Kara Walker at SFMOMA, Solid Gold soul with the Gay Men’s Chorus

Hey there! Welcome to another edition of Essential Arts where the best of Los Angeles culture reigns even as the world burns (or at least it feels like it does, thanks to the sun). This week we bring you another guide full of the best things to see and do that will hopefully be enough to make you feel a little better after watching the presidential debate.

Best bets: What’s on our radar this week

1. Solid Gold: Aretha, Dionne, & Whitney
What better way to close out Pride Month than with a concert by the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles, whose 200 members will celebrate the hits of Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick and Whitney Houston. The setlist — 25 hits! — will feature six dance production numbers and a three-song medley with “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and “We’re Here” stars Priyanka and Latrice Royale. You also could upgrade your tickets to attend the evening’s gala dinner and dance party, honoring Sen. Alex Padilla and Angela Padilla and benefiting GMCLA’s free community and education programs.
Sunday, 3 p.m., Pasadena Civic Auditorium, 300 E Green St. www.gmcla.org/solidgold
— Ashley Lee

2. The Summer of Bohemia Chamber Music Festival
Los Angeles is little recognized as a producer of string quartets, but our music schools have given us stellar ensembles, and the tradition of studio and freelance musicians goes back to the famed Hollywood String Quartet. Now the New Hollywood String Quartet, along with its friends, presents its annual summer festival. Escape the heat at gracious Doheny Mansion in the company of folk music-inspired Bohemian composers, notably Dvorák, Smetana, Janácek and the surprising, enrapturing and absurdly neglected Bohuslav Martinu.
Thursday through Sunday. Doheny Mansion, Mount St. Mary’s University, 10 Chester Place, Los Angeles www.newhollywoodstringquartet.com/
— Mark Swed

3. “Last Summer”
For her first film in 10 years, French provocateur Catherine Breillat — one of cinema’s foremost chroniclers of the power dynamics between men and women — returns with “Last Summer.” The movie takes a potentially tabloid-lurid story and finds the humanity in it, a sense of empathetic understanding for all involved, without losing its racy charge. Anne, played with vivid intensity by Léa Drucker, is a middle-aged lawyer who finds herself stuck at a country chateau with her husband’s diffident, tousle-haired teenage son from a previous marriage. A passion that surprises them both emerges with potentially ruinous consequences. Breillat explores what people are capable of when they let themselves get carried away and what it takes to pull themselves back.
In limited release, including Landmark’s Nuart Theatre, 11272 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles www.landmarktheatres.com
— Mark Olsen

4. Blink-182 at SoFi Stadium
After bassist Mark Hoppus survived a cancer scare and guitarist Tom Delonge took a break from hunting aliens, the classic Blink-182 lineup returned for a well-received, pinch-hit Coachella headline slot in 2023. Their puerile fart jokes remained ageless comedy well into their 50s; the propulsive guitars and flurried fills from drummer/super-producer Travis Barker hit millennials right in their skate-park nostalgia cores. Along with their peers in Green Day, they’re one of the last rock bands to achieve and maintain stadium-star status today, and even if the new material on October’s “One More Time” is a retread to their best-loved stuff (like opener “Anthem Part 3”), they’re shaping up to be the Rolling Stones of the turn of the millennium —deathless, sex-obsessed, ever-seeking new refinements on the pleasures of guitars, bass and drums.
July 6, SoFi Stadium, 1001 Stadium Drive, Inglewood, $18-305

The week head: A curated calendar

THURSDAY

Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” The touring production of Aaron Sorkin’s theatrical adaptation directed by Bartlett Sher stars Richard Thomas as Atticus Finch.
7:30 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday. Bank of America Performing Arts Center, 2100 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks. americantheatreguild.com

Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles In its 22nd year, the event showcases films from the South Asian subcontinent and their diasporas.
Through Sunday. Writers Guild Theater, 135 S. Doheny Drive, Beverly Hills; Landmark Theatres Sunset, 8000 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles. indianfilmfestival.org

“Unbroken Blossoms” Philip W. Chung’s drama is a historical reimagining of the making of D.W. Griffith’s 1919 film, which depicted Hollywood’s first onscreen interracial love story — albeit between a white actress and a white actor in yellowface.
Through July 21. East West Players, Union Center for the Arts, David Henry Hwang Theater, 120 N. Judge John Aiso St., Little Tokyo. eastwestplayers.org

FRIDAY

Sean Baker Double Feature Catch up with “Tangerine” (2015) and “The Florida Project” (2017), earlier works by this year’s Palme d’Or-winning director for “Anora.”
6:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday. New Beverly Cinema, 7165 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles. thenewbev.com

Tim McGraw The country star tours behind his 16th studio album, “Standing Room Only”; Carly Pearce opens the show.
7 p.m. Kia Forum, 3900 W. Manchester Blvd., Inglewood. thekiaforum.com

Primera Generación Dance Collective The four-artist ensemble performs “NOStalgia POP,” an homage and critique of contemporary Latine popular culture.
8:30 p.m Friday and Saturday. REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., downtown Los Angeles (streaming Saturday). redcat.org

