Our music critics have already chosen the 43 best music shows this week, but now it's our arts critics' turn to recommend the best events in their areas of expertise. Here are their picks in every genreâfrom the Seattle International Dance Festival to the SIFF Closing Gala, and from a weekend of comedy with Hannah Gadsby to Cafe Campagneâs 15th Annual Drink Pink. See them all below, and find even more events on our complete Things To Do calendar.
Found something you like and don't want to forget about it later? Click "Save Event" on any of the linked events below to add it to your own private list.
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MONDAY
FOOD & DRINKMusang Soup Pop-Up
Bar del Corso chef Melissa Miranda's Northwest-influenced Filipino pop-up Musang will dish out bowls of beef rib nilaga with "hella rice and fried garlic" inside Pho Bac's iconic jaunty boat, with special cocktails and tequila shots for good measure.
'RuPaul's Drag Race' Season 11 Tour
Watch the Season 11 queens strut their stuff and show off their wildest looks.
Neal Stephenson: Fall: or, Dodge in Hell
It feels like Neal Stephenson has been around foreverâor at least for as long as Iâve been reading science-fiction, cyberpunk, and speculative fiction. (My first intro was one of his early works, the coming-of-age intrigue of The Diamond Age: or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer.) Heâs won numerous awards, made the New York Times best-seller list many times (for Seveneves, Anathem, Reamde, Cryptonomicon, and The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.), and will be in town behind his latest, Fall: or, Dodge in Hell, a sci-fi thriller about an afterlife of sorts in which humans continue to exist as digital souls. LEILANI POLK
Solmaz Sharif
Unless you're getting your news from Democracy Now!, or you have family in the Middle East/Central America/Afghanistan, or you're detained in a tent at the border, the disastrous consequences of America's foreign policy may be escaping your daily life. But that news stays news in Solmaz Sharif's Look, a finalist for the 2016 National Book Award and one of the best books of contemporary poetry published in the 21st century. Look shows us how easy and seductive it is for people to see others as objects, enemies, or props to generate fear for the sole purpose of gaining a small bit of power. It shows us how governments use language to achieve those ends, and it offers a different kind of language that we might use to short-circuit that mechanism. Don't miss this Seattle Arts & Lectures event. RICH SMITH
MONDAY-FRIDAY
VISUAL ARTSeattle General Strike Era & Centralia Tragedy of 1919
The year 1919 saw two major historical events in Seattle: the Seattle General Strikeâwhen workers rallied for better working conditions and higher wages for five days in Februaryâand the violent showdown that followed between radical labor activists and their opponents, which became known as the Centralia Tragedy. This exhibit features historical artifacts and firsthand accounts from both events.
Closing Friday
MONDAY & FRIDAY-SUNDAY
PERFORMANCETake Me Out
A star outfielder for the "New York Empires" (more Yankees than Mets in appearance) named Darren Lemming comes out of the closetâor, I guess, the lockerâin this Tony-winning comedy from Richard Greenberg, put on by Strawberry Theatre Workshop. His straight teammates have a lot to say about it, and they mostly do so while barely covered in towels, a sartorial situation where homophobia and hypocrisy are so often laid bare. Lamar Legend, who has been great in everything I've seen him in, especially in Intiman's production of Barbecue and most recently in Strawshop's production of Everybody, plays Lemming. In addition to being a hilarious exploration of masculinity, the play also offers an opportunity for the audience to take part in a drinking game based on ball puns. How you could pass that up, I do not know. RICH SMITH
MONDAY-SUNDAY
VISUAL ARTRiffs: A Residency and Works-in-Progress Exhibition
God, so many good things come together from collaborations. You ever heard of Kanye West and Bon Iver? Virgil Abloh and Louis Vuitton? My parents? In any case, the minds over at Photographic Center Northwest are on a similar collaborative tip. For the past three months, Seattle-based photographers and media makers Tara Champion, Peter de Lory, Christopher Paul Jordan, Natalie Krick, Kat Larson, Mary Ann Peters, Joe Rudko, and Preston Singletary have been bouncing ideas off each other. The show is a result of that mind-melding, that cooperation, those conversations. JASMYNE KEIMIG
Closing Sunday
Seattle International Film Festival 2019
The 45th annual Seattle International Film Festival is the largest film festival in the United States, with more than 400 films (spread over 25 days) watched by around 140,000 people at nine theaters across the city. It's impressively grand and one of the most exciting and widely attended arts events Seattle has to offer. Top films this week include Non-Fiction, Carmen & Lola, Halston, and Lulu Wang's The Farewell on closing night.
