L.A. seen from the inside out

Sometimes, even a $1.3-million museum exhibit isn’t quite enough. At least if the subject is as sprawling as Los Angeles.

To supplement the exhibition “L.A.: light / motion / dreams,” the Natural History Museum crafted a performance series that begins Saturday with readings by L.A.-based writers. Their subjects are as wide as the metropolis itself, from Pleasant Gehman’s autobiographical stories of Hollywood in the 1970s, to Nina Revoyr’s mystery traversing the Crenshaw district from the 1930s to the present.

The series is produced by Peter Bergman, a founding member of the Firesign Theatre. The museum solicited his thoughts about the exhibit last year; he insisted that you couldn’t capture the culture without live performances. “Real people,” he says. “Nothing behind glass or on tape.”

Besides Gehman (“Escape From Houdini Mountain”) and Revoyr (“Southland”), the writers include Steve Abee, whose new novel, “The Bus,” follows a trip from Echo Park to the beach. Poets Wanda Coleman and Lewis MacAdams will read their works about L.A., and actors Tony Abatemarco and Maryedith Burrell will read takes on the city from other writers, among them Bertolt Brecht, Aldous Huxley and Tennessee Williams.

“It’s easy enough to say I’m going after these super bestselling authors -- most of whom write about L.A. but moved away from the city,” Bergman says. “I like Walter Mosley, Michael Connelly and Joan Didion and all these folks. But I wanted to find people who really lived here and were writing L.A.”

*

L.A. Live! Reading

Where: Jean Delacour Auditorium, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 900 Exposition Blvd., L.A.

When: Saturday, 8 p.m. Ticket includes entrance to “L.A.: light / motion / dreams” from 5 to 7:45 p.m.

Cost: $15; $52 for the series.

Info: (866) 468-3399 or www.ticketweb.com.