This week, our arts critics have recommended the best events in every genre—from a new show from performer Sarah Rudinoff to Georgetown Bites, and from Sakura-Con to the Washington State Democratic Caucuses. See them all below, and find even more events on our complete Things To Do calendar.

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MONDAY
THEATER
Eulogy
This comedy performance by Kevin Kent, directed by Jennifer Jasper, tells the story of Eleanor, "a professional mourner in a one-stop-shop suburban funeral parlor." That's pretty much all you have to know before you rush over there. Kent is a treasure. Any time he's on stage, it's worth your attention. (Also Thurs-Sat)

READINGS & TALKS
Janette Sadik-Khan with Mayor Ed Murray: Implementing an “Urban Revolution”
Janette Sadik-Khan, former New York City transportation commissioner, will appear in conversation with Mayor Ed Murray to discuss the potential transportation programs and changes in Seattle's future.

MUSIC
An Evening with Greg Dulli
There was a time, not so long ago, when the prospect of “an evening with Greg Dulli” would have sounded like a grueling siege through a miasma of emotional gore in which hatred and self-hatred were locked in a duel for prominence. Age hasn’t dulled Dulli’s gifts. It has only expanded and deepened their aesthetic power—and made the promise of an evening in the company of his whole body of work sound not just pleasing, but irresistible. SEAN NELSON

TUESDAY
READINGS & TALKS
Salon of Shame
Writing that makes you cringe ("middle school diaries, high school poetry, unsent letters") is displayed with unapologetic hilarity at this Salon of Shame. Tickets for the March event are sold out, but keep an eye out for ticket sales for May's event.

Writers Under the Influence: Octavia Butler
In this literary tribute to a science fiction legend, Nisi Shaw, Vonda N McIntyre, Gabriel Teodros, Quenton Baker, and Caren Gussoff will honor Octavia Butler’s influence with readings, discussions, and more.

MUSIC
Acid Mothers Temple, Orphan Goggles, and Weeed
The pairing: a sleepy Tuesday in Ballard, the arrival of spring, a legendary Japanese psych-rock band with intergalactic aspirations. The Acid Mothers Temple collective boasts a rotating cast that has been cranking out albums by the dozen—including a notable 2003 split-album with Kinski on Sub Pop—since the mid '90s. TODD HAMM

THEATER
Assassins
This Sondheim musical, co-produced by the 5th Avenue Theatre, tells the story of American history's most famous presidential assassins including John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, and John Hinckley. Stephen Sondheim delivers his usual quick pace and complicated melodies, and the plot will make you feel an unexpected sympathy with the murderous stars. (Through Sun)

COMEDY
Comedy Nest Open Mic: Alyssa Yeoman
Comedy Womb has become Comedy Nest in the name of inclusivity, and unsurprisingly, they write that "although the name has changed the mission is still the same." The rules of this pro-lady stand-up night are refreshing in their simplicity: no misogyny, racism, homophobia, hatred, or heckling. Tonight's show features Alyssa Yeoman, who has performed in Seattle's HIGHlarious Comedy Festival and Portland's Minority Retort.

ART
TURN
You’ve heard of an exquisite corpse drawing, probably, or if you haven’t, you’ve probably still been part of making one in an art class at some point—it’s a drawing where one person puts down a part, then the next person, without looking at the first, adds her own part, and on and on until the paper is filled with a segmented beast of a thing. Turn, this year-long collaborative series, is something like a sculptural exquisite corpse. It was artist Shaun Kardinal’s idea, and he selected the participants. How it works is that a different artist takes a turn transforming a single piece each month. Stop by once a month to see the results of rebirths. JEN GRAVES

Cris Bruch: Others Who Were Here
Cris Bruch has been making multimedia art in Seattle for more than 30 years. In this solo exhibition, the Frye gives over most of its galleries to him, and he delivers an elegy in large-scale sculpture for the hardscrabble lives of his farmer ancestors in Colorado and Kansas, where he visited for inspiration. One room is like a cemetery where the gravestones are beautifully cast miniature silos and other agricultural buildings; they are stark white and each sits under a spotlight. Bruch's work is as materially ingenious as ever, but this time it feels as if he is mourning an entire lost civilization, one he didn't live and distantly romanticizes. See what you think of this Seattle artist's Others Who Were Here. JEN GRAVES (Closes Sun)

