MUSIC

Shy Girls
Friday at 9 pm, Wonder Ballroom
Dan Vidmar was on track for med school when his bedroom recording project—completed in the wee hours following night shifts at the emergency room—got picked up by LA label Hit City USA. Since then, the Portland-based singer-songwriter’s unique brand of clubby, downtempo R&B gets play everywhere from Lollapalooza to H&M stores. We chat with the rising talent before his show. 

COMEDY

Kids in the Hall
Saturday at 8 pm, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
Kids in the Hall has been called many things—subversive, absurdist, underappreciated, Canadian, and simply hilarious. Since the '90s late-night sketch show went off Netflix last year, it's been hard to binge-watch the comedy quintet. Fans, take heart: the Kids bring their stage tour to town, with their timeless characters and convincing collection of women's wigs. Prep for the reunion with these seven golden moments. 

BOOKS & TALKS

Kate Nash and Friends
Saturday at 12:30 pm, Hollywood Theatre
Fashion icon, songwriter, feminist: Kate Nash is a UK platinum-selling rocker and founder of Girl Gang TV. For a panel discussion titled What is a Woman: Feminism, Punk, and the In Between, she joins Bitch Magazine editor Sarah Mirk, Fabi Reyna of She Shreds, and Bree McKenna of Tacocat. 

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TEDx Portland
Saturday from 9 am to 4:30 pm, Keller Auditorium
"Tomorrow" looks like ... Top Chef-testant Greg Gourdet and the folksy Von Trapps? Maybe natural hair activist Amber Starks, or the neon dance revolution of Con Bro Chill? Congresswoman Linda Smith? Poler co-founder Benji Wagner? Like rapper Speech of Arrested Development? Maybe if you spend a day with all these fine folk, plus 20-some more, you'll be prepped for the future. And that's the plan for Saturday's TEDx Portland, people. 

THEATER

OPENING She Is King
Thursday–Saturday at 7:30 pm, Sunday at 2 pm, CoHo Theatre
The story of legendary tennis champion Billie Jean King is fraught with struggle: for equal respect on the court, for acceptance as a lesbian, for choices made just prior to Roe v. Wade. Boom Arts’ multimedia production—a West Coast premiere from writer Laryssa Husiak—mines the tensions that manifest in King’s vintage recorded television interviews (and faithfully replicate her hairdos).  

OPENING The Liar
Thursday, Friday & Sunday at 7:30 pm, Sunday at 2 pm, Alder Stage, Artists Repertory Theatre
In his take on Pierre Corneille’s 1643 tale of mistaken identity and falsehoods, playwright David Ives respins a yarn so dazzling the Wall Street Journal asked if it was the funniest play ever written.  

Mr Burns, a Post-Electric Play
Thursday–Sunday at 8:30 pm, Sunday at 2 pm, Portland Playhouse
Guggenheim fellowship recipient and Reed alumna Anne Washburn mythologizes the work of another former Rose City resident, Simpsons creator Matt Groening. In a postapocalyptic landscape devoid of the comforts of electricity, survivors retell a single episode of Groening’s cult cartoon, passing the story down until it becomes the literal stuff of legend. Read our review here.

FILM

Essential Gus Van Sant
Thursday at 7 pm, Whitsell Auditorium
The inimitable Van Sant: perhaps no filmmaker has done more to paint “Portland”—albeit a gritty, marginal, often heartbreaking version—into the global imagination. This retrospective, which runs through next weekend, continues Thursday with Last Days, the tale of a musician at the end of his short life (Van Sant dedicated this 2005 film, of course, to Kurt Cobain).

VISUAL ARTS

CLOSING Sarah Horowitz and Stephen O'Donnell
Thursday–Saturday from 10:30 am to 5:30 pm, Froelick Gallery
Horowitz’s In the Pines examines branches and brambles in delicate detail through finespun inked drawings on Japanese paper. And marking 15 years with the Froelick, figurative painter O’Donnell’s 95 / 15 treats gender and historicism with trademark humor and lush acrylics. 

CLOSING Nadia Sablin and Scott Dalton
Thursday–Sunday from noon to 5 pm, Blue Sky Gallery
Take flight at Blue Sky this month with two exhibits rooted in place. Sablin’s From the Mountains and to the Sea brings to light the “dark magic” of Ukraine. In Where the River Bends Dalton explores life in two cities separated by the US/Mexico border but joined by a bridge. 

CLOSING Blair Saxon-Hill
Thursday–Saturday from 11 am to 5 pm, Adams and Ollman & Fourteen30 Contemporary
This local artist is a whip-smart big thinker (and also co-owner of the fantastic Monograph Bookwerks), making her a prime candidate for this unusual, cross-city double show—held simultaneously at Adams and Ollman and Fourteen30 Contemporary. Her more recent works, including pieces that appeared in last year’s Portland Biennial, tend toward a mix of sculpture, painting, and photo with an emphasis on perception through assemblage.