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MONDAY
FILMThe Best of 'ASMR Crafting'
Watch the winner of SPLIFF Film Fest's "Funniest" award, the video series ASMR Crafting, which the San Francisco Chronicle described as "what one might experience by taking LSD and strolling through Joann fabric and crafts.â You'll also hear music by Skerik and Gabby La La and comedy by Bridget Young.
Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell kicks off SAL's Literary Arts Series with a reading from his new book Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know, which is good news for people who are into that kind of thing. To me, Gladwell represents the revival of the worst impulses in American storytelling and journalism. He is king of the metaphorically resonant but ultimately meaningless comparison, and he's obsessed with overblowing the claims of cherry-picked studies. Richard Posner called Blink "a series of loosely connected anecdotes, rich in 'human interest' particulars but poor in analysis," and the claim basically holds for all of Gladwell's other books. There should be a new John Waters-type law: "If you go home with someone, and they've got a bunch of Malcolm Gladwell books on the shelf, don't fuck 'em!" Unless you want to doom yourself to a life with someone who is content to describe the world using surface-level comparisons. That said, Kirkus gave his new book a starred review, so it'll probably read well. RICH SMITH
MONDAY-TUESDAY
PERFORMANCECriminal
Criminal isn't your typical true crime podcast. It doesn't litigate crimes or anoint heroes or villains. There's no blood or gore or salacious detail. Instead, the show embraces nuance, with some stories about mayhem and murder, but just as many about regular people doing criminal things and what happens before and after. The makers, Phoebe Judge and Lauren Spohrer (who, full disclosure, I'm friends with), spent years working in public radio before branching out on their own, and it shows. Criminal is air-tight, well-mixed, and a delight to both listen to and think about later. KATIE HERZOG
MONDAY-THURSDAY
VISUAL ARTAnn Leda Shapiro: Diagnosing Disasters
Acupuncturist Shapiro is not an outsider artistâshe attended the San Francisco Art Institute and the University of California, Davis in the '60sâbut her cut and painted works on paper have that brut but beautiful look. She combines fanciful depictions of human anatomy with equally inventive riffs on nature, animals, and microbes.
Closing Thursday
MONDAY-FRIDAY
VISUAL ARTHear and Now
Trimpin is a musical genius who builds room-sized art installations that are also instruments. Picture a Rube Goldberg machine exploded all over a room, but one you can play Beethoven on. This year, Trimpin again partnered with students from Path with Art, a nonprofit that works with homeless people to create original works of art. Together they constructed a new sound sculpture bursting with poetry, visual art, and, of course, music. The resulting installation has been traveling around the city. RICH SMITH
Closing Friday
MONDAY & THURSDAY-SUNDAY
PERFORMANCEIs God Is
All her life, Anaia had dreams about her mother burning in a fire. It was the same fire that burned up her family home, and that disfigured her face and the body of her twin sister, Racine. When the twins reconnect with their estranged mother, whom they call She (and also God), they learn Anaia's dreams are actually memories, and that the fire was no accident. Their father, whose name is Man, deliberately lit She and the children on fire. Now on her deathbed, She has one request of her daughters: Kill Man and everyone around him. The audience learns all of this information in the first 10 minutes of Is God Is, a new play by Aleshea Harris put on by Washington Ensemble Theatre. The next 80 minutes of the show are a funny, bloody, twisty revenge play that's tons of fun to watch. RICH SMITH
ALL WEEK
FILMLocal Sightings Film Festival 2019
This year, the regional film festival will get even more local, partnering with homegrown nonprofits and media production companies like Indigenous Showcase, Sustainable Seattle, Langston, Pr0n 4 Freakz, NFFTY, and more. Once again, the city will become a hub for indie filmmakers who eschew New York or LA for the earnest and eccentric Northwest. Local Sightings acts as a showcase and watering hole for regional filmmakers, VR artists, and others who range from emotional storytellers to nature documentarists to political essayists. Many of them will attend, which makes for an opportunity for local professional and aspiring moviemakers to meet at the screenings, workshops, and parties. JOULE ZELMAN
Departures and Arrivals: Artists in Abstraction
BIMA offers an "intense session in art vocabulary" with this group exhibition focusing on the artists' idiosyncratic approaches to abstraction. The roster is intriguing, ranging from textile artist Jono Vaughan to ecologically focused Mary Coss to UW professor and painter Denzil Hurley.
