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MONDAY
PERFORMANCEStuff You Missed In History Class
On their popular podcast, Holly Frey and Tracy V. Wilson unearth historical events that have been unjustly neglected in the books, like "the decades-long dispute between butter and margarine," "a pair of lions that terrorized a railroad crew in Kenya," and "the only successful coup d'Ă©tat in American history."
Rebecca Brown: Not Heaven, Somewhere Else
Lambda Literary Award and Stranger Genius Award winner Rebecca Brown has been called "one of the few truly original modern lesbian writers" by the San Francisco Chronicle (seems like unnecessary shade on lesbians, but whatever) and "dry, witty, graceful â if savage" by novelist Mary Gaitskill. Brown's newest publication, Not Heaven, Somewhere Else, is a collection of imaginative short stories. She'll appear with Jennifer Borges Foster.
Rene Redzepi and David Zilber: The Noma Guide to Fermentation
The legendary, two-Michelin-starred restaurant Noma in Copenhagen has been named the best restaurant in the world four times, and fermentation plays a pivotal role in its superlative, complex foodâevery dish on the menu contains fermentation in some form. Rene Redzepi, the chef and owner of Noma, and David Zilber, the chef in charge of the restaurant's fermentation lab, have written The Noma Guide to Fermentation, in which they divulge their secrets and techniques for home cooks to re-create. At this event, theyâll discuss their new book with an interactive presentation and tasting that includes a treat prepared by Rachael Coyle and the Coyleâs Bakeshop team. JULIANNE BELL
MONDAY-WEDNESDAY
ARTNightmare of Ages
The young, self-taught Canadian illustrator and comics artist Dewey Guyen is a perfect guest for the eccentric art collective Push/Pull, given his penchant for the satanic, monstrous, and punk themes often mined by Push/Pull's members. He harks back to album covers, Francisco Goya's fearsome brutes, cartoons, and psychedelia. Guyen and friends will be releasing a book featuring images by other artists, including Farel Dalrymple, Seth Goodkind, Angelita Martinez, Heidi Estey, and other wonderful weirdos, with Guyenâs drawings on vellum overlaying their designs. JOULE ZELMAN
Closing Wednesday
MONDAY-THURSDAY
ARTMagalie Guérin: The Marfa Paintings
Chicago-based artist Magalie Guérin makes abstract paintings that distort perceptions of foreground and background through colorful biomorphic and geometric forms.
Closing Thursday
Orchids and Evergreens: Thai and Seattle Printmakers
Seattle Print Arts, with the help of Nikki Barber and Miranda Metcalf, brings together floral prints from artists in Chiang Mai and Bangkok as well as in the Northwest. See work by, among others, Seattleites Claire Cowie, Kim Van Someren, and Romson Bustillo and Thailanders Kittikong Tilokwattan, Orn Thongthai, and Srijai Kuntawang.
Closing Thursday
MONDAY-FRIDAY
ARTChun Shao: Silicone Love - Her Garden
The internet generates and absorbs our desires, giving scopophiliaâthe pleasure of watchingâan almost infinite playground. If this virtualized realm of desire were condensed into a single form, what would it look like? DXARTS PhD candidate Chun Shao makes âvideo-mapped gestural sculpturesâ that may provide an unsettling response. You can find a previous riff on this idea, Silicone Love - Her Finger, on Vimeo: a pulsing, illuminated, jellyfish-like object made of a lampshade, motors, baubles, and gauze. Like the Web, as you look into it, it yields and responds to your imagination. JOULE ZELMAN
Closing Friday
Emily Sudd: Sitting in the Dark
Los Angeles artist and university instructor Emily Sudd is becoming known for cheeky, sometimes literal mash-ups of utilitarian ceramic objects and post-minimalist sculptures, like plates and vessels jammed onto an easel-perched canvas or a bisected vase full of melted ceramic detritus. In this exhibition, her 3-D pieces will be accompanied by stainless-steel jewelry chains strung into tapestry-like arrangements. Some are elegant, others rough, chunky, and even downright ugly. Some evoke destructive processes; others seem purely abstract, yet eschew formalism through the use of unconventional materials. All toy with the distinctions between art, junk, implement, and decoration. JOULE ZELMAN
Opening Friday
MONDAY-SUNDAY
FILMTWIST Seattle Queer Film Festival
Local shorts, indie features, and national or international releases will stoke and satisfy your appetite for gay, lesbian, bi, trans, and otherwise queer-focused films, from hot romances to incisive documentaries to perverse suspense flicks. The closing film will be Rafiki, Kenyan director Wanuri Kahiu's landmark workâbanned in her home country for its "clear intent to promote lesbianism.â Other highlights will include biopics of Mapplethorpe and Montgomery Clift, and the film history doc Dykes, Camera, Action! If you love queer movies and moviemakers, this festival is indispensable.
