Our music critics have already chosen the 23 best concerts this week, but now it's our arts critics' turn to pick the best events in their areas of expertise. Here are their picks in every genre—from a Shabazz Palaces book signing and DJ set with Gillian Gaar to the opening week of holiday shows like Irving Berlin's Holiday Inn and George Balanchine's The Nutcracker, and from the Miracle on 2nd Pop-Up bar to holiday markets like Gobble Up and the GeekCraft Expo. See them all below, and find even more events on our complete Things To Do calendar.
Get all this and more on the free Stranger Things To Do mobile app—available now on the App Store and Google Play.
Jump to: Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday
MONDAY
READINGS & TALKSBill McKibben: Radio Free Vermont
Bill McKibben is the founder of 350.org, a laudable nonprofit climate action/environmental organization whose activists have protested Shell's arctic drilling rig, protested the Keystone XL pipeline, and attempted to shut down tar sand pipelines in North Dakota, among many other campaigns. McKibben has also written at length about global warming and is one of the nation's most prominent thinkers and writers on environmentalism—he's written more than a dozen books on the subject. At this event, he'll share his latest work, Radio Free Vermont: A Fable of Resistance, a novel that explores the idea of state succession from the United States (an oh-so-relevant concept for many Washingtonians).
MONDAY-TUESDAY
ARTJite Agbro: Armor
Multimedia artist Jite Agbro incorporates text, data, and garments to create "visual representations of non-verbal communication," often using handmade beeswax paper to create flowing or folded pieces that look almost wearable.
Closing Tuesday
Social Justice Film Festival
Does the phrase “social justice” make you roll your eyes? The Social Justice Film Festival is not the movie equivalent of the “safe space” so dear to the right-wing imagination. As social justice provides the only throughline, many of the movies have little in common. But the selection skews toward limber, on-the-ground filmmaking in the midst of protests and conflicts. This is true of Breaking Point: The War for Democracy in Ukraine, directed by the American Academy Award-winner Mark Jonathan Harris and the Ukrainian Oles Sanin; The Dogs of Democracy filmed by Mary Zournazi in the midst of anti-austerity protesters and their attendant adorable street dogs; and Whose Streets? by Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis, which takes a camera crew amidst a group of people, the black community of Ferguson, who have been pushed too far and lost their fear. From Native American memory (Honor Riders) to marine ecology (A Whale of a Tale) to “intactivism” (American Circumcision), the festival refuses to lift one cause over all others as it declares the value of humans and animals. Gaining SJW brownie points is the least important reason to go.
MONDAY-SUNDAY
ARTJoseph Uccello: Manifesting the Invisible: Typography, Ink on Paper, and Photography
Joseph Uccello—a book designer, artist, and penner/publisher of weird (sometimes wordless) literature—is a figure straight out of an updated M.R. James ghost story. Obsessed with arcana, he's embarked on projects such as publishing ancient texts with original art and typography inspired by the medieval occult. The spirit of "alchemists, mages, sages," and other adepts of the mystical realms is revived in letterpress prints containing the Codex Homunculi (magical formulas for creating human beings), the De Chrysopoeia (for transforming matter into gold), and, for a much more modern take on black magic, the Lovecraft-inspired Pilgrimage to Azathoth. Uccello's images range from Chinese ink brushstrokes to sacred geometric patterns to quasi-satanic icons to abstract photographs.
No viewing on Saturday
Closing Sunday
Seattle Festival of Trees
Admire the gorgeously decorated trees that will be on display in the Fairmont Olympic Hotel lobby.
TUESDAY
FOOD & DRINKThanksgiving Oyster Pick-Up
Fifth-generation Hama Hama Oysters Farm will bring their fresh, superlative oysters to hidden-gem natural wine shop Vif. Pick up a bag of Blue Pool Oysters to go for your Thanksgiving table and mitigate your holiday preparation stress by sitting down to a glass of natural wine and a plate of oysters. Shucking knives will also be available for sale.