Closing Sunday
Salish Brilliance: Dan Friday and Maynard Johnny, Jr.
Lummi glass blower Friday crafts exquisite sculptures based on Native practices like, in this case, cedar bark weaving and totem carving (his great-grandfather, Joseph Hillaire, numbered among the masters of the latter). The objects pay homage to the intricacy of the traditional craft while adding his own asymmetries and vividly contrasting colors. His fellow Coast Salish artist Maynard Johnny, Jr. (Penelakut/Kwakwaka'wakw) paints brightly and beautifully on paddles and canvases.
Closing Sunday
TUESDAY
FOOD & DRINKAuthor Talk: Cannelle et Vanille by Aran Goyoaga
Local food blogger, photographer, cook, food stylist, and two-time James Beard Award finalist Aran Goyoaga has earned scores of fans from all over the world for her gorgeous images of food and simple, elegant cooking. Her new cookbook, Cannelle et Vanille, focuses on recipes for nourishing, gluten-free comfort fare like spaghetti and meatballs, buttermilk-brined fried chicken, caramelized onion and fennel biscuits, and apple tarte tatinâall of it just what you want to eat on a crisp autumn day. At this event, sheâll appear for a chat with local author Molly Wizenberg and sign copies of her new book. JULIANNE BELL
Live Podcast: Hot Takes w/ Hot Dykes
Real-life couple Clara Pluton and Val Nigro will perform a live sketch version of their lez-focused podcast.
Jacqueline Woodson: Red at the Bone
The laureled author of Another Brooklyn and Brown Girl Dreaming will read from a new, time-hopping novel about two very different families brought together by an unplanned pregnancy and the birth of a girl.
Naomi Klein: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal
Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine and This Changes Everything, isnât exactly the most uplifting of public thinkers, but it makes sense: Her primary subjects are capitalism and climate change. Her new work, On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal, takes a slightly more optimistic view, arguing that the United States can and should enact the Green New Deal, a nationwide project that could, if done right, rebuild our crumbling infrastructure while also ending our reliance on fossil fuels. Klein, like many proponents of the GND, has tied this movement to a divorce with capitalism. And while this might not play well in Congress, I have a feeling sheâll find a sympathetic audience in Seattle. KATIE HERZOG
TUESDAY-SATURDAY
VISUAL ARTJed Dunkerley and Cable Griffith
Jen Graves has written that Dunkerley's drawings of machines erase "the nature/human binary and [replace] it with a new mixture that did not separate human activity from other processes in nature." In this series, he paints scenes wherein "technology and human ingenuity overwhelm the natural world," in the words of the gallery. Cornish professor Cable Griffith's abstract landscape paintings are similarly concerned with the melding of the natural and artificial realms.
Closing Saturday
Robert Pruitt: The Majesty of Kings Long Dead
New York-based artist Robert Pruitt will debut new pieces along with old work at his KDR show. A skilled draftsman, Pruitt combines elements of Afro-futurism, black power, and pop culture to create tender portraits of black people. In his newer portraits, the subjects are rendered in charcoal, sometimes adorned with gold leaf and color, while the white space surrounding the subject is filled in with coffee stains. The coffee gives his subjects a hazy sort of glow, an aura that smells like breakfast, and it ages the paper in such a way that itâs almost as if youâve stumbled upon an artifact. JASMYNE KEIMIG
Closing Saturday
TUESDAY-SUNDAY
PERFORMANCEIndecent
When Sholem Asch's searing critique of Orthodox Judaism, God of Vengeance, debuted on Broadway in 1923, the entire cast was arrested and tried for obscenity. They were tried not only because of the play's lesbian kissâwhich for some reason didn't disturb the delicate sensibilities of Europeans, who praised the piece for years before it was translated into Englishâbut also because of the rising anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant sentiment in America. Though it was the "roaring twenties," it was also a time when conspiracy theories about Jews controlling the world through theater and banking were peaking. Paula Vogel's Tony Awardâwinning play dramatizes the history of this show. In a recent interview, the playwright called it "a love letter to theater, a love letter to Yiddish culture, and a plea to every audience member who sees it: Please, please partake in the arts. The arts will see us through to our last days on earth." RICH SMITH
People of the Book
When a soldier returns home from war and writes a memoir about his experiences, another friend of hisâa poetâfeels pangs of resentment. And also suspicion. Is the memoir about the soldierâs heroics factually accurate? And there are other jealousies swirling around. The poetâs wife is someone the soldier used to have a big crush on, and may still have a crush on. Does she have feelings for him, too? Truth, infidelity, artistic jealousy, and sexual tension come together in this powerful and concise new play by Yussef El Guindi, a phenomenal writer and the winner of a Stranger Genius Award. CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE
WEDNESDAY
FOOD & DRINKSoirĂ©e Bavaroise with Alsatian âChoucroute Garnieâ
If you can't afford a jaunt to the Alsace region, this Bavarian-inspired fĂȘte featuring a choucroute garnie (an Alsatian dish with cabbage, sausage, salted meats and charcuterie, and sometimes potatoes) and plenty of beer from Pike Brewing Company and Old Stove Brewing Company is the next best thing. Bonnie Birch will set the mood with traditional accordion music.
