GO LA: Andrew Lloyd Webber, Young Frankenstein and Other Horrors

Mark Edward Harris

Featured in Month of Photography Los Angeles — MOP LA

Born to raise hell

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More About

• Oliver Sacks
• University of California-Los Angeles
• Jim Beaver
• Musicals
• Classical Music

Friday, April 17

CONVENTION

THE HORROR!

For fans of scary movies, The Fangoria Weekend of Horrorsis like the prom, Renaissance Fair and Comic-Con all in one. It’s a veritable who’s who of horror spanning three days. Those splattering tangy tales include directors Sam Raimi (Evil Dead, Spider-Man), Clive Barker (Hellraiser, Candyman), Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,Poltergeist), Herschell Gordon Lewis (Two Thousand Maniacs!, The Wizard of Gore), Tom Savini (makeup artist on Dawn of the Dead, Friday the 13th) and Lloyd Kaufman (The Toxic Avenger). But wait — there’s horror! The “Masters of Italian Horror” panel includes Italian horror master Ruggero Deodato (Cannibal Holocaust), and there’s a “Babysitter Wanted” panel. Actors on (bloodied) hand include Ron Perlman (Hellboy), Jeffrey Combs (Re-Animator) and Doug Bradley, who, if you’re still reading, you know as Hellraiser’s Pinhead. All kinds of contests, too, including a Spooks Model Contest, a Creepy Make-Up Artist Magazine Costume Contest and a Terrifying Savage Tattoo Contest — plus an attempt to break the world’s record for Zombie Walkers (Sat., April 18, 9 a.m.). L.A. Convention Center, 1201 S. Figueroa St., West Hall B, downtown, Fri., April 17, 2-8 p.m., Sat.-Sun., April 18-19, 11 a.m.-7 p.m.; $20 Fri.; $25 Sat.-Sun.; children $10. (818) 409-0960 or www.fangocon.com.  —Libby Molyneaux

COMEDY

THE NIGHTMAN COMETH

Leave it to FX’s perenially cranktasticIt’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia to push the telly-musical envelope, further shaping an entire episode around a “rock opera” with its cast of characters who usually can’t be bothered to take a spare breath when they aren’t shouting putdowns at one another. How would they stand still long enough to hit the high notes? As it turns out, the fourth-season finale, “The Nightman Cometh” (in which Charlie gets the gang to participate in a musical he shaped around the song he wrote back when Dee suspected her rapper boyfriend was handicapped ... ah, good times), was a sweetly melodic opus infused with the kind of oh-so-wrong lyrical imagery you might expect from Philly’s favorite no-goodniks. As actor Charlie Day put it in a behind-the-scenes feature on the episode, “It’s sort of like a hybrid of Al Jolson and Bell Biv Devoe, with just a little bit of Aaron Copeland and a dash of Yanni.” If you missed it when it aired or simply can’t get enough of the “Nightman” magic, the entire cast performs it in It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia LIVE at the Troubadour. If you managed to score tickets, get there early so you can sit close enough to see Danny DeVito in his troll outfit, and be ready to sing along with “It’s Nature, Shit Happens.” The Troubadour, 9081 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood; Fri.-Sat., April 17-18, 8 p.m.; $20. (310) 276-6168. —Nicole Campos

LET THEM EAT ROCKS

When Zorba’s more formally educated boss despairs at the hardscrabble reality of death and living, Nikos Kazantzakis’ wily wiseman starts to dance, advising that in the face of overwhelming emotion, when words are inadequate, the only thing to do is dance. Choreographers Paula Present and Marie Bergenholtz don’t directly draw on Zorba in Eating Rocks for Hunger, but they share the underlying sentiment about the power of dance in the face of devastating circumstances. In preparing for this premiere, Present and Bergenholtz turned to contemporary examples that include an Iraqi ballet school continuing to nurture young dancers amid the ongoing war, and a cancer patient confronting her disease by dancing through the hospital corridors. This dance work also involves contributions from composers Hanna Levy and Ariel A. Blumenthal, as well as Madeline Leavitt, artistic director of Voices Carry Inc. As the country and the globe suffer the consequences of greedy minds left unsupervised, dance won’t replace unemployment benefits, but Eating Rocks for Hunger is a reminder of the power of dance to heal, or at least aid survival until better times. Miles Memorial Playhouse, 1130 Lincoln Blvd., Santa Monica; Fri.-Sat., April 17-18 & 24-25, 8 p.m.; Sun., April 19 & 26, 7:30 p.m.; $20; $10 seniors & students. (800) 838-3006 or www.brownpapertickets.com/event/55361.—Ann Haskins

Saturday, April 18

EVENT

IT’S LIKE HARPER’S YET COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

What is it with these new online-only magazines? Don’t they know that print’s not dead? And how am I supposed to house-train my pets with it? Furthermore, do we italicize online publications? TheRumpus.net is a new online magazine you can’t read in the places most people read magazines (the gym, the doctor’s office, um, the beach), but it looks very promising by the looks of the column topics by Bad Mommy, who asks, “Tarring and feathering your daughter’s Disney Princesses. Uncool?” The site attempts to focus on culture, “but not People magazine culture.” It has Jerry Stahl blogging about being over 50, lots of film and book reviews, and the aforementioned Bad Mommy, my new idol. The gang is throwing The Rumpus Los Angeles Launch Party, which somehow also involves Skylight Books. Appearing/reading/talking/standing around will be Aimee Bender (The Girl in the Flammable Skirt); Stahl; air-guitar champion Dan Crane; comedians Ian Harvey and Kyle Kinane; and editor Stephen Elliott. Plus, Zak Smith showing pictures of what happens on each page of Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. Steve Allen Theater, 4773 Hollywood Blvd., Hlywd.; Sat., April 18, 8 p.m.; $10. (323) 666-4268.  —L.M.