Discover Hollywood Magazine

Fountain Theatre Holiday Soiree & Cabaret
2025-12-13 19:00 - 22:00, 2025-12-12 19:00 - 20:30 (Asia/Kolkata) | The Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Ave, Los Angeles, CA, 90029, United States
This December, join the Fountain Teather for a Holiday Soirée & Cabaret, a three-night celebration of theatre, music, and community. The centerpiece of this festive series will be our Holiday Soirée on December 12, featuring a live 2026 Season Announcement, a sparkling cabaret performance by Imani Branch & Friends, and a lively raffle and reception designed to bring together artists, patrons, and friends. The Soirée will be followed by two additional Cabaret performances on December 13 & 14 to get you in the holiday spirit!

"We should be home by now," - Leo Mock.
2025-12-13 18:00 - 20:00 | M + B Gallery, 612 N. Almont Dr., West Hollywood, California, 90069.0
M+B is pleased to present “We should be home by now,” an exhibition of new works by Leo Mock. The exhibition will be on view from December 13, 2025 through January 10, 2026, with an opening reception on Saturday, December 13, from 6 to 8 pm.

“We should be home by now.” The sentiment embedded in the title hovers over the autumn weatherscapes like a distant love. Should we have arrived somewhere meaningful by now, somewhere steady, fulfilling, spiritual, or even just terrestrially grounded? But arrival is always fleeting, always provisional. Home, if it exists at all, is a sensation that evaporates the instant we attempt to grasp it, as mutable as a cloud. The exhibition’s title, lifted from David Bowie’s song Time, with all the implied yearning and sly existential ache, frames Leo Mock’s suite of paintings, which feel at once personal and cosmically estranged.
The sky performs as though it knows we need it to. Sunsets flare like Ruscha, churn like Van Gogh. But the painter resists the hubris of trying to fix such meteorological perfection. Instead, he paints mockeries of emotions and beauty too fleeting to hold, mementos of perfect moments that refuse to stay put.
Even in the darker scenes, skies thickened to wildfire soot and horizons smothered into near-oblivion, Mock’s worlds never fully tip toward despair. Instead, they vibrate with a gentle, hypnotic hum, as though tuned to the frequency of a planet we have not yet discovered but somehow remember. His landscapes are vacant yet never empty, serene yet never still. They are less depictions of places than invitations into states of mind, those liminal zones where longing meets wonder, and where the desire to “be home” is both impossible and endlessly seductive.
The world in Mock’s paintings is familiar but unmistakably off-axis. Horizon lines, mountain masses, cumulus stacks, and reflective waters gesture toward earthly landscapes, yet everything is skewed just enough to belong to some adjacent reality. Color, acidity, improbable light, they are all destabilizers. The atmosphere itself shifts: dirty pink vapors streak across onyx skies, bruise-colored clouds elongate into aerodynamic messengers, reds and greens ooze down from above as though obeying a physics particular to some distant moon. These are landscapes assembled from earthly building blocks but recomposed into a new syntax.
In the end, that is what Mock paints: not light itself but the echo of its passing, not emotion but its vapor trail, not home but the hope for it. And in that hope, tenuous, flickering, ungraspable, we recognize something profoundly human. These paintings take us somewhere only Leo Mock can imagine, but they return us, gently, to ourselves.
Leo Mock (b. 1964, Los Angeles, CA) graduated from ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California. Recent solo exhibitions include Blocking Your Sun at Anton Kern Gallery, New York; Rise and Fall of Shame at Galerie Guido W. Baudach, Berlin; In the Jingle Jangle Morning at Tif Sigfrids, New York; and …And Still Somehow at M+B, Los Angeles. His work has recently been featured in The New York Times and ArtReview. Mock lives and works in Mérida, Mexico.

