Cinema News: Drag artists’ Kennedy Center petition

January 9, 2026 | View in browser

By Jessica Gelt

Arts Editor

The Kennedy Center has been losing talent since mid-December when President Donald Trump's hand-picked board voted to change the venue's name to The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.

Jazz drummer Chuck Redd abruptly canceled his annual Christmas Eve performance; Jazz supergroup The Cookers pulled out of a New Year's Eve show; NYC-based Doug Varone and Dancers dropped out of an April performance; and Grammy Award-winning banjo player Béla Fleck announced he would no longer play at the venue in February.

"Performing there has become charged and political," Fleck wrote on social media.

The most recent round of cancellations is rivaled only by the artist defections that occurred last February in the wake of Trump's surprise takeover of the center when he fired the board and named himself chair. At that time, Trump specifically targeted drag performers, writing on Truth Social, "Just last year, the Kennedy Center featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth — THIS WILL STOP."

Drag performers immediately began pushing back, even attending opening night of Trump's beloved "Les Misérables" in full regalia. With the new name change, drag artists are again voicing dissent about Trump's MAGA-fied vision for the storied arts center, which according to the Washington Post is suffering its worst ticket sales in years.

This week, Qommittee — a national network of drag performers and organizers — launched a petition in association with the liberal political action group MoveOn.org, calling on Kennedy Center donors to immediately cease giving funds to the venue.

"While Trump won't back down, the donors who contribute nearly $100 million annually to the Kennedy Center can afford to take a stand. Money talks. When donors fund censorship, they don't just harm one institution - they tell marginalized communities their stories don't deserve to be told."

As of yesterday afternoon, the petition garnered nearly 100,000 signatures and counting. Donors listed in the Kennedy Center's website include major corporations such as Boeing, Wells Fargo, the Coca-Cola Company, Capitol One, Delta Airlines, Meta and General Dynamics.

I'm arts editor Jessica Gelt (yes, I've been promoted!) — coming at you with the new year's arts news.

On our radar

All The Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain
Patrick Page has played his share of bad guys on Broadway (The Grinch, Norman Osborn/The Green Goblin among them). In this one man-show that he created, the actor summons the Bard's darkest characters and in the process illuminates the often terrifying nature inhabiting us humans.
7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 16-17 and Jan. 21-24; 2 p.m. Jan. 17-18 and Jan. 24-25; 7 p.m. Jan 25. BroadStage, Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center, 1310 11th St., Santa Monica. broadstage.org

Morton Feldman Centennial Marathon
A major figure of the experimental New York School of composers, which included John Cage, Christian Wolff and Earle Brown, Feldman was known to write compositions that eclipsed the three-hour mark so it's only fitting that this celebration of his work be supersized: two days of six-hour concerts in the city where his landmark piece "Piano and String Quartet" debuted 40 years ago.
3-9 p.m. Sunday. The Wende Museum, 10808 Culver Blvd., Culver City; 3-9 p.m. Monday. The Brick, 518 N. Western Ave, Los Angeles. pianospheres.org

Matisse's Surprises
Art historian John Walsh delivers a four-lecture series on the work and career of French artist Henri Matisse, who pushed boundaries and experimented, while inventing new forms and reinventing old ones, all well into the 20th century.
"Exactitude is Not Truth: Matisse Breaks Through" (3 p.m. Sunday); "Space is Relative: Matisse Experiments" (3 p.m. Jan. 25); "Home and Away: Matisse Makes Another Heaven" (3 p.m. Feb. 8); "Matisse Inventing and Adapting" (3 p.m. Feb 22). UCLA Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood. hammer.ucla.edu

— Kevin Crust

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY
Alteronce Gumby
The multimedia artist's solo exhibition, "Walk on the Moon," explores the perception of color via its material properties through four distinct movements, incorporating Gumby's varied practices: painting, sculpture, installation and sound.
11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. Through Jan. 24. Jeffrey Deitch, 925 N. Orange Dr. deitch.com

