessed with sex, drugs and rock-n-roll. In what better place could he find all that but America? Beer after beer, girl after girl, gang after gang, and prison after prison, he begins to realize what he needs -- the same thing we all need -- love. Learn more...

Imagine a world where a children's show has a cast of characters that have more psychological disorders than you do. Add the mind-numbing debauchery of the worst, most poorly animated cartoons from the 1950s, '60s and '70s. Then throw in the wry commentary you came to love from "Mystery Science Theater 3000," and what have you got? Cartoon Dump! Learn more...

After the funeral of one of their closest friends, four Chicanos, all ex-Brown Berets, gather in the garage hoping to salvage whatever remains of the bond that once existed between them nearly 25 years ago. These four men spend the better part of an hour courageously confronting their past demons in the most profound way. Learn more...

It's true: They're Weird, always On and at the Top of their game! This improv comedy troupe's show at Eclectic Company Theatre fills the bill for some side-splitting, tear-inducing, undergarment-threatening laughter. Learn more...

Mrs. Cage features robbery, mayhem and murder in a supermarket parking lot. On this fateful day, the nice lady next door, Mrs. Cage, is driven over the edge as she finds her secret life exposed and destroyed. Learn more...

L.A. Connection puts on an outrageously funny improv show in the "Who's Line Is It Anyway" style. The show is one of the LA Times picks for New Year's Eve. Learn more...

Award winning bluegrass performer Susie Glaze links American mountain sounds to Celtic musical history. Susie Glaze & Hilonesome is the perfect blend of Appalachia Mountain Roots music. Named by Folkworks Magazine "Best Pick for Bluegrass" in 2005, they were honored again a year later with the title "Best Roots Album of the Year" from the Just Plain Folks Awards. Learn more...

The Steve Allen Theater hosts a production of David Mamet's American Buffalo. One of Mamet's first hits, it's the tense story of a team of men conspiring to steal a valuable coin collection. Learn more...

In this sad and funny solo dramedy by Judith E. and directed by Kaz Matamura, witness the trials and tribulations of one woman's trip through the minefield of changes caused by the onset of menopause. Along the way, get to know about her life, loves, and hopes for the future. Presented as part of J.E.T. Production West's Women Over the Edge program. Learn more...

Patrice Leconte's 2007 comedy screens at the Warner Grand. The protagonist of Mon Meilleur Ami is antique dealer François (Daniel Auteuil), a man so obsessed with his work that he has failed to make a single friend. When his business parter wagers that he can't find a friend in 10 days, François turns to a gregarious taxi driver for lessons. Learn more...

The National Comedy Theatre presents U-Sical, a full-length improvised musical comedy, featuring audience participation. Learn more...

The Grand Annex presents San Pedro's own, Cliff Wagner & the Old #7. Cliff Wagner & the Old #7 blend traditional bluegrass, blues and honkytonk to create rhythms that conjure Southern scenes filled with moonshine, mosquitoes and misty mountains. It's American roots music for bluegrass fans, and new folk and rock audiences. At this Bluegrass Holiday Concert there will be dessert, cider and song. Learn more...

The award-winning Esotouric team presents Blood & Dumplings, a bus tour focused on the shocking criminal history of the San Gabriel Valley. Explore Alhambra, Temple City, Monterey Park, Rosemead and El Monte, and learn about murdered brides, battling Neo-Nazis, Phil Spector's castle, and more! Included in the ticket price: a selection of dumplings from one of the San Gabriel Valley's best Chinese restaurants. Learn more...

Eight: Love is a Gamble begins with a series of one-acts by award-winning New York playwright Adam Kraar, whose plays include Storm in the Iron Box, The Lost Cities of Asher and Freedom High. His one-acts depict people whose outsized passions don't fit into their odd environments. Second on the bill are one-acts written by Michael Bassett, a Chicago-based playwright whose plays are dark comedies where the characters' lives are perched on a razor's edge. Learn more...

Landscaping the Den of Saints explores the hysterically destructive relationship between a floundering Hollywood writer and an eccentric millionaire with a rampant desire to indulge in his many addictions. Real and audacious, this multi-leveled dark comedy digs into the artist's desire to do (and deal with) anything to reach creative and financial success, capturing those increasingly uneasy moments that happen along the way. Learn more...