Trish Suhr: Trishmas
2025-12-13 16:00 - 20:00 | Hollywood Improv, 8162 Melrose Ave, Hollywood, California, 90046.0
Ready to ditch the sticky-sweet holiday sentiment for something genuinely hilarious? Get ready to experience Trishmas, the uproarious annual holiday spectacular brought to you by the incomparable Trish Suhr! Best known as the famously witty “Trailer Park Trash” expert from Clean House, Trish Suhr brings her brassy, warm, and brutally honest comedic style to the intimate stage of the Largo at the Coronet in Los Angeles on Saturday, December 20, 2025, at 8:00 PM. This is not your grandma’s Christmas show; prepare for an evening of side-splitting stand-up as Trish shares her hilarious, unfiltered takes on Southern holiday chaos, family dysfunction, and the joys and horrors of the festive season.

Desert Films
2025-12-13 14:00 - 17:00, 2025-12-12 20:00 - 22:00 | Hudson Mainstage Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, California
Oscar Nominated actor, director and writer James Franco presents a bold new work-in-progress: a surreal stage trip through fame, fantasy, and the myth of Robert Blake.
Directed by James Franco and Peter Gold.
Starring James Franco and Blaine Kern III.
Special performance by Beth Grant.

Stereophonic
2025-12-13 14:00 - 17:00, 2025-12-12 20:00 - 23:00, 2025-12-11 19:30 - 22:30, 2025-12-10 19:30 - 22:30 | Hollywood Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd. Wayne McWorter (213)365-3500, Hollywood, CA, 90028.0

TYT 5
2025-12-13 12:30 - 13:30 | The Broadwater, 1076 Lillian Way, Los Angeles, California, 90038.0
TYT 5 (tight five) is a play with three monologues that follow our main character “Byron Coolie” at three different points in his life (about ten years apart). “Byron Coolie” is a well-traveled aspiring comedian with a wealth of experiences to pull from. Each monologue is sandwiched between 5-minute stand-up sets that progress through time and place as he finds his footing as a comedian.
The term tight five refers to a comedian’s short performance set used to communicate his life’s perspectives in the form of jokes. Because of the 5 minute time limit, a comedian may feel pressured to rush during a performance. When we rush through things, we do not take the time to be present and grasp our self worth. As a result, I chose to spell the word tight like “TYT” because it means Take Your Time. When a comedian takes his time onstage, he’s present, articulate, and much more relaxed in the face of adversity. The word “tight” also implies stiffness or strain. In contrast, “TYT” implies a sense of openness and relief. I analogize this to life. Instead of rushing to be somebody, we should take our time to enjoy the person we are. We should take a TYT 5 and not a tight five.

Women Crush Wednesdays with Marcella Arguello
2025-12-12 20:30 - 22:00 | Hollywood Improv, 8162 Melrose Ave, Hollywood, California, 90046.0
The comedy show Women Crush Wednesdays with Marcella Arguello is a highly anticipated and essential fixture in the Los Angeles comedy scene, curated and mercilessly hosted by Salvadoran-American stand-up Marcella Arguello. Known for her fearless, commanding stage presence and a comedic style that expertly blends self-deprecating humor about her height (6’2″), her Latinx identity, and sharp takes on race and gender, Arguello ensures this is one of the best-curated shows in the city. Originally started by Arguello to combat the lack of female representation in comedy lineups, this show (scheduled for Wednesday, December 17, 2025, at 8:30 PM at the Hollywood Improv in Los Angeles, CA) features a diverse rotation of national headliners and the brightest up-and-comers, delivering a truly funny and unmissable experience.

