BEST BETS THURSDAY 10/19

8:30 & 10:30pm

Jazz

Dynamic pianist-composer Danilo Perez continues his local stint with a new quintet, performing selections from his acclaimed, latest album, “Motherland,” inspired by the history and traditions of his home country, Panama.

The Danilo Perez Quintet, Catalina Bar & Grill, 1640 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. (323) 466-2210. $15 cover tonight at 8:30 and 10:30 p.m.; $17 cover Friday and Saturday at 10:30 p.m.; $15 cover Friday and Saturday at 8:30 p.m. Two-drink minimum.

8pm

Theater

The much-anticipated, multi-Tony Award-winning blockbuster Disney musical, “The Lion King,” with its eye-popping puppets and masks, African rhythms, “Hakuna Matata” comic relief and uplifting “Circle of Life” theme, officially opens at the gorgeously spiffed up, Art Deco-styled Pantages Theatre.

* “The Lion King,” Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. Today, 8 p.m. Regular schedule: Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2 p.m.; Sundays, 1 and 6:30 p.m., with occasional Wednesday matinees. Ends June 30. $12 to $77; special VIP tickets, $127. (213) 365-5555, (714) 703-2510.

7:30pm

Comedy

You may have seen him in a comedy club. You may have seen him on the road. Now see him in a classy old L.A. theater. Comedian Bill Engvall takes his act to the Wiltern Theater tonight, as the comic, part of the “blue-collar” comedy tour that also featured plain-speaking Jeff Foxworthy, takes the spotlight on his own. This summer, Engvall released his third CD, “Now That’s Awesome.”

* Bill Engvall, The Wiltern Theater, 3790 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. 7:30 p.m. $30. (213) 380-5005.

8:30pm

Dance

Specialists in what the San Francisco Bay Guardian described as “punk aesthetics, robust lyricism and abstract narratives,” Nesting Dolls is a contemporary company that focuses on popular culture and the hidden messages it sends. The group is named after those hollow Russian figurines (matryoshki) that have sets of other, smaller figurines inside. Not surprisingly, ever-more-intimate layers of meaning are found in many of the works by artistic director Cid Pearlman, praised for “shimmering intelligence” by the Oakland Tribune. For its calling-card weekend in Santa Monica, the company performs an all-Pearlman program titled “Drive and Other Dances.”

* Nesting Dolls, Highways Performance Space, 1651 18th St., Santa Monica. 8:30 p.m. Also Friday and Saturday, 8:30 p.m. $12. (310) 315-1459.

Freebie

Sheree Rose and others will read from artist Bob Flanagan’s memoir “The Pain Journal,” which chronicles the year before his death from cystic fibrosis. 6:30 p.m. at the MOCA Store, 250 S. Grand Ave., downtown Los Angeles. (213) 626-6222.