Three-day forecast

MOVIES

Better the second time

Twenty-five years after putting down a book that was enthusiastically reviewed by the New York Times but that he couldn’t get into, Mark Moskowitz tried to read it again and loved it. His search to track down copies of “The Stones of Summer,” by then out of print, and its author, Dow Mossman, have resulted in “Stone Reader,” a documentary unraveling a literary mystery.

“Stone Reader,” unrated, opens Friday exclusively at the Landmark Nuart, 11272 Santa Monica Blvd., West L.A. (310) 478-6379.

THEATER

A staged class project

“The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow” started as playwright Rolin Jones’ class project last year as an entering grad student at the Yale School of Drama. Still more than a year from finishing school, Jones is getting a major stage premiere for the script, set in the west San Fernando Valley, where he grew up. It’s about a 22-year-old technical genius whose agoraphobia keeps her in her house in Calabasas; she designs a flying, thinking, robotic replica of herself to seek her birth mother in China.

“The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow,” South Coast Repertory’s Argyros Stage, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Opens Friday. Tuesdays to Fridays, 7:45 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays, 2 and 7:45 p.m.; ends May 18. $27 to $54. (714) 708-5555.

MUSIC

A cellist’s L.A. debut

Pieter Wispelwey is a young Dutch cellist who has been making a reputation as an “unusually imaginative artist,” in the words of Baltimore Sun critic Tim Smith, “forever rethinking music of the past and happily, incisively exploring the music of today.” He will make his Los Angeles Philharmonic debut playing Dvorak’s Cello Concerto under music director Esa-Pekka Salonen. Wispelwey replaces Truls Mork, who canceled because of a broken leg. The program also includes Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5.

Pieter Wispelwey and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A. Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2:30 p.m. $14 to $82. (323) 850-2000.

DANCE

High-energy companies

Call it the Music Center’s first Buff-Dance Festival: A weekend of two companies that take fitness to a stratospheric plateau in works drawn from a number of nontraditional movement vocabularies. On Friday and Sunday, the ever-inventive Pilobolus presents repertory old and new, including the local premiere of “The Brass Ring,” commissioned for the 2002 Winter Olympics. On Saturday, L.A.’s own high-flying Diavolo performs a greatest-hits program that includes a special version for the Music Center of “D2R B,” along with “Tombe du Ciel,” “Une Femme Cachee” and “Trajectoire” 1 and 2.”

* Ahmanson Theatre, Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A.

* Pilobolus Dance Theatre, Friday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. $25 to $55. (213) 628-2772.

* Diavolo Dance Theater, Saturday, 2 and 8 p.m. $25 to $55. (213) 628-2772.

JAZZ

‘Trane rumbles on

The jazz train of former John Coltrane associates rumbles through the Southland. Last week: drummer Elvin Jones. This week: pianist McCoy Tyner. The 64-year-old Philadelphia native first hit the big time with Benny Golson and Art Farmer’s Jazztet in the late 1950s. He worked with Coltrane from 1960 to ’65 participating in all the major recording sessions -- “Africa Brass,” “A Love Supreme” and “My Favorite Things.” Over the last 38 years, Tyner has been a major jazz figure on the outer frontiers of the music.

McCoy Tyner Trio, Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive, Cerritos. Wednesday, 8 p.m. $40 to $50. (800) 300-4345.

EVENT

Get ye to some funnery

In days of old when knights were bold, happiness was a rare commodity. Between plague, serfdom, inquisitions and raids by marauding bands of foreign and indigenous barbarians, the ordinary person’s grasp of life itself was tenuous at best. Nevertheless, the 41st annual edition of the Renaissance Pleasure Faire & Artisans Market presents its idealized vision of that time starting Saturday and running for seven weekends and Memorial Day in Devore. The fair features continuous entertainment on eight stages with 1,000 performers, more than 200 artisans, jousting contests, rides, parades and other kinds of “medieval” fun.

Renaissance Pleasure Faire & Artisans Market, Glen Helen Regional Park, 2555 Glen Helen Parkway, Devore. Saturdays and Sundays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; ends June 15. $18.50 to season pass of $75; 4 and younger free with parent. (909) 880-0122.

ART

Georgesco works sizzle

Christopher Georgesco’s latest paintings and sculptures burst with energy and explode with color. He sculpts with steel and paints with Lucite, rubber and wood to form works that suggest leaves, moonlit evenings, stained-glass windows and butterflies -- or, to some, living cells and plants. You might say that “Christopher Georgesco: New Painting & Sculpture” is a Rorschach test for a new age.

“Christopher Georgesco: New Painting & Sculpture,” Newspace, 5241 Melrose Ave., L.A. Tuesdays to Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Free. (323) 469-9353.

MUSEUMS

Branching out into look at life

The “Ceramic Trees of Life” exhibit opens at UCLA’s Fowler Museum with live son jorocho, the music of Veracruz, performed by Conjunto Hueyapan, and demonstrations for kids on how to make a Tree of Life. The exhibit includes more than 65 ceramic candelabrum-like constructions, whose elaborate decorations and structure often appear to defy gravity and the pottery medium itself. These contemporary Trees of Life embody indigenous traditions of the Mayans, Mixtecs and Aztecs as well as Spaniards, whose friars used metal candelabra at the time of the conquest.

“Ceramic Trees of Life,” Fowler Museum, UCLA, Westwood. Sunday, 1 p.m. Free. (310) 825-4361.

POP MUSIC

In search of the real Lavigne

An adolescent

Alanis? The brainy Britney? An indie-rock icon for the Nickelodeon set? Avril Lavigne has taken on all those images since making a splash with her debut album, “Let Go,” and she can evade easy pigeonholing simply by virtue of her youth. Whichever road she ends up on, at least she’s proved her knack for the catchy with such hits as “Complicated” and “Sk8er Boi.”

Avril Lavigne, Long Beach Arena, 300 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach. Tonight, 7:30. $27.50 to $35. (562) 436-3661.

THEATER

Surreal fun and magic for family

In his theatrical family show “Tomas Kubinek: Certified Lunatic and Master of the Impossible,” acrobat, magician and clown Kubinek takes audiences into a world of the comic and surreal. Recommended for ages 6 and up.

Tomas Kubinek, Smothers Theatre, Pepperdine University, 24255 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu. Saturday, 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. $17.50. (310) 506-4522.