Jazz Legends: MIKE STERN QUINTET | with Leni Stern (guitar, ngoni & vocals), Bob Franceschini (saxophone), Janek Gwizdala (bass) and Dennis Chambers (drums)
2025-12-12 20:30 - 22:00 | Catalina Jazz Club, 6725 W. Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, California, 90028.0
The Jazz Legends: MIKE STERN QUINTET concert, featuring the all-star lineup of Mike Stern (guitar), Leni Stern (guitar, ngoni & vocals), Bob Franceschini (saxophone), Janek Gwizdala (bass), and Dennis Chambers (drums), is scheduled for two nights at the Catalina Jazz Club in Hollywood, California: Friday, December 12, 2025, at 8:30 PM, and Saturday, December 13, 2025, at 8:30 PM. Mike Stern is a six-time Grammy nominee and one of the most esteemed electric guitarists of his generation, known for his electrifying fusion style that blends sophisticated jazz harmonies with blistering rock-fusion firepower, a sound forged through partnerships with legends like Miles Davis and Jaco Pastorius. This quintet is a powerhouse of contemporary jazz and fusion, with each member being a leader in their own right; Dennis Chambers is a renowned drummer known for his technical virtuosity and deep groove, while Leni Stern’s inclusion adds an element of African influence with her ngoni playing, ensuring a night of high-level musicianship and improvisational excellence.

Shlohmo
2025-12-12 20:00 - 22:30 | Hollywood Forever
Shlohmo is an American musician, producer, and visual artist from Los Angeles widely recognized as a pivotal figure in the LA beat scene and a founder of the influential WEDIDIT Records collective. His unique and experimental production style fuses elements from far-ranging genres, including lo-fi abstract hip-hop, ambient music, shoegaze, doom metal, and dark R&B, creating a signature sound that is often described as melancholic, atmospheric, and highly textured, earning him a reputation as a leading lo-fi bedroom producer. Shlohmo’s work often evolves between projects: his critically acclaimed debut album, Bad Vibes (2011), established his lo-fi aesthetic; 2015’s Dark Red expanded his sound with heavier, distorted, and more industrial rock and metal tones; and 2019’s The End explored an apocalyptic, nihilistic soundscape. Beyond his solo albums, Shlohmo has gained significant commercial recognition for his production and remix work with mainstream artists, including Jeremih (on the acclaimed No More EP), Banks, Post Malone, and Joji.

RAMONES X
2025-12-12 19:00 - 23:30 | Troubadour, 9081 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, California
The phrase “RAMONES X” most often refers to a collaboration or special edition release associated with the legendary punk rock band The Ramones, rather than a specific album or song title. The Roman numeral ‘X’ (meaning ten) is not an official album title in their discography, but the letter ‘X’ is commonly used in marketing to denote a collaboration or cross-over product. For example, the band has frequently partnered with merchandise companies for limited-edition items, such as The Ramones X Globe Skateboards collaboration, which produced a special, limited-edition box set of skate decks featuring the iconic band members. In general music contexts, the “X” could also refer to one of the various 40th Anniversary Deluxe Editions of their early albums (like the 2016 reissue of their debut album, Ramones), or the recent “1! 2! 3! 4! The Ramones Atmos Collection” Blu-ray set of their first four albums, which are limited-run, high-end releases that celebrate their groundbreaking influence on the punk genre.

Holiday Soirée & Cabaret’ stars Imani Branch & Friends
2025-12-12 19:00 - 23:30 | The Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Ave, Los Angeles, CA, 90029, United States
Get into the holiday spirit at The Fountain Theatre with a three-night Holiday Soirée & Cabaret celebrating theater, music and community. The centerpiece of this festive series will be the Holiday Soirée on Friday, Dec. 12, featuring a live 2026 season announcement, a sparkling cabaret performance by Imani Branch & Friends, and a lively raffle and reception designed to bring together artists, patrons and friends. Following the Soirée, Imani Branch & Friends return for two additional Holiday Cabaret performances on Saturday and Sunday.
A graduate of Howard University, Branch is a triple threat whose credits include the Helen Hayes nominated ensemble of Dominique Morisseau’s Blood at the Root at Theatre Alliance at Anacostia and productions of Passing Strange and Rent, both at the Tony nominated Signature Theatre. A dazzling star who breathes life and story into every musical number, she’s a larger-than-life talent boasting a captivating stage presence and fiercely soulful musical power.