TUESDAY
FILMHistory Pub: Eyes of the Totem
There's some extra-cool local history behind this screening of a 1926 silent film shot in Tacoma. The studio behind The Eyes of the Totem lasted only four years and produced just two other films. All three were presumed lost until Tacoma Historic Preservation Coordinator Lauren Hoogkamer stumbled across a copy of Totem in New York. Catch a glimpse of vanished Tacoma in this evening of film history, which also includes a talk on local film history with Michael Sullivan, Pacific Northwest historian, and Bill Baarsma, Tacoma Historical Society President.
TUESDAY-SATURDAY
VISUAL ARTElyse Pignolet: You Should Smile More
Los Angelesâbased artist Elyse Pignoletâs work is charmingâa ceramicist, she often incorporates feminist messages and phrases into traditional-looking vases and plates. A gorgeous blue-and-white ceramic tulipiere, stuffed with flowery images, has the phrase âWill She Ever Shut Up?â and a plate finds snake-like branches swirling around the word âbitchy.â A bit kitschy, Pignoletâs work subverts the stuffy and persnickety assumptions we have toward ceramic artwork. And itâs a lot of fun. JASMYNE KEIMIG
Opening reception Thursday
Unidos Levantamos el Cielo | yÉhawÌ - Lifting the Sky Together
In the third yÉhawÌ-affiliated show at Vermillion, artists reflect on the theme "Together, we lift the sky," the English translation of the Coastal Salish name of the artistic movement. The artists include Dovey Martinez, Erik Sanchez, Ernesto Ybarra, Fabian Romero, and Jake Prendez.
Closing Saturday
TUESDAY-SUNDAY
VISUAL ARTMichael Alm: Mammals of Washington
Alm pays watercolor tribute to the diverse mammals of Washingtonâall 141 of them! With the recent UN report on the horrific effect humanity has had on our fellow mammalsâmammal biomass has declined by 82% since prehistoryâit's a great occasion to remind yourself of the gorgeous creatures at risk of disappearance. Some profits from sales will go to the Burke Museum.
Closing Sunday
Pass Over
Antoinette Nwandu's Pass Over combines Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot with the biblical story of Exodus, and sets the whole thing in a world where two black guys, Moses and Kitch, cannot hang out on a sidewalk without getting harassed by a white cop. Spike Lee liked the play so much that he filmed a performance and screened it at Sundance to great acclaim. Chicago Sun-Times critic Hedy Weiss had a different take, which led to an uproar in the theater world. She generally praised the acting but slammed Nwandu for her "simplistic, wholly generic characterization of a racist white cop (clearly meant to indict all white cops)." She then criticized Nwandu for ignoring "black-on-black" crime. The theater world rightly flipped, and Nwandu responded in American Theatre, saying Weiss's review "perpetuates a toxic discourse in which black lives do not matter and white lives remain unburdened by the necessary work of reckoning with white privilege and the centuries-long legacy of violence by which it is secured." You'll get the chance to see Pass Over in Seattle under Tim Bond's direction. RICH SMITH
West Side Story
One of the most famous musicals of all timeâthe first major work Stephen Sondheim ever wrote lyrics toâWest Side Story is getting the Bill Barry treatment at 5th Avenue Theatre. The director is known for exuberant takes on classic American musicals and for brilliant casting choices. Excitingly, this production will also feature Jerome Robbinsâs original choreography, which ought to be a delight for the eyeballs. West Side Story didnât win best musical at the Tonys the year it came out (The Music Man did), but it did win best choreography. CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE
WEDNESDAY
READINGS & TALKSRonan Farrow
Somehow, in the middle of helping to redefine the way journalists report on sexual assault, Ronan Farrow finished up a book about the decades-long decline of American influence around the world. In War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence, Farrow, who worked for Barack Obama's State Department for several years, takes a look back at American diplomacy through the eyes of the weary and disaffected public servants who saw their dreams of working toward peace darken as administrations cut budgets and closed embassies. As he tracks America's turn toward isolationism following the end of the Cold War, Farrow shows how another world powerâChinaâis filling the diplomatic gaps the United States is leaving open. RICH SMITH
WEDNESDAY-SATURDAY
VISUAL ARTAkio Takamori: To Be Human
The late Seattle-based ceramicist Akio Takamori breathed a different kind of life into his figurative sculpturesâthey somehow feel drawn, composed not of earthenware or clay, but of pigment and ink. They sometimes remind me of the softness, the pliability of my favorite dolls. Born and raised in Japan, Takamoriâs largely autobiographical work engages the history of both Eastern and Western aesthetics, and the themes of cultural identity that ricochet between them and through him. In this show at James Harris Gallery, Takamoriâs sculptures will be paired with related prints of his own making. JASMYNE KEIMIG
Closing Saturday
WEDNESDAY-SUNDAY
PERFORMANCETiny Beautiful Things
Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) has adapted Cheryl Strayed's story of writing an advice column under the pseudonym Sugar, yielding a play about empathy, healing, tough love, and kindness.
