BEST BETS Thursday 12/28

SANTA ANA

2 p.m.

Art Talk

Children’s book author and illustrator Tamara Bower helps bring ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs to life at Bowers Museum of Cultural Art. The author will discuss her childhood fascination with Egypt and present a slide show of her excavations there. She will read and sign her book “The Shipwrecked Sailor: An Egyptian Tale with Hieroglyphs” as part of the museum’s “Egyptian Treasures” lecture series.

* Author/illustrator Tamara Bower, Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, 2002 N. Main St., Santa Ana. Doors open 30 minutes prior. $5-$8, children younger than 12 admitted free. (714) 567-3600.

COSTA MESA

8 p.m.

Theater

With a pop-rock score, “Rent” tells the tale of struggling young artists who live in a New York City tenement, variously burdened by poverty, AIDS, drug addiction, relationship woes and an obnoxious landlord. Despite all that, they manage to connect and live for the moment. Creator Jonathan Larson died of a heart aneurysm on the eve of the musical’s opening; based loosely on Puccini’s opera, “La Boheme,” it won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for drama and has been a hit on Broadway and on the road ever since.

* “Rent,” Orange County Performing Arts Center, 655 Town Center Dr., Costa Mesa. Tonight through Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 7:30 p.m.; matinees Saturday and Sunday, 2 p.m. Through Sunday. $22-$53.50, with 36 front-row tickets available on a first-come, cash-only basis two hours before each performance. (714) 556-2787.