Our critics pick spring's most anticipated L.A. arts, theater, classical music, pop and comedy shows

Broadway shows, world-class creation and concerts that crisscross the philharmonic spectrum descend connected L.A. this spring. Whatever your jam, beryllium it painting, photography oregon sculpture, Beyoncé, Boulez oregon AC/DC, “Hamlet,” Ibsen, stand-up oregon amusement tunes, our critics person a proposal for you. So prime up your telephone (or pencil and planner) and commencement adding events to your calendar for the must-experience performing and ocular arts events of the season.

VISUAL ARTS

April 5-Aug. 31
Will Rawls: [siccer] astatine Institute of Contemporary Art L.A.
Rawls projects stop-motion videos of inactive images of Black dancers onto chroma greenish screens suspended from the ceiling. The premix of animation, photography, projection and question tangles up an array of lens-based media to dissect representations of the quality body. — Christopher Knight

Don Bachardy, Self-portrait, 2018, acrylic connected paper, Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. © Don Bachardy, 2018.

(Don Bachardy)

April 12-Aug. 4
Don Bachardy: A Life successful Portraits astatine the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Gardens
Bachardy has been drafting portraits of artistic, literate and movie personalities for much than 70 years. A enactment of astir 100 examples successful graphite and acrylic connected insubstantial comprises a survey of the prolific L.A. artist, drawn from the Huntington archive of his work. — C.K.

May 11-July 2
Realms of the Dharma: Buddhist Art Across Asia astatine the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Around 150 examples of pan-Asian Buddhist sculptures, paintings and ritual objects from LACMA’s good imperishable collection, yet being shown aft galore years being tucked distant successful storage, volition beryllium augmented by respective loans to correspond divers concepts of Buddhist thought. — C.K.

June 8-Aug. 31
Noah Davis astatine the UCLA Hammer Museum
More than 50 figurative paintings made by the precocious Los Angeles artist, who died astatine 32 successful 2015, conscionable arsenic Davis’ vocation was opening to pull wide attention, arrives aft stops successful Potsdam, Germany, and London. Davis’ paintings, often built astir recovered photographs, regularly equilibrium connected a knife-edge betwixt regular beingness and dream. — C.K.

The grounds “Queer Lens: A History of Photography” astatine the Getty Museum this June includes “The Gay Deceiver,” 1939/1950, gelatin metallic people by Weegee (Arthur Fellig).

(Getty Museum)

June 17-Sept. 28
Queer Lens: A History of Photography astatine the Getty Museum
With a provocative rubric that centers queer imagery wrong established photographic past since the mid-19th century, the accumulation volition analyse the ways successful which the accessibility and immediacy of camerawork has shaped perceptions of LGBTQ+ people. — C.K.

June 21-Oct. 12
California Biennial: Desperate, Sacred, but Social astatine Orange County Museum of Art
Taking a risk, OCMA’s Biennial plans to brace early, youthful enactment by specified established artists arsenic Miranda July, Stanya Kahn, Laura Owens and Joey Terrill, each successful their 50s oregon older, with a assortment of enactment by present-day teenagers. Paired volition beryllium a amusement drawn from the museum’s imperishable postulation and chosen by a radical of teen curators. — C.K.

CLASSICAL

April 10
“Gigenis,” Akram Khan astatine the Grenada Theatre, Santa Barbara
One of the defining moments successful Los Angeles civilization was the U.S. premiere of Peter Brooks’ “Mahabharata,” a transformative theatrical epic presented connected a Hollywood soundstage successful 1987. A dancer successful the accumulation happened to beryllium Akram Khan, present a starring choreographer who has made his ain large-scale creation from the Hindu epic. “Gigenis: The Generation of the Earth” employs 7 dancers and 7 musicians who meld accepted Indian techniques with Western ones. Troubling arsenic it whitethorn beryllium that L.A. itself is not hosting Khan’s London-based company, the venturesome UC Santa Barbara Arts and Lectures bid is for a azygous night. — Mark Swed

Russian pianist Evgeny Kissin volition play Walt Disney Concert Hall connected April 24.

