Palm Springs International Airport (PSP) marked another milestone year in 2025, welcoming more than 3.3 million passengers and setting multiple all-time travel records as demand for air service to and from the Coachella Valley continued to grow.
Passenger traffic at PSP increased by approximately 2.4 percent compared to 2024, driven largely by strong domestic travel demand and continued interest in the Coachella Valley as a year-round destination. The airport recorded year-over-year passenger growth in nine months of the year, signaling sustained momentum well beyond traditional peak travel seasons.
PSP also set five all-time monthly passenger records in 2025. March stood out as the busiest month in the airport’s history, with nearly half a million travelers passing through the terminal.
Airport officials said the increase reflects more travelers choosing to fly locally, helping strengthen the regional economy by supporting jobs, businesses, and essential travel connections throughout Southern California and beyond.
“We’re proud to see more travelers choosing to fly from Palm Springs,” said Harry Barrett Jr., Executive Director of Aviation. “It reflects the strength of our air service and the convenience of PSP. Every trip that starts here supports local jobs, helps sustain the regional economy, and creates momentum for expanding nonstop air service that benefits the entire Coachella Valley.”
Despite the growth in passengers, PSP handled approximately 3,800 fewer commercial flights in 2025 compared to pre-pandemic levels, a decrease of about 6 percent. Airport officials attribute the shift to airlines increasingly using larger mainline aircraft instead of smaller regional jets. These newer planes carry more passengers per flight while also being quieter, more fuel-efficient, and more environmentally friendly.
The airport continued investing in facilities and the passenger experience through Progress PSP, its long-term improvement program. In 2025, PSP opened new shops and restaurants, expanded seating and charging areas, installed additional shade structures, upgraded flight information displays, added water bottle filling stations, overhauled its Wi-Fi system, restored iconic midcentury modern curbside seating, installed new passenger elevators, and remodeled a key conference space.
Additional improvements are already underway, including expansion of the airport’s zero-emission vehicle fleet, installation of 80 new electric vehicle charging stations in the main terminal parking lot, a smart parking and access upgrade, and other enhancements designed to support continued growth while improving the guest experience.
The Palm Springs Public Library Foundation is inviting the community to a special fundraising event called Cocktails on the Page, a celebration of books and libraries.
The event will take place on Sunday, March 8, 2026, from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. at a private home in the Movie Colony neighborhood of Palm Springs.
Special guests Lucie Arnaz and Laurence Luckinbill, who are married, will attend and talk about their books and careers. The conversation will be led by Foundation board member Corey Roskin.
Guests will enjoy cocktails and light appetizers by the pool while listening to Arnaz and Luckinbill discuss their lives, their writing, and why libraries matter to them.
Each ticket includes the cocktail event, a live discussion with the authors, and signed copies of both books:
Lucy & Desi: The Love Letters by Lucie Arnaz
Affective Memories: How Chance and the Theater Saved My Life by Laurence Luckinbill
Tickets are $175 per person, with $100 tax-deductible, and are available in limited numbers. Tickets can be purchased online through the Palm Springs Public Library Foundation.
Lucie Arnaz is an award-winning actress and singer known for her work on television, Broadway, and film. She is the daughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz and has also produced documentaries about her parents’ lives.
Laurence Luckinbill is a well-known stage and screen actor, writer, and teacher. His career includes Broadway performances, films, television roles, and one-person historical plays performed around the world.
The event supports the mission of the Palm Springs Public Library Foundation, which raises private funds to strengthen library programs, services, and major projects, including the ongoing library renovation.
I walked into this production carrying more than curiosity. I was there with my husband, who saw Assassins about 30 years ago and has a strong, positive memory of it. I had never seen it.
I’m going to start with the part that may make some people stop reading: I did not enjoy this production.
Not because it “wasn’t my taste.” My body rejected parts of it in real time—because in America, guns are not symbolic. Guns are not distant. Guns are not hypothetical. They’re a daily context: headlines, school emails, lockdown drills, and a story we keep telling ourselves we’re used to… but we’re not. We’re simply numb.
That’s the lens I brought into Assassins. And it shaped everything I felt.
What I experienced in the room
From the first song, I was turned off—cold.
When a show builds its language around firearms—when guns are pointed, displayed, used as punctuation—my body doesn’t experience that as “stage business.” It experiences it as a rehearsal of what’s already happening outside the theater doors.
From the opening number to the final scenes, the production repeatedly put the audience in the presence of gun violence—not as an abstract theme, but as direct visual language. In today’s America, that is not a neutral choice. Gun threats are part of the background noise of modern life. So when a production places firearms in the viewer’s face again and again, it doesn’t automatically feel like “provocation in service of insight.” It can feel like reenactment—like rehearsal for a culture we’re already stuck inside.
