MUSIC

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
Thursday at 7 pm, Crystal Ballroom
Cleveland hip-hop group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony celebrates the 20th anniversary of pivotal album Tha Crossroads. The group’s unique harmonic style has earned collaborations with such rappers as Tupac, Notorious B.I.G., and Akon.

Josh Ritter
Friday & Saturday at 8 pm, Revolution Hall
Recorded in New Orleans, the new album Sermon on the Rocks—Ritter’s eighth in a career spanning more than 15 years—delivers what the smooth-talkin’ Idaho artist calls “messianic oracular honky-tonk.”

Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats
Saturday at 8 pm, Sunday at