TUESDAY
ARTYÉhawÌ Artist Residency - Native Kut
Artists-in-residence Pah-tu Pitt and Sean Gallagher will carve and print in the library, creating work around the theme of water rights.
Seattle Think & Drink: Fake News and Conspiracy Theories
Conspiracy theories are nothing new, but with the onslaught of fake news that pervades our eyes and ears, they're certainly more common. How can we spot fear-mongering misinformation and stop it from spreading? Humanities Washington will lead a panel discussion on the subject with "experts at the front lines of the information wars:" Snopes.com founder David Mikkelson and University of Washington Professors Kate Starbird and Jevin West.
Ted Chiang and Karen Joy Fowler in Conversation
Last year's lauded sci-fi film Arrival was based on Ted Chiang's short fiction "The Story of Your Life," which combined a gorgeously nerdy and profound examination of alien grammar with a sad and equally profound exploration of love and fate. Which is to say, Ted Chiang is a genius, and "The Story of Your Life" should be viewed as a gateway to his body of literature, not a companion to Denis Villeneuve's (admittedly pretty cool) movie. Chiang will appear with PEN/Faulkner Award winner Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, and many smart, emotional, literary spooky stories. JOULE ZELMAN
TUESDAY-WEDNESDAY
FOOD & DRINKJulia Turshen: Now and Again
Food writer and activist Julia Turshen has coauthored cookbooks with the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow, Mario Batali, and Dana Cowin. Her debut cookbook under her own name, Small Victories, was a breakout hit of 2016, praised for its warm, witty voice and comforting recipes (my own copy is well-worn and splatter-stained, as any cookbook worth its salt should be). Turshen is also a staunch advocate for social justice: Her second outing, Feed the Resistance, offered both recipes and suggestions for activism in equal measure, and she also founded Equity at the Table, an online database of women and nonbinary people working in the food industry. Turshenâs latest cookbook, Now and Again, is full of inspiring menus for entertaining accompanied by suggestions for how to repurpose leftovers. At this event, sheâll discuss the new book with local author Molly Wizenberg and sign copies purchased at the shop. JULIANNE BELL
TUESDAY-SUNDAY
PERFORMANCECirque du Soleil: VOLTA
Every Cirque du Soleil show Iâve experienced has abounded with breathtaking, eye-popping visuals as well as awe-inspiring feats of movement by Cirqueâs cast of dancers, physical actors, athletes, and circus performers (acrobats, contortionists, aerialists, and the like), all within a big tent. The subject matter of VOLTA, Cirqueâs 41st production, involves extreme sports, touching on (but not limited to) shape diving, BMX, and rope skipping. One fan said it was âabsolutely spectacular," so don't miss this Marymoor Park run. LEILANI POLK
Come From Away
What happens when kind island people who live in the poorest province in Canada realize that they have to play host to a bunch of irritated, scared, and stranded "plane people" who nearly outnumber them? They help. Instantly, food comes off the store shelves, the hockey rink becomes cold storage, and every home's a hotel. An indicative line, given by an actor playing a clerk: "Thank you for shopping at Wal-Mart. Would you like to come back to my house for a shower?" This is the strong, uplifting premise of Come From Away. Normally, I'm a stone when it comes to musicals. But by minute six or seven, I was smiling at all the small town charm and rooting for the spirit these people projected. RICH SMITH
Oslo
Oslo won a Tony for its dramatization of the top-secret peace negotiations between Rabin and Arafat in the 1990s. The diplomatic talks were, weirdly, orchestrated by young Norwegian power-couple Mona Juul and Terje RĂžd-Larsen. Expect lots of long gray coats, wary handshakes, dark humor, and fine acting from Christine Marie Brown and Avery Clark. RICH SMITH
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Based on Khaled Hosseini's best-selling novel, Ursula Rani Sarma's play A Thousand Splendid Suns shows what happens when two women, Laila and Mariam, join in unbreakable friendship in wartime Kabul.