Kij Johnson: The River Bank
Kij Johnson's new book River Bank, illustrated by artist Kathleen Jennings, is a sequel to Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows. In it, "staunch Mole, sociable Water Rat, severe Badger, and troublesome and ebullient Toad of Toad Hall" are joined by a young mole lady, Beryl, and her friend, Rabbit. There are adventures, kidnappings, lost letters, and family secrets.
TUESDAY-WEDNESDAY
PERFORMANCE"Awesome"
The performers, recording artists, joke-writers, theater nerds, necktie wearers, and good-hair-havers in “Awesome” mostly have things like kids and mortages now, but every couple years the stars align for a reunion show. This will not be one of their hard-to-categorize theater pieces, like the immortal Delaware. It will not be straight-up literary, like the times they wrote songs based on books by Jonathan Safran Foer and Miranda July and then performed them with and for Foer and July. This is simply a rare reunion show, featuring “band and fan favorites spanning the full catalogue.” CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE
Kitten N' Lou Present: Cream
A confession: I've watched Kitten N' Lou's wedding video at least 20 times. They're just so gosh darn intoxicating and lovely. (It's on their website. I didn't, like, steal it or anything.) The burlesque duo exudes a chemistry unrivaled by any other stage pair I've seen, and, luckily for Seattle, this "world's showbusiest couple" are mainstays of the Emerald City. Their new show, Cream, brings Milk, Cherdonna, and the Atomic Bombshells along for a Spanksgiving feast of drag and burlesque. Go and prepare to fall in love. CHASE BURNS
TUESDAY-SUNDAY
ARTClean Rooms. Low Rates.
This exhibition by Marina Fini (installation) with Jeff Parker and Brendan Barry (photo-text art book) explores a quintessentially American locus: the motel. Promising a "private-turned-public and mundane-turned-psychedelic space," this work will bring to light the aesthetic, economic, sociological, and poetic aspects of the roadside inn.
Artist panel on Tuesday
No viewing on Wednesday
Holiday Mini Art Exhibit
Sadly, the Ghost Gallery is losing its lease—although we hope to see it pop up elsewhere. Pay them a last visit and buy some mini-art "in the 10"x10"x10" range") for $300 or less.
Ivy Jacobsen: A Place to Dream
Ivy Jacobsen, creator of mystic and otherworldly landscapes, shows new work in oil paint, bronzing powder, acrylic paint, resin, and other mixed media on panel.
Closing Sunday
Gingerbread Village
This gingerbread village is no joke: Every year, Seattle architecture firms, master builders, and Sheraton Seattle culinary teams come together to build a meticulously-planned candy wonderland. The theme of this year's village is "25 Years of Cheer: A Celebration of Seattle." See elements of the city's past and it's imagined future in candy form, from skyscrapers to underground tunnels.
Go, Dog. Go!
Look: P.D. Eastman’s 1961 children’s classic is about multicolored dogs that drive cars and ride scooters and ski so that they can all get to the party. In short: It’s a perfect book, but it doesn’t exactly scream out to be adapted for the legitimate stage. AND YET, the visionaries at Seattle Children’s Theatre have done just that, and brilliantly, from a script by playwright Steven Dietz, with inspired direction by Allison Gregory, and the work of a nimble, excellent cast. They did such a great job that the production is now in its second revival. If you have kids who aren’t robots yet, you could do a lot worse than taking them to see it. And even though that’s the point, the simple fact is that the production’s ingenuity is so impressive that a grown-up (especially one who’s a little, umm, s-t-o-n-e-d) would enjoy it a lot, too. SEAN NELSON
No performance on Thursday
The Humans
Stephen Karam's The Humans, which won a 2016 Tony Award for best play, gets plaudits for its expert characterization, its subtle but gut-busting humor, and its clear-eyed view on contemporary family relations despite the fact that it's a play about a dysfunctional family spending a dysfunctional Thanksgiving together in Chinatown dysfunctionally. This is the official Broadway tour, directed by Joe Mantello. RICH SMITH
No performance on Thursday
WEDNESDAY
ARTMary Ann Peters: slipstream
Mary Ann Peters has created works in mediums from bronze to lemons to flour. In slipstream, she juxtaposes sculptures made from glycerin and a painted survival blanket with watercolor/gouache paintings and ink on clayboard. She explores displacement and flux using the metaphor of water, based partly upon her experience as an artist-in-residence in Cassis, France. Her style ranges from black-and-white abstraction to expressionist landscape, but the whole exhibit evokes the precariousness of a refugee existence. This is your chance to discover the breadth of this Seattle artist's mastery, which earned her a Stranger Genius Award in 2015.
