FILM 

Adam Carolla: Road Hard
Saturday at 7:30 pm and 10 pm, Aladdin Theatre
Ah, life on the road for America's working stand-up comedians. Gritty? Raunchy? Boozy? Fraught with shady club owners and moody compadres? For his second feature film, wildly popular podcaster Adam Carolla—the former host of CBS's Adam Carolla Show—writes (and produces, directs, and stars in) what he knows. In Road Hard, Carolla plays a comedian named Bruce Madsen whose television career has gone south and is forced to tour again. Carolla himself wraps up this one-night, two-show Portland premiere with an in-person Q&A. 

POWFest
Thursday–Sunday at the Hollywood Theatre
Writers, ranchers, investors, and punk rockers: as we note in this month's Oregon Woman issue, the ladies of our great state are many things. The eighth annual Portland Oregon Women's Film Festival shows us that despite gender disparity in the film industry, women still excel. This year's POWFest features screenings, directors' mixers, workshops, and a showcase from the POWGirls (Portland area high school students who wrote, filmed and edited two films over 30 hours).

CONCERTS

Juliana Hatfield Three
Thursday at 9 pm, Doug Fir Lounge
Some 20 years after her second (and last) album as the frontwoman of rock outfit the Juliana Hatfield Three, the former Lemonheads bassist (and frequent solo artist) reunites with bandmates Todd Philips and Dean Fisher to release last month's new album Whatever, My Love. Early reviews call the record "damn catchy," "propulsive," and "perfect for an artist resurrecting her encased-in-alt-rock-amber past." 

Thomas Lauderdale
Saturday & Sunday at 7:30 pm, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
Thomas Lauderdale—Pink Martini's multifaceted founder (and terrifically skilled political hobnobber)—joins Oregon Symphony conductor Carlos Kalmar for three evenings of virtuosic piano-playing. On the playbill: Gottschalk’s Grand Tarantelle for Piano and Orchestra, and Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy in C minor for Piano, Choir and Orchestra.

BOOKS & TALKS

Carlos Reyes
Sunday at 4 pm, Powell's City of Books
Just in time for St. Patrick's day, Portland-based poet Carlos Reyes's new collection The Keys to the Cottage: Stories from the West of Ireland lands on shelves. A well-traveled writer with long experience in the land and lyrical speech of Ireland's fast-disappearing ruralities, Reyes's poetry invokes "hard farmwork, long sessions of poetry and pints, and endless cups of tea lubricating talk of politics and pigs."

THEATER

The Six Gentlepersons of Verona
Thursday–Saturday at 7:30 pm, Sunday at 2 pm, Venetian Theatre
For its second all-female spin on a Shakespearian classic, Hillsboro's Bag&Baggage offers a world premiere based on The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Artistic Director Scott Palmer's adaptation includes 14 characters (played by a cast of five) and a rumpled pug named Crabb.

NT Live: Treasure Island
Saturday at 2 and 7 pm, World Trade Center Theatre
Robert Louis Stevenson's time-honored novel has been adapted for the stage by British playwright Bryony Lavery. The coming-of-age adventure follows young Jim as he finds himself at the hands, and mercy, of a treasure chest and the many who quest for it. 

OPENING The Invisible Hand
Saturday & Sunday at 7:30 pm, Sunday at 2 pm, Artists Repertory Theatre
Artists Rep postponed this tense political thriller not once but twice due to visa problems for the Pakistani actors whom former artistic director Allen Nause considered critical to the production. In the meantime, playwright Ayad Akhtar won the 2013 Pulitzer. Now Nause returns to direct this story of a kidnapped American futures trader in Pakistan and the Islamic militants who hold him captive. 

ART 

The Sum of Its Parts: Part 1
Thursday–Sunday from 11 am to 6 pm, Jeffrey Thomas Fine Arts
Drawing inspiration from the original holistic thinker—4th century philosopher and Metaphysica author Aristotle—Jeffrey Thomas Fine Arts brings together the works of thirteen artists from across the nation for this show, the first of two. Works include Sean Healy's assemblages of thousands of cigarette filters, Brad Mildexler's molten chunks of basalt and glass, and explorations in "apophenia"—the human urge to forge connections between disparate elements—from 2014 Oregon Arts Commission fellow Laura Fritz. 

Kamala Dolphin-Kingsley and Lisa Onstad
Thursday–Saturday from noon to 6 pm, Sunday from noon to 4 pm, Waterstone Gallery
Fairytales, flora of Hawaii, and wild topiaries abound in Kamala Dolphin-Kingsley's Introductions. Meanwhile, Lisa Onstad's watery, blue-and-green paintings evoke spring and landscape, but there's a twist. Occasional dark, clashing streaks of pixelation unsettle cheerful fields of blue and bring a chilly sense of foreboding.