First Annual White Center Pride
The Stranger's Digital Editor Chase Burns recently wrote, "After successfully gentrifying Capitol Hill and turning it into a bedroom community for Amazon elites, the gays have set their sights on White Center." As such, the neighborhood will host its first-ever Pride, promising a whole week of parties at various businesses.
Simon Hanselmann: Bad Gateway
You know that moment when you're in the middle of a hangout with your friendsâslamming beers, intermittently hitting a bong, shoving chips into your mouth, binging old episodes of Project Runwayâand suddenly a drunk-stoned realization overtakes you. Maybe all this eagerness to get and stay intoxicated comes from a place of deep unhappiness and frustration with a perceived lack of control over your life. The characters in Simon Hanselmann's comics constantly wrestle with this moment. Instead of letting the smoke clear, going to bed, and shaking off this momentary recognition of existential anguishâthey lean into it. With drugs, with drink, with darkness, with weird sex, with selfishness, with addiction, with a lack of empathy. In his first-ever museum exhibition, the Tasmanian-born, Seattle-based artist displays drawings, sculptures, and every single page of his forthcoming book from Fantagraphics, also entitled Bad Gateway. JASMYNE KEIMIG
Gallery performance Friday
THURSDAY
COMEDYThe Gateway Show
Itâs an experiment in stand-up: Four comics do their sets. Then these four comics get super, duper stoned. Then they perform again while occupying this much hazier headspace. Or attempt to perform again. Will the bake bring out another dimension of their comedy, or will they bomb, one by one, in forgetful spells of heaping laughter (or awkward pauses)? This sounds like an entertaining experiment, and they do it once a month. LEILANI POLK
Cafe Campagneâs 15th Annual Drink Pink
Tucked away in Post Alley, legendary bistro Cafe Campagne has been serving up French comfort food since 1994. And for 15 years running, theyâve celebrated their annual Drink Pink event in said alley with a variety of seasonal rosĂ©, so you can guzzle pink wine on their picturesque patio and pretend youâre in Provence. They'll have rosĂ© by the glass and the bottle, as well as food available for purchase. JULIANNE BELL
Campar-ty Tiki Night
Last spring, Eric and Sophie Banh of Ba Bar and Monsoon relaunched their Vietnamese steak house as Central Smoke, a new concept with a focus on smoked meats and smoke-infused cocktails. So naturally, as they break out the classic tiki drinks for summer as part of a partnership with Campari, theyâre going to take full advantage of their custom-built 8,000-pound smoker and smoke a whole pig. They also promise the following: fires and tiki torches on the patio, slushies, boozy house-made sodas, pineapple Peychaudâs shots, ribs, frilly cocktail umbrellas of all sizes, and âan appropriate amount of drinks set on fire.â JULIANNE BELL
Negroni Bar Pop-Up with Copperworks Distillery
Cheers to the Negroni, the refreshingly bitter classic cocktail made with gin, Campari, and vermouth. Brimmer & Heeltap bar manager Julian Rue and Jason Parker of Copperworks Distillery will come together for a special menu celebrating the Italian apéritif, with a special cheese plate from cheesemonger Alison Leber.
