Ticket Alert

Tickets are now on sale for Sasquatch and Pickathon, and they go on sale Friday for Edgefield's first round of shows: Sarah McLachlan, Joan Baez and the Indigo Girls, Steve Winwood, Ray LaMontagne, Panic at the Disco. Start planning your summer with our guide to NW fests and outdoor concerts.

TEDx Portland, the local offshoot of the phenom lecture series, has become one of the hottest events in town. Speakers this year include NYT environmental writer and Dot Earth–blogger Andy Revkin, Gov. Kitzhaber, and more tech folk than you can shake a memory stick at. Tickets went on sale Wednesday, and if history shows, will no doubt sell out soon.

Film

Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel
Opening Friday, various theaters
Starring Ralph Fiennes and a cast of Anderson regulars—Adrien Brody, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Edward Norton, and Tilda Swinton—The Grand Budapest Hotel tells the story of a concierge at a 1930s hotel in the fictional European country of Zubrowka who enlists a bellboy to prove his innocence after being framed for a murder. In anticipation of the film’s opening, we called up critic and Anderson-expert Matt Zoller Seitz to give us the low down on what we need to know before hitting the theater. 

Concerts

XRAY.fm Launch Party with Ural Thomas and the Pain
Sat, Mississippi Studios
Inspired by the the legendary all-ages ’90s venue X-Ray Café, XRAY.fm is a new radio station that will mix local music and DJs with progressive talk radio, including progressive vets Carl Wolfson and Tom Hartmann (as well as radio newbie Jefferson Smith). The launch party includes live music by Ural Thomas and the Pain, Old Light, Rev. Shines, and a slew of DJs. 
Read our interview with the station's founders.

Theater

The Motherf**ker with the Hat
Thru Mar 30, Artists Repertory Theater
"Stephen Adly Guirgis’s The Motherfucker with the Hat is a chest-shaking bass line on a sweaty dance floor, a back-alley drug deal, and a broken heart lost in between. It is bombastic, hilarious, and smart, and director Kevin Jones cranks its volume to full with a powerhouse ensemble and direction that is as tight as a Wu-Tang beat..." Read our full review. 

Closing  Gideon's Knot
Thurs–Sun, Third Rail at Coho Theatre
Following the success of A Noble Failure, last year’s schoolhouse drama, Third Rail returns to the classroom for a showdown between a mother and the teacher who suspended her child that tumbles through issues of freedom of expression, the failure of the school system, and the complexities of love and loyalty, as it builds toward its shivering conclusion.

Closing  One Flea Spare
Thurs–Sun, Shaking the Tree
This dark play is set in plague-ravaged 17th-century London, where a wealthy couple find themselves quarantined in their house with two suspicious strangers. Naomi Wallace’s script has entered the permanent repertoire at the Comédie-Française, the French national theater; the only other American playwright to be so honored is Tennessee Williams.  

FAMILY

Zombie in Love
Sat–Sun, Oregon Children's Theatre at the Winningstad Theatre
Til death do they part... or will they? True love returns from the dead in this original musical following Mortimer, a zombie boy seeking his other half while trying to avoid losing parts of himself, literally. Based on a book written by Kelly Di Pucchio and illustrated by Scott Campbell, this is the 10th original script OCT has commissioned (and the sixth with funding from the NEA). Gives new meaning to a bleeding heart, eh?

VISUAL ARTS 

Portland2014 Biennial
Thru April 26, Various venues
Started in 2010, Disjecta’s Portland Biennial was an attempt to carry on the tradition of giving regional artists a professional platform that the Portland Art Museum offered from 1949 to 2006 with its Oregon Biennial. The third iteration this year features works by 15 artists and collaboratives, from emerging names like La Londe to Whitney Biennial veteran Jessica Jackson Hutchins to groups like Publication Studios, spread out over multiple galleries, public sites, and billboards. With its first out-of-town curator, LA's Amanda Hunt, the Biennial is making a national play. Read more in our Spring Arts Preview.

Classical

Tango Caliente
Sat–Sun, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
Astor Piazzolla elevated tango instrumentation beyond its Argentian grassroots, composing passionate music pulsing with energy that incorporates jazz and classical elements. For these two shows, the Portland-based quintet Tango Pacifico joins with the Oregon Symphony, singer Pepe Raphael, and virtuoso tango dancers Eva Lucero and Patricio Touceda to bring Piazzolo’s work to life.

March Music Moderne

• Arnica String Quartet
  Fri, Community Music Center
  The local group, composed of players from the Oregon Symphony and other ensembles, takes on Benjamin Britten's string quartets numbers 1, 2, and 3.
• Free Marz Trio
  Sun, Community Music Center
  Closing out the festival, the Free Marz String Trio presents a program dubbed "The Marzian Chronicles." Details are scarce, but the names of everyone from J.S. Bach to Ennio Morricone are given alongside, of course, Ray Bradbury. The Trio is somewhat known for its untraditional performances—they can involve elements of dance and audience participation, and nontraditional "classical" pieces by, for example, Jimi Hendrix and John Cage.
   

This Weekend Picks edited while listening to Valerie June sing "Workin' Woman's Blues": "Lord you know that I am ready / for my sugar, my sugar daddy."
She'll be at Pickathon this summer.