SATURDAY

Armenian State Symphony Orchestra The group, led by artistic director and conductor Sergey Smbatyan, performs works by Aram Khachaturian on its first U.S. tour.
8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown Los Angeles armsymphony.am

George M. Cohen celebration and concert A two-day tribute to the “Yankee Doodle Dandy” showman kicks off with “Mr. Broadway: The George M. Cohan Celebration,” which includes a rare screening of the 1959 telefilm “45 Minutes From Broadway,” plus live performances by Davis Gaines, John Rubinstein, Lesli Margherita and more; Sunday features “Born on the 4th of July! The Broadway Music of George M. Cohan,” a concert by the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra.
8 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, 14900 La Mirada Blvd., La Mirada. lamiradatheatre.com

Kirbyvision: A Tribute to Jack Kirby The exhibition features new works by more than 70 contemporary artists, inspired by the prolific and influential superhero creator, alongside original artworks by Kirby.
Through Aug. 3. Corey Helford Gallery, 571 S. Anderson St., Los Angeles. coreyhelfordgallery.com

SUNDAY

Monrovia Music Fest This year’s lineup includes Alpha Patron, Gal Pearl and Kelly’s Lot.
12-7 p.m. Library Park, 321 S. Myrtle Ave., Monrovia. monroviafest.com

L.A.’s biggest culture news

This week theater critic Charles McNulty reviews the West Coast premiere of “tiny father,” a play by Mike Lew that tells the story of an accidental father thrust into a neonatal ICU in this Geffen Playhouse production directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel.

McNulty also dips into film with a review of “Janet Planet” starring Julianne Nicholson as a mother with boundary problems raising her precocious, strong-minded 11-year old daughter in playwright Annie Baker‘s A24 release.

Planning Editor Kevin Crust reports that the community of Leimert Park lost a legend this week when artist, master jeweler, community activist and business owner Sika Dwimfo died at 83.

Finally, it’s a McNulty hat trick with his third piece this week, a commentary inspired by the upcoming presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. The critic helps us arts folks cope with the chaos by calling on Homer and psychoanalysis to survive till November and beyond.

More culture news, briefly …

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art opens on Monday a major installation by Kara Walker, the first artist to be commissioned by the museum to create work for the Roberts Family Gallery, an admission-free ground-floor space that was part of the museum’s 2016 expansion. The title of the work is — deep breath — “Fortuna and the Immortality Garden (Machine) / A Respite for the Weary Time-Traveler. / Featuring a Rite of Ancient Intelligence Carried out by The Gardeners / Toward the Continued Improvement of the Human Specious / by Kara E-Walker.” The artist cites inspirations including Banraku puppetry and Octavia Butler‘s “Parable of the Sower” and says the installation will “examine the fear and loss we experienced as a global society during the COVID-19 pandemic,” with automatons “serving as stand-ins for human experience, situated within a vast garden of black obsidian.” More at sfmoma.org.

Kidspace, the children’s museum in Pasadena, launches its Campfire Sunset Series on Friday. The museum will stay open until 8 p.m. for evenings of live, interactive music and dance. Themes include “Sunset in the Pacific Islands” (Friday), “Cowpoke Country Night” (July 19) and “Afro-Latin Summer Jam” (Aug. 9). Performances start at 5:30 and 7 p.m., and guests can bring a picnic or buy food from the cafe or food trucks on site. More info: kidspacemuseum.org

Soka Performing Arts Center in Aliso Viejo announced its 2024-25 lineup, which opens in late September with Dionne Warwick. The season also includes pianist Emanuel Ax, singer-songwriters Shawn Colvin and KT Tunstall, the jazz fusion band Yellowjackets and gospel greats Blind Boys of Alabama. More info: www.soka.edu/soka-performing-arts-center

The Schubert Foundation, which funds nonprofit theaters, dance companies and academic training programs, announced $40 million in grants to 653 organizations. Some of the biggest grants for Southern California recipients went to South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa ($300,000); Center Theatre Group ($200,000), Geffen Playhouse ($160,000), Latino Theatre Company/Los Angeles Theatre Center ($50,000) and East West Players ($40,000), all in L.A.; and Pasadena Playhouse ($130,000), A Noise Within ($45,000) and Boston Court ($40,000) in Pasadena.

A little-known David Hockney drawing that we wrote about in Essential Arts earlier this month has sold at auction in London for 403,200 pounds (about $510,000), well above the estimate of 200,000 to 300,000 pounds. The crayon and pencil drawing, “View From Miramar Hotel, Santa Monica,” is from 1970.

We would have voted for Sage or Olive or even led a write-in campaign for Sweet Pea, but the poll results are in at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and the name of its new green dinosaur skeleton will be: Gnatalie. The skeleton — a composite of several specimens of a Diplodocus-like species — takes its moniker from the bugs that plagued scientists digging up the bones in Utah. Gnatalie will make her home in the museum’s new wing opening this fall.

And last but not least

After making headlines for his DWI earlier this week, Justin Timberlake refuses to say bye-bye-bye to Instagram, popping up on social media to check in with his fans about his upcoming tour, which includes a date at a court of a different sort — Madison Square Garden. I guess you can’t keep JT down even though he admits, “It’s been a rough week.”