Hair Flip Comix Issue #1 Release Party
Fete the launch of this Seattle-based comix quarterly with music by Great Spiders, Familiars, and DJ Sick Sid, a raffle, a photobooth by Victoria Holt, and art to buy from James Stanton, Max Clotfelder, Push/Pull, and others. Oh yeah, and there will be cake!
Pioneer Square Art Walk
Once a month, Seattleites flock to the streets in Pioneer Square for a chance to stroll, sip on booze, and attend as many art openings as possible at First Thursday. It's the city's central and oldest art walk, and takes place in a historic neighborhood known for its abundance of galleries. Wine and hobnobbing steal the scene for some, but at its core, it's an impressive communal unveiling of new artwork. Check out our list of suggested art openings here.
THURSDAY-SATURDAY
PERFORMANCEThey/Them: The Festival
Drag king and former Intiman Emerging Artist Sam I'Am presents They/Them: The Musical, a solo show. Sam I'Am plays an expecting mother imagining the ways the life of their child would change depending on gender. Though their character explores the slipperiness of gender, the music will be "kinda more traditional," according to Annex. Each night of the festival will kick off with a little cabaret featuring stand-up comedy, burlesque, and musical performances from trans, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming performance artists. RICH SMITH
bauhaus.photo
As part of the Goethe Institut's celebration Wunderbar TogetherâThe Year of German-American Friendship, the bookstore/gallery hangs 100 selections from the Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin, which houses about 70,000 photos from the famed interwar German architecture and design school. This looks to be a fascinating glimpse into a turbulent yet artistically dazzling era in the past, with work by the well-known Lucia Moholy, LĂĄszlĂł Moholy-Nagy, and T. Lux Feininger, plus less famous artists like Kattina Both, Irene Bayer, and Max Peiffer Watenphul.
Opening Thursday
THURSDAY-SUNDAY
PERFORMANCEThe Agitators
Concerns about the intersectionality of civil rights movements is not a new phenomenon, as Mat Smart's dramatization of the longtime friendship between Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass will attest. Anthony and Douglass hung out on weekends at a farm in Rochester, New York, for several decades. While both civil rights leaders supported voting rights for women and black men, they butted heads on timing. Anthony thought women should get the right to vote before black men. Douglass thought men would grant women suffrage, but only after black men got the vote. Considering the fact that America has clearly achieved universal suffrage, I'm sure the conversation between these two great thinkers won't at all resonate with current conversations about the best strategies for securing inalienable rights for all. But it's worth a go on the off-chance that it does. And, if not, watching Douglass (played by Reginald André Jackson, who's fresh off his incredible performance of Capulet in ACT's Romeo and Juliet) intellectually duke it out with Anthony (played by Carol Roscoe) under Valerie Curtis-Newton's direction will be worth the price of admission. RICH SMITH
Blackbird
This drama by aptly named playwright David Harrower premiered at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2005. A 27-year-old woman, Una, arrives unexpectedly at the office of Ray, the man with whom she had a sexual relationship 15 years earlier. Ray has embarked upon a new life, but Una is beset by rage, confusion, trauma, and her past feelings. Paul Budraitis will take up the director's mantle for this Seattle premiere, produced by White Rabbits Inc and Libby Barnard.
Danses des Cygnes
In a world where remounting classic shows means potentially releasing all the unexamined misogyny and racism fossilized within them back out into the world like so much fracked gas, artists seem to be choosing to direct productions that critique the bad ideas running throughout those shows, or they completely deconstruct them with a modern interpretation and reverse the power dynamics. Natascha Greenwalt and Coriolis Dance have chosen the latter option with Danses des Cygnes, which takes its name from a famous movement in the second act of Swan Lake, where four dancers link hands and dance in unison. The movement is a show of strength, a defensive posture, and a big fuck-you to the world of violent male aggression the swans have found themselves in. Greenwalt's piece will likely align with those ideas. RICH SMITH
Don't Call It a Riot!
Local playwright Amontaine Aurore's new work, Don't Call It A Riot!, takes audiences on a tour of black activism in Seattleâfrom the beginnings of the Black Panther Party up to the WTO protestsâas seen through the eyes of a character named Reed. Reed has to figure out how to raise a kid, maintain a relationship with her new husband, and build a burgeoning movement, all while the culture at large conspires against her at every turn. RICH SMITH
Legend of El Dorado
Three women on a summer trip turn into sexy, fishnetted robbers on motorcycles in the cozy cabaret's latest production, featuring all-new choreography and a soundtrack with singing by Brent Amaker.