Dance at the Odyssey
In its ninth year, the event expands to two stages and offers six weeks of adventurous contemporary dance from 17 choreographers and six troupes.
Through Feb. 15. Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. odysseytheatre.com

Prometheus
The festival "Body and Sound: Music in Five Senses" launches with L.A. Phil conductor laureate Esa-Pekka Salonen leading the ensemble in a production of Scriabin's "Poem of Fire" beneath a lighting sculpture by multimedia artist Grimanesa Amorós, and a program that also includes works by Sibelius, Debussy (with the Los Angeles Master Chorale) and Gabriella Smith.
8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com

SATURDAY

Thresholds of Invention
The Odyssey's new works series kicks off 2026 with a trio of January readings. Steve Drukman's new play "The Equivalents" (8 p.m. Saturday) is a tale of two brothers embroiled in a love triangle during the rancorous lead-up to January 6. Writer-performer Tony Abatemarco's "A Living, Misgivings, Forgiving, & Then …" (2 p.m. Sunday) is a memoir-in-progress reflecting on his life as a storyteller and the nature of creativity itself. "Soul Fuel — Antidotes for What Ails Us" (3 p.m. Jan. 25) explores the 30-year collaboration between jazz vocalist, songwriter and actor/improvisor Susan Krebs and the jazz ensemble The Local Outfit through music (naturally), poetry, spoken word and free sonic work.
Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. odysseytheatre.com

Travis Lampe/Altered Images/Junna Maruyama
A trio of shows open this week at Corey Helford Gallery: Lampe's solo show "The Ham-Fisted Coping Mechanism; the group show "Altered Images: Vintage-Paint-By-Numbers Reimagined," a twist on the beloved guided art activity; and Japanese artist Maruyama's solo show, " Who Am I?"
Opening reception. 7 p.m. Saturday. Noon-6 p.m., Tuesday-Saturday, through Feb. 14. Corey Helford Gallery, 571 S. Anderson St., Los Angeles. coreyhelfordgallery.com

SUNDAY
Camerata Pacifica Rings in the New Year
The chamber ensemble performs a program of works for viola and piano by Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann.
3 p.m. Sunday. Bank of America Performing Arts Center, Janet and Ray Scherr Forum, 2100 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd. Thousand Oaks; 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. The Huntington, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino; 8 p.m., Thursday. Zipper Hall, 200 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A.; 7 p.m. Friday. Music Academy of the West, 1070 Fairway Rd, Santa Barbara. cameratapacifica.org

MONDAY
D'Est en Musique
The late filmmaker Chantal Akerman's semi-fictional 1993 travelogue, shot in the aftermath of the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and re-edited in 2005, screens with live accompaniment by her partner, cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton, and pianist Sarah Rothenberg, performing works by composers including Béla Bartók, Frédéric Chopin, Leoš Janáček, Bohuslav Martinů, Sergei Prokofiev, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Maurice Ravel, Alfred Schnittke and Boris Tchaikovsky. Presented in collaboration with Monday Evening Concerts.
8 p.m. Monday-Tuesday. REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., downtown L.A. redcat.org

TUESDAY
The Wiz
Ease on down the road to Orange County for this touring version of the 2024 Broadway revival.
7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Friday; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 1:30 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday, through Jan. 25. Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 300 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. scfta.org

WEDNESDAY
New Age
Kate Berlant, Reggie Watts and Grey Gersten headline the first edition of a new comedy/music series.
8 p.m. Zebulon, 2478 Fletcher Drive. zebulon.la

THURSDAY
All-Boston Comedy Night
Al Ducharme, Jackie Flynn and Brian Kiley join series curator Kevin Flynn for a Beantown edition of stand-up.
8 p.m. Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. odysseytheatre.com