Be Kind, Rewind: Starrbooty
Film-loving queens Uh Oh and She will host another screening of a queer classic interspersed with performances and top-notch commentary. This time, it's Starrbooty, the pre-RuPaul's Drag Race treasure that RuPaul doesn't want you to see. There will also be popcorn and drink specials.
RuPaul's Drag Race: Werq The World Tour 2019
Michelle Visage and a crew of queens, including Aquaria, Kameron Michaels, Asia OâHara, Kim Chi, Naomi Smalls, Violet Chachki, and contestants from Season 11, try to save the universe in this all-new RuPaul's Drag Race show.
The Every Other
At this new reading and music night run by local novelist Doug Nufer, whom former Stranger critic Paul Constant called a "tireless local word-explorer," hear poetry by Portlander Julia Wohlstetter, work by 2018 Jack Straw writer and host of Hollow Earth Radio's Glossophonics Bryan Edenfield, and music by well-known local guitarist Bill Horist.
Jonathan Safran Foer: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast
Listen, we can't be eating breakfast sausages anymore. We can't be eating lunch sausages or dinner sausages or dessert sausages for that matter, either. I'm sorry. But we lost that privilege when we decided we wanted to turn the earth into one giant concentrated animal feeding operation. Or at least that's what Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Everything Is Illuminated (totally great) and Eating Animals (very good), is here to argue in his brand-new book, We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast. Show up to this reading at Town Hall and learn how to save the planet by not literally succumbing to every desire you've ever had for once in your life. RICH SMITH
Timothy Faust: Single Payer Healthcare and What Comes Next
Why have we been waiting so long for single-payer healthcare? Timothy Faust, a data scientist, journalist, advocate, and author of Health Justice Now, will delve into the possibilities for fair and affordable healthcare and the obstacles to its implementation.
BIG MOOD: A Night of Fat Fashion
The sun setting behind the Olympic Mountains as the sky turns a sherbet orange? Big mood. That photo of Diana Ross eating a rib while dressed in a silk slip? Big mood. An event centered on fat people and fat fashion, hosted by Stranger music calendar editor Kim Selling and Indian Summerâs Adria Garcia, the brains behind events like More Fats More Femmes? Big mood! A night of performances, live music, a pop-up market, talks, and a style show with vendors like TomboyX and Universal Standard? BIG. FUCKINâ. MOOD. JASMYNE KEIMIG
WEDNESDAY-SATURDAY
VISUAL ARTMelinda Hurst Frye: The Forest Floor
In The Forest Floor, Hurst Frye probes the symbioses of plant and animal ground-dwellers (and subterranean creatures), using photographs and tableaux.
WEDNESDAY-SUNDAY
PERFORMANCEBlood Water Paint
Artemisia Gentileschi was a remarkable painter in 17th-century Italyâbut today she's known almost as much for her determination to bring her rapist to justice as for her artistic genius. She's a perfect subject for female-focused Macha Theater. Blood Water Paint by Joy McCullough-Carranza recounts her career through her interactions with other women, including her models and her own daughter, as well as the trial for which she's famous.
