Culture Vulture is Laemmle Theatres’ ongoing invitation to experience world-class art, performance, and cultural storytelling on the big screen and with an audience at your side. Curated from across the ballet, opera, theatre, fine art, and documentary landscapes, this series brings exceptional works to the Laemmle Glendale, Monica, and Town Center locations on Saturday and Sunday mornings at 10:00 a.m. and Monday evenings at 7:00 p.m.
Below are four upcoming National Theatre Live presentations, each exploring the intersections of power, identity, ambition, and performance in strikingly different ways:
Returning to cinemas for the first time in over a decade, The Audience offers a rare showcase for Helen Mirren’s celebrated performance as Queen Elizabeth II, reprising the role that earned her both Olivier and Tony Awards. Written by Peter Morgan and directed by Stephen Daldry, the play imagines the monarch’s private weekly meetings with each of her twelve prime ministers, tracing the shifting political and cultural landscape of modern Britain through conversations held behind closed doors. Elegant, witty, and sharply observed, The Audience stands as a fascinating companion piece to The Crown, which later expanded upon many of the same themes for television.
The Playboy of the Western World (05/30 – 06/01)
Few plays capture the volatility of storytelling quite like John Millington Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World. Directed by Caitríona McLaughlin, this new production stars Nicola Coughlan, Éanna Hardwicke, and Siobhán McSweeney in a story that begins when a mysterious young man arrives in a rural pub claiming to have killed his father. Instead of recoiling, the local community becomes enthralled by him, transforming violence into legend almost overnight. By turns riotously funny and quietly unsettling, the play explores how charisma, fantasy, and social hunger can reshape reality itself.
All My Sons (06/13–15)
Arthur Miller’s All My Sons remains one of the great American dramas precisely because its moral questions never lose their urgency. In visionary director Ivo van Hove’s new staging, the play’s portrait of postwar prosperity becomes newly immediate, exposing the fragile foundations beneath the promise of the American dream. Bryan Cranston leads the production as Joe Keller, a businessman whose financial success masks devastating ethical compromises, alongside Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Paapa Essiedu, and Tom Glynn-Carney. Filmed live from the West End, this production emphasizes the claustrophobic tension simmering beneath family rituals and domestic normalcy, revealing how denial and self-justification can echo across generations.
Les Liaisons Dangereuses (06/27–29)
Seduction becomes strategy in Christopher Hampton’s celebrated adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Directed by Marianne Elliott, this new staging stars Lesley Manville and Aidan Turner as the calculating Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont, aristocrats who transform romance into a ruthless game of power and humiliation. Set amid the glittering salons of pre-revolutionary France, the play examines the performance of status itself, where every gesture, confession, and flirtation functions as part of a larger social battlefield. Elegant, dangerous, and psychologically incisive, the production highlights why Hampton’s adaptation remains one of the defining theatrical works of the modern era.
Culture Vulture continues to celebrate the unique power of live performance experienced collectively. Whether revisiting history through royal conversations, unraveling moral catastrophe within an American family, or plunging into worlds shaped by seduction and mythmaking, these National Theatre Live presentations bring internationally acclaimed productions directly to Los Angeles audiences, combining the thrill of theatre with the immersive scale and intimacy of cinema. Buy your tickets today and prepare to be wowed!