Strung Out
2025-12-12 19:00 - 23:00 | The Roxy, 9009 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, California
Strung Out is an influential American melodic skate punk band formed in 1989 in Simi Valley, California, best known for pioneering a unique, technically demanding style that fuses the high-speed drumming and energy of punk rock with the complex, precise guitar solos and compositional structures of heavy metal and progressive rock. The band, featuring vocalist Jason Cruz and guitarists Jake Kiley and Rob Ramos, was one of the first groups signed to the renowned punk label Fat Wreck Chords and played a pivotal role in shaping the sound of ’90s skate and melodic hardcore. Albums like Twisted by Design (1998) and An American Paradox (2002) are considered seminal works in the genre, characterized by aggressive lyrical themes, technical virtuosity, and a relentless, dual-guitar attack that has maintained their reputation as one of the most respected and powerful bands in the punk rock community.

"BABALU AYE" Celebrate Dia de San Lazaro with LAZARO GALARRAGA & Sitara Son
2025-12-12 19:00 - 23:00 | Catalina Jazz Club, 6725 W. Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, California, 90028.0
The event “BABALU AYE” Celebrate Dia de San Lazaro with LAZARO GALARRAGA & Sitara Son is a special cultural and musical celebration focused on Afro-Cuban traditions, scheduled for Thursday, December 11, 2025, at 8:30 PM at the Catalina Jazz Club in Hollywood. The evening honors the Día de San Lázaro, a significant day in the Afro-Cuban religion of Santería (Yoruba tradition) dedicated to the Orisha Babalú Ayé, who is syncretized with Saint Lazarus. The celebration is led by Lázaro Galarraga, a highly respected Master Drummer and Vocalist who is a pillar of the Afro-Cuban music tradition, alongside the band Sitara Son. Attendees can expect a vibrant, authentic performance of Afro-Cuban folkloric music and Rumba, featuring traditional rhythms and chants that connect to the rich spiritual and musical history of Cuba.

GOLDENEYE
2025-12-12 19:00 - 21:30 | American Cinematheque at Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, California
When a powerful satellite system falls into the hands of Alec Trevelyan, AKA Agent 006 (Sean Bean), a former ally-turned-enemy, only James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) can save the world from an awesome space weapon that — in one short pulse — could destroy the earth! As Bond squares off against his former compatriot, he also battles Trevelyan’s stunning ally, Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen), an assassin who uses pleasure as her ultimate weapon.

Orgy, Dead Girls Corp, Desperate Measures, Valea, Shark in the Water, Marintha, Speak of the Devil
2025-12-12 19:00 - 21:00 | Whisky A-Go-Go, 8901 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, California
Headlining the show is Orgy, the iconic Los Angeles band best known for pioneering a unique style they call “Death Pop,” which fuses Industrial Rock, Electronic Rock, Alternative Metal, and Goth/Synth-Rock into a dark, cinematic, and highly influential sound, especially famous for their hit cover of New Order’s “Blue Monday.” They are supported by Dead Girls Corp, a high-energy industrial/goth band from Las Vegas often associated with the dark wave and metal scenes; Desperate Measures, a hard rock or metal band; and the lineup is rounded out by several emerging acts from the local Los Angeles rock and metal circuit, including Valea, Shark in the Water, Marintha, and Speak of the Devil, promising a full evening of guitar-driven, aggressive music.

