Things to do in Los Angeles on Sunday

Each summer, Bard fanatics watch their favorite works come to life at the historic Old Zoo in Griffith Park. For 16 years running, Independent Shakespeare Co. has put on a series of lively productions each week, inviting audiences to take a seat on the grass (bring a picnic blanket) and enjoy performances like this season’s headliner, Shakespeare political thriller Coriolanus, which will be followed by the self-explanatory The Comedy of Errors. With construction of a permanent stage still in process on the main lawn, this summer’s shows will again be held in the dell at the top of the Old Zoo—meaning available space is smaller, and although performances are still free, reservations are required.

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.

Every Sunday, you can find dozens of food vendors at this market at ROW DTLA, a Brooklyn import that boasts a mix of much-loved pop-ups and future foodie stars. Thirteen new vendors are joining the lineup this year: Feast on burgers and orange chicken sandwiches from Terrible Burger, Viennese street food from Franzl’s Franks, Neapolitan-meets-Persian pies from Mamani Pizza, plant-based corn dogs from Stick Talk and more. Wash it all down at the family-friendly beer garden. You’ll also find shopping stalls selling everything from framed vintage ads to jewelry made locally with ethically sourced gemstones. Entry and the first two hours of parking are free.

You might have seen ads on Instagram over the past couple of months for Hospital of Emotions—a colorful, cartoony flyer that heralds a site-specific art pop-up located in a real hospital with the tagline “a place to heal your heART.” The conceit intrigued me off the bat: 70 artists (both local and international) given hospital rooms as a canvas to transform as they wished. Hospital of Emotions ads are also referring to it as “the experience of the year.” We’re only in May so that’s still TBD, but I do think the exhibition—which is inhabiting the former St. Vincent Medical Center in Westlake and is officially open to the public as of May 27—is well worth your time. While the entire experience is hospital-themed—you walk through a waiting room and are given an intake form and hospital wristband, employees are in doctors’ coats—it’s not the cheesy type of immersive exhibition (read: selfie factory) that you might expect. Instead you’ll find 80 rooms filled with thought-provoking, visually dazzling and, yes, eminently photogenic installations. But there’s both style and substance here. And though the tickets are definitely on the pricey side, there’s so much to see—I spent nearly two hours there during my visit—that it (almost) makes up for it. The rooms are organized by theme; you start at the top of the building in the “Resilience Department” and make your way through clusters of rooms inspired by feelings like joy, sadness, anger, grief, fear and hope. The emphasis on...

A free, all-ages music and comedy festival that celebrates L.A.’s vibrant Eastside—what’s not to like? Now in its 16th year, Echo Park Rising is expanding to two days for the first time since the pandemic—all the better to fit in hundreds of performances from handpicked local up-and-coming bands and comedians, art installations, family-friendly activities and more. Spanning Echo Park venues including the Echo, Echoplex, Stories Books & Cafe, the Semi-Tropic, P.F. Candle Co. and Lowboy, this is always a neighborhood affair not to be missed. Stay tuned for this year’s lineup announcement.

Celebrate 50 years of the Ramones on August 30 at Hollywood Forever Cemetery (the famed resting place of Johnny Ramone) with an exclusive, one-night-only performance by newly formed punk supergroup Cretin Family—made up of Billie Joe Armstrong (Green Day), Travis Barker (Blink-182), Tim Armstrong (Rancid) and CJ Ramone. Hosted by John Travolta, this special iteration of the annual Johnny Ramone Tribute will feature live sets of iconic punk tracks, a double-feature film screening of the 50th-anniversary edition of Carrie and Travolta's own new movie Propeller One-Way Night Coach, and a DJ set by artist Shepard Fairey, with all proceeds directly benefiting cancer research at the Ellison Institute. Tickets are already sold out, but you can join the waitlist to be notified if more become available.

Just when you thought Shakespeare was sounding a little, well, dated, enter the Actors’ Gang. Each summer, the Culver City theater spins a different play from the Bard into a high-energy, family-friendly and free-to-attend production, often wrapped in an irreverent theme (think everything from Toy Story to Power Rangers). This time around, Two Gentlemen of Verona gets a sci-fi twist dubbed Two Gentlebots of Verona. You’ll find the play the first four weekends in August at Culver City’s Media Park, then at the Buena Vista Branch Library in Burbank the last weekend of August.

VistaVision: Directors can't shut up about it these days! See what all the fuss is aboutAugust 20 to 31, when the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures screens a series of films projected using the large-format, horizontal technique in the museum’s David Geffen Theater, which will set up a VistaVision projector. The lineup is a mix of rare VistaVision prints, 70mm remasters and new 6K digital scans. See stone-cold classics like White Christmas, The Ten Commandments, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and North by Northwest, plus rarities like The Matchmaker, North to Alaska, One-Eyed Jacks and Anything Goes. More recent VistaVision productions—including Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another—are also on the lineup. Individual tickets are available now.

For more than 50 years, this venue has drawn theater aficionados to its storied, open-air stage for engaging productions in a magical setting. The 299-seat amphitheater in Topanga Canyon hosts audiences of all ages for plays from a wide range of genres, from Shakespearean classics to folk tales. This season, catch William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well as a stage version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, Noël Coward’s Waiting in the Wings and The People of Pompeii, a new dark comedy Bernardo Cubría wrote in the aftermath of the 2025 wildfires.

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.