Love, Chaos, & Dinner
Beloved circus/cabaret/comedy institution Teatro ZinZanni will reboot their successful variety show, which they describe as the "Kit Kat Klub on acid." They promise to fill their spiegeltent with "world-class acrobats, musicians, divas, illusionists, madmen, and aerialists," plus ping-pong-playing comedian Tim Tyler, trapezists Duo Rose, opera singer Kelly Britt, and the Anastasini Brothers, Lady Rizo, and Frank Ferrante.
Themes and Variations
See masterpieces by George Balanchine (Theme and Variations and Tarantella), Jose Limon (The Moor's Pavane), and Price Suddarth (Signature) at this Pacific Northwest Ballet production.
FRIDAY
COMEDYGargoyle
Two mega-talented improv comedians, Graham Downing and Samantha Demboski, perform a kind of fully improvised noise comedy DJ set with the aid of "cannibalized audio narratives" and soundscapes plus a pair of microphones. It sounds extremely weird, inventive, and, knowing them, probably hilarious.
National Doughnut Day
National Doughnut Day was originally created to honor the Salvation Army volunteers who distributed doughnuts to soldiers during World War I. You can get your fill of glazed goods and yeasted treats at Top Potâs National Doughnut Day, where you will find the biggest doughnut eating contest in the city. The day will also feature prizes, giveaways, and a performance by local family music band Recess Monkey at the chainâs Fifth Avenue cafe location. JULIANNE BELL
Cherdonna's Hard Ca$h Cabaret
Help raise cash for Cherdonna Shinatra's DONNA troupe by getting boozy, eating snacks, and watching performances by the hosts plus Queen Shmooquan, Buttrock Suites, The Stranger's Christopher Frizzelle, and others.
Imbolo Mbue
Cameroonian writer Imbolo Mbue nabbed the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction with her very first novel, Behold the Dreamers, which follows a pair of immigrants who arrive in New York just in time for the Great Recession. Gain wisdom from this new literary star.
FRIDAY-SATURDAY
VISUAL ARTTree
Employing a vast range of styles, 19 artists, including prolific local notables like Sara Norsworthy, Brian Sanchez, Gabriel Stromberg, Molly Magai, Tuan Nguyen, and Gillian Theobald, seek to capture the shape and spirit of trees.
Opening Friday
FRIDAY-SUNDAY
COMEDYGabriel Rutledge with Casey McLain
In a recent interview, Central Comedy Show's Henry Stoddard and Isaac Novak singled out Gabriel Rutledge as perhaps the Seattle area's funniest comicâa view reinforced by Rutledge winning the Seattle International Comedy Competition and his frequent major TV appearances. Working in the familiar territory of family life and its countless frustrations and sorrows, Rutledge finds many quirky angles from which to squeeze distinctive humor out of everyday situations. His bit about parents desperately trying to snatch a couple of spare minutes to have sex might ring all too true for many. Happiness Isn't Funny is the title of his book and the guiding principle behind his unerring humor. DAVE SEGAL
'The War in Heaven' and 'The Waste Land'
ACTLab and New City Theatre have teamed up to stage two short masterpieces, Sam Shepard's War in Heaven (about an innocent angel who crashes to Earth and witnesses societal turmoil) and T.S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land. New City's Mary Ewald plays both the angel and Eliot's myriad characters. Directed by John Kazanjian.