Everything Is Illuminated
Jonathan Safran Foerâs semi-autobiographical first novel, Everything Is Illuminated, about a man (also named Jonathan Safran Foer) who travels to Ukraine to try to track down the details of his Jewish ancestry, is one of the most brilliant and celebrated novels of the last 20 years. Much of it is narrated by a translator who shows Jonathan around and gets many English words wrong, hilariously. The language of the book is key, and Book-It adaptations always emphasize the language of the original text in a way that other dramatic treatments (and the movie) donât. CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE
The Legend of El Dorado
The actual legend of El Dorado is many things: a man, a myth, a kingdom pursued by the Spanish Empire. It isn't something that easily translates into an hour-and-a-half dinner cabaret. Thankfully, it turns out that Can Can's El Dorado is more concerned with booty shorts, high kicks, and stripteases than staying faithful to a narrative. Can Can describes The Legend of El Dorado as a "badass women-on-the-run story" that's "all-new, all-original, all-fishnets." Set in a "cinematic desert-scape" where a "women-led gang is kicking ass and taking names," El Dorado lets its cast and crew do what Can Can does best: wine and dine you, put on a little razzle-dazzle, and get (mostly) naked. I love it every time I go. CHASE BURNS
Sunset Baby
A young woman and her estranged father, a veteran of the Black liberation movement, clash over the hurts of their past in this drama by Steinberg and Obie Award-winning Detroit playwright Dominique Morisseau.
Magic Box: Defining Words in a Digital Age
Butoh dancer and artist Shoko Zama and poet David Thornbrugh present an interdisciplinary dialogue between collage/painting that evokes dictionary illustrations and ekphrastic writing (i.e., poetic commentary on the works of art).
Closing Sunday
THURSDAY
COMEDYPreacher Lawson
Boasting honors like the 2016 Seattle International Comedy Competition top prize and this past season's America's Got Talent top-five finalist, Los Angeles-based comic Preacher Lawson will return to Washington for an uproarious show.
Randy Rainbow Live!
YouTube phenom Randy Rainbow is the master of the catty sick burnâwhich comes off especially blistering when his wit's aimed at the flaming hypocrites in the Trump administration. Rainbow's MO is to simulate interviews with major political figures, cleverly twisting their sincere responses into fodder for his own nasty retorts, while weaving in pertinent footage from news outlets and breaking into hilarious, parodistic song. Rainbow is punching upâway upâand his deserving targets are left looking even lousier than they already are, which is a major feat. DAVE SEGAL
Colleen Louise Barry: 'The Trophy Room' Closing
In The Trophy Room, artist-writer-poet Colleen Louise Barry has created an ephemeral, immersive, site-specific installation made out of papier-mĂąchĂ©Â inside the Factory. Expect bright colors and smiley faces. In this space, the visitor can feel like âa winner AND a loser living in an absurd reality.â There will be 80 trophies placed around the room; each one is paired with a line from a poem. You can even take one of the text-sculptures homeâimagine that. JASMYNE KEIMIG
THURSDAY-SATURDAY
COMEDYMichael Yo
Michael Yoâs 2018 album, Blasian, encapsulates his unusual ethnicity and serves as a fecund spring from which great comedy flows. Heâs a gregarious storyteller who derives a lot of humor from his distinctive family dynamic and his hard-to-pigeonhole identity, what he calls âtwo polar opposites [residing] in one body.â âWhite women love blasian dudes,â Yo observes, âbecause Iâm a starter black. Iâm a gateway drug to blackness!â He also has a knee-slapping routine about modern musicâespecially rap and R&Bâversus 1990s music; heâs much more into the latter, for many hilarious reasons. Yo is one of those comics who excels in many formatsâcelebrity news and gossip television, pop-culture-oriented radioâand has a TV sitcom in the works about his biracial family. DAVE SEGAL
Coley Mixan, Liz Mputu, and Richie Brown: Re-Thinking Digital Nature
Curated by art critic, curator, and occasional Stranger contributor Leah St. Lawrence, A Digital Nature brings together three artists who explore themes of âhealth, humor, the body, and emotional prosperityâ and our experience of âthe digitizedâ in our daily life. Coley Mixan is a musician and an artist, creating trippy and thought-provoking work. Liz Mputu is Very Online, using digital platforms to grapple with topics like white privilege, sexuality, and digital embodiment. And Richie Brownâan animator who calls himself the hypothetical son of Walt Disney, Robert Crumb, and Andy Warholâbrings his kooky and unconventional animations to the show. JASMYNE KEIMIG
Closing Saturday
THURSDAY-SUNDAY
COMEDYKelsey Cook with Kane Holloway
A Spokane-born millennial who, to borrow a phrase from Todd Barry, exudes medium energy, Kelsey Cook cracks wise in a manner that will shatter your biases about her sorority-girl appearance, which she sometimes acknowledges and pokes fun at during her sets. Cook also gets a lot of comedic mileage out of her parentsâ exceptional foosball abilities, which they passed on to their daughter. Also, her bit about consuming weed for the first time is ROFL-worthy; she tries to come down from licking a way-too-strong pot lollipop by eating sushi, but freaked because she felt like she âcould taste the fishâs childhood.â DAVE SEGAL
French Cinema Now
For one week, Seattle turns into a center for French and Francophone cinema culture, offering some of the best movies you'll see all year. The fest will open with The Shiny Shrimp, a comedy about a flamboyant gay water polo team. Other notable features: the farce Kiss & Tell, the AdĂšle Haenel-starring crime comedy The Trouble With You, the thriller Mother's Instinct, the contemporary French Muslim reimagining of Victor Hugo's Les MisĂ©rables, the Golden Bear-winning Synonyms, and the drama Stars by the Pound, whose lead, Laure DuchĂȘne, will be visiting.