WEDNESDAY
FILMSchlock and Awe: Reagan-Era Horror
Deregulation and out-of-control greed were not the only horrors of the Reagan reign. The Forum celebrates slashers, mutants, and gore in a deep dive into the paranoia and excess of the era, and boy does that sound like a fun escape from our own hellscape. Tonight's film is the "people are worse than zombies!!!" George Romero film Day of the Dead.
Christopher Kimball: Milk Street: Tuesday Nights
You may recognize Christopher Kimball as the bespectacled, bow-tied personality formerly associated with Americaâs Test Kitchen and Cookâs Illustrated. Kimball has since started his own enterprise called Milk Street, composed of magazines, cookbooks, and a broadcast show. Heâll drop by Seattle to discuss his new book, Milk Street: Tuesday Nightsâfilled with a trove of speedy weeknight dishes like Cuban-spiced burgers and pasta with seared cauliflowerâand to sign copies. JULIANNE BELL
Meet Me at Cone & Steiner: Adria Shimada of Parfait Ice Cream
Parfait Ice Cream owner Adria Shimada will talk about her French-influenced organic ice cream and answer questions, and you'll get to sample it.
David Reich: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past
Geneticist David Reich will explain how genomics is revealing the history of modern humans with excerpts from his book Who We Are and How We Got Here. It sounds fascinating and provocative: "Reich suggests that there might very well be biological differences among human populationsâmany of which are unlikely to conform to common stereotypes."
Jodi Picoult: A Spark of Light
The prolific author of My Sister's Keeper and other hits has a new novel that sounds scarily relevant. It's about a reproductive health center held up by a gunman; a police hostage negotiator; and his teenage daughter, who's trapped inside.
Kevin Young: Bunk and the Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phones, Post-Facts, and Fake News
The award-winning author of Bunk will share expertise for his book on American fakery and imposture, from PT Barnum to Rachel Dolezal, for the UW Public Lecture Series on misinformation and news.
WordsWest: Stacey Levine & Anca SzilĂĄgyi
Two brilliant local authors will discuss their magical realist books about women and girls who rebel against the confines of their worlds. Anca SzilĂĄgyi wowed us last year with Daughters of the Air, about the daughter of a dissident in Argentina; Stacey Levine won a Stranger Genius Award and a PEN/West Fiction Award for her novels and short stories.Â
WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY
PERFORMANCEThe Turn of the Screw
In 1954, English composer Benjamin Britten (1913â1976) premiered his opera based on Henry James's ghost story The Turn of the Screw. Its music is darkly gorgeous, jolting, manic at times, and often outright scary. In key sequences involving the children in the story, the atonal sounds float like a ghost in a room of mirrors. Anyone familiar with the Portishead track âCowboysâ will already have a good sense of how this echo-stark opera sounds. Because the opera is as much about ghosts as sexual abuse of women and children, it provides new and important meanings for our #MeToo moment. CHARLES MUDEDE
WEDNESDAY-SATURDAY
ARTGravity Jokes
When a joke âgoes over well,â we say that it âlands.â Sometimes a joke doesnât land because it âmisses the markâ or âsails over the headsâ of its intended audience. What is it about comedy that invites so many comparisons to the trajectories of flying, falling objects? In Gravity Jokes, dubbed an âexperimental exhibition-as-conversationâ by curator Molly Mac, six artists who create work on a âcontinuum between traditional sculpture and stand-up comedyâ have come together to tell jokes of all forms that collaborate with the forces of gravity: Dewa Dorje, Andy Fallat, Philippe Hyojung Kim, Mario Lemafa, E.T. Russian, and Khadija Ann Tarver. EMILY POTHAST
Closing Saturday
WEDNESDAY-SUNDAY
PERFORMANCEBeware the Terror of Gaylord Manor