Peter Gross & Sylwia Tur
Peter Gross's exhibition of abstract paintings two years ago at Linda Hodges was a small revelation. His pictures were lovingly made yet had the barest bit of an attitude. They spoke at different volumes about where to look—first HERE IN RED, then don't forget about this pale shadow under that shape there, and more and more. From the gallery's website, it looks as if his new paintings include more recognizable imagery: a fallen priapic tower, a staircase, a dark doorway. I wonder what the new voices sound like. And how they'll resound with Sylwia Tur's delicate ceramic sculptures. JEN GRAVES (Closes Sat)

WEDNESDAY
READINGS & TALKS
Emily St. John Mandel
Seattle Arts & Lectures presents an evening with author Emily St. John Mandel (The Singer’s Gun, Last Night in Montreal) who will talk about the inspiration and making of Station Eleven, a National Book Award nominated work. This event is sold out online, but Mandel will also be in Tacoma tomorrow.

Complex Exchange: Power | Privilege
The exhibition of paintings by Kehinde Wiley at Seattle Art Museum is generating a lot of conversation about race and power, and the group show of historical work by underrecognized African American artists at the Northwest African American Museum should be, too. Take the opportunity of tonight's talk—with cultural organizer Rahwa Habte, dancer Dani Tirrell, and The Stranger's cultural critic Charles Mudede—to kick off your own personal visits to SAM and NAAM. And while you're at SAM with your mind moving, in addition to the Wiley, see the small, complicated show about colonial entanglement near its entrance, Emblems of Encounter: Europe and Africa Over 500 Years. JEN GRAVES

ART
Neal Fryett: Image Strike
A solo show by Neal Fryett, who piqued Jen Graves' interest back in 2011 at the UW MFA exhibit. (Closes Sat)

Ross Sawyers: The Jungle
Chicago-based Ross Sawyers returns to Seattle for this photography exhibit featuring fictional structures that may or may not have inhabitants. (Closes Sat)

THEATER
Sarah Rudinoff: NowNowNow
The performer Sarah Rudinoff stars in a new evening-length autobiographical work about finding truth in a world dominated by Facebook, Twitter, and created personas. Rudinoff presented 20 minutes of this material at On the Boards a while back, and it was really, really good—funny, daring, intimate, risky. If that glimpse of the show-in-progress was anything like the final result, you don't want to miss this. CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE (Through Sun)

MUSIC
Smashing Pumpkins and Liz Phair
Even before the departure of core members D’arcy Wretzky (bass) and James Iha (guitar) around the turn of the millennium, the Smashing Pumpkins were openly resenting their guitar-rock foundation, telling the press of their plans to go electronic. At that point, it seemed they had already mastered traditional rock, having crafted a handful of heavy emo masterpieces, and voiced the angst of a generation. But ... the band never shifted its focus, and lone remaining songwriter Billy Corgan hasn’t been able to untether himself from his guitar and fuzz pedal. ... But what defines this Pumpkins tour will likely be what continues to define Corgan’s legacy: the hits. And at least there is no shortage of those. TODD HAMM

Magma Fest: Andrew Bernstein, Booker Stardrum, Bell’s Roar, Preta Trio
Here’s one of the strongest bills of this year’s Magma Fest: Baltimore-based saxophonist/composer Andrew Bernstein, best known for his articulate blats in the metronomic, Glenn-Branca-goes-Afrobeat band Horse Lords ... Brooklyn’s Booker Stardrum—who provides percussion for Cloud Becomes Your Hand and other outfits and combines manic rhythms and distorted synth oscillations to forge equilibrium-disturbing soundscapes... and Preta Trio, which consists of Master Musicians of Bukkake members Randall Dunn and Dave Abramson (who also drums for the great gamelan-jazz-rock trio Diminished Men) and noise guitarist Pink Void. What a combo. DAVE SEGAL

