Best Bets / FEBRUARY 14-20, 1999

Movies

“October Sky” tells the true story of Homer Hickam Jr., who escaped a harsh life as a coal miner when he turned his attention to the skies. Jake Gyllenhaal, above left, and Chris Cooper star in the film, which opens in general release on Friday.

Theater

Loretta Devine and Vickilyn Reynolds reprise their New York roles in L.A. Theatre Works’ live radio theater production of George C. Wolfe’s comic take on race in America, “The Colored Museum.” Also featuring Charlie Robinson, it will be performed Wednesday through next Sunday at the Skirball Cultural Center.

*

Sherry Glaser, who won much acclaim for her long-running solo tour de force “Family Secrets,” returns to the stage with “Oh My Goddess!” A man searches for the meaning of life and channels the return of the Great Goddess in Glaser’s new one-woman show, which opens Thursday at Highways.

Art

From its origins in Ghana and Togo to its adoption by the Pan African movement in the 1950s and ‘60s, to decorative garments worn today, kente cloth, above on “Akan, The Royal Bear,” has a history as rich and complex as the weaving itself. “Wrapped in Pride: Ghanaian Kente and African American Identity,” which explores the role of kente through the present, opens today at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History.

Music

Music director Hans Vonk brings his Saint Louis Symphony to the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts on Thursday in a program listing Berlioz’s “Roman Carnival” Overture, the Grieg Piano Concerto (with Garrick Ohlsson as soloist) and Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony. It is the Dutch conductor’s first local appearance.

Dance

A pioneer in the development of folklore-ballet, Russian choreographer Igor Alexandrovich Moiseyev recently turned 93, just before his ever-youthful Moiseyev Dance Company began touring the United States. Watch for “Partisans,” “Hopak” and other repertory favorites on Saturday and next Sunday at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts.

Pop Music

How to celebrate four Grammy nominations the weekend before the big night? Kirk Franklin, who has jolted the gospel world with a dose of contemporary attitude, brings his Nu Nation Tour to the Universal Amphitheatre, where he’ll be joined by CeCe Winans, Trin-I-Tee 5:7, the Family and 1NC.

Jazz

When one thinks of jazz-influenced cabaret singers, the name of Bobby Short, above, comes immediately to mind. Performing mostly standards from the 1930s through the ‘50s, the pianist-vocalist brings an orchestra to Catalina’s for six nights starting Tuesday.

Video

Robert Towne wrote and directed “Without Limits,” a thoughtful, compelling drama starring Billy Crudup as the legendary American long distance runner Steve Prefontaine and Donald Sutherland as his coach Bill Bowerman. The film races into stores Tuesday.