Tasveer South Asian Film Festival
Seattle is lucky to have one of the largest South Asian-focused film festivals in the world, second only to Toronto. Now in its 14th year, the Tasveer South Asian Film Festival continues with a focus on stories from under-heard communities via a women-geared short film series (dubbed âShe Persistedâ) plus programming of seven LGBTQ+ movies. The fest kicks off with an opening night gala and screening of The Illegal, about a young man from middle-class India who moves to L.A. to study filmmaking, but must drop out and get an American job to help support his family back home. Prior to the screening, TSAFF presents actress/activist Shabana Azmi with the Tasveer Emerald Award for her contributions to world cinema. Director Danish Renzu (In Search of America) and star Suraj Shama (Life of Pi) take part in a post-film Q&A, and a Bollywood dance party with Indian food follows afterward. Other films of note: The Price of Free, about child labor and child slavery/abductions in South Asian countries (with guest Nobel Peace Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi); A Monsoon Date, a short outing from transgender Bollywood writer Gazal Dhaliwal (who is scheduled to attend); and fest centerpiece, the Tibetan refugee-driven drama The Sweet Requiem, with wife-and-husband directing team Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam in attendance. LEILANI POLK
Black Beauty
As a kid, my two favorite pastimes were reading and horseback riding. Which means that I was a voracious consumer of all things related to horses, including the poignant classic, Black Beauty. Itâs told from the eponymous horseâs point of view and is about his lifeâfrom his early years as a colt on an English farm, to his life of servitude pulling cabs in London, to his retirement in the countryâand recounts all the highs and lows he endures, cruelty and loving care included. Themes of animal welfare, and treating people and animals with kindness, sympathy, and respect are threaded throughout, so it seems appropriate that the stage adaptation by James Still is being staged by Seattle Childrenâs Theater, which is renowned for its high-production-value presentations. My guess is this oneâwhich will feature large-scale puppetry, live music, and a multi-generational castâwill be no different. LEILANI POLK
Cherdonna's BIRTH-O-RAMA
In the words of The Stranger's digital editor, Chase Burns: "Cherdonna Shinatra is a drag performer, dancer, choreographer, and generally fun lunatic. Her drag shtick is that sheâs a woman playing a man playing a woman, which used to be a radical idea but has now become pretty run-of-the-mill. Which is great! That said, Cherdonna is more than a woman playing a man playing a woman, sheâs a performance artist dedicated to interrogating how the female body is consumed by the male gaze/gays." In this show, Cherdonna and her three "Donna" dancers will use their wild and weird performance art to subvert ideas about aging and time.
Indy Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Temple of the Doomed Ark
Sketch writers from the Habit plus collaborators Jeff Schell and Ryan Dobosh take aim at all three Indiana Jones movies in this musical parody, smashing the second and third into a silly, song-filled version of the first. The producers say, "Indy Jones dutifully denies that the Crystal Skull ever even happened." The show is directed by Mark Siano, who had a big hit with local theater production Bohemia last year.
We Go Mad
Playwright Amy Escobar (Scary Mary and the Nightmares Nine) is back with a frightening haunted-house play incorporating bunraku, shadow play, and "object manipulation" into a story about a woman investigating the estate she's inherited.