(Roberto Serra / Iguana Press/Getty Images)

April 24
Evgeny Kissin astatine Walt Disney Concert Hall
The Russian-born pianist became a sensation astatine 12 with his archetypal Chopin signaling successful 1984. Currently a British and Israeli national highly captious of the Russian authorities (which precocious declared him a “foreign agent”), and a composer and Yiddish writer arsenic good arsenic pianist, Kissin has go a benignant of satellite national whose recitals person an strength each their own. It’s been a portion since he’s been backmost to L.A., but the Los Angeles Philharmonic presents his archetypal recital successful much than a decennary for a programme of Bach, Chopin and Shostakovich. With luck, Kissin tin beryllium enticed to work and play his ain works arsenic well. — M.S.

Pianist Gloria Cheng leads a centennial salute to composer Pierre Boulez connected May 30 astatine the Nimoy.

(Vern Evans)

May 8, 10-11
Esa-Pekka Salonen Leads Debussy & Boulez astatine Walt Disney Concert Hall
May 30
Celebrating Pierre Boulez: 1925-2025 astatine the Nimoy
The 100th day of the commencement of the revolutionary French composer and conductor was March 26 and volition beryllium marked aboriginal this outpouring by 2 tributes. At the L.A. Phil, which Boulez conducted often, French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard (whom Boulez invited to beryllium successful his Ensemble Intercontemporain) and L.A. Dance Project articulation Esa-Pekka Salonen for a varied program. At UCLA’s Nimoy Theater, L.A. pianist Gloria Chang (whose playing Boulez was truthful fond of that helium wrote a her a delightful small wedding piece) teams up with Dutch pianist Ralph van Raat for Boulez’s formidable two-piano “Structures” on with two-piano pieces by John Cage, Stravinsky and, among others — surprise, astonishment — Frank Zappa. — M.S.

May 18-20, 22
“Schoenberg successful Hollywood” astatine the Nimoy
Arnold Schoenberg’s 150th day past autumn inactive calls for solemnisation during the authoritative 2024-25 play and getting successful conscionable nether the ligament volition beryllium the about-time West Coast premiere of “Schoenberg successful Hollywood,” produced by the euphony section astatine UCLA, wherever Schoenberg erstwhile taught. Tod Machover’s 2018 opera depicts the only-in-Hollywood weirdness of the composer’s encounters with workplace caput Irving Thalberg arsenic they haggle implicit the eccentric conception of the uncompromising modernist scoring a diagnostic movie of Pearl S. Buck’s bestseller “The Good Earth,” which takes spot successful a Chinese village. — M.S.

Flutist Claire Chase, seen performing successful 2024, volition beryllium the euphony manager of this year’s Ojai Music Festival.

(Robin L Marshall / Getty Images)

June 5-8
Ojai Music Festival astatine Libbey Bowl and different Ojai venues
This year’s Ojai Festival, wherever Boulez famously served arsenic euphony manager 5 times, turns to the irrepressible flutist and all-around caller euphony advocator Claire Chase. To the festival’s accustomed scope of Bach to … everybody, Chase has added a taxable of honoring the environment. Australian composer Liza Lim’s “How Forests Think,” for instance, volition beryllium the main enactment connected the Saturday evening program, portion Annea Lockwood, the New Zealand maestro of mastering biology sounds, volition instrumentality vantage of Ojai’s earthy wonders. A Terry Riley premiere is besides connected tap. — M.S.

June 3, 6-8 and 10
Seoul Festival astatine Walt Disney Concert Hall
The aforesaid play arsenic Ojai is the L.A. Phil’s festival of caller euphony from Korea curated by Unsuk Chin, a composer long-championed by the orchestra. Other names are apt to beryllium unfamiliar to Angelenos nary substance however intimately you travel the country — Juri Seo, Kay Kyurim Rhie, Whan Ri-Ahn and the play orchestra programs’ conductor, Hankyeol Yoon, among them. A small Brahms is thrown successful presumably due to the fact that who doesn’t emotion Brahms? — M.S.

Carl St.Clair’s last programme arsenic euphony manager of the Pacific Symphony is June 7.

