June is in full swing, so to combat that eponymous June gloom, get off the sofa and into an auditorium armchair or better yet a beach chair! Here are some exciting screenings and live performances this month in Southern California.

Each summer in Long Beach you can catch a whole slew of films projected onto a big inflatable screen smack dab in the middle of the sand with the waves lapping behind you. This year’s selection isn’t as exciting as the last, but 1942’s “Casablanca” on a big screen certainly is a can’t-miss situation. The series starts July 7 and runs through August 19, usually starting around 8 p.m. or whenever the sun goes down.

Heading north to Santa Monica you’ll find the Aero Theatre, part of the American Cinematheque, and they’ll be screening some classic comedies and sci-fi, among other things this month. And a little bit inland from the Aero, in Los Angeles, is the wonderful New Beverly Cinema. Be sure to catch 1932’s “Grand Hotel“—starring Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, and Wallace Beery—and 1968’s “Once Upon a Time in the West,” one of director Sergio Leone’s masterful “spaghetti westerns.”

And if you’re sick of movies and want to see some live acting, be sure to support the Blank Theatre Company’s 17th Annual Nationwide Young Playwrights Festival, which started June 4 and runs through to the 28th, each Thursday through Sunday in Hollywood. The festival selects twelve plays written by playwrights aged nineteen and younger and enlists professional writers to mentor them and enhance their work. Professional directors and actors then put on the plays for the public. It’s a wonderful experience and, just like the “real” Broadway, some plays are hideous bores while others are simply amazing.