Ben Folds – Tis the Season
2025-12-11 21:30 - 23:30, 2025-12-11 19:00 - 21:00 | Blue Note Jazz Club
Ben Folds is widely regarded as one of the major music influencers of our generation.
The Emmy-nominated singer-songwriter-composer has created an enormous body of genre-bending music that includes pop albums with Ben Folds Five, multiple solo albums, and numerous collaborative records.
His latest pop solo album What Matters Most was released in 2023 to rave reviews and sold-out performances. He recently released his first Christmas album Sleigher in time for the 2024 holiday season, and recently record a LIVE album with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in DC slated for release in 2025.
He currently tours as a pop artist, while also performing with some of the world’s greatest symphony orchestras and serving in his 8th year as the first ever Artistic Advisor to the NSO. In his role as Artistic Advisor, Folds curates an ongoing concert series called “Declassified: Ben Folds Presents,” which pairs contemporary artists from all genres of music with the NSO.
A New York Times Best Selling author and former podcast host, Ben is also working on new compositions for film, tv and theatre. He also frequently guest stars in films and TV.
In 2022, Ben launched a music education charitable initiative in his native state of North Carolina entitled “Keys For Kids,” which provides funds and keyboards to existing nonprofits that offer free or affordable piano lessons to school-age children from economically-disadvantaged households. And he continually advocates for improving public policies for the arts and arts education on the national level as a member of Americans For The Arts and the Arts Action Fund.

Marlon Funaki
2025-12-11 19:00 - 23:30 | Troubadour, 9081 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, California
Marlon Funaki is a fast-rising American solo artist, singer-songwriter, and self-taught multi-instrumentalist from Highland, California, known for his unique, genre-defying sound which he describes as Alt Rock Jazz Fusion and is often classified as Indie Pop Psych. Born in 2001, Funaki is a prolific and hands-on artist, as he writes, creates, mixes, and masters all of his own work, with a powerful voice that implements an alternative rock vocal style over complex, jazzy/psychedelic guitar playing that he has cultivated since his start in a middle school jazz band. His diverse heritage (Japanese and Mexican American) informs his expansive perspective, and he has rapidly gained momentum through his 2022 debut album, Monterey Village, and his compelling live performances, which attract an energetic yet calming audience and have led to major opportunities like opening for country artist Billy Currington and being named Luck Reunion’s “Artist on the Rise” in 2025.

Nicole Travolta is Doing Alright
2025-12-11 19:00 - 21:30 | Hudson Mainstage Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, California
Bad with money, great with a (spray) gun.

Theo Croker
2025-12-10 21:30 - 23:00, 2025-12-10 19:00 - 21:00 | Blue Note Jazz Club
Theo Croker is a storyteller who speaks through his trumpet. A creative who refuses boundaries, the GRAMMY Award-nominated artist, composer, producer, thought leader, and influencer projects his voice through the music. After seven years of sojourn in Shanghai, Croker crash-landed with a simmering original sound on the 2014 Dee Dee Bridgewater-assisted album “Afro Physicist”. Following the success of “Escape Velocity” in 2016, he ascended to a new stratosphere with “Star People Nation” in 2019. The record garnered a nomination in the category of “Best Contemporary Instrumental Album” at the 62nd GRAMMY Awards. It attracted widespread critical acclaim including The New York Times who called it “an album that gallivants from swirling, left-field hip-hop beats to propellant swing to entrancing passages of African percussion. Through it all, Croker’s understated trumpet playing holds his small band together with swagger and poise.” Along the way, he also lent his sound to platinum selling albums by everyone from J. Cole to Ari Lennox while touring his band across the globe many times over. In 2020, he hunkered down at his childhood home in the midst of the Global Pandemic and wrote his sixth full-length album, “BLK2LIFE || A FUTURE PAST” [Sony Music Masterworks]. BLK2LIFE || A FUTURE PAST is a contemporary oratorio inspired by the forgotten hero’s journey of becoming through the universal origins of blackness. On the record, Theo unpacks moments of heroism, trials, tribulations, awakenings, and apotheosis within a musical pastiche brought to life by a myriad of fellow cultural renegades and threaded together by his playing. Traditions of the past, foundations in the present, & explorations of the future. A sonic celebration & reclamation of Afro-origin. BLK2THEFUTURE