Art is made to tell stories. All night, I kept asking myself: What is the point of this story—right now, in America, at this moment?
Is the story saying we find mental illness funny—or at least theatrical? Is it saying gun access is so normalized we can turn it into music? Is it a history lesson on the violence we don’t want to claim as part of our national identity? Is it holding up the fact that we’ve built a culture where “every now and then a madman’s bound to come along,” and we treat it like a shrug instead of a crisis?
And underneath all of it: who is the show asking me to feel sympathy for? The broken? The angry? The manipulated? The violent? The discarded? The country itself?
Because Assassins doesn’t just present one argument. It presents a collision of arguments—like competing signs held up on the same street. On one side: “It takes a lot of men to make a gun.” On the other: “Everyone’s got a right to be happy.” Those lines land differently depending on who you are, what you’ve lived through, and what you fear.
The moment that crossed a line for me
During the production, all of the presidents that were or attempted to be assassinated showed up in succession. And then the image I hate seeing, that brings me to anger is an image of Donald Trump with vindication and retribution in his eyes. That image of Donald Trump—not as a president, but as all the hallmarks of a dictator pretending to be one. That’s not a “reference” to me. That’s a daily dose. It’s the atmosphere so many of us are breathing all the time. The other sequence of video, that was the video of the Jan,6. 2021 the insurrection on the capitol engineered by the very person, who again occupies the White House. So seeing it dropped into the show didn’t expand the story for me—it collapsed the distance between stage and life. And it did something that I wanted to get away from, if only for a short period of time. Trump fatigue.
Again, the last thing I wanted was a reminder of what I’m already experiencing everywhere I look.The show goes further. It includes the depiction of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy—something I did not want to see again. The first time it appeared, it was embedded in the body of the play: everything up to the final frames, the screen goes black and then the bang. But what embodied the whole experience for me was the ending: during the last song, they showed the full footage. Why finish on this note?
Maybe the intent was to say: yes, gun violence is real—and yes, you can bring a nation to its knees. But I didn’t experience it as a lesson. I experienced it as a line being crossed: a moment where the production stopped being “theater about America” and became the worst of America, replayed. I left the theater feeling less like I’d been experiencing a story worth telling, and something more like I’d been forced to rewatch a national wound, reopened.I want theater to be an experience—where discomfort earns insight, where provocation clarifies something true, where the audience leaves enlarged rather than raw.
The true importance of theater
With all that I’ve said about my personal experience, I’m glad and proud that we live in a community where a theater can still make a choice like this—where art is treated as part of civic life, not a luxury, and not a threat.
Because the deeper story isn’t only what happens on stage. It’s whether we remain the kind of society where people can still walk into a theater, have a strong reaction—love it, hate it, or feel somewhere in between—and still be free to decide for themselves.
In that sense, Assassins mirrors America perfectly: not because it resolves the divide, but because it forces you to face the fact that the divide is real.
The educator lens: museums, libraries, and the democratic idea of choice
When I used to lead tours in a major art museum, it happened again and again: we’d stop in front of a piece and someone would say, out loud, “That’s not art.”
“I don’t like it.”, “This is not what I want to see,” now show me some real art.”
And I always stopped the group—children or adults—and explain something I still believe is foundational:
You have every right to feel what you feel. You have every right to dislike what you see. But you do not have the right to decide what the person next to you is allowed to encounter.
A museum—like a library—is built on a democratic idea: choice. You aren’t required to love every book in a library. You aren’t required to admire every work in a museum. But the freedom to choose is the point. Choice is part of what makes America a democracy—where diversity is part of our foundation. And where theater get to choose for themselves, what they want to present to their patrons.
The civic lesson I took anyway: art as a starting point for dialogue
Now let me say the part that matters most to me.
Even though I disliked the experience, I respect the fact that it was staged here.
We are living in an era when communities across the United States are choosing what to avoid—not what to understand. And “choosing” is the key word. Choosing to self-censor. Plays get dropped. Books get pulled. School lessons get softened. Museums get pressured to delete history from public view. Organizations self-censor out of fear—fear of donors, fear of politics, fear of backlash.
And the argument is always the same: “We can’t show that.” “We shouldn’t stage that.” “It’s too controversial, we will lose patrons.”
That’s not protection. That’s control.
So here’s what I believe now—after sitting with my own discomfort: art, and this play in particular, can create a starting point. A starting point for interaction. For conversation. For dialogue.
And we desperately need that.
Because a civil society doesn’t come back through silence. It doesn’t come back through fear. It doesn’t come back through pretending we’re not divided. It comes back when people can be in the same room, encounter the same issues, and still talk to each other afterward—without trying to erase each other.
Why it matters that Revolution Stage Company staged it here
This is what I see as Revolution Stage Company’s mission in action: bringing this community a point of view—and therefore a choice.
They describe their mission in terms like producing “high-quality” and “affordable” entertainment, elevating local production standards, and building audiences who appreciate live theater across the Coachella Valley. They also speak directly about nurturing new talent through mentorship and learning opportunities. And they describe their founding as creating something new here—“a ‘Revolution,’” built with local talent in an Off-Broadway-style space.
That word—Revolution—isn’t just a name. It has real meaning.
Revolution is what made America possible in the first place. And I’ll say this as plainly as I can: it may take a cultural-the arts to create a revolution to get America back—back to civil disagreement, back to shared reality, back to a democracy where choice is not punished. Where diversity, opportunity and choice are the norm, not the enemy. And in many places in America right now, having a choice is treated as dangerous.
My invitation: decide for yourself —go see Assassins
If you’re the kind of theatergoer who wants work that challenges you, unsettles you, makes you argue with your own reactions—or if you want to understand why people debate this musical so fiercely—go see it for yourself. Let it speak to you directly. Take what you can from it, reject what you must, and then talk about it with someone who experienced it differently.
That conversation—the one that happens afterward—may be the most important “production value” of all right now. What we know from experience, if you are talking about the show the next day, or the next. It means that you are not indifferent. And indifference means indifference is the worst position someone can have. It means you felt nothing—no empathy, no alarm, no need to respond—because the experience was forgettable.” And for many in this country, indifference has now become the norm.
What I won’t judge (and why)
This is not the typical review that we do for theater. To be very honest, it would not be fair for me to talk about all the production values, the performances, the timing, or the direction—because my reaction to the material itself was so strong that it would color anything I said about execution. At best, this is difficult material for everyone involved: performers, directors, and audiences, because the subject matter is designed to press on nerves. However, everything that I have heard from your patrons is that your productions are always at the top.
What I can say is this: I could hear and feel that the audience around me had deep appreciation—for the performances, the staging, and the overall experience. And that underscores the point I keep returning to: the importance of creating a real opportunity for people to choose for themselves, and to acknowledge the artists who made the work happen. I know I was in the minority in the audience that night.
Marty Treinen is the co-founder of Creative Core International with Wesley Spencer. They co-developed Universal Creative Intelligence™ (UCI), a groundbreaking framework that teaches people of all ages the creative, emotional, and cognitive skills needed for lifelong success. An artrepreneur, arts/museum educator, and project leader, Marty draws on a decades-long career spanning fine arts, theater, film, design, and museum education.
Their mission is unwavering: to restore creativity, personal agency, emotional intelligence, and human responsibility as the foundation of education, leadership, and community life.
As a columnist for The Palm Springs Tribune, Marty covers theater, film, visual and performing arts, human-centric AI, arts education and cultural events throughout the Coachella Valley. His reviews are known for their honesty, authenticity, clarity, and deep respect for the power of the arts, to enhance our lives.
Festival Theaters Palm Springs is starting a new chapter and focusing on films that are not always shown at big movie theaters. The theater, located at 789 E. Tahquitz Canyon Way, wants to be the Coachella Valley’s main home for independent, international, and LGBTQ+ movies.
Festival Theaters Palm Springs is putting more attention on smaller films from around the world and stories that reflect different voices and life experiences. The theater will still show some major studio movies, but its main goal is to support films that are often harder to find in the desert.
General Manager Zack Solomon says Palm Springs is a city with a strong arts history and should have a theater that reflects that culture. He says many local moviegoers are looking for thoughtful, adult-focused films and want moviegoing to feel special, not rushed.
More Showtimes and Cheaper Tickets
To make movies easier to enjoy, the theater has added more showtimes and lower-priced tickets. Starting January 16, movies begin at 11:00 a.m. every day. On Tuesdays, tickets cost $7, and seniors can get discounted tickets on Thursdays.
Festival Theaters also offers a free membership program that includes monthly rewards and discounts on snacks.
Special Films Coming Soon
The theater plans to share new movie announcements throughout the year. Upcoming events include a special screening of Pillion in partnership with KGAY, along with international films such as The Secret Agent, It Was Just an Accident, and Sirât.
Solomon says the goal is to build a theater people can count on, one that grows with the community and celebrates what makes Palm Springs unique.
For showtimes, memberships, and updates, visit festivaltheaters.com.
One Battle After Another at the Palm Springs International Film Festival on January 3, 2026
First: it’s British humor. And if you’re not familiar with the language, the style, and the rhythm of British comedy, you may have a hard time tracking the show at first. Sometimes it’s not even the “joke” as much as the way the dialogue is written and delivered. If you’re not familiar with bits of English history, theatre, the arts, or certain cultural references and types of characters, some of it may be lost on you. But wait, you will still be well entertained.
What is very apparent—whether you catch every line or not—is the importance of physical comedy. And physical comedy can be both very funny and very dangerous at the same time. In this case, the knees-to-the-groin stuff, the grabbing, the slapping, the hitting, the punching, and the repeated falling… It’s demanding. Door-banging, people falling down stairs, constant squirming or tantrums on the floor—this is not “light work.” And the actors, by the way, seem completely at home with that requirement. They commit to it like it’s a sport.
I do not have a funny bone in my body. I leave that up to my husband, who is quick on the reply, and very effective on stage. He says that it’s all about timing. And that is what makes comedy hard to pull off. That’s where this kind of comedy becomes even more impressive: timing. In a straight play you might not notice the timing of the dialogue, but here it’s everything. A comedy can crash and burn when the timing is off. It’s like a badly dubbed foreign film—when the voice doesn’t match the mouth, it becomes a distraction.
In this play, characters often speak directly to the audience, and sometimes need the audience—to come up on stage, hold something, and be part of the bit. And that can be a disaster for a comedic actor, because you never know what a person is going to do once they’re in the spotlight. When it works, it’s hilarious—because the audience is now part of the show. You feel like you’re in on it. When it doesn’t, well the show must go on. Honestly… it makes me a little nervous when they start pulling people out of the audience. That’s why we never sit in the splash zone.
During the show, there were times we were scratching our heads. And then there were other times when it could not be funnier. The audience becomes part of the experience. No fake laugh track. What’s funny to one person…may not be to the next. Case in point. The person next to us was cackling like a hen, laughing so loud their teeth just about fell out. Another person, laughing so hard they started hyperventilating, so much that I thought they were going to have to stop the show. That’s the truth of comedy. It’s personal. And British comedy especially can feel like that: you either lock into the frequency… or you don’t… and then suddenly you do again.
The best way I can describe this play—and British humor in general—is by comparing it to British television comedies I watched as a kid. Benny Hill, with all the antics and the sexual escapades that showed up constantly, the running around, the falling down, the frantic pacing. And then there are moments that feel like skits that either influenced—or were influenced by—one of my favorites: Monty Python’s Flying Circus. As a kid it took me a while to understand that it wasn’t an actual circus. It was British humor disguised as a circus. And when you compare it to a circus, that goes from one act to another—from one scene into another it starts to feel like sketch comedy.
And that’s where it lines up with American television too—shows many people in our audience will remember: Laugh-In, The Sonny and Cher Show, and of course The Carol Burnett Show with that regular cast of characters—Harvey Korman, Tim Conway, Vicki Lawrence. That same feeling of, “Here comes the next skit. And now the next one. And on and on. Some funner than… and some fall flat.
This production has a large cast of characters—so many that it almost becomes part of the fun just tracking them all. You’ve got a dead person, a waiter who could have been right at home in the Coachella Valley, the father of the bride, his solicitor, romantic couples—actually two—and a character who can only be described as having every type of social and mental health issue, turned up to maximum volume, who talks as fast as any New Yorker I’ve ever met, while also falling down, slapping himself, flipping personalities, and carrying a sexual drive that can only be described as erratic. I could go on. There are so many characters in this production, and they are all fully committed to their roles.
I hope I haven’t spoiled it for you. But honestly, all I’ve really done is describe the goings-on—not the underlying (often loose) story arc… if there even is one. It’s exactly what you would expect from something like Saturday Night Live. You’ll be right at home. And if you find yourself saying, “I didn’t understand a word they said,” or “I think that skit-scene went on a little too long,” wait—because the next scene may be the one that hits your funny bone with a sledgehammer. I haven’t mentioned the songs and the dancing. You will have to hear, and see that for yourself.
As far as the cast, the direction, and the production value: it was on par with what I have come to expect from CVRep—exceptional and well played. Just corralling the different characters, the British dialogue, the physical comedy—can become a director’s nightmare. But if that was the case it doesn’t show. And that’s a sign of great directing. The cast, and crew as well did a wonderful job creating a night of entertainment, distraction, humor, and little bits of wonderment.
If you go, go willing to let it be what it is: British farce at full throttle—a show that doesn’t ask for your quiet appreciation so much as your full attention and a willingness to let yourself laugh. Even when the jokes and antics are flying past you at a full run.
If you asked me if we had a great time, I’d have to say: just like Saturday Night Live—yes, with funny bits, and some not so funny bits.
But if you asked me if I’d go see it again, I’d have to say: of course. There’s so much happening so fast, I know I missed half of the best bits. That second time round would feel like discovering the show all over again.
CVRep info: location, run, showtimes, tickets
Coachella Valley Repertory (CVRep) Address: 68510 E. Palm Canyon Drive, Cathedral City, CA 92234 (corner of Hwy 111 and Cathedral Canyon)
Run dates:January 14 – February 1, 2026
Performance times (CVRep season schedule):
Wed: 2:00 pm & 7:00 pm
Thu & Fri: 7:00 pm
Sat: 2:00 pm & 7:00 pm
Sun: 2:00 pm
Talkback Thursdays (for this production):Jan 22 and Jan 29, 2026
Marty Treinen is the co-founder of Creative Core International with Wesley Spencer. They co-developed Universal Creative Intelligence™ (UCI), a groundbreaking framework that teaches people of all ages the creative, emotional, and cognitive skills needed for lifelong success. An author, artrepreneur, arts/museum educator, and project leader, Marty draws on a decades-long career spanning fine arts, theater, film, design/architecture, and museum education.
Their mission is unwavering: to restore creativity, personal agency, emotional intelligence, focus, and human responsibility as the foundation of education, leadership, and community life.
As a columnist for The Palm Springs Tribune, Marty covers theater, film, visual and performing arts, human-centric AI, arts education and cultural events throughout the Coachella Valley. His reviews are known for their honesty, authenticity, clarity, and deep respect for the power of the arts, to enhance our lives.
Agua Caliente Casinos is inviting guests to step back into the bold sights and sounds of the 1980s with the Legends of Pop Festival, an all-day celebration of music, fashion, and pop-culture nostalgia set for Saturday, February 28, 2026, at Agua Caliente Casino Rancho Mirage.
Designed as a full-scale throwback experience, the Legends of Pop Festival will feature live entertainment, themed DJ sets, interactive pop-culture trivia, and an ’80s costume contest celebrating the decade’s iconic style. Festival activities begin at 1:00 p.m., building toward the evening concert event at 6:00 p.m. inside The Show at Agua Caliente.
Throughout the afternoon, the casino floor will be transformed into a high-energy nostalgia hub with continuous ’80s-inspired music and live entertainment. Trivia and on-site activations will be hosted by Bianca Fort, Deven, and Ned, keeping guests engaged from afternoon through evening.
One of the day’s highlights is the ’80s Costume Contest, encouraging attendees to channel their favorite pop icons and era-defining looks. The grand prize winner will receive a signed guitar by Boy George, while the runner-up will receive a $150 Agua Caliente Casinos gift card.
Limited-time food and beverage specials will also be available across the property. At Waters Café, guests can order a Taco Salad Bowl ($22) served in a fried flour tortilla bowl with seasoned ground beef, black beans, shredded cheddar cheese, guacamole, sour cream, pico de gallo, and cilantro ranch. At 360 Sports, the featured special is a Smoked Tri-Tip Sandwich ($25) with smoky garlic BBQ sauce, tobacco onions, and lemon garlic aioli.
Select bars throughout the casino floor and 360 Sports will offer $12 “Legendary Cocktails,” including the Vogue, Billie Jean, and Purple Rain, each inspired by classic ’80s pop culture.
At 6:00 p.m., Legends of Pop in Concert takes the stage, featuring tribute performances by Coty Alexander as Madonna, E’Casanova as Michael Jackson, and Bobby Miller as Prince. The three performers are widely recognized tribute artists who recreate the music, movement, and spectacle of the era’s most influential stars, backed by a live band and dancers.
The Legends of Pop Festival is free to attend and open to guests 21 and over. Concert tickets are priced from $29.95 to $39.95 and are on sale now at aguacalientecasinos.com.
Event Details What: Legends of Pop Festival & Concert When: Saturday, February 28, 2026 Festival Begins: 1:00 p.m. Concert: 6:00 p.m. Where: The Show at Agua Caliente Resort Casino Spa, 32-250 Bob Hope Drive, Rancho Mirage Parking: Complimentary valet parking; self-parking available Information:www.AguaCalienteCasinos.com | (800) 514-3849
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