The world-famous Seattle-based drag queen BenDeLaCreme has written and performed three acclaimed solo shows, but Beware the Terror of Gaylord Manor is the artist's first foray into writing, directing, and starring in an original play of her own. It's a spooky, campy twist on the horror flick genre, featuring ghosts, dancers, music, and special effects. It first premiered last year for a sold-out run at ACT, and returns this year surely with a few of its kinks worked out. The chemistry between BenDeLaCreme and Scott Shoemaker alone is worth the price of admission. CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE
Night Parade
The oldest Asian American theater group in the Pacific Northwest is teaming up with one of the area's youngest Asian American-led theater groups to bring you an immersive theatrical experience that sounds perfect for people who want to indulge in the seasonâs devilry. The drama, which will unfold at a secret TBA location in Seattle, follows a demon-obsessed artist named Shunkuno Arashi, whose life story is partially based on Yayoi Kusama (Instagram it), as well as a Japanese folktale about demons parading down the street and stealing people. So, uh, keep your head on a swivel. RICH SMITH
A People's History
Mike Daisey is back in town, as he often is, with a pretty simple but brilliant bit. He's going to read you some pages from Good Will Hunting's favorite history bookâHoward Zinnâs A Peopleâs History of the United States. Then he's going to read you some pages from his high-school history book. Then we're all going to sit there and have a little reflection session on the difference between history as told by the conquerors and history as told from the perspective of the dispossessed. RICH SMITH
THURSDAY
FOOD & DRINKUMAMI - A Night of Hot Ramen and Hot Music
Want to put your spicy food tolerance to the test? Inspired by the recent "Nuclear Fire Noodle Challenge" trend on social media, in which heat-seeking masochists slurp a popular instant ramen that clocks in at 8,706 Scoville units, the Seattle Noodle Gang (self-described as "purveyors of beats and noodles") will partner with Tsingtao to host "Seattle's first ever hot ramen challenge," complete with their own face-meltingly hot house-made ramen accompanied by DJ sets. The first 100 guests will get a free Noodle Gang enamel pin, and $1 from every Tsingtao beer sold will go to Seattle's Union Gospel Mission.
House of 1000 Arsons
Join Seattle's most original queens for a toasty roast of Arson Nicki, a performer whom Stranger contributor Matt Baume has called an "unidentified frocking object." Applaud and groan the witticisms of Americano, Beau Degas, Betty Wetter, Britt Brutality, Cookie Couture, and Londyn Bradshaw.
So You Think You Can Drag
In the "biggest and best drag competition ever" hosted by Cookie Couture, local queens both known and unknown will display their most impressive looks, lip-syncing abilities, and special talents each week in pursuit of a $5,000 grand prize.
Ben Fountain: Beautiful Country Burn Again
Ben Fountain is one of those writers who make you feel okay for not having published your groundbreaking novel before 40 years of age. He published his first book at 48âa heavily researched selection of short stories called Brief Encounters with Che Guevaraâand published 2012's best-selling Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk at 53. Now he turns from fiction to bring us Beautiful Country Burn Again, a book-length expansion of his 2016 essays on the US elections originally published in the Guardian. He'll be joined in this talk by Maria Semple. RICH SMITH
Walter Mosley: John Woman
There is, in any cultural movement or form, a core logic that structures the whole. In classical black American music and literature, that logic is the blues. We hear it in the music of John Coltrane, and you can read it in the novels of Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Ralph Ellison. More recently, it is in the plays of August Wilson and the mysteries of Walter Mosley, a writer known for the Ezekiel âEasyâ Rawlins series. One of the novels in this series, Devil in a Blue Dress, was made into a superb film by Carl Franklin. He translated into film the core of so much black art, the blues. CHARLES MUDEDE
Word Works: Elizabeth George
George will discuss her method of plot planning, particularly for her British crime novel series starring Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers and Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley. How much does she map out before writing, and how has her process changed?