Mae West's The Drag: A Homosexual Comedy in Three Acts
When The Drag first opened in 1927, a reviewer for Variety apparently called it "an inexpressibly brutal and vulgar attempt to capitalise on a dirty matter for profit." After only 10 performances, the play was shut down for "indecency." So, in honor of indecency, in honor of the vulgar, and in honor of capitalizing on dirty matters, we must all go see this historical revival about a gay man named Rolly Kingsbury coming out in much more homo-hostile times (in America, at least), and then marvel at how far we've come, and how far we've yet to go. RICH SMITH
Seattle International Dance Festival 2019
The Seattle International Dance Festival, organized by Khambatta Dance Company and Cornish College of the Arts, presents approximately 10 million performances (okay, more like 25) from international, national, and local acts over the course of 16 days. It's too much. It's not enough. The best I can do here is tell you to make sure to catch the following international acts: Sumeet Nagdev Dance Arts, Tara Brandel, Equilibrio Dinamico, and Tchekpo Dance Company with Elisabeth MasĂ©. I'm also excited to see works from HYPERNOVA and the kaâneiâsee | collective, both national acts. RICH SMITH
RELISH Seattle
Locally cherished artists like Anthony White, Electric Coffin, Brandon Vosika, Blake Blanco, Mary Coss, Drie Chapek, and many others are featured at this show presented by RELISH magazine. Buy their work and pick up a copy of RELISH, .
Opening Friday
SATURDAY
COMEDYMinority Retort
This showcase that highlights comedians of color is coming to Seattle. Join Jason Lamb, Julia Ramos, and guest co-host Chris Johnson as they welcome Northwest favorites Khadija Hassan, Mona Concepcion, the Real Hyjinx, and Manny Martin.
Miscast
Funny and spontaneous performers are paired with actors following a script to reshape scenes from real movies and series that the improvisers aren't familiar with in this series directed by John Carroll.
Volunteer Park Pride Festival
For another year, a slew of local bands will set the tone for Pride month with a full day of live sets at the Capitol Hill park. This year's lineup is stacked, with acts like fierce speed queens Thunderpussy, singer-songwriter J GRGRY, alt-soul artist and former busker Whitney Mongé, neo-soul/funk hero Sassyblack, and many others lighting up the bill.
Brewshed Beer Fest
Tipple over 40 beers from local breweries and help out the Washington Wild environmental nonprofit, which helps establish permanent wilderness and wild and scenic river designations.
Rosé Showcase
Taste dozens of rosés of all ilks, from juicy to savory, and win cool prizes.
The Sunset People's Party
Dress in your fanciest duds and party with black cultural luminaries like poet Imani Sims, dancer Randy Ford, and artist David Rue, plus many DJs, to benefit the arts and culture organization Central District Forum. Eat food prepared by celebrated black chefs and show off your looks as a "Fashion House": With ten or more people you can design your own house name, create a color scheme, and then you might just have the chance to "rep your house and show how you shine under the spotlight."Â
Critter Person Pageant
Watch queens like Beau Degas, Monday Mourning, Romi, Rowan Ruthless, Ămlaut, and Voodoo Nightshade pay tribute to Miss Texas 1988 under the crazed eye of host Cucci Binaca.Â
Brian Jabas Smith: Tucson Salvage
Songwriter and columnist Smith will read from his new collection of essays from his celebrated Tucson Weekly column, wherein he writes elegant and honest portraits of migrants, bartenders, barbers, parents, homeless people, and others hidden from the public eye.
There Goes the Gayborhood! Panel Discussion
Are we going to lose all of our historically queer spaces because they are not judged to be "historically significant"? Preservationists, business owners, and activists will talk about what's at stake.
20/20: A 20th Anniversary Survey
Twenty artistsâamong them Viola Frey, Akio Takamori, Fay Jones, and Mary Anne Petersâwho've participated extensively in the gallery's 20-year history are celebrated in this anniversary exhibition.
Opening Saturday
Claire Partington: The Hunting Party
Fresh off the debut of her two-year installation Taking Tea in the Porcelain Room at Seattle Art Museum, British ceramicist Claire Partington is back in town showing new work. Instead of focusing on the tea trade, her Winston Wachter exhibit is a playful dissection and send-up of a European hunting party. Each figure in the group has a removable head that can be swapped with an animal one (bear, warthog, etc.). And the Roman goddess of the hunt, Diana, is depicted with gold hoops and pubes to match. Partingtonâs work is equal parts exquisite, fun, timeless, and modern. JASMYNE KEIMIG
Opening Saturday
SATURDAY-SUNDAY
COMEDYHannah Gadsby: Douglas
Stranger writer Katie Herzog has praised the Tasmanian comic Hannah Gadsby for her "strange, affecting, and exceedingly vulnerable" Netflix special Nanette. Now Gadsby is back with new material in a show called Douglas, so-called in honor of her dog.