Hunny, Wax Idols, Hiding Place
I’m not sure who piloted Hunny’s style of dance-oriented post-punk to more fame in the early ’00s, Franz Ferdinand or Interpol. The California sextet are looking at the same kind of meteoric rise; their song “Cry for Me” was played more than 200,000 times on Soundcloud in two months. Much more interesting is Hunny’s tourmate Wax Idols, whose album American Tragic obsessed me late last year. Singer Hether Fortune could pass for PJ Harvey, but her arrangements tend toward the gothic excess of the late 1980s. Her anthems “Only You” or “Deborah” beg for infinite repeat. Hunny are good and all, but Fortune should be opening for the Sisters of Mercy. JOSEPH SCHAFER

THURSDAY
THEATER
Mariela in the Desert
Latino Theatre Projects presents Karen Zacarias' Mariela in the Desert, a family play about creativity, loss, and secrets, set in Northern Mexico. (Through Sat)

Rodney King: Roger Guenveur Smith
Roger Guenveur Smith will be familiar from his appearances in several Spike Lee joints, and many other films besides (from Deep Cover to Dope). And though his movie work is exemplary, the work he creates for the stage is a whole lot of other ex- words (exhilarating, exuberant, exalted, and extraordinary, to name a few). Smith brought his masterful first-person performance A Huey P. Newton Story—later filmed by Lee—to On the Boards 19 years ago. He now returns with a very different show, which he describes as a “postmortem interrogation” of a very different, though no less misunderstood, Black historical figure: Rodney King. Do not miss this performance. I hate to think of Seattle having to wait another 19 years for a return engagement. SEAN NELSON (Through Sat)

DANCE
PNB: Director's Choice
Pacific Northwest Ballet presents three contemporary ballet works: Paul Gibson's Rush, Alejandro Cerrudo's Little mortal jump, and Justin Peck's Year of the Rabbit. (Through March 27)

FOOD & DRINK
Guest Chef Night: John Sundstrom
FareStart is a fantastic organization that empowers disadvantaged and homeless men and women by training them for work in the restaurant industry. Every Thursday, they host a Guest Chef Night, featuring a three-course dinner from a notable Seattle chef for just $29.95. This week FareStart welcomes Chef John Sundstrom of beloved Seattle restaurant Lark.

Pints for Parks Night with Sound Brewery
Pints for Parks Night with Sound Brewery offers a chance to drink beer for a good cause. $1 from every tap pour will go towards Sierra Club Seattle, an organization working on several local fronts towards environmental activism and conservation.

MUSIC
Bruce Springsteen
In March of 2011, Bruce Springsteen wrote a letter to the editor of his hometown paper, the Asbury Park Press, thanking them for a front-page story covering New Jersey’s rising poverty and its simultaneous policy of gutting social services to its most vulnerable residents. “These are voices… having a hard time being heard, not just in New Jersey, but nationally,” he wrote. For more than 50 years and through 18 studio albums, Springsteen has championed precisely these voices: people in small towns who have big dreams but face the crushing realities of unemployment, responsibility, and mediocrity. His songwriting range—soulful rock, stripped-down folk, hooky pop, country ballads, and sprawling guitar epics—is on full display in the 1980 double album The River, which is performed in its entirety every night of this tour. ANGELA GARBES

Action Potential: JLin, x/o, and 7777777
In a genre dominated by men from Chicago, Gary, Indiana footwork producer Jlin stands out—and not just because of her gender and home base. Her 2015 album on Planet Mu, Dark Energy, radiated just that and won album-of-the-year honors from respected UK magazine the Wire. Further, Jlin’s performance at Decibel Festival last year wowed the crowd with its oddly angled rhythms and smothering low-end aggression. DAVE SEGAL

ART
Martha Rosler: If You Lived Here Still
What a data center! Somewhere in here, in all the videos and documents and photographs and charts and graphs that Martha Rosler collected related to housing, homelessness, and gentrification in New York in the 1980s and Seattle today, there must be answers. Or at least the right questions. Rosler is the first winner of The New Foundation Seattle's 100K Prize, which comes with a yearlong celebration of her work in several parts, this exhibition being only the first at The New Foundation's gallery. Rosler wants to deploy activism and discussion as forms of art, so don't just visit, use your visit to figure out what to do next about the fact that, all evidence to the contrary in our transmogrifying city, Housing Is A Human Right, as her year of events is titled. The first iteration, Home Front, which focuses on tenant struggles and gentrification, closes on Saturday. JEN GRAVES

