Things to do in Los Angeles on Friday

One of L.A.’s best free live-music offerings, Jazz at LACMA has featured legit legends over its 35-year run at the museum. Seating for the program is available in the museum’s plaza on a first-come, first-served basis, though you’re welcome to picnic on the grass, too (you won’t really be able to see the show, but you’ll still hear it). You’ll find the series on Friday evenings in LACMA’s welcome plaza (just behind Urban Light) throughout the summer. We’re betting it’ll be even more popular than usual this year, with the new David Geffen Galleries in the background.

The masters of alfresco rooftop movie viewing have returned for another season of screenings to LEVEL in Downtown L.A. Known for excellent film choices and a steady supply of snacks and booze, Rooftop Cinema Club is your snazzy, comfortable and less stressful alternative to other outdoor movie screenings. You don’t even need to bring your own camping chair—Rooftop Cinema Club provides you with your very own comfy lawn chair (with optional blankets for purchase to up the coziness). And instead of listening to the movie over loudspeakers, you’ll get a set of wireless headphones so you never have to miss a word. Find the full schedule on their site, or in our outdoor movie calendar.

Spend your Friday night amid dinosaurs and DJs. For two decades now, the Natural History Museum has been staying open late for its popular First Fridays series. And during this year’s 20th season, the KCRW-presented after-hours event is returning to its roots, filling the museum’s iconic diorama halls with live music from around the globe, DJ sets and dancing from February to May. A new discussion series, “Life, From Our Guts to the Galaxy: Rethinking the Living World,” will explore different topics each month. While you’re there, you can check out all the galleries and exhibitions, sip cocktails and order food from a revolving selection of local trucks. Check out the museum’s website for advance tickets and updates on lineups.

The multisensory nature of art is explored in this exhibition, which looks at the intertwined relationship between contemporary art and living materials. With its focus on artists’ relationships to the materials they use, “Several Eternities” highlights that commonality and aims to reframe the discussion around artists and race. Twenty-two artists from North, Central and South America have employed mediums like soil, stones, avocado, cacao, achiote, cochineal and clay in their works—the organic matter making it an ambitious exhibition to mount. From the moment you walk in, you can smell the soil, feel a vibrating wall and listen to the many “sonic interventions” throughout the show. The large-scale installations and sculptures—many rooted in Indigenous worldviews—steal the show. The experience ends with a welcome moment to pause: a meditative, black-walled room, with ocean sounds and sand covering the floor.

Ponyo loves Sosuke! And we love this exhibition at the Academy Museum dedicated to the wholesome Hayao Miyazaki film. Studio Ghibli donated more than 100 objects to the Academy Collection, and you’ll find everything from an animation desk to colorful art boards to dozens of frame-by-frame pencil drawings of the scene when Sosuke first finds Ponyo. Though you may recognize a couple of items from the museum’s debut Hayao Miyazaki retrospective, the vast majority of Ponyo pieces are new—and some have never been displayed in North America before. It’s also a colorful and super kid-friendly exhibition; you can watch clips of the gorgeously hand-drawn movie, recreate the wave-running scene and even make your own stop-motion animation. You’ll find it on the museum’s second floor, inside the first few galleries of the “Stories of Cinema’ space.

The city of Santa Monica will become a playground for jazz during this inaugural music fest, which fulfills Grammy-winning bassist Stanley Clarke’s vision for a world-class jazz festival in Los Angeles and celebrates the centennials of Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Route 66. Fellow Grammy winner Kamasi Washington tops the bill on a week of performances by both world-renowned and emerging talent at venues across the city. May 3’s Sunday on the Promenade concert is a free affair with eight acts, including Elijah Fox and Genevieve Artadi (1–7pm). On May 8 is a tribute to Coltrane at the BroadStage, headlined by Isaiah Collier. The fest culminates in “A Day at the Park” at Tongva Park on May 9—a full afternoon of performances, with Washington wrapping up the fest.

What if there was a scare-free version of Halloween Horror Nights for fraidy cats (like me)? That’s the quickest way I can sum up Universal Fan Fest Nights, an after-hours event at the L.A. theme park that debuted last spring and is returning this year. The open-till-1:30am, specially ticketed series runs on select nights from April 23 to May 16 and brings together an unexpected mix of franchises for walk-throughs (Harry Potter, Dungeons & Dragons, Scooby-Doo), live shows (One Piece, Sailor Moon) and lots of special menu items. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter has a new immersive experience, “Forbidden Forest: Search for the Hippogriff,” for the occasion, where you’ll face an acromantula and pixies to save the majestic creature. And Super Nintendo World sees the return of meet-and-greets with multicolored Yoshis.  Elsewhere, the Dungeons & Dragons walk-through is back—featuring an excellent Xanathar puppet crafted by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. And though last year’s standout Back to the Future experience won’t be returning this time around, there are a couple of brand-new attractions in its place, including interactive whodunit “Scooby-Doo Meets the Universal Monsters: Mystery on the Backlot,” which finds you solving clues on the backlot where the original monster movies were filmed. Afterward, fuel up with a sky-high club sandwich and Scooby Snacks.  Last year, food and photo op lines were a little all over the place. (You’re welcome to come in costume, by the...

When I first stepped foot inside of this exhibition of decommissioned Confederate monuments and reflective contemporary art pieces, I was taken aback by the scale of it all. I’d seen the installation photos of the side-by-side statues of Confederate generals Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee on horseback, but as I craned my neck up at these towering tributes, they felt awe-inspiring in the most dreadful meaning of the phrase. Most Angelenos don’t need to be convinced of the immoralities of the Confederacy—but most likely haven’t been forced to come face-to-face with such Civil War iconography either. “Monuments,” displayed almost entirely at MOCA’s Little Tokyo warehouse with a single Kara Walker installation at the Brick in East Hollywood, presents tangible proof that these monuments removed from public view over the past decade were not simple, somber remembrances for the recently deceased, these were larger-than-life celebrations of the Confederacy forged in the Jim Crow era and often financed by folks seeking to twist its history. Works from 19 artists respond either directly or thematically to the many statues on display, or in some cases physically alter them: Bethany Collins’s Love is dangerous chisels pieces of the granite pedestal of a Stonewall Jackson monument into Carolina rose petals. Other graffitied or paint-splattered statues speak for themselves: The Robert E. Lee monument at the center of 2017’s Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia resides...

Watch a slate of classics from the past couple of decades on one of the prettiest rooftops in Hollywood at this outdoor screenings series. All movies are piped in over sets of provided wireless headphones. Before showtime, make sure to hit up the bar or the on-site kitchen, Oasis, which will be serving up wagyu burgers and classic film concessions.

Nature lovers, rejoice! The Natural History Museum is bringing back its annual Butterfly Pavilion, which will be open March 22 through August 23 and house up to 30 butterfly and moth species, as well as an assortment of California plants. The seasonal outdoor exhibit allows for adults and children alike to witness nature up close—we’re talking walking amid hundreds of butterflies and having them land on your arms or shoulders. You’ll need to purchase a $10 add-on ticket on top of your museum ticket in order to explore the pavilion for a half-hour.