THURSDAY-SATURDAY
COMEDYRon Funches
Watch any Ron Funches clip on YouTube, or go to one of his live sets, and if youâre not in love with his gentle, quirky observations and off-kilter, ganja-logic transitions, you need to reassess your worldview. Dude is one of the funniest humans on Earth now. Funches may have lost a lot of weight recently, but rest assured: Heâs still punching well above it with his endlessly unpredictable thoughts about whatever absurdities pop into his pot-enhanced mind. (âI like marijuana. Itâs like getting a hug on your insides.â) This performance will be filmed for a TV special. DAVE SEGAL
Andrew Schneider: YOUARENOWHERE
Obie Awardâwinning performer and "interactive-electronics artist" Andrew Schneider uses the idea of space-time collapse to shape this show. In addition to some extremely impressive special effects, he employs a "lecture-style format, pop culture, and personal revelation to dissect subjects ranging from quantum mechanics and parallel universes to missed connections and AA recovery steps." RICH SMITH
I and You
Two teenagersâa boy and a deathly ill girlâargue and bond in Laura Gunderson's "ode to youth, life, love, and the strange beauty of human connectedness."
Ian Bell's Brown Derby Series presents: Halloween
Ian Bellâs Brown Derby series, âridiculously staged readings of your favorite screenplays,â celebrates 20 years in 2018, with send-ups of Valley of the Dolls and Dirty Dancing in February and June of this year, respectively. The third Brown Derby of 2018 pays homage to the spooktacular end-of-October holiday with a butchering of Halloween. I havenât seen any of the Brown Derbys, but Iâm told these things are always fucking hilarious, they happen at Re-bar (which means lots of boozing to lube up the communal laughing), and the promo flyer for this edition has the indelible Michael Myers mask Photoshopped onto Austin Powersâs body. Does this mean some sort of mash-up is in order? And how the fuck will they do it? I just donât know, baby. LEILANI POLK
Vinegar Tom
In Caryn Churchill's play set in Puritan New England, a mother and daughter are accused of witchcraft after the daughter refuses a man's advances. Kaytlin McIntyre (Nadeshiko, Zapoi, The Lost Girls) will direct this Cornish production.
THURSDAY-SUNDAY
ARTPeacock in the Desert: The Royal Arts of Jodhpur, India
Organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in collaboration with the Mehrangarh Museum in Jodhpur, India, Peacock in the Desert is a traveling exhibition of some 250 artworks and objects that trace four centuries of royal history of the Rathore dynasty of Rajasthan, India. Most of these objectsâwhich include miniature paintings, handcrafted armor, and carved furnishingsâhad never traveled to the United States prior to this exhibition. The installation at Seattle Art Museum will include large-scale photographic murals that evoke the geographic and historical context of these rare treasures. EMILY POTHAST
Opening celebration Thursday
FRIDAY
ARTThe Factory presents: DRUGS
Top Seattle talents like Arson Nicki, Brett Hamil, Naa Akua, Jennifer Zwick, and others will spend an evening in artistic/literary/performative contemplation of drugs, whether prescribed, recreational, or metaphorical. Just Kaija will host.
Halloween Hell Harvest 3
If you're very, very brave, venture forth to laugh and scream with these ghoulish pumpkins: host Matt Hatfield, comedians Haley Beglau, Gary Stensland, and others, and improv and sketch groups Sweaty Dee, Maple Daddies, Your Cousins, and more. Exercise your BRAAAAINS with horror trivia, win scary prizes, and eat candyâit's probably delicious and definitely not made of HUMAN FLESH!
SAL Presents: Phoebe Robinson
During this podcast comedian and writer's "Yaaas Queen Yaaas" tour with Ilana Glazer, Stranger contributor Jenni Moore wrote, "I enjoy that Robinson has mastered the art of dismantling the patriarchy and embracing diversity through her work, while also unabashedly celebrating all the white culture she loves." Phoebe Robinson of WNYC Studios podcast/HBO special 2 Dope Queens will appear alone to share funny observations of her second book, Everything is Trash, But Itâs Okay.
