Best Bets Orange County HERE AND NEAR

TODAY

7:30 p.m.

Cabaret

Andrea Marcovicci’s early career included a stint on the daytime drama “Love Is a Many Splendored Thing,” but these days the celebrated torch singer does much of her work at night, in cabaret and concert appearances. The chanteuse returns to Orange County for an intimate evening of song.

* Founders Hall, Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Also Friday and Saturday at 7:30 and 9:45 p.m. $40-$44. (714) 556-2787.

TODAY

8:30 p.m.

Comedy

Multi-talented Richard Jeni is probably best-recognized for his role in “The Mask” as Jim Carrey’s sidekick. The Boy From New York City has also won awards and rave reviews for his HBO and Showtime specials and a Clio for some TV milk ads. Fortunately, Jeni, arguably one of the funniest comics doing stand-up, saves his best work for the stage, where his bits about gut-wrenching love songs and knuckle-dragging sloths keep audiences in fits.

* Brea Improv, 945 E. Birch St. Also 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. Friday, 8 and 10:30 p.m. Saturday and 8 p.m. Sunday. $12-$17. (714) 529-7878.

TODAY

8 p.m.

Music

Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor was once one of the most popular pieces in classical music. Maybe for that reason, it had to fall out of favor for a while so we can hear it now with ears refreshed. Pianist Garrick Ohlsson will play the lovely and appealing concerto with the St. Louis Symphony led by Hans Vonk. Now in his third season as music director of the orchestra, Vonk will also conduct Berlioz’s “Roman Carnival” Overture and Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony.

* Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive. $42-$57. ($11.50 for students.) (800) 300-4345.

FRIDAY

all day

Movies

In 1989, a scathing little high school satire called “Heathers,” starring fresh-faced young actors Winona Ryder, Christian Slater and Shannen Doherty, became a critical and sleeper hit. The similarly themed “Jawbreaker,” a wicked new comedy from writer-director Darren Stein, stars beauties Rose McGowan, Rebecca Gayheart and Julie Benz as a trio of teen queens who find themselves covering up the accidental death of one of their clique. Will “Jawbreaker” be the “Heathers” of the ‘90s? Stay tuned. (Look for Brian Warner--better known as Marilyn Manson--who has a small role.)

* “Jawbreaker,” rated R, opens Friday in general release.

FRIDAY

8 p.m.

Theater

John Steinbeck did his own stage adaptation of his novel “Of Mice and Men,” and when it opened on Broadway in 1937, it was an instant hit. People seemed to identify with the two Salinas Valley drifters who believed in and pursued the American Dream: a place to call their own. To awed critics, the Nobel Prize-winner said modestly, “It’s just a story!” But the hauntingly simple tale stands, testimony to Steinbeck’s understanding of loyal friendship and elusive pay dirt.

* South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Previews Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Opens Feb. 26. $28-$45; previews start at $18. Ends April 4. (714) 708-5555.

FRIDAY

8 p.m.

Theater

Love. Sometimes it conks you on the head, sometimes it conquers all. Both are the case in Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew,” being revived by the California Repertory Company. Headstrong lovers flirt with disaster in Shakespeare’s very pre-feminist comedy.

* Edison Theatre, 213 E. Broadway, Long Beach. 7 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday. Ends March 20. $20. (562) 432-1818.

FRIDAY

8 p.m.

Pop music

Leon Russell may be toting a guitar out from behind his more familiar keyboards for his loyal fans on his current tour: He said fans wanted to hear him make a blues record, so he’s just put one out. “Face in the Crowd” leans toward the blues and features the long-maned Leon’s guitar chops more than his piano pounding. Also on the bill is Scottie B.

* Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. $21.50-$23.50. (949) 496-8930.

SATURDAY

7:30 p.m.

Pop music

The Oregon duo of Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer has been making a name for itself amid the national folk grass-roots, with the key attractions being Carter’s story-oriented songwriting and the violin and mandolin playing of Grammer, an alumna of Laguna Hills High School. Their show re-inaugurates the Living Tradition series of monthly folk concerts, which moves to a new venue after more than a year’s hiatus. With Tintangel.

* Downtown Community Center, 250 E. Center St., Anaheim. $10. (949) 559-1419 (tickets) or (714) 765-4500 (community center).

SATURDAY

10 a.m.-4 p.m.

Architecture

Modernist architecture by important designers in Orange County? You bet. A self-driven tour organized by the Southern California chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians begins at Richard Neutra’s Mariner’s Medical Arts Building in Newport Beach, moves on to buildings by Rudolph Schindler, Frank Gehry, Bart Prince and others. The day ends at 3:15 p.m. at the Museum of Architecture in San Juan Capistrano with a lecture and audience dialogue.

* Registration between 10 and 11 a.m. at Mariner’s Medical Arts Building, 1901 Westcliff Drive, Newport Beach. Tickets: $15 in advance (call [949] 495-6009) or $20 at the door. Includes cassette tape guide. More information by e-mail: tedwells@twmn.com

SATURDAY

8 p.m.

Pop Music

Growing up in Harlem, 19-year-old Shemekia Copeland was musically out of sync with her peers and favored classic blues and soul over hip-hop. The result? A singer who’s being hailed as the next blues superstar. She’s the daughter of the late Texas blues man Johnny Clyde Copeland, and her debut album is titled “Turn the Heat Up.”

* Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. $8-$10. (949) 496-8930.

SATURDAY

10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Parade and Street Faire

The 28th annual Dana Point Festival of Whales, the city’s annual celebration of the winter migration of California’s gray whales, begins Saturday with a parade and Street Faire, and will continue weekends through March 7 with dozens of ocean-related family activities at 13 sites throughout Dana Point’s harbor and La Plaza areas. Beginning at 10 a.m., Dana the Dancing Whale will lead a parade of high school bands, antique cars and floats south along Santa Clara Avenue, then east on Violet Lantern to Pacific Coast Highway. Afterward, there’s a street fair at La Plaza with live entertainment, food and information booths, children’s activities, a petting zoo, and arts and crafts by more than 100 vendors. Street Faire will continue Sunday from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Other activities include whale and marine-life cruises, guided tide-pool walks and explorations, tours of the tall ship Pilgrim at the Orange County Marine Institute, a marine mammal lecture series, sailing excursions, art exhibits, kayaking workshops, campfire programs and little-scientists workshops.

* La Plaza is near Pacific Coast Highway and Street of the Golden Lantern. Admission to the parade and Street Faire is free. Prices for other activities run $2-$20. Many are free. Call the Dana Point Chamber of Commerce for a complete schedule, (949) 496-1555.

SATURDAY

8 p.m.

Dance

The name Moiseyev inevitably conjures up images of colorful, exciting, virtuoso displays of Russian folk dance. Now in its sixth decade, the Moiseyev Dance Company returns to the Southland for another varied theatrical program. Women sometimes seem to float across the stage as if suspended, and men vault into high jumps and spectacular scissor kicks.

* Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive. Also 7 p.m. Sunday. $11.50-$47. (800) 300-4345.

SUNDAY

4 p.m.

Music

A choir of fewer than 20 voices that, in the words of one critic, has “the resonance and richness of a choir of 50,” Chorovaya Akademia was founded in 1989 in Moscow by its director, Alexander Sedov. The choir is a male a cappella ensemble that sings traditional music of the Russian Orthodox Church as well as modern liturgical music, European choral works, and popular and folk song material. Most of the members are graduates of the Moscow or St. Petersburg conservatories.

* Founders Hall, Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. $32. (714) 556-2787.