'Book of Weirdo' Exhibition Featuring Peter Bagge
This exhibit at alternative comics bookstore and gallery Fantagraphics is held in honor of the release of The Book of Weirdo: A Retrospective of R. Crumb's Legendary Humor Comics Anthology. The bookâs focus is Weirdo, the Robert Crumb-helmed comics anthology series that was published from the early â80s to 1993, acted as a âlow artâ counterpoint to the modern higher-brow Raw, and tapped the talents of a wide swath of untraditional cartoonists. Among those was Peter Bagge, who was featured in Weirdo, then served as its editor for three years. (You know Bagge from memorable satires in exaggerated cartoon form, like his Pacific Northwestern-set Apocalypse Nerd, about two average dudes trying to survive in a world destroyed by nuclear fallout, or maybe Hate, one of the best-selling alternative comics of the 1990s, which featured antihero Buddy Bradley as the slacker hipster mouthpiece of Generation X.) Bagge is also among Book of Weirdoâs three editors, and works related to the anthology and book will presumably be on display alongside other Weirdo artists. LEILANI POLK
Opening Saturday
Star Stories: Indigenous Latinx Art
Since March, the art showcase yÉhawÌ has been filling Seattle with gorgeous, diverse work from contemporary Indigenous community members. The show expands to the Nepantla Cultural Arts Gallery with a focus on Latinx creators "rooted in the memories of our ancestors and the hopes of future generations."
Opening Saturday
SUNDAY
FILMSIFF Closing Gala: 'The Farewell'
Awkwafina stars in the second feature by Lulu Wang (Posthumous), a comedy about Billi, the New York-based granddaughter of a dying materfamilias (Shuzhen Zhou) living in China. While the rest of the family keeps the grandmother's diagnosis from her, Billi tries to reconcile the ethics and experiences of two cultures and deals with the beloved matriarch's impending departure. After the screening, where Lulu Wang will be in attendance, head to the MOHAI for an afterparty.
The Greatest ShowQueen
More than two decades ago, former Seattle Times critic Tom Orr staged a one-man musical revue called Dirty Little Showtunes!, a gay coming-of-age story that then-Stranger critic Adrian Ryan called "one heck of a fun show." Now, Orr returns with a three-time Bay Area Theatre Critic Circle Award-winning "multitude of new perverted twists on classic showtunes." Songs include "I Feel A Thong Coming On!," "A Crass Act!," "The Devil Wears Nada!," "Aging Bull!" and "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To His Forearm!"
The Other Season: Joe Turner Vino y Se Fue
The executor of famed African American playwright August Wilson's estate, Constanza Romero, has translated into Spanish his masterpiece about the northward migration of black Americans. You have the chance to watch a staged reading of the translation, directed by Romero and her collaborator Fernando Luna. English supertitles will be projected for Anglophones.
Pacific Northwest Ballet Season Encore Performance
Bid farewell to retiring Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancers Jonathan Porretta and Rachel Foster. The program for this performance will include Balanchine's Themes and Variations, Matthew Neenan's Bacchus, Christopher Wheeldon's After the Rain pas de deux, Alejandro Cerrudo's Silent Ghost, and Balanchine's Prodigal Son.
You Don't Have To Go Home But You Can't Stay Here
Through live music, spoken word, performance art, drag, dancing, and more, a troupe of Indigenous Turtle Islanders (curated by Howie Echo-Hawk) will share their stories, experiences, and histories. Hear from Andrew J Montana, Fabian Romero, Hailey Tayathy, Delia Gomez, raktahcuâ reewaki, Jasmine Manuel, and Mackenzie Platt, plus music by Ghost Horse.
Angela Garbes: Like a Mother
One of the finest writers who ever worked at this newspaper, Angela Garbes (author of âThe More I Learn About Breast Milk, the More Amazed I Am,â the 2015 story that broke our websiteâs traffic records) presents her first book, an investigative reflection on an aspect of childbirth that receives surprisingly little attention from the medical establishment or the baby book publishing industry: the mental and physical health of the mother. "Your OB will cautiously quote statistics, online sources will scare you with conflicting and often inaccurate information, and even the most trusted books will offer information with a heavy dose of judgment," Garbes writes. SEAN NELSON