(Doug Gifford)

April, May and June
Pacific Symphony astatine Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, Costa Mesa
Not lone is Carl St.Clair’s 35-year tenure arsenic euphony manager the longest of immoderate existent conductor astatine a large orchestra, but helium is besides the 1 who made Pacific Symphony what it is today. Once a scrappy pickup set that played successful a precocious schoolhouse auditorium with atrocious acoustics, it is present a world-class ensemble with its ain world-class performance hall. St.Clair goes retired with flair successful concerts that see a semistaged accumulation of Wagner’s “Das Rheingold,” on with an installment of his yearly Cathedrals of Sound bid that pairs organ solos with a big-boned Bruckner symphony (the fashionable No. 7, this time). His last programme arsenic euphony manager (after which helium becomes euphony manager laureate) volition beryllium Verdi’s Requiem successful June. — M.S.

Theater

Director Tinashe Kajese-Bolden, left, and playwright a.k. payne of the play “Furlough’s Paradise,” which opens April 16 astatine the Geffen Playhouse.

(Birdie Thompson)

April 16-May 18
“Furlough’s Paradise” astatine Geffen Playhouse
The Geffen Playhouse presents the West Coast premiere of a play by a.k. payne that was precocious named the 2025 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize winner, a prestigious planetary grant for women+ playwrights successful the English-speaking theater. This two-hander zooms successful connected the narration of 2 cousins, 1 connected a three-day furlough from situation to be a household funeral. Sade and Mina utilized to beryllium inseparable but their lives person diverged and their memories don’t lucifer up. Geffen Playhouse Artistic Director Tarell Alvin McCraney, who was payne’s teacher astatine Yale, has described the play arsenic a hunt for “utopia successful a satellite that has a transgression justness strategy that is acold from perfect.” — Charles McNulty

The bengal tiger Richard Parker (Andrew Wilson, Scarlet Wildernik, Fred Davis) and Hiran Abeysekera successful the Broadway accumulation of “Life of Pi.” The nationalist circuit comes to Southern California successful May and June.

(Matthew Murphy & Evan Zimmerman)

May 6-June 1
“Life of Pi” astatine Ahmanson Theatre
June 3-June 15
Segerstrom Center for the Arts
Visual enchantment, achieved done ingenious theatrical means, is the large reward of this signifier adaptation of Yann Martel’s Booker Prize-winning caller by playwright Lolita Chakrabarti. A 16-year-old boy’s communicative of endurance astatine sea, implicit with a menagerie that’s brought to beingness with dazzling puppetry, “Life of Pi” celebrates the powerfulness of the imaginativeness to prolong america done the losses that soma is heir to. Max Webster’s production, which won 3 Tony Awards for its mesmerizing design, brings audiences on connected an escapade that combines the heartfelt contented of a classical fable with the splendor of modern signifier poetry. — C.M.

May 11-June 22
“White Rabbit, Red Rabbit” astatine Fountain Theatre
Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour has devised an experimentation that has been intriguing audiences astir the world. A antithetic histrion performs the enactment for the archetypal clip astatine each performance. No rehearsal oregon director, conscionable the histrion and the panic of an unread script. In New York, Nathan Lane, Whoopi Goldberg and Cynthia Nixon were among the notable stars who undertook the challenge. Who knows if immoderate A-listers mightiness popular up successful the Los Angeles premiere? There’s much astatine involvement than a gimmick. Soleimanpour wrote the play aft helium was forbidden to permission his state for refusing subject service. This is his concealed connection astir beingness nether a repressive regime, a connection successful a vessel astir censorship and the slippery powerfulness of art. — C.M.

May 14-June 8
“A Doll’s House, Part 2” astatine Pasadena Playhouse
Lucas Hnath (“The Christians,” “Dana H.”), 1 of the astir stylishly innovative modern American playwrights, has brought backmost Nora from Ibsen’s classical to measure however her beingness turned retired 15 years aft she slammed the doorway connected her matrimony and instigated a gyration successful modern drama. The play, a drama of ideas with profound affectional weight, considers some the benefits and the costs of idiosyncratic freedom. Jennifer Chang directs this caller instrumentality connected 1 of the smartest and astir entertaining caller plays of the past 10 years. — C.M.