From Ordinary Things
Award-winning musicians Seth Parker Woods, Julia Bullock and Conor Hanick perform the works of George Walker, John Tavener, Maurice Ravel, Andre Previn and Nina Simone, along with a new commission by Tania Leon.
8 p.m. UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu

Selena: From Texas To The World
The legacy and cultural impact of the Queen of Tejano Music is on display in this pop-up exhibition.
11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday-Monday, Wednesday-Friday; 10 a.m.-6 p.m, Saturday, through March 16. Grammy Museum, 800 W, Olympic Blvd. downtown L.A. grammymuseum.org

What Opa Did
Theatre 40 presents the world premiere of Christopher Franciosa's play based on his maternal grandparents and the impossible choices they had to make during the Holocaust.
7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday, through Feb. 15. Mary Levin Cutler Theatre, Beverly Hills High School, 241 S. Moreno Drive. theatre40.org

Yale Whiffenpoofs
Founded in 1909, the Ivy League school's a capella singing group is no stranger to Hollywood, performing on TV shows including "The West Wing" and "Glee!" Their vocal repertoire on their winter tour features jazz, folk, pop and Broadway hits.
7:30 p.m. St. Bede's Episcopal Church, 3590 Grand View Blvd, Los Angeles. whiffs.ticketbud.com

— Kevin Crust

Culture news and the SoCal scene

A strange new world coming to L.A.
The psychedelic, experiential art collective, Meow Wolf, will open a space in Los Angeles in late 2026. To get an idea of what visitors can expect at the renovated West L.A. movie theater, part of the entertainment complex HHLA (formerly known as the Promenade at Howard Hughes Center), columnist Todd Martens traveled to the group's home base in Santa Fe, N.M. "Expect an exhibit based around an intergalactic roadside attraction, a location destined for a pilgrimage. Throughout, guests will explore the hulls of a spaceship, hop on planet-traversing bikes and uncover a divey greasy spoon at the end of the galaxy, complete with sculptures of the proprietor at various stages of his life," Martens writes.

From page to screen to stage
The Broadway adaptation of "The Notebook: The Musical," Nicholas Sparks' blockbuster romantic novel-turned-movie, arrived in Hollywood this week on its first national tour. Times theater critic Charles McNulty, an admitted newcomer to the IP, caught the premiere. "I wasn't expecting the actors cast in these roles at the Pantages, where the musical opened Wednesday, to compare in magnetism or intensity to their movie star predecessors," McNulty writes in his review. "Fortunately, the way the musical is written by Ingrid Michaelson (music and lyrics) and Bekah Brunstetter (book), they don't really have to." McNulty notes that not all the changes made for the stage benefit the production, "But the musical does manage to pull off one genuine transformation. … Brunstetter and Michaelson refocus the work to be more about time. The bond between [the lead characters] is a prism through which to experience both the transience and the permanence of what matters most to us in life. In the face of disappearance, something mysterious endures." The show runs through Jan. 25 at the Hollywood Pantages before moving to the Segerstrom in Orange County, Jan. 27-Feb. 8.

Trash is treasure
The Times headed to the Inglewood live-work studio of jewelry-maker Alicia Piller who uses recycled material and discarded items in creations. "Piller juxtaposes opals, garnets and pearls with less conventional materials such as tile fragments, snakeskin, bits of lava from a trip to Iceland, and bullet casings, all bound together with strips of leather or vinyl," writes Times contributor Leigh-Ann Jackson in the latest story in our L.A. Crafted series.

Remembering the fires
This month marks the one-year anniversary of the devastating fires that destroyed swaths of the Pacific Palisades and Altadena, and The Times has not stopped covering the aftermath of the tragedy. Although it's not a straight arts story, it's worth reading about how survivors marked the somber anniversary — and then observing a moment of silence for all that was lost.

— Jessica Gelt

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And last but not least

Rebuilding is a big part of the healing process, and Times restaurant critic Bill Addison gives a boost to Altadena with his recent review of two restaurants that are serving up comfort food to the surrounding community.