FRIDAY
FOOD & DRINK
Plate of Nations
Plate of Nations is your two-week-long chance to explore the many cuisines and cultures of Rainier Valley. Through April 10, independently owned eateries serving Ethiopian, Eritrean, Laotian, Middle Eastern, Somali, Thai, and Vietnamese food (or, in the case of Olympic Express restaurant, a wondrous Halal mash-up of all nearly all of these things) are offering shareable plates, specially priced at $15 and $25. If you’ve never been to Cafe Ibex, Foo Lam, or Huarachitos, you’re missing out on some of the best food in town. ANGELA GARBES (Through April 10)

THEATER
brownsville song (b-side for tray)
The New York Times called brownsville song (b-side for Tray) a "moving if somewhat predictable play" that's both "elegy and polemic." The plot involves a Brooklyn high school senior writing a scholarship essay trying to distance himself from the stereotype that he's a "poor black boy from the violent ghetto," only for him to be victimized by gang violence immediately after he finishes writing it. According to the Times, "The drama moves back and forth in time, vaulting from the weeks and months before Tray’s shooting to its aftermath." CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE (Through Sun)

QUEER
Galleria: An Evening of Drag as Performance Art
If you've been following RuPaul's Drag Race this season to cheer on local heroine Robbie Turner, you may be experiencing some lip-synch and death-drop fatigue. Yes, Ru-style showwomanship is fun to watch, but it's not the only kind of drag there is. For example, there's the curious performance art promised by Galleria: An Evening of Drag as Performance Art. Rather than screaming, "YAAAAS QUEEN SLAY," you'll be far more likely to muse, "Yes, but what does it all mean?" Local drag artist faves Butylene O'Kipple, Arson Nicki, and Harlotte O'Scara promise an unconventional space and fresh perspectives, which is drag queen for "Nobody is going to believe your stories when you tell people about this." MATT BAUME

GEEK
Sakura-Con
Anime convention SakuraCon returns for its 19th year, so expect downtown Seattle to once again be filled with people dressed as mecha, schoolgirls, and video game characters downtown at the end of March. No, but really: There will be concerts, art, gaming, screening, panels, and "industry guests" to hobnob with. (Through Sun)

MUSIC
Strategy, Timm Mason, and Randy Jones
Portland multi-instrumentalist Strategy (aka Paul Dickow) boasts a large, diverse discography that ranges from dubby post-rock to wonky house to eventful ambient to experiments with tape loops and radio emissions. No matter which style he attempts, Strategy imbues it with an inquisitive, subtle inventiveness that reflects his alchemical ability to use the studio as an instrument. DAVE SEGAL

Stickers, Wimps, VHS, Casual Hex, Stucko, and Toyota
Local band hiatus alert: The cantankerous Stickers are taking a break after six years of tumultuous post-punk ramrodding. Why? Bassist Troy Ayala is moving to New York. But, as singer/saxophonist Gabi Page-Fort put it in an e-mail to me, “Stickers is for life, we’re seeing this hiatus as an opportunity to explore life beyond the sounds we’ve discovered to date, who knows where we’ll go next… So we’ll rest upon velveteen settees and bask until the sun moves us along.” In an act of generosity, Stickers will leave us with an album before they exit. DAVE SEGAL

Porches, Alex G, and Your Friend
Alex G creates songs for solo listening, tastefully crafted bedroom-pop songs that feel specifically tailored to walking around with headphones on and a hoodie up, or staring up at the rotating blades of a ceiling fan and feeling listless. The prolific Philadelphia songwriter sings in a gentle, Elliott Smith–style whisper-sing, with lyrics full of all the good stuff: longing, unrequited love, and complicated feelings. Accompanied by gently unpredictable layered guitar parts, piano melodies, and intimate vocal harmonies that fill up the empty space in my head, these are songs for introspection that reveal more and more layers upon repeat listens. I could hit play on Alex G and stare at the ceiling for hours. ROBIN EDWARDS