Closing today
Far Out Films: Inception
And then it happens. Leonardo DiCaprio is walking down a Paris street with Ellen Page. He is a few steps behind her. They make a left, and she stops and stares at something strange happening down the street. DiCaprio has his hands in his pockets. He knows what’s up. The city is bending. And as it bends, we hear the city cranking like a huge and old machine. And when the city is fully bent, nothing falls from the upside-down streets and the building above DiCaprio and Page. There is no up or down. The city is just bent. This scene is in Inception (2010), which blends the cool of cyberpunk with a trippy heist thriller. It’s Christopher Nolan’s best film. It’s a part of Headlight Cannabis’s film series Far Out Films (it includes Donnie Darko, The Fall, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). Get high and get your mind bent. CHARLES MUDEDE
A Circus Tramp Holiday
Local music and burlesque queen Caela Bailey will helm this true family affair as her Von Tramp brood, truly one of the most active groups in the Seattle arts scene, takes over the Highway for a night of glittering glamour, featuring plenty of high kicks, costume changes, and soulful cabaret tunes.
WEDNESDAY-SUNDAY
ARTSam Gilliam
At this exhibit of work by Color Field abstractionist Sam Gilliam, revel in deep, rich colors layered onto canvases that are stretched tight and creatively hung, with hues that often emanate from a central point, like a sunset. This show will also feature some of Gilliam's "Black Paintings": darker, highly contrasted works that muddy the vibrant explosions.
Closing Sunday
It Will Be Now
The two one-person plays in It Will Be Now are inspired by William Shakespeare, adapting his texts to contemporary issues. Meghan Dolbey's Unsex Me Here examines women's power, ambitions, and sacrifices, while Meme GarcĂa's House of Sueños is "a story of the construction and deconstruction of a house of dreams".
No performance on Thursday
Love, Chaos, and Dinner
Beloved circus/cabaret/comedy institution Teatro ZinZanni will return to Seattle for a dinner theater production of Love, Chaos, and Dinner. They promise "the same stunning, velvet-laden, and iconic Belgian spiegeltent Seattleites will remember from Teatro ZinZanni’s former location on lower Queen Anne." The cast is led by first-time "Madame ZinZanni" Ariana Savalas, and will feature a duo on aerial trapeze, a magician, a "contortionist-puppet," a yodeling dominatrix, a hoop aerialist, and a Parisian acrobat.
No performance on Thursday
Wonderland
Wonderland returns! Can Can will transform its venue into a snowy chalet and populate it with teasing beauties. VIP tickets get you champagne and a meal as well.
THURSDAY
FOOD & DRINKAgrodolce Italian Thanksgiving with a Twist
At Chef Maria Hines' Southern Italian trattoria-style supper, choose your own adventure with a selection between Caramelized Brussels Sprout "Casserole" with creamy mushrooms and crispy fried shallots, Sweet Potato Cavatelli with sage brown butter, cranberries and toasted pumpkin seeds, or Turkey Breast Involtini, a "turkey breast that is slowly cooked in a water bath then rolled with provolone picante and speck and served with savory focaccia bread pudding and pomegranate gastrique." Buon appetito!