Double Booked: Two Solo Shows in Development
2025-12-10 20:00 - 23:00 | The Broadwater, 1076 Lillian Way, Los Angeles, California, 90038.0
Kimchi and Chaos
Written and performed by Vickie Hayley
Directed by Barri Tsavaris
Grab your chopsticks and your selfie stick! It’s time for Vickie’s expat fever dream…. the one where she accidentally became a South Korean D-list talk-show celebrity. Between chaotic TV gigs, first-ever stand-up sets, puking up birthday cakes, eating bugs, and getting saved by the mafia, Vickie spends the whole show trying to answer one question: What in Seoul was she doing?
Every day was a K-drama, crisis, or both.
Vickie produces and hosts the show Punchline Playground every other Monday at State Social House. Follow Vickie @VickieComedyFarewell to Dicks
Written & Performed by Sarah Albritton
Directed by Jenn O’Brien
After her most recent relationship with a man ended horribly, Sarah realized something big: she’s is no longer attracted to men! In this darkly funny and deeply honest solo show, Sarah highlights the red flags she missed, says goodbye to all the dicks from her past, and discovers her sapphic side. (Trigger warning DV).
Sarah’s first solo show, Awake and Narcoleptic, was a Playbill Pick of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and a selection for the IMPAACT program at Curtis Theatee in Brea, CA. She hosts the podcast Sleeping with Sarah and performs all around Los Angeles. Follow Sarah @SarahAlbritton

A KRITZERLAND CELEBRATION! A 15th Anniversary, Birthday and Book Release Party!
2025-12-10 19:00 - 23:30 | Catalina Jazz Club, 6725 W. Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, California, 90028.0
The event A KRITZERLAND CELEBRATION! is a unique combination of a musical theatre revue, a book release party, and a birthday celebration for host and producer Bruce Kimmel, all taking place at the Catalina Jazz Club on Wednesday, December 10, 2025, at 8:30 PM. This 133rd edition of the popular Kritzerland series marks the show’s 15th Anniversary and serves as the official launch party for Kimmel’s latest book, Richard and Me – A Supercalifragilistic Friendship, which chronicles his close personal friendship with legendary Disney songwriter Richard Sherman. The musical program for the evening will reflect these milestones, featuring a mix of holiday songs, a “best of” the Kritzerland repertoire, and a special focus on the music of the Sherman Brothers, providing a celebratory and nostalgic evening for fans of musical theatre and film scores.

Teen Mortgage
2025-12-10 19:00 - 23:00 | The Roxy, 9009 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, California
Teen Mortgage is a visceral, high-energy garage-punk duo formed in Washington, D.C., in 2017, consisting of guitarist/vocalist James Guile (originally from Liverpool, UK) and hard-hitting drummer Edward Barakauskas. The band is celebrated for creating a massive sound despite their two-piece format, crossbreeding aggressive East Coast hardcore and punk with elements of garage rock and surf sleaze, all delivered with an underlying pop sensibility and a layer of sonic fuzz. Guile’s caustic riffs and sneering vocals pair with lyrics that rage against what he calls “the absurdity of living in the era of late stage capitalism and tech feudalism,” a sentiment perfectly captured by their name, which references “death pledge” (the Latin root of “mortgage”) and the financial plight of young adults. They have built a reputation for rowdy, intense live shows that leave “no room for apathy” and have led to support slots with acts like The Chats and Mike Krol.

The Deadicated Project (Tribute to The Grateful Dead)
2025-12-10 19:00 - 22:30 | Whisky A-Go-Go, 8901 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, California
The Deadicated Project is an active, professional tribute band dedicated to performing the music of the legendary American rock band The Grateful Dead. Unlike bands that merely cover the songs, the Deadicated Project focuses on authentically recreating the improvisational experience and psychedelic energy of a live Grateful Dead show, which is a key characteristic of the original band’s enduring appeal. They are known for performing extended jams, complex transitions, and varied setlists that pull from The Dead’s vast catalog, encompassing genres like rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, and country. The band is a prominent fixture in the West Coast music scene, frequently performing at iconic venues that host rock and tribute nights, such as the Whisky A Go Go, where they are often featured alongside other tribute acts, and they draw a loyal following of “Deadheads” looking to relive the magic of the original band’s live performances.
