At new NHM Commons, meet Gnatalie the green dinosaur: L.A. arts and culture this week

Exposition Park got a boost last week when the Natural History Museum opened its new 75,000-square-foot welcome center. NHM Commons, the new glass-walled entrance and community hub, is located on the museum’s southwest side, across from the soon-to-open Lucas Museum of Narrative Art (which looks a little like a moss-covered spaceship).

I took my 8-year-old daughter and one of her best friends to the opening party and got a chance to clock their animated reaction to the Commons’ star attraction, a 75-foot-long dinosaur skeleton called Gnatalie (so named because paleontologists working to excavate her bones in Utah were bombarded by pesky gnats). Gnatalie is the most complete sauropod on the West Coast and the first green dinosaur on display in the world. The green hue of her bones, we were told as we silk-screened a Gnatalie poster at one of the block party’s many art stations, is due to mineral deposits.

Barbara Carrasco’s 1981 mural, “L.A. History: A Mexican Perspective,” is housed in the new NHM Commons.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Another highlight of the NHM Commons is “L.A. History: A Mexican Perspective,” a colorful 80-foot-long, 1981 mural by Barbara Carrasco. The piece details crucial moments of the city’s past entwined in the flowing hair of a thoughtful-looking woman. We didn’t get a chance to take in a show in the new wing’s Commons Theater, but we did bump into a giant drag queen dressed like a gold spider on roller skates as she danced along with the Drag Arts Lab performance in the outdoor Commons Plaza. Next time we’ll be sure to grab a coffee (or a baby-ccino) at the South L.A. Cafe, which, like the Commons itself, is accessible without a ticket.

The $75 million project, designed by Frederick Fisher and Partners, with landscape architecture by Studio-MLA, marks yet another milestone in L.A.’s ever-expanding cultural scene. And as any exhausted parent who has taken a small break while their children ran in circles around NHM’s lovely outdoor spaces will tell you, it’s a net win for art- and history-loving families.

I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt, taking kids to museums so you don’t have to. My colleague Ashley Lee and I have got you covered when it comes to arts news this week.

Best bets: On our radar this week

Leslie Odom Jr. in Los Angeles.

(Irvin Rivera / For The Times)

Leslie Odom Jr.
The Tony-winning actor of “Hamilton” and “Purlie Victorious” brings his touring show to Los Angeles on Sunday. The program of festive hits includes selections from his two Christmas albums. The performance is part of Walt Disney Concert Hall’s annual series of holiday headliners, which this year includes Chanticleer (Dec. 17), Jennifer Hudson (Dec. 18) and Arturo Sandoval (Dec. 23), as well as four screenings of “Home Alone” with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, conducted by David Newman (Dec. 21-22). Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown. laphil.com

‘The Nutcracker’
Bring on the ballet, all over L.A.! Just some of this year’s takes on Tchaikovsky: American Contemporary Ballet’s production begins performances at downtown’s Bank of America Plaza on Saturday and runs through Dec. 24; Westside Ballet’s showings start Saturday at the Eli and Edythe Broad Stage and run through Dec. 8 (with Tiler Peck as the Sugar Plum Fairy and Roman Mejia as her Cavalier); Inland Pacific Ballet performs at Claremont’s Bridges Auditorium (Dec. 7-8, Dec. 21-22) and Riverside’s Fox Performing Arts Center (Dec. 14-15); Pasadena Dance Theatre’s production runs at the San Gabriel Mission Playhouse (Dec. 20-22); and World Ballet Company’s tour stops at the La Mirada Theatre (Dec. 22) and Glendale’s Alex Theatre (Dec. 23-24).

Oahu, HI. 1998. Jacob Rosenberg Collection.

(HVW8 Art + Design Gallery)

‘Right Before My Eyes’
HVW8 Art + Design Gallery is showcasing a decade of never-before-seen photographs, Hi8 video stills, demo cassettes, vintage LPs and ephemera from the archive of photographer and filmmaker Jacob Rosenberg, which collectively document the pivotal intersection of skateboarding and hip-hop culture from 1988 to 1998 in Northern California. These shots and analog artifacts feature iconic figures like Mike Carroll, Del the Funky Homosapien, Souls of Mischief, De La Soul and Public Enemy’s Chuck D. The exhibition, which opened this past weekend and coincides with the release of Rosenberg’s debut documentary photo book of the same name, is on view through Jan. 20. HVW8 Art + Design Gallery, 661 N. Spaulding Ave., Los Angeles. hvw8.com

— Ashley Lee

The week ahead: A curated calendar

A Noise Within’s annual production of “A Christmas Carol” starts Sunday.

