This post was updated May 14 at 4:45 p.m.
The saz – a Middle Eastern instrument with a long, ornamented neck – gives voice to a lizard in a one-woman play.

Students touched prickly plants to inform their swirls of black ink at the Hammer Museum’s annual Arts Party.
Students from around Southern California came together Friday night to explore the museum’s galleries and participate in student-led workshops.

Jen Schroeder flies about 250,000 miles every year to train young female athletes.
Since graduating in 2009, the UCLA alumna and former NCAA softball player founded three companies across the United States.

A pair of goggles allows audience members to join the Yazidi warriors as they load guns and march through the Iraqi desert in uniform.
On Friday and Saturday, UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television will feature creator Maria Bello’s virtual reality and performance piece “The Sun Ladies VR Project.” The show begins with Yazidi women training and sharing their stories of genocide and slavery in a virtual reality documentary, and is followed by UCLA students performing a spoken-word piece on violence against women in the U.S.

This post was updated Nov. 28 at 7:37 p.m.
Hanging cribs, smells of soap and bright neon paintings craft the New Wight Gallery’s newest exhibit.
The art pieces are featured in the Undergraduate Scholarship Award Exhibition, which opens Thursday.

Alumnus Howard Teichman chose to stage playwright Neil Simon’s most autobiographical work as the West Coast Jewish Theatre’s latest production.
But when Simon passed away in August, the show became a memorial to his legacy.

Five Philadelphian vampires emerge from caskets onto a Los Angeles stage.
“Blood Rock: The Musical” opened to the public at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble on Thursday.

“School of Rock” opens like a concert, complete with smoke, sweeping red lights and a rock band performing with guitars and drums.
Then walls of a bedroom, and later, school maps and doors slide in, transitioning the concert opening into a musical and introducing the reality of the main character’s unsuccessful music career.

YOUTHphonics, basked in blue lighting, kicked off the opening ceremonies for this year’s Dance Marathon.
YOUTHphonics, a community service a cappella group at UCLA, first performed at dance marathon two years ago.

Almost 500 vintage Hollywood costumes decorate Greg Schreiner’s house.
The UCLA alumnus will showcase his collection for his musical, “Hollywood Revisited: A Glamorous Musical Theater Extravaganza,” in Palm Springs on Thursday as part of the city’s annual Modernism Week.