WEEKEND FORECAST

TODAY

THEATER

Each has a story to tell

“The Moth,” New York’s literary storytelling show, opens a 10-city tour in L.A. with performances by comedian Margaret Cho, hip-hop pioneer Darryl “DMC” McDaniels, “Sex and the City” writer and executive producer Cindy Chupack, author Jonathan Ames, retired New York police Lt. Steve Osborne and humorist Andy Borowitz. Participants spin tales around a predetermined theme. The tour’s theme: “Out on a Limb.” (Story, Page 16)

“The Moth,” Royce Hall, UCLA, 10745 Dickson Plaza, Westwood. 8 tonight. $25 to $35. (310) 825-2101. www.themoth.org

MUSIC

Gergiev keeps busy

The 17-day Mariinsky Festival at the Orange County Performing Arts Center continues with a Shostakovich orchestral program and Mussorgsky’s mighty opera “Boris Godunov.” Tonight, Valery Gergiev conducts the Kirov Orchestra in Shostakovich’s Symphonies Nos. 12 and 14 and Piano Concerto No. 1, with Alexander Toradze as the soloist. The inexhaustible Gergiev also will lead the Kirov Opera in four performances of “Boris” over three days, beginning Friday. There will be two different casts.

Mariinsky Festival, Kirov Orchestra, Segerstrom Concert Hall, 8 tonight. $40 to $95. (714) 556-2787. www.ocpac.org

* “Boris Godunov,” 7:30 p.m. Friday $50 to $220. Also 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday.

ART

Recycling a notion

The group show “Cardboard” looks back to the early 1970s, when the

ordinary material was a popular medium among artists. On view are examples from a collaborative project between Frank Gehry, Jack Brogan and Robert Irwin that demonstrated how corrugated cardboard could be made into well-crafted, stylish furniture. Sculptural and collage works constructed from industrial refuse by Guy Dill and Robert Rauschenberg will also be on display.

“Cardboard,” Bobbie Greenfield Gallery, Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave., B6, Santa Monica. Opens today. (310) 264-0640.

* Hours: 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Ends Nov. 22.

FRIDAY

EVENTS

The fun that is Pasadena

The inaugural Pasadena Art Weekend will incorporate both new and established events. Several Pasadena cultural institutions, including the Armory Center for the Arts, Pacific Asia Museum and Norton Simon Museum, will be open Friday night as part of Pasadena ArtNight. The Pasadena ArtWalk, featuring hundreds of art pieces, strolling musicians, performance artists and other attractions, and the Latino History Parade and Jamaica Festival, with music, dance and authentic Latin food, are slated for Saturday. The Pasadena ArtMarket, featuring work from emerging artists, happens Sunday. Best of all, the events will be free.

* Pasadena ArtNight, free shuttle service between various Pasadena cultural institutions, 6 to 10 p.m. Friday.

* Pasadena ArtWalk, 600 to 700 block of East Colorado Boulevard, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday.

* Latino History Parade and Jamaica Festival: The parade will begin at 11 a.m. Saturday and go south on Los Robles Avenue from Howard Street and then east on Washington Boulevard to Washington Park, where the festival runs from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

* ArtMarket, One Colorado, Colorado Boulevard between De Lacey and Fair Oaks avenues, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.

(800) 307-7977; www.pasadenaartweekend.com

POP MUSIC

The hour of the wolves

If any band can claim to be this city’s pop music institution, it’s Los Lobos, whose wide-ranging, culture-spanning music has always exhibited deep roots and a high reach. Their new album, “The Town and the City,” is one of their best and will form a good portion of the career retrospective they’ll present at Disney Hall. This being a hometown show, you can also listen for rarely played songs and surprise guests.

Los Lobos, Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles. 8 p.m., Friday. $33 to $85. (323) 850-2000.

MOVIES

A campaign for laughs

What if Jon Stewart ran for president? Not going to happen, you say? Barry Levinson’s “Man of the Year” imagines just such a scenario, with Robin Williams as Tom Dobbs, a Stewart-like, wittily straightforward talk-show host who jokingly enters the race, cracking wise on the campaign trail. But things take an increasingly serious turn when Laura Linney, as an electronic voting system analyst, discovers a possible glitch. With Christopher Walken as Dobbs’ wryly blunt manager.

“Man of the Year” opens Friday in general release. Rated PG-13 for language, including some crude sexual references, drug-related material and brief violence.

MUSEUMS

Due for exposure

When the Norton Simon Museum was still known as the Pasadena Art Museum, the institution established a photography department devoted to contemporary works. A large portion of the collection, established during the late 1960s through ‘70s, is on view for the first time in “The Collectible Moment: Photographs in the Norton Simon Museum,” which surveys more than 150 photographs by more than 100 artists, including Ansel Adams, Robert Flick and Ruth Bernhard.