(Craig Schwartz)

TUESDAY
The Last Waltz Martin Scorsese’s documentary chronicling Canadian roots rockers The Band’s 1976 farewell concert also includes performances by Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell and Muddy Waters.
7:30 p.m. Vidiots, Eagle Theater, 4884 Eagle Rock Blvd., Eagle Rock. vidiotsfoundation.org

THURSDAY 11/28
King Kong Naomi Watts, Jack Black and Adrien Brody star in director Peter Jackson’s 2005 epic about an ambitious filmmaker’s trek to Skull Island and encounter with cinema’s most famous gorilla.
7:30 p.m. New Beverly Cinema, 7165 Beverly Blvd. thenewbev.com

FRIDAY
Fifty Fifty The K-Pop girl group hits town on its Love Sprinkle tour.
7:30 p.m.The Orpheum Theatre, 842 S. Broadway, downtown L.A. laorpheum.com/calendar/fifty-fifty-love-sprinkle-tour/

Frankenstein James Whale’s 1931 film adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic Gothic horror novel stars Colin Clive as the titular obsessed scientist and Boris Karloff as his creation.
4:30 p.m. Norton Simon Museum, 411 W. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. nortonsimon.org

SATURDAY
A Christmas Carol Geoff Elliott adapted, co-directed (with Julia Rodriguez-Elliott) and stars in a Noise Within’s annual take on the Charles Dickens classic.
Through Dec. 24. A Noise Within, 3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena. anoisewithin.org

A Christmas Carol Richard Doyle is Ebenezer Scrooge in Jerry Patch’s music- and dance-filled adaptation, directed by Hisa Takakuwa.
Through Dec. 24. South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. scr.org

Trans-Siberian Orchestra “The Lost Christmas Eve,” the final installment in TSO’s Christmas trilogy, combines symphonic rock, pyrotechnics, lasers and a tale of loss and redemption.
3 and 7:30 p.m. Honda Center, 2695 E. Katella Ave., Anaheim. trans-siberian.com

Culture news and the SoCal scene

Leonardo da Vinci drew an old man, possibly a self-portrait, as a bearded prophet when he was around 63.

(Ernani Orcorte / Royal Library Turin)

Times art critic Christopher Knight was glad to see filmmaker Ken Burns tackle his first non-American subject in his new documentary, “Leonardo da Vinci,” but he felt the two-part film made one glaring omission. It acknowledged the famed Renaissance polymath’s homosexuality, but failed to examine how his experiences in relation to his identity formed his worldview — and his art. “That essential element of his identity is presented as merely neutral fact, rather than the alienating circumstance it no doubt was,” Knight writes.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic once again staged its epic Noon to Midnight new-music marathon at Disney Hall and Times classical music critic Mark Swed was there to take it all in. In total, the programming featured 23 formal concerts, including many world premieres. For the first time, the L.A. Phil selected a music curator, composer Ellen Reid, who has a long history of collaboration with the organization. “One great advantage to this inordinate model is rejection of FOMO mania. You can’t help but miss out on something, and miss out big time. Do you browse and graze and get a big picture of the musical multitudes? Do you make a plan and try to catch a few musts? What about food, drink, rest?” writes Swed. Read on to find his answers.

Cheyenne Jackson in “La Cage aux Folles” at Pasadena Playhouse.

(Jeff Lorch)

The perfect holiday show has arrived in the form of Pasadena Playhouse’s new revival of “La Cage aux Folles,” writes Times theater critic Charles McNulty. Harvey Fierstein and Jerry Herman’s 1983 musical brought the domestic reality of gay life to Broadway stages long before shows like “Will and Grace” made it into the mainstream, writes McNulty, noting that audiences still flocked to the show in droves. Likely because of its life-affirming message, joyous dance sequences and old-fashioned musical zeal — all of which show up in this latest production starring Cheyenne Jackson as the nightclub owner Georges, Kevin Cahoon as the drag star Albin, and Ryan J. Haddad as their son, Jean-Michel. “This revival succeeds perhaps most fully in the welcoming embrace it extends to all. Albin’s epiphany in ‘I Am What I Am’ is simple yet profound: He wants neither praise nor pity, but only to be seen as his ‘own special creation,’” writes McNulty.

Tammy Faye Messner poses at a book signing party in Los Angeles.

(J. Emilio Flores / Getty Images)

Elton John’s Broadway musical “Tammy Faye” announced it will close Dec. 8 after 24 preview and 29 regular performances. The ill-fated show about the late Tammy Faye Messner — best known as Tammy Faye Bakker in the 1970s and ’80s when she and husband Jim Bakker were televangelist royalty — announced the decision to shutter the show less than a week after its Nov. 14 opening. The Broadway production received poor reviews and reportedly made less than $400,000 in its first week, playing to audiences that were at 63% capacity.

A 1954 painting by the surrealist master René Magritte titled “The Empire of the Light” sold at Christie’s last week for $121.2 million. The jaw-dropping price tag marks Magritte’s entrance into the rarefied cadre of artists whose work has sold for more than $100 million at auction.

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

Happy Thanksgiving week! May you find comfort and love around a table filled with family and friends. Essential Arts will take the day off on Friday, but we’ll be back in your inbox on Dec. 2.