James Beard Foundation Taste America: Seattle Benefit Dinner
At this star-studded supper, the James Beard Foundation (named after the late, great cook and food writer) will bring together a stacked lineup of acclaimed local chefs all in one place, with chef Paul Shewchuck from the Fairmont Olympic Hotel serving as host. The evening starts off with Jay Blackinton of Hogstoneâs Wood Oven (Orcas Island), Felipe Hernandez of Los Hernandez Tamales (Union Gap), Shota Nakajima of Adana (Capitol Hill), Mutsuko Soma of Kamonegi (Fremont), and Melissa Miranda of the Musang Seattle pop-up providing bites alongside cocktails. Next, âlocal all-starâ chef Edouardo Jordanâwho nabbed dual James Beard Award wins in 2018 when his raved-about Ravenna restaurant JuneBaby took home best new restaurant and his other restaurant Salare earned him Best Chef: Northwestâwill create a sit-down dinner along with visiting James Beard Award winners Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski of State Bird Provisions and the Progress in San Francisco, respectively. To finish, Brittany Bardeleben of Dahlia Bakery, Laura Pyles of the Pantry, and Artis Kalsons of 4th Ave Espresso Bar will serve desserts. This is a unique opportunity to catch a coterie of nationally recognized chefs all in one nightâdonât miss it. JULIANNE BELL
Sam Blackman | Mack Suits Baer | Coping Mechanism
Sam Blackman, a Moth GrandSLAM winner and raconteur of disparate things in "Newton, Copernicus, Click & Clack," and Mack Suits Baer will return for second appearances at Solo Performance Month. They'll be joined by recent Intiman Emerging Artist Courtney Seyl with a piece about grief and Sara Geiger with "An Afternoon Of Guided Meditation with INTERIM Pastor Chastity Joy."
âSecond Actâ with Christine Deavel & J.W. (John) Marshall
The two former owners of Open Books, Christine Deavel and J.W. (John) Marshall, will read from their new play, Vicinity/Memoryall, about two people searching for a memorial to the victims of violence in their city. There will also be a screening of Sarah Linkatoon's short film "Olive," which won the 2018 Emerging Visions Filmmaker Award.
Henry Rollins
Comedian and musician Henry Rollins will give a special talk embellished with photos from around the world, from "Baghdad to Pyongyang."
Kim Sagwa: Mina
Kim Sagwa is a rising young South Korean writer who's won multiple awards and was granted a three-year residency in the USA as an "Alien of Extraordinary Ability in the Arts." Her new novel, Mina, is about a frantic teenager driven to distraction by pressures of school and society. She'll be joined by Bruce Fulton and Ju-Chan Fulton, her translators, as well as local poet Don Mee Choi.
Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum: What We Do with the Wreckage
PEN/O. Henry Prize recipient Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum writes about "finding resilience in the face of adversity" in her new collection of short fiction. She'll introduce some of the stories' inspiring characters at this reading.
FRIDAY-SATURDAY
ARTEirik Johnson
What motivates people to carve their initials into the bark of a living tree? This fall, local publisher Minor Matters will be releasing PINE, a book of new photography by Neddy-award winning artist Eirik Johson. For this body of work, Johnson has photographed found instances of tree graffiti, considering the circumstances that might have prompted people to leave such marks. To accompany these images, Johnson has commissioned a digital mixtape by an exciting roster of musicians including SassyBlack, Newaxeyes, Whiting Tennis, and Tenderfoot. This exhibition timed to the book's release will showcase Johnson's work in color photography, illuminated light boxes, and sound. EMILY POTHAST
Opening Friday
Leavenworth Oktoberfest
Leavenworth is as close as you'll get to an actual Bavarian village without getting on a plane to Germany. For their Oktoberfest celebration, they'll have beer, live music, and bratwurst. Leavenworth's mayor, Cheri Kelley Farivar, will perform the ceremonial tapping of the keg on Saturday.
Hostages
Yussef El Guindi won a Stranger Genius Award in 2015 for his ability to write clearly and honestly about moments of âdisplacement and discomfortâwhether geographical, cultural, or sexual.â His genius for writing about discomfort will certainly be on full display in this new production of Hostages, a play about two college professors chained to a radiator after being taken hostage in a war zone. Expect lots of dark humor and intense drama. RICH SMITH
FRIDAY-SUNDAY
FILMKinofest
This short festival, co-organized with the Portland German Film Festival, screens new and classic German-language cinema from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. This year's lineup includes some intriguing biopics, like Egon Schiele â Death and the Maiden, about the mesmerizingly morbid/erotic Austrian artist, and Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe, about the ill-fated Austrian Jewish writer of The Royal Game and Letter from an Unknown Woman. There's also a drama about the clandestine Jewish survivors of the Nazi regime in Berlin, The Invisibles, a documentary following David Lama as he sets out to climb an insanely difficult Patagonia peak, Cerro Torre, and more.