May 28-July 6
“Hamlet” astatine the Mark Taper Forum
Robert O’Hara, a starring playwright (“Barbecue,” “Bootycandy”) and manager (“Slave Play”), offers his ain mentation of “Hamlet” successful a caller adaptation that lends the classical calamity a noir spin. Don’t underestimate what an intrepid dramatist tin bash with Shakespeare’s inexhaustible masterpiece. In “Fat Ham,” James Ijames created a Pulitzer Prize-winning drama that questioned the relation of destiny successful shaping our lives. O’Hara, inspired by Alfred Hitchcock, David Lynch, Salvador Dalí and “Perry Mason,” volition nary uncertainty forge his ain radically questioning way successful a accumulation that promises not to beryllium squeamish astir blood. — C.M.

The nationalist circuit of the philharmonic play “Parade” volition sojourn the Ahmanson Theatre June 17-July 12.

(Joan Marcus)

June 17-July 12
“Parade” astatine the Ahmanson Theatre
Michael Arden’s triumphant Tony-winning 2023 Broadway revival of Alfred Uhry and Jason Robert Brown’s philharmonic play proved that 1 of much challenging works successful the modern philharmonic repertory is an indisputable classic. This breathtakingly ambitious amusement tells the communicative of the 1913 proceedings of Leo Frank, a gross miscarriage of justness that culminated successful his antisemitic lynching. While parsing the societal and governmental context, the philharmonic ne'er loses show of the protagonist and his wife, uncovering country for the heartbreaking idiosyncratic broadside of an American calamity that reveals the acheronian broadside of our corporate past. — C.M.

POP

April 28, May 1, 4, 7 and 9
Beyoncé astatine SoFi Stadium
Three months aft “Cowboy Carter” yet brought her a Grammy Award for medium of the year, Beyoncé volition motorboat her highly anticipated circuit down the country(-ish) LP with a five-night basal successful Inglewood. Beyoncé being Beyoncé, there’s nary telling what benignant of philharmonic and ocular spectacular she’s got successful store — though she whitethorn person provided a hint successful December with the characteristically intricate halftime amusement she performed during a Christmas Day NFL game. Giddy up. — Mikael Wood

May 7
Central Cee astatine the Hollywood Palladium
Hip-hop fans of a definite property volition callback immoderate fig of U.K. rappers erstwhile poised to interruption retired successful the U.S. (Give Dizzee Rascal’s early-2000s “I Luv U” a rotation if you haven’t successful a while.) Still, this could beryllium the infinitesimal for Central Cee, who crashed the Top 20 of Billboard’s Hot 100 past twelvemonth with “Band4Band,” his throbbing pop-drill duet with Lil Baby, and precocious dropped a debut LP, “Can’t Rush Greatness,” stocked with streaming-bait collabs with the likes of 21 Savage and Lil Durk. — M.W.

Musician Willie Nelson, pictured performing past year, headlines the Outlaw Music Festival May 16 astatine the Hollywood Bowl.

(Susan Walsh / Associated Press)

May 16
Outlaw Music Festival astatine the Hollywood Bowl
As usual, Willie Nelson is atop the measure for this yearly traveling roots-music show, which the 91-year-old fable inaugurated successful 2016. (By the clip the festival gets here, Nelson volition person turned 92.) Outlaw’s lineup rotates depending connected the city, but successful L.A. we’ll besides get Bob Dylan, caller from his Hollywood glow-up courtesy of Timothée Chalamet, and a brace of young bluegrass phenoms successful Billy Strings and Sierra Hull. Keep an oculus retired for astonishment guests: Last twelvemonth astatine the Bowl, Nelson brought retired John Densmore of the Doors to play assorted percussion “doohickeys,” arsenic the vocalist enactment it. — M.W.

Singer Brian Johnson and pb guitarist Angus Young and their set AC/DC play the Rose Bowl successful Pasadena connected April 18.

(Martin Meissner / Associated Press)

April 18
AC/DC astatine the Rose Bowl
AC/DC is some a stalwart stone instauration and highly adaptable. The set famously thrived aft the decease of its archetypal pb vocalist and capably replaced the precocious founding guitarist Malcolm Young with his nephew. Axl Rose adjacent stepped successful arsenic a pinch-hitting pb vocalist successful 2016. Now touring with a caller bushed section, the Aussie hard rockers instrumentality for their archetypal U.S. circuit successful astir a decade, prevention for a caller slot astatine the debut Power Trip metallic festival successful Indio. — August Brown

Ezra Koenig and Vampire Weekend header the Cruel World euphony festival May 17 astatine Brookside Park successful Pasadena.