SATURDAY
COMMUNITY
Washington State Democratic Caucuses
The caucus system has been criticized for something a lot of people probably love about it: the anachronistically non-anonymous presentation, in which heated discussion with fellow Democrats is not a regrettable byproduct but a perk of participation. This year feels different than past caucus ops, however, in that the two candidates vying for the nomination actually represent radically different approaches to both campaigning and governance, and the impermeable two-way diatribe that masquerades as our conversation about them has left many of us feeling actually undecided. The moral certainty that the Republicans will nominate a dangerous cretin isn't new. What is new is the prospect of Democrats evaluating our own moral certainties—knowing very well what’s at stake. This year's caucuses afford Washington voters a chance to demand answers of one another, and more importantly, to listen to them. Most of all, though, it provides a crystal clear dividing line: If you don’t go, you are hereby forbidden to post another goddamn word about Hillary or Bernie on Facebook. SEAN NELSON

READINGS & TALKS
Tiffany Midge with Chrystos and Storme Webber
Poet Tiffany Midge (Outlaws, Renegades and Saints; Diary of a Mixed-up Halfbreed) will read from her latest collection, The Woman Who Married a Bear. She will be joined by fellow poets Chrystos and Storme Webber.

FOOD & DRINK
Georgetown Bites
Seattle’s oldest neighborhood also happens to be home to some of the city’s best beer (Georgetown Brewing, Machine House Brewery) and cured meats (Hitchcock Deli), as well as an unusually high concentration of pizza (Via Tribunali, Flying Squirrel, Stellar), excellent sweets (Fran’s Chocolate, Ellenos Greek Yogurt), and vegan food from Georgetown Liquor Company. Georgetown Bites gives you a chance to sample it all. ANGELA GARBES

MUSIC
Magma Fest: Lavender Country, Rae Spoon, Militia Etheridge, Lavender and’er Butch Blinders
Songwriter Patrick Haggerty formed Lavender Country—the first openly gay country band—in 1972, releasing a self-titled record containing such poignant/FCC-scorned hits as “Cryin’ These Cocksucking Tears.” The record is a dreamy foray into the previously nonexistent world of gay honky-tonk, using classic country tropes and psych-folk melodies to tell Haggerty’s stories of growing up queer in rural Washington. Following a recent reissue, Lavender Country have been playing shows again, fully armed with harmonicas and frilly blouses, and their live set may even inspire a few country-fried shuffles. BRITTNIE FULLER

Diminished Men, Alvarius B., and Crones of Chaos
Alan Bishop’s Abduction Records just issued Vision in Crime, Seattle trio Diminished Men’s latest installment in their ongoing campaign to make spy jazz, surf rock, gamelan, and red-knuckled Morricone-esque suspensefulness coexist in perfect equilibrium. And they’ve succeeded smashingly. ... These guys manifest the mystery of their idiosyncratic sound world with the surgical precision and artful ruthlessness of a Bond villain. DAVE SEGAL

Thao & The Get Down Stay Down and Car Seat Headrest
Lead singer Thao Nguyen of the San Francisco-based alt-folk group has toured with NPR's Radiolab and had her most recent album, We The Common, called "keenly intelligent and original" by The New Yorker.

SUNDAY
ART
Seattle Makers Market
Enjoy live music and a full bar while you scope out beautiful paintings and jewelry from local artists and designers.

FILM
Pioneers of African-American Cinema
This four-week series at Grand Illusion delves into the genre of the "race film," which were films "funded, written, produced, directed, distributed, and often exhibited by people of color" during the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. They're not well known due to the fact that they were only circulated in low-quality 16mm prints, but they've now been restored. Today, they'll screen the 1939 Birthright, a film about an idealistic Harvard grad who tries to establish an integrated grade school in the segregated south, and the 1931 Darktown Revue, an early film by Oscar Micheaux that's a "jaw-dropping spin on the minstrel show."

MUSIC
Kill the Keg: Sayonara, Dead Spells, Post/Boredom, and Quid Quo
These days, the term “hardcore” gets thrown around so freely that you can’t help rolling your eyes at the mention of the word. Then along comes Sayonara—a Seattle-based band that smacks you across your jaded head hard enough to make you a believer again. Their raw, stripped-down fury is channeled through two-minute blasts of punk-rooted, cocky rock ’n’ roll. They are a middle finger to what hardcore has become, with a sound that at times recalls the best parts of the late Ink & Dagger (minus the Vampire gimmick). Don’t sleep on Sayonara, for they are the truth. KEVIN DIERS (There will also be $1 drafts and a "hunky Jesus contest" at this show.)