If your New Year’s resolution includes more art and culture (and even if it doesn’t), you’re in luck. The exciting offerings in January span a variety of disciplines: art, architecture, music, film, theater, and stage. Here are some of our staff’s recommendations for a robust month of enriching arts and entertainment. Mark your calendar, and we’ll see you around the desert!
Photo: The city of Palm Desert’s Art Documentary Film Series starts a new season Jan. 17 with a screening of Desert X: Land Art at the Edge of the City at UCR Palm Desert. Above: Doug Aitken’s Mirage, photograph by Steven Biller.
ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN
ART OF REUSE: Scraps: Fashion, Textiles, and Creative Reuse closes Jan. 14 at the Palm Springs Art Museum Architecture and Design Center in downtown Palm Springs. The exhibition presents three designers’ alternative approaches to the high human and environmental costs of textile industry waste. Info
DESIGN OF THE TIMES: Christopher Hawthorne, chief design officer for the city of Los Angeles and former architecture critic at the Los Angeles Times, lectures Jan. 24 at Annenberg Theater in a program presented by Palm Springs Art Museum’s Architecture and Design Council. Info
WALKER GUEST HOUSE: Tour a replica of the Paul Rudolph’s Walker Guest House, an icon of Sarasota modernism, in downtown Palm Springs through March 2020. Info
FILM
FILM FEST: The 30th edition of the Palm Springs International Film Festival rolls Jan. 3-14, featuring hundreds of screenings, as well as parties, moderated filmmaker conversations, and other programming at multiple venues in Palm Springs. This year’s honorees include Glenn Close, Rami Malek, Melissa McCarthy, Regina King, Olivia Colman, and Spike Lee. Info
DESERT X ON FILM: The city of Palm Desert’s Art Documentary Film Series screens starts a new season Jan. 17 with a screening of Desert X: Land Art at the Edge of the City at UCR Palm Desert. It’s a great way to prepare for the second iteration of Desert X, which opens in February. Info
MUSIC
JERSEY BOYS: Go behind the music and inside the story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons in this Tony-winning true-life musical phenomenon Jan. 15-20 at McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert. The musical features the legendary top 10 hits “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Walk Like A Man,” “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” and “December, 1963 (Oh What A Night).” Info
WINNING NUMBERS: Kenny Broberg, silver medalist at the 15th annual Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, opens the International Classical Concerts of the Desert season Jan. 19 at the Rancho Mirage Public Library and Observatory. Info
THE SCORE: Coachella Valley Symphony presents The Best of Stage & Screen Jan. 20 at the Annenberg Theater, located at Palm Springs Art Museum. Info
THEATER & STAGE
BRIGHTON BEACH MEMOIRS: Navigating puberty and the Great Depression in a cramped Brooklyn apartment full of family members is where we find Eugene in Neil Simon’s semi-autobiographical coming-of-age comedy, presented by Desert TheatreWorks Jan. 1-27 at Indio Performing Arts Center. Info
PERFECT ARRANGEMENT: Two State Department employees are tasked with identifying sexual deviants within their ranks. But both are gay, and have married each other’s partners as a carefully constructed cover. Michael Shaw directs the play, presented by Dezart Performs Jan. 11-20 at Pearl McManus Theater at the Palm Springs Woman’s Club. Info
GUYS AND DOLLS: The lives of a couple of big-city gamblers and the women who love them overlap in this Depression-era Times Square, Jan. 18-Feb. 10 at Palm Canyon Theatre. Info
WHITE: A young artist trying to get into a major contemporary art museum hires a woman to claim his work. This audacious comedy, presented by CV Rep Jan. 23-Feb. 17 at The Atrium in Rancho Mirage, boldly takes on racism, sexism, and other isms. Info
THE WIZARD OF OZ: There truly is no place like home as the greatest family musical of all time, twists its way into Palm Desert. Travel down the Yellow Brick Road and beyond with Dorothy, Toto and their friends the Cowardly Lion, Tin Man and Scarecrow in this lavish production Jan. 25-27 at McCallum Theatre. Info
VISUAL ART
ART FAIRE: Desert Mountains Art Faire is set for Jan. 5 at the Santa Rosa & San Jacinto Mountains National Monument Visitor Center on Highway 74 in Palm Desert. Offerings include photography, paintings, ceramics, and hand-painted silks. Info
SOUTHWEST ARTS FESTIVAL: This year’s festival, Jan. 24-27 at Empire Polo Club in Indio, features interactive art displays and live music, with pottery, glass and fine art painting scheduled to be on display. Info
SAM FRANCIS: From Dust to Dawn, a 40-year survey exhibition of paintings and works on paper by the acclaimed California artist, is on view at Heather James Fine Art in Palm Desert through April 29, 2019. Info
UNSETTLED: This sweeping exhibition (through April 30, 2019) at Palm Springs Art Museum features more than 75 artists living or working in the Greater West, including Ed Ruscha, Gerard Murillo, Sonia Falcone, Ana Teresa Fernández, Edgar Arceneaux, Andrea Zittel, Nicholas Galanin, Georgia O’Keeffe, Agnes Pelton, and Phillip K. Smith III. Info
FLIGHT PLAN: The Birds of Sunnylands exhibits 52 photos of the more than 130 species of birds that migrate here every year, all photographed at Sunnylands Center & Gardens in Rancho Mirage over the past two years by wildlife photographer and ornithologist Tim Laman. Info
LINES IN THE SAND: The exhibition at Palm Springs Art Museum explores the history of the desert through for themes: land, light, people, and place. It features highlights from the museum’s collections of indigenous art, depictions of the California desert through painting and photography, and contemporary art inspired by the physical and cultural environment of the state. Info
