Ian Whitcomb

The second annual Method Fest, devoted to independent films with an emphasis on performances, once again offers the pleasures of some splendid acting as it unspools Friday through June 23 at the Playhouse 7, 673 E. Colorado Blvd. in Pasadena. As it turns out, two of the strongest films previewed are inspired by stage dramas, yet in their very different styles both work as movies and not just as filmed plays. Jordan Walker Pearlman's "The Visit" (Sunday at 6:45 p.m.

For a coffeehouse, the Coffee Gallery has a lot on its plate. The Altadena eatery is a place of many purposes -- among them restaurant, gallery, classroom and all-around hangout. Its blackboards tout such fare as soups ("as good as Mom's or better") and 31 flavors of coffee (including the slushy specialty "The Flying Squirrel"). It hosts watercolor classes, yoga sessions and a writers group.

With celebrated New Orleans club owner and clarinetist Pete Fountain as this year's principal lure, the third annual Los Angeles Classic Jazz Festival attracted its largest turnout yet over Labor Day weekend. Approximately 26 bands and 34 guests artists teamed up in innumerable permutations over the festival's four days and three nights. But it was the shaved-head, spade-bearded Fountain the customers wanted to hear most.

noon Museums The role of Indian cradles in reinforcing ethnic identity and women's artistic expression is explored in the traveling exhibition "Gifts of Pride and Love: The Cultural Significance of Kiowa and Comanche Lattice Cradles," opening at UCLA's Fowler Museum of Cultural History. The exhibition will feature 38 Kiowa and Comanche historical lattice cradles and two new cradles created especially for the exhibition.

TELEVISION Hewitt Cast as Audrey Hepburn: "Party of Five" star Jennifer Love Hewitt ("I Know What You Did Last Summer") will portray the late Audrey Hepburn in a two-hour ABC movie being developed for next season. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Marsha Norman ("Getting Out," " 'Night, Mother") is writing the script for the still-untitled biography.

Leon Redbone and John Hammond have been playing their distinctive brands of American roots music for what seems like centuries. But apart from a shared longevity and affection for their like-minded predecessors, the two offer a study in contrasts. Hammond began his career in the '60s and has emerged as one of the planet's premier players of the Mississippi Delta blues.

In the wake of layoffs and program cuts at KPCC-FM (89.3) stemming from a $100,000 "accounting error," employees at the public-radio station are upset about bearing the brunt of the financial crisis and have accused management of glossing over its responsibility to the public. About 10 station employees--some of them on-air personalities such as Ian Whitcomb and Zoe Walrond--have had their hours reduced, and three others were laid off (but are continuing to work as volunteers).