Seattle Polish Film Festival
This film festival hailing from an important moviemaking center of Eastern Europe always has interesting features to offer.
This Is Halloween
It's Tim Burton's classic The Nightmare Before Christmas repackaged as a semi-scandalous spectacle for the masses. The audience eats chicken skewers and knocks back $10 cocktails while they watch Tim Keller as Jack "the Pumpkin King" Skellington sing and dance, cabaret-style, along with Luminous Pariah, Paris Original, Marissa Quimby, and Baby Kate, while a ghoulish orchestra pumps out the show's signature tunes. Despite the glitzy and consumerist exterior, the crew manages to smuggle a complicated cabaret about the horror of fixed identities into the unpretentious space of the Triple Door. RICH SMITH
SATURDAY
ARTMort Cinder
One lifetime's worth of witnessing strife and atrocity is hard enough. But what if every time you died, you came back to endure even more? The influential Argentinian comic Mort Cinder, written by HĂ©ctor GermĂĄn Oesterheld (aka HGO) and illustrated by Alberto Breccia in the early 1960s, is about one man weathering human depravity across time and space (including outer space). The weathered, tortured faces of murderers, soldiers, grave robbers, and adventurers are rendered in high-contrast black-and-white that will look familiar to fans of Frank Miller. Oesterheld was a left-winger with anti-totalitarian activities and writingsâand in 1977, he, his three daughters, and their husbands were âdisappearedâ and presumably murdered. At long last, Oesterheld and Breccia's creation will be issued in English by Fantagraphics, and HGOâs grandson Martin Oesterheld will be here to discuss its legacy. JOULE ZELMAN
Elena Martinez | Maia Alexander | Ryan Sanders | Clayton Weller
This Solo Performance Month night is a fourfer: See actor Ryan Sanders, hilarious improviser/sketch actor Elena Martinez, Clayton Weller (with a "Part Game, Part Show"), and Cornish grad Maia Alexander.
Duwamish Fry Bread Class
Learn how to make tasty, authentic fry bread with instructor Cecile Hansen.
A Drag Tribute to Tim Burton
Old Witch and Londyn Bradshaw will pay tribute to the cinematic creations of brilliant weirdo Tim Burton, drag style.
Incident at Vichy
Arthur Miller's play depicts the plight of a group of men plucked off the street and waiting their unknown fate in a police station in German-occupied France. Kelly Kitchens from Seattle Shakespeare and Seattle Public Theater will helm a cast from UW School of Drama, bringing this disturbingly relevant piece about widespread evil and the individual's response.
Mixed Bag: A Comedy and Music Show
The variety show Mixed Bag is back to celebrate the opening of the new, improved Hugo House. Washington's Poet Laureate Claudia Castro Luna will headline as the special guest, and poet Jeanine Walker and musician Steve Mauer will host.
My Favorite Murder
Murder might not seem to be a subject ripe for humor, but comics Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff somehow make in happen in My Favorite Murder, the blockbuster podcast the duo records in Hardstarkâs living room. The showâs fans, called Murderinos, are devoted, and tickets to the live show sold out quickly. If, however, you find a spare ticket lying aroundâor, even better, a Murderino willing to take you under her wing (and it will be a herâthis is a very female-dominated sport), go to this show and youâll see how everyone's worst nightmare gets a little less terrifying, and a little more fun, when youâre surrounded by the My Favorite Murder fam. KATIE HERZOG
Smut P(art)y
"Seattle's sexiest interarts gang" will "deal a low blow to high art" in this variety show that celebrates all things smutty. The lineup includes slam poet Val Nigro, comedy duo Michael Castillo and Graham Downing, "dirty pop" duo Creature Hole, and many others.
Thriftease: Club-Kid Catwalk
Hot go-go queers will model pieces from Mona Real's incredible thrift-store-alimented wardrobe, which you can buy straight off their willing bodiesâbidding starts at a buck! The runway will just explode with alien fashions and vintage finds.