FRIDAY
COMEDYDemetri Martin: Wandering Mind Tour
A handsomer-than-average nerd, Demetri Martin emits brainy, humorous observations with effortless poise. In one set, he said, âI feel like thereâs a parallel world right in front of us thatâs revealed with a small shift in perspective.â Those words could stand as Martinâs mission statement. He scrutinizes the mundane activities and thought processes humans engage in every damn day and forces us to reassess them in ways that make you think, âWow, Iâve never looked at it that wayâbut heâs totally right! Now I need to adopt this worldview in order to live a much more entertaining life.â Martin excels at slyly making the ordinary seem surreal. DAVE SEGAL
Devour
If you like leather, kink, and cocktails, prepare to be swooned into the night by the luxe burlesque babes of Valtesse at this speakeasy-style show.
Sailor Moon vs. Dragon Ball Z
Two teams of queens with nostalgia for classic anime will battle it out onstage. The contestants will include Cookie Couture, Dutchess Drew Nightshade, Fran Zia, Freeza D'Lust, and others.
Hugo Literary Series: The Great Divide
Brand-new work by great writers. That's the promise of Hugo House's literary series, which kicks off this year with readings on the theme of "divisions, boundaries, and other rifts" from novelist Jayne Anne Phillips, graphic memoirist Mira Jacob, and magic realist Ruth Joffre. Phillips has been winning awards for her fiction, which often focuses on working-class characters in poor health, since 1979's Black Tickets. Critics loved Jacob's Good Talk, a thoughtful and poignant graphic novel about race and family within an interracial family. And Publisher's Weekly called Joffre's Night Beast "a cri de coeur for sympathy and understanding." The three featured writers have already written extensively on the subject in their own ways, so it'll be interesting to see where they go with the prompt. I'll cross my fingers in hopes of hearing a story about the divisiveness of people shouting the word "division" all the time. RICH SMITH
Poetry & Conversation with Anne Lesley Selcer & Amaranth Borsuk
In anticipation of her newly released poetry collection Sun Cycle (the winner of the Cleveland State University Poetry Center First Poetry Book Prize), Anne Lesley Selcer will read in Seattle alongside Amaranth Borusk, who is an assistant professor of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington, Bothell.Â
Michael Hawkins and Marc Pearson
Meet the founders of Australia's Glom Press, a risograph publisher that has produced graphic novels and prints in styles ranging from quirky to elegant to sinister. From their website: "Glom Press aim to fill a gap in the Australian publishing industry in between minicomics and Graphic Novels and to provide opportunities for emerging and established creators to experiment and hone their craft."
FRIDAY-SATURDAY
FOOD & DRINK4th Annual Oktoberfest at Queen Anne Beerhall
How heavy of a stein can you raise with your brute strength? Find out at this two-weekend bier fest, where you can dance around to live music from the Bavarian Beer Garden Band, Prom Date Mixtape, Caspar Babypants, and others, feast on hearty delights (like German-style sausages), and drink lots of beer.
Carmina Burana + Agon
Pacific Northwest Ballet kicks off its 47th season by hanging a 26-foot-long, 2,500-pound golden wheel from the ceiling for founding artistic director Kent Stowell's Carmina Burana, a ballet based on a 13th-century medieval poem written by a bunch of saucy Catholic clerics. As a choir belts out one of the most dramaticâif not most playedâpieces of classical music, "O Fortuna," more than 100 dancers do their thing beneath the wheel of fortune, embodying fate's random mood swings. PNB pairs this epic dance with George Balanchine's Agon, which Balanchine himself called "the quintessential contemporary ballet," according to press materials. RICH SMITH
FRIDAY-SUNDAY
FILM70mm Film Festival
Put down your phone and surrender to the splendor of actually-epic-scale cinema in the cathedral that is the Cinerama. Not much unites the films in this 13-day festival other than a commitment to MAGNITUDE, but several are essential viewing. I know youâve heard it before, but Iâll say it again: Seeing a film in a darkened theater with strangers is a secular sacrament. The fact that you can't pause, talk, text, or tweet until it's over is a feature. Please enjoy it while it's still available. SEAN NELSON
Seattle Cowabunga
Seattle Met's Cowabunga festival devotes four whole events to an all-you-can-eat beefy bacchanalia. Fridayâs Surf ânâ Turf fest kicks things off with seafood alongside slabs o' meat and a bourbon cocktail battle. Next, Saturday brings smoky brisket and craft brews with the Beer ânâ BBQ event, followed by Seared, a night of âsteak and cakeâ that will evoke a swanky steak house with Snake River Farms Wagyu and a baking competition. Finally, things wrap up on Sunday with the Burger Bash, a smorgasbord of bun-wrapped patties from favorites like Liâl Woodyâs and Little Big Burger. This yearâs lineup of red-meat maestros includes Jack Timmons of Jackâs BBQ, Melissa Miranda of Musang, Eric Rivera of Addo, and Jay Blackinton of Hogstone and Ălder, among (many) others. JULIANNE BELL
SATURDAY
COMEDYFat Cats
Fat Cats describe themselves as "two fat feminist women who own fat feminist cats, but are not wealthy political donors." They've performed at Femprovisor Fest '19 in San Francisco and Detroit Women of Comedy Festival and at many venues throughout Seattleâin fact, they're one of the hardest-working duos in the city. They mix vulnerability and sweetness with a foundation of blunt, pessimistic honesty, a combination that gets right at your heart.