(Amy Harris / Invision/AP)

May 10
Just Like Heaven astatine Brookside astatine the Rose Bowl
May 17
Cruel World astatine Brookside astatine the Rose Bowl
There inevitably comes a clip successful your festivalgoing beingness that the Coachella lineup volition beryllium mostly acts you’ve ne'er heard of, successful genres you hardly understand. It happens to the champion of us. Tuck into the lukewarm broad of nostalgia astatine 2 of Goldenvoice’s marquee throwback fests: Just Like Heaven, the millennial indie compendium, gets a long-awaited Rilo Kiley reunion and sets from Vampire Weekend, Bloc Party and TV connected the Radio; Cruel World, its goth/new question evil twin, sports New Order, Nick Cave and a reunited Go-Go’s. — A.B.

Kendrick Lamar performs during halftime of the 2025 Super Bowl successful New Orleans; helium and SZA play 3 shows astatine Sofi Stadium successful May.

(Frank Franklin II / Associated Press)

May 21, 23 and 24
Kendrick Lamar and SZA astatine SoFi Stadium
Kendrick indispensable inactive beryllium cracking up astatine his Grammy haul for “Not Like Us.” Imagine the glee that comes from cutting a azygous that vanquishes a feline you despise, forever, and being fixed music’s highest grant for it — and then playing the Super Bowl halftime amusement arsenic a small lagniappe afterward. His Grand National circuit with SZA indispensable consciousness similar a literal triumph lap. Let’s anticipation Serena Williams is C-walking side-stage again. — A.B.

COMEDY

Ali Wong volition effort retired caller worldly this period astatine the Hollywood Improv.

(Alex Crick / Netflix)

April 5, 17 and 22
Ali Wong: Work successful Progress astatine the Hollywood Improv (The Lab)
If there’s 1 comedian who knows however to enactment out, it’s Ali Wong. No, we’re not championing her carnal fitness, adjacent though she tin and has carried Asian pistillate practice successful drama connected her shoulders for a agelong clip now. But erstwhile it comes to moving retired her caller material, 1 of the things this arena-worthy enactment isn’t frightened to bash is popular into intimate rooms similar the Lab astatine the Hollywood Improv and execute sketches of her newest worldly successful beforehand of a precise fortunate tiny country of people. On the heels of her past hilarious Netflix peculiar “Single Lady,” Wong is astatine it again, moving connected caller worldly successful a abbreviated stint aptly called “Work successful Progress” for 4 shows. If you tin someway negociate to people a ticket, you’ll surely beryllium successful for thing special. — Nate Jackson

May 6
Dr. Phil Live With Adam Ray astatine the Comedy Store
It indispensable beryllium unusual for TV’s Dr. Phil to spot the emergence of comedy’s Dr. Phil — mostly due to the fact that they’re not really the aforesaid person. What started arsenic a lighthearted lampooning of the daytime speech amusement therapist by seasoned L.A. comedian Adam Ray has turned into a full-on frenzy that has resulted successful a Netflix peculiar and sold-out shows crossed the country. Returning to the Comedy Store, wherever the improvement began, Ray is definite to bring retired an all-star supporting formed of comedians successful an array of ridiculous sketches to marque this 1 of the wildest shows you’ll spot each spring. — N.J.

Comedian Ricky Gervais plays the Hollywood Bowl May 31.

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

May 31
Ricky Gervais astatine the Hollywood Bowl
Sure, decease is nary gag — but that doesn’t mean it can’t beryllium funny. Ricky Gervais, 1 of the modern masters of roasting celebrities and riffing connected the macabre, has a caller amusement called “Mortality.” The arguable English comedian and co-creator of “The Office” is nary alien to making airy of acheronian subjects successful his act, and this 1 mightiness beryllium his champion yet. Currently touring the caller worldly crossed the U.K., he’ll halt successful L.A. conscionable successful clip to bless the Bowl with a cheery speech with the assemblage astir our impending demise. The circuit is besides being filmed for Gervais’ forthcoming Netflix special. — N.J.