Finnegans Wake
Seattle composer, musician, and substitute teacher Neal Kosaly-Meyer will continue his amazing feat of reciting Finnegan's Wake from memory, chapter by chapterâas if reading the modernist monster wasn't hard enough. In praise of Kosaly-Meyer's feat, Charles Mudede wrote: "Maybe this is the only way the novel could be saved. Itâs not all that amazing to memorize something that everyone understands; itâs very impressive to memorize something understood by only one person, who has been in the grave for many years."
The Value of a Work of Art Can Be Measured By the Harm Spoken of It: Conversations with David Shields
Distinguished intellectual David Shields will talk about his book War is Beautiful with Whitney Otto, author of How To Make an American Quilt.
SATURDAY-SUNDAY
ARTThe Vikings Begin
With no written history and its stories passed down orally through skalds (poets and storytellers), the history of Vikings has been pieced together mostly through artifacts. This traveling exhibition organized by scholars from Swedenâs Uppsala University brings together agricultural, warfare, and ornamental artifacts dating back as far as 750 AD. New research has uncovered that women played a larger role in Viking society as warriors and sorceresses. (One of the carved bone figure heads in the exhibition found in a female grave is thought to have topped a sorceressâs wand.) This exhibition will also dispel other myths about Vikings, namely that they werenât all warriors and most of them had normal jobs as fishermen and farmers. KATIE KURTZ
Opening Saturday
SUNDAY
COMEDYCarol Burnett: An Evening of Laughter and Reflection
In a 90-minute stage show, the living legend shows clips and takes questions from the audience. In Chicago, someone asked her about her relationship with Julie Andrews, and she told a story about trying to prank Andrewsâs husbandâthe two women started kissing outside an elevator right as he was expected to walk out. Instead, the person who came out of the elevator was Lady Bird Johnson. âArenât you Carol Burnett?â the first lady asked. And Burnett answered: âYes, and this is Mary Poppins.â CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE
Lazy Daisy Vintage Market 2.0
The Clock-Out Lounge is hosting a vintage clothing and art market soundtracked by a soul music DJ with a build-your-own-mimosa and Bloody Mary bar! Buy clothes, cure your hangover, and shop local. Vendors this month will include Adria Garcia of Indian Summer Vintage, The Stranger's music calendar editor Kim Selling, Mona Real, Cordelia Funk, Flesh Vessel, Lilac Magic, and Tiny Thunder.
Seattle Restaurant Week
Frugal gourmands everywhere rejoice over this twice-yearly event, which lets diners tuck into prix-fixe menus at more than 165 different restaurants hoping to lure new customers with singularly slashed prices: Three courses cost a mere $33, and many restaurants also offer two-course lunches for $18. Itâs an excellent opportunity to feast like a high roller at an accessible price point and cross some otherwise spendy establishments off your food bucket list, including critically acclaimed restaurants like Tilth, Agrodolce, and Lark. JULIANNE BELL
Killing MarĂas: A Staged Reading
Writers Donna Miscolta and Catalina CantĂș will read poetry from Washington State Poet Laureate Claudia Castro Luna's epic Killing MarĂas at this special staging, which will be scored by Trio GuadalevĂn and feature dance by Milvia Pacheco. Rich Smith has written of the collection, which addresses the murders of women in Juarez named MarĂa: "Luna's lyrics champion feminine strength, challenge masculine violence, and offer some succor in a rough desert."
March for Our Lives: Glimmer of Hope
The young Parkland shooting survivors and amazingly mature anti-gun-violence activists Alex Wind, David Hogg, and Jammal Lemy will speak about their efforts to build a movement and discuss their book Glimmer of Hope.Â
The Moth Seattle GrandSLAM
Listeners of The Moth know the deal: each storyslammer has a short period of time to tell a compelling story, whether poignant, funny, tragic, or edifying. This night's raconteurs are the top slammers from the previous 10 months, so they're sure to be unmissable.
Surreal Storytelling with Strange Women #2
The second installment of the Surreal Storytelling with Strange Women reading series will feature weed-centric poetry and fiction writer Amanya Maloba (aka Kenya Ku$h), novelist and poet Erika Brumett, socio-environmental-focused poet Kat Kavanaugh, and Nica Selvaggio.
