Guitarist Pat Metheny is no stranger to academia, but after becoming a professional jazz guitarist at age 14, homework and grades were never a priority to Metheny. Read more...

The documentary film genre demands a more sophisticated approach for a new age. “The standard concept of biography in film hasn’t changed that much in 100 years,” said Rani Singh, film curator at the J. Read more...

She’s not an accountant secretly pushing screenplays in between coffee breaks. For a resident in the city of broken dreams, the young Sara Bareilles has been experiencing a considerable amount of success and recognition. Read more...

Los Angeles can be a tough diamond to cut. “The music scene has seemed kind of opaque so far,” said Hrishikesh Hirway of Connecticut band The One AM Radio. Read more...

Twisting the expectations of genre, the Mark Taper Forum’s new production of the musical “Big River ““ The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” aims, at least in part, to fall on deaf ears. Read more...

In the short video “Upside Down,” an older woman makes makloubeh, a traditional Palestinian food dish. The last shot shows the completed product: separate and distinct layers of chicken, rice and vegetables piled on each other, but combined to form something bigger than its individual parts.  Similarly, the widely-varying world of Arab video shorts piles up into a more complete vision of Arab society. Read more...

Comedies and spoofs are central on this year’s menu of UCLA’s theater department play series. Kicking off their 2002-2003 series, third-year master of fine art students in the theater department present Christopher Durang’s “The Marriage of Bette and Boo” and Caryl Churchill’s “Cloud Nine,” directed by professors Larry Arrick and April Shawhan, respectively, starting tonight and running through Nov. Read more...