Tragic School Bus
Taking off on the educational children's series, this cleverly conceived show follows a group of poor adults trapped in public school limbo and their increasingly insane teacher as they go on "magical" field trips to learn about topics of your choice. Directed by Jessica Dunstan and Jet City Artistic Director Mandy Price, this one should earn an A.
Richard Marquis: Keepers
American studio-glass master Marquis has works in permanent collections across the globe, from the Carnegie Mellon Museum of Art in Pittsburgh to the Koganezaki Glass Museum in Shizuoka, Japan to the Finnish National Glass Museum. This retrospective of clever, inventive, asymmetrical "keepers" (Marquis's favorites from his archive) spans his 50-year career.
Opening Saturday
SATURDAY-SUNDAY
VISUAL ARTMonet, Renoir, Degas, and Their Circle: French Impressionism and the Northwest
The Impressionists, far from ethereal or wishy-washy, were artistic badasses, turning traditional academic painting on its head. Don't miss this chance to see paintings by Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Gustave Caillebotte, Paul Gauguin, Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, and Edgar Degas, plus American artists inspired by these innovators.
Opening Saturday
SUNDAY
COMEDYVonnegut Unexpected: Kurt Vonnegut Improvised
The improvisers of Unexpected Productions will take some instinctual liberties (paired with audience suggestions) with Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions, and other works by the late writer Kurt Vonnegut.
Scream Queens vs. Final Girls
Traditionally, there are two kinds of women in horror: Scream Queens (think Fay Wray in King Kong) and Final Girls (Matilda Lutz as Jen in Revenge). Where do these tropes overlap? Are they regressive? This class with Amie Simon will address all that and more.Â
Bon Appétit! The Julia Child Operetta
Strolling through the Smithsonian Museum one afternoon, I stumbled upon a full replica of Julia Child's kitchen. I walked in because I had recently finished watching some classic episodes of The French Chef, including her infamous lobster show. "You have to cut him right here," Child says as she sticks her knife into the lobster's neck, "where all of his brains and hearts and feelings are." Genius. Anyway, in the Smithsonian exhibit, I saw a picture of Child bent over a counter in a small French kitchen. On the placard next to the photo was a quote from the famously tall chef: "When I get my own kitchen, I'm going to build the counters up to my waist. I'm through with this French pygmy bullshit!" If you haven't figured it out yet, Child is one of the greatest and funniest people ever to wield an eight-inch knife. In this light opera, a shade of the chef will crack you up while also making a giant chocolate cake, which I am told will be made with Theo Chocolate. A serving of cake is included in the ticket price. RICH SMITH
Pod Tours America
Pod Save America (made up of former Obama White House staffers Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Dan Pfeiffer, and Tommy Vietor) will go live to address today's most pressing political and media issues, including "the nightmare that is the Trump presidency."
Jenny Brown: The Abortion Struggle Now
Feminist Jenny Brown was one of the plaintiffs in the legal case that brought us over-the-counter access to Plan B, the "morning-after pill." Now, she'll appear with her book Without Apology: The Abortion Struggle Now, in which she'll trace the history of abortion in the US and argue for a new approach to rallying around reproductive rights. Brown will be joined by local Shout Your Abortion activist Amelia Bonow.
Endless Summer
Check out vibrant, surreal paintings by Goldsuit (Katie Kurtz: "The pop-art lushness of Genevieve St. Charles combines the sweaty ooziness of MAD magazine comic strips and the shellacked glossiness of 1950s-era fast-food advertising") and Blake Blanco (Jasmyne Keimig: "There's something about Blanco's portraits that are compelling").
