TODAYReady to cash inIn the 1980s, artist...

TODAY

Ready to cash in

In the 1980s, artist Richard Prince famously re-photographed the Marlboro man ads and cut out the text and called the images his own. In both “Cowboys” and his later series on biker chicks, Prince appropriated product iconography as a critique on advertising and consumer culture. Since then, Prince has focused on sculpture and painting and his latest series, “Check Paintings” features his block-lettered anecdotes and geometric shapes on monochrome canvases.

“Richard Prince: Check Paintings,” Gagosian Gallery, 456 N. Camden Drive, Beverly Hills. Opens today. (310) 271-9400.

* Hours: 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. Ends April 9.

She knows the blues

New Orleans native Linda Hopkins has enjoyed a 50-plus year singing and acting career that includes a 1972 Tony-winning performance in the musical “Inner City” on New York’s Great White Way. But Hopkins is probably best remembered for “Me and Bessie,” her one-woman tribute to blues singer Bessie Smith, whom Hopkins met when she was a child and has idolized ever since. More recently, Hopkins was featured with Maxine Weldon and Mortonette Jenkins in “Wild Women Blues,” a tribute to Smith, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington. Hopkins does a one-night stand in Hollywood.

Linda Hopkins, Catalina Bar & Grill, 6725 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood. 8:30 p.m. Thursday. $15. (323) 466-2210.

FRIDAY

Hot Hot Heat rising

The heat is still on -- Hot Hot Heat, that is, the rock band from Victoria, Canada, that has gained a good foothold with its first wave of records and now aims to take it higher with its first album for the major label Sire/Reprise. “Elevator,” due in April, has a new producer (Dave Sardy) and a new guitarist (Luke Paquin, replacing Dante DeCaro), but the sound is the same vigorous mix of punky drive and XTC/Cure pop sophistication.

Hot Hot Heat, with Louis XIV and On the Speakers, the Roxy, 9009 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. 9 p.m. Friday. Sold out. (310) 278-9457.

Hitler’s final days

The Oscar-nominated German film “Downfall” traces Adolf Hitler’s last 12 days. Bruno Ganz stars in writer Bernd Eichinger and director Oliver Hirschbiegel’s probe of how the end gives insight into the mass fanaticism that gave the Third Reich its power. Juliane Kohler costars as Eva Braun.

“Downfall,” rated R for strong violence, disturbing images and some nudity, opens Friday at the ArcLight, 6360 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, (323) 464-4226; the Landmark Cecchi Gori Fine Arts, 8556 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, (310) 281-8223; and Laemmle’s Royal, 11523 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A., (310) 477-5581.

SATURDAY

Piecing it together

Praised in these pages for “boldness and originality,” Ronald K. Brown’s choreography has been seen locally at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and a previous visit by his New York-based company Evidence. His three-part Evidence program at Cal State L.A. offers the local premiere of “Upside Down” (1998) and a new look at “Grace” (1999) and “Come Ye” (2003). All three works feature music by Fela Anikulapo Kuti, though “Upside Down” also includes selections by Oumou Sangare, “Grace” uses pieces by Duke Ellington and Roy Davis Jr., and “Come Ye” has recordings by Nina Simone.

Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, Luckman Fine Arts Complex, Cal State L.A., 5151 State University Drive, Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Saturday. $40 to $50. (323) 343-6600.

Innocence deprived

Mark Ryden’s paintings in “Wondertoonel” at the Pasadena Museum of California Art is part Lewis Carroll fantasy and part circus freak show. Known for his nightmarish, whimsical and violent depictions of fairy tales, childhood and butchered meat, the L.A.-based Ryden has a cult following among art-collecting Hollywood hipsters. The exhibition, his first solo museum show, features 30 paintings and unveils his first large-scale painting in two years.

“Mark Ryden: Wondertoonel,” Pasadena Museum of California Art, 490 E. Union St., Pasadena. Opens Saturday. $4 to $6. (626) 568-3665.

* Hours: noon to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays. Ends May 8.

SUNDAY

A tryst with no privacy

Comic complications multiply at a furious pace in “Private Fittings,” adapted by Mark O’Donnell from Georges Feydeau’s 1886 farce, “Tailleur pour dames.” In this world premiere, inaugurating the La Jolla Playhouse’s new Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre, a married doctor thinks he’s found the perfect hideaway for a tryst with one of his lady patients until unexpected, and decidedly unwelcome, visitors come calling.

“Private Fittings,” Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, 2910 La Jolla Village Drive, La Jolla. Opens 7 p.m. Sunday. $36 to $52. (858) 550-1010. www.lajollaplayhouse.com

* Runs 8 p.m. Tuesdays though Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays, 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Ends March 27.

Young musicians

One of the Young Musicians Foundation’s many illustrious alums, Michael Tilson Thomas, returns to conduct the YMF Debut Orchestra on Sunday. The San Francisco Symphony conductor will lead the orchestra in Tchaikovsky’s “Festival Coronation March,” a work composed in 1883 for the crowning of Russia’s Alexander III and scarcely heard afterward. The remainder of the program -- Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto and Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade” -- will be led by the orchestra’s music director, Joana Carneiro, whose own career is rising smartly. Christopher Falzone, a 19-year-old Gilmore Young Artist, will be the soloist in the Rachmaninoff concerto.

YMF Debut Orchestra, Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., L.A. 2 p.m. Sunday. $15 to $36. (323) 850-2000.