Cafe Flora Vegetarian Thanksgiving Menu
The innovative vegetarian restaurant provides a menu of plant-based wonders, like brown-butter filo spirals filled with wilted greens, pecans, gruyere and fontina and roasted acorn squash wedge with foraged chanterelle mushrooms, with a rustic apple tart topped with horchata ice cream and cranberry gelee for desserts. Vegan and gluten-free options are available, and there's a vegan/gluten-free kids' menu, too.
Mama's Cantina Industry Thanksgiving
This time of year can be particularly trying for industry folks, so Mama's Cantina has planned a therapeutic Thanksgiving fiesta especially for them (but open to anyone else who'd like to join the fun), complete with the healing powers of a Mexican Boiler Maker (Belltown Brewing beer and a shot of tequila) and a Turkey Mole Tamale Plate with Rice and Beans. Plus, get your holiday season aggression out by taking a couple whacks at Mama's Turkey Piñata.
Plum Bistro Four Course Prix Fixe Thanksgiving
Vegan options for Thanksgiving can be few and far between, but the plant-based mavens at Plum Bistro have you covered with an animal-free feast. Pardon the Tofurkey and instead stuff yourself with smothered tofu or a smoked seitan roast. And of course, don't forget a side of Plum's famous "mac 'n yease." Gluten free options available.
Tilth Thanksgiving Feast
In a homey, sunny Craftsman bungalow tucked away in Wallingford, James Beard Award–winning chef Maria Hines and executive chef Joel Panlilio serve up generous, seasonal, and sustainable fare with transcendent, evocative powers. Their Thanksgiving feast promises to be no different, featuring a winter root vegetable salad with carrot, rutabaga, and parsnips in a sherry vinaigrette, Pacific Northwest salmon crostini on rye bread from the excellent local Sea Wolf Bakers, and a choice of roasted turkey breast with pommes puree with chestnut-brioche dressing and cranberry or grass-run rib eye with brussels sprouts and zesty chimichurri.
FRIDAY
ARTGIFT HOLE
Want to do your Black Friday or December shopping for "artist made shit that doesn't immediately trigger existential dread or perpetuate the systematic malaise of big box stores and late stage capitalism"? Party Hat has you covered.
My Macy's Holiday Parade
Every holiday season since 1957, the Macy's Day Parade has been filling downtown Seattle streets with cheer. Santa Claus is coming to town (again) and he'll be joined by 25 inflatable floats; marching bands; a dancing Christmas tree; Seattle Seahawks’ Blitz; the Seattle Sounders FC band; the Mariner Moose riding the Moose Mobile; and many others dressed in their most festive holiday attire. Later in the evening, come back for the Downtown Seattle Starlighting.
Shabazz Palaces, Gillan Gaar
In a cavalcade of cosmic Seattle talent, iconic hiphop group Shabazz Palaces will join up with writer Gillian Gaar for a book signing and DJ party. Shabazz will helm the decks in celebration of the release of their graphic novel-album Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines, with Gaar signing copies of Hendrix: The Illustrated Story.
FRIDAY-SATURDAY
ARTPaul D. McKee and Suzanne Tidwell: Horizon
Paul D. McKee and Suzanne Tidwell collaborated on this exhibit that explores their personal futures and pasts: "representations of craft and construction, family and home and education and career elicit a dialog reflective of their current sense of place and accomplishment."
Closing Saturday
FRIDAY-SUNDAY
FOOD & DRINKMiracle on 2nd Pop-Up
In 2014, Greg Boehm of New York bar Boilermaker temporarily transformed the space for his bar Mace into a kitschy Christmas wonderland replete with gewgaws and tchotchkes galore. This year, the pop-up has expanded to bars in 50 cities worldwide and will be taking up residence in Belltown’s Rob Roy. The specialty cocktails are no ordinary cups of cheer: Beverages are housed in tacky-tastic vessels (a drinking mug resembling Santa’s mug, for example), bedecked with fanciful garnishes like peppers and dried pineapple, and christened with irreverent, pop-culture-referencing names like the “Bad Santa,” the “Yippie Ki Yay Mother F****r,” and the “You’ll Shoot Your Rye Out.”
