Best Bets / May 9-15

Art

The L.A. County Museum of Art will keep its Van Gogh exhibition open for 63 straight hours on its final weekend to meet the public’s demand for tickets. “Van Gogh’s Van Goghs: Masterpieces From the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam” will be open continuously from 9 a.m. Friday through its permanent closing at midnight next Sunday.

Theater

French Stewart, Laurie Metcalf and Jon Amirkhan headline in an encore engagement of Justin Tanner’s dark comedy, “Still Life With Vacuum Salesman,” about a couple who left their golden days behind in high school. Directed by Tanner, it opens Friday at the Cast Theatre in Hollywood.

Music

Making his debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Music Center this week, 33-year-old Finnish conductor Sakari Oramo leads music by his countryman, Einojuhani Rautavaara, as well as symphonies by Mozart (No. 39) and Shostakovich (No. 5). Oramo recently assumed duties as principal conductor and artistic advisor of the City of Birmingham Symphony in England.

Dance

L.A. Chamber Ballet joins bassist-composer Joey Altruda and his 18-piece Mambo Noir Orchestra for a revised, expanded and recostumed version of Raiford Rogers’ acclaimed 1997 lounge-ballet “Cocktails With Joey” on Saturday in the Luckman Fine Arts Complex at Cal State L.A. Rudi Gernreich’s former partner Layne Nielson is designing the costumes.

Video

Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) falls in love in “Star Trek: Insurrection,” the third feature based on the TV series, “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” This entry is a fair-to-middling adventure which also features F. Murray Abraham as an evil alien. The sci-fi hit will be beamed onto video shelves this Tuesday.

Pop Music

Ricky Martin and Enrique Iglesias are the hot young stars, but they have a long way to go to reach the musical and cultural stature of Mexican singer and songwriter Juan Gabriel, below. The Latin pop icon begins a U.S. concert tour tonight at the Anaheim Convention Center. He’ll be back in October for a three-night stand at the Universal Amphitheatre.

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It’s the confrontational, hard-core rappers who make the headlines and the top of the charts, but a more positive brand of rap has survived in the shadows. Tonight’s bill at the Palace is appropriately titled “The Underdawgs of Hip-Hop,” and its headed by Phife, an alumnus of the acclaimed A Tribe Called Quest, and L.A. rapper Defari.

Movies

“Tea With Mussolini,” drawn from a chapter in the autobiography of its maker, Franco Zeffirelli, is a coming-of-age story set in Florence on the brink of World War II and starring Cher, Judi Dench, Joan Plowright, Maggie Smith and Lily Tomlin and introducing Charlie Lucas and Baird Wallace. It opens friday.