“The Collectible Moment: Photographs in the Norton Simon Museum,” Norton Simon Museum, 411 W. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. Opens Friday. $4 to $8; 18 and younger, free. (626) 449-6840.

* Hours: noon to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, except noon to 9 p.m. Friday. Ends Feb. 26.

SATURDAY

EVENTS

Get a read on festival

Edward James Olmos and Latino Literacy Now present the 10th Annual Los Angeles Latino Book and Family Festival. The event aims to promote literacy, education and culture in a festival atmosphere. Tommy Chong, Al Martinez, Jorge Argueta, Yasmin Davidds, Lara Rios, Sam Quinones, Rafael Colon and Maria Enriquez are just some of the writers and authors who will be on hand. Also, live entertainment, art, theater, exhibits and children’s activities will be featured.

Los Angeles Latino Book & Family Festival, Pomona Fairplex, 1101 W. McKinley Ave., Pomona. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday. Free. (760) 434-4484.

* Also Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

DANCE

Mambo and much more

Tina Ramirez’s New York-based Ballet Hispanico continues to be

a national treasure, and the company’s Saturday engagement promises more of the sensuality

and intensity the company always delivers. “Features I” repackages four sizzling duets by Spanish choreographer Ramon Oller. In contrast, the large-scale “Palladium Suite” emphasizes mambo madness, with choreography by

Willie Rosario and

music recorded by the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra. Finally, if you really want to boogie, come Friday

(a night early) for free salsa lessons with Hispanico dancers starting at 7 p.m.

Ballet Hispanico, Luckman Fine Arts Complex, Cal State L.A., 5151 State University Drive, L.A., 8 p.m. Saturday. $35 to $40. (323) 343-6600. www.luckmanarts.org

SUNDAY

JAZZ

Terrific music by the block

Central Avenue was alive with jazz in the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s -- a scene overflowing with nightclubs, bistros and jam sessions comparable to the best of Harlem, Chicago, Kansas City, etc. In “Live on Central Avenue,” saxophonist-flutist-composer Buddy Collette, a regular on the scene, revives those glorious years with a performance by his Alumni Jazz Big Band. Also on the bill, entertaining jazz vocalists Ernie Andrews and Barbara Morrison, as well as the talented young players of the Orange County High School for the Arts Black Note Trio. Narrator Michael Dolphin will add commentary illuminating the avenue’s fabled history.

“Live on Central Avenue,” the Ford Amphitheatre, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. E., Hollywood, 7 p.m. Sunday. $20; children, $12. (323) 461-3673.

JAZZ

A pianist with range

Pianist Jessica Williams’ performances in the Southland are rare enough to be considered special events. Williams, whose style reaches easily from intimate balladry to powerfully rhythmic bebop, is particularly adept at interpreting the music of Thelonious Monk, which will be featured in one of her two sets at the David Abell Jazz Salon. Appearances also include question-and-answer sessions with the performers.

Jessica Williams, the David L. Abell Memorial Jazz Salon, the Lenart Auditorium at the Fowler Museum on the UCLA north campus, Westwood, 1 p.m. Sunday. $18; students, $9. (310) 206-3269.

WEDNESDAY

THEATER

Delusions of grandeur

Judy Kaye reprises her Broadway performance in Stephen Temperley’s play with music, “Souvenir, a Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins,” about a would-be opera singer who became a cult sensation in the 1930s and ‘40s, told through the memory of Jenkins’ longtime pianist, Cosme McMoon (played by Donald Corren). Jenkins, a wealthy, eccentric socialite, was convinced that she was a great coloratura soprano, despite all evidence to the contrary.

“Souvenir, a Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins,” Brentwood Theatre, 11301 Wilshire Blvd., Brentwood. Opens 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. $35 to $60. (213) 365-3500. www.BrentwoodTheatre.com

* Runs 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays to Thursdays, except dark Oct. 31; 8 p.m. Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays; ends Nov. 12.

BOOKS

Getting it right

Silver Lake writer Janet Fitch’s first book, “White Oleander,” was the kind of runaway success most writers, much less debut novelists, only dream about: an Oprah-minted bestseller that was also made into a movie with Michelle Pfeiffer and Alison Lohman. Her follow-up, “Paint It Black,” didn’t come easy (Fitch had another book written and at the publisher’s before she decided to trash it and start “Paint It Black”), but the novel set in ‘80s punk Los Angeles has been well received. Fitch discusses her books with fellow Angeleno writer Rachel Resnick.

Aloud presents Janet Fitch, the Mark Taper Auditorium at the Central Library, 630 W. 5th St., L.A. 7 p.m. Wednesday. Free; reservations required. (213) 228-7025.