Native Holiday Gift Fair
Kick off your holiday celebrations with National Native American Heritage Day on November 24th, the first day of this three-day art fair and gift market. Buy unique gifts with cultural significance, such as fine art, crafts card, handmade jewelry, and smoked salmon directly from the artists and makers of the gifts. Winter delights, such as hot chocolates and daily soups, will be available for those who shop themselves hungry.
WildLights
See the zoo in a new light—500,000 energy-efficient LEDs, in fact! See luminous animal-themed designs, have an indoor snowball fight, meet Santa and his very real reindeer and some nocturnal animals, listen to carolers, and enjoy the holiday beer garden.
A Christmas Carol
ACT Theatre's production of A Christmas Carol is a dependable, simple pleasure, with just enough variation to warrant returning year after year.
George Balanchine's The Nutcracker
If you haven't seen this Christmas classic since you were a kid, give it a go this year. In 2015, PNB replaced its beloved Maurice Sendak set with one by Ian Falconer, who did the Olivia the Pig books, and I'm glad that they did. The new set is gorgeous in a Wes Anderson-y way, and it reflects the genuine weirdness and beauty in the story. I mean, the last 45 minutes of this thing is a Katy Perry video starring dancing desserts and a glittery peacock that moves like a sexy broken river. Bring a pot lozenge. RICH SMITH
Irving Berlin's Holiday Inn
A musical based on the film by Gordon Greenburg and Chad Hodge, it features songs by Irving Berlin such as "White Christmas" and "Easter Parade." It's going to be the 5th's holiday show, directed by David Armstrong and choreographed by James Rocco. CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE
SATURDAY
FOOD & DRINKGobble Up
The inaugural edition of this free bazaar from the folks behind Urban Craft Uprising aims to apply the successful indie market format to artisanal food. This is a unique opportunity to peruse (and taste!) edible wares from more than 75 craft food vendors and to meet the makers themselves. On the lineup: distinctive confections (like absinthe and black salt caramels) from Jonboy Caramels, drinking vinegars from the Shrubbery, small-batch fruit preserves from family-owned Ayako & Family Jam, raw sauerkraut and pickles from OlyKraut, culinary salts and seasonings from Liberte du Monde Gourmet, and more. In addition to food and drink, there will also be handmade linens, ceramics, and other home goods available for purchase.
Chinatown I.D. Holiday Festival
Spend the day partaking in a little holiday cheer by shopping for gifts and eating delicious food from local vendors and artisans representing different Seattle neighborhoods. Offerings include the Ethnic Seattle pop-up market, the holiday happy hour food walk, Hing Hay Coworks' Holiday AAPI Arts & Crafts Fair, Nagomi Tea House's Holiday Vintage, Craft, and Gift Market, and Shop-O-Rama at the Wing Luke Museum.
My Ugly & Other Love Snarls: Book Release with Wryly McCutchen
In My Ugly & Other Love Snarls, Wryly McCutchen delves into sex, bicycles, love, and "a body’s intimate war fraught with splinters of gender." Hear a reading from the author, as well as Genesis Ellis, Magpie Leibowitz, and Iris Lux, to celebrate the book's release.
SATURDAY-SUNDAY
HOLIDAYSGeekCraft Expo Seattle
Buy gifts for the nerds in your life (or your own geeky inner child) at this "Etsy-Meets-Comic Con craft market," offering lots of pop culture items. Kids can do crafts with Seattle ReCreative.
Holiday Print Sale!
Push/Pull will be selling prints from residents artists and others starting at $5.
SUNDAY
FOOD & DRINKThe Land of Five Waters Talk with Debbie Sanwal
Debbie Sanwal was inspired to learn the art of traditional Punjabi cuisine after watching the craft and care her mother-in-law brought to the kitchen. Her memoir cookbook, The Land of Five Waters, details her year living in Punjab with her fiancé prior to her wedding and divulges family recipes. At this event, she'll share wisdom on the spices and ingredients that define Punjabi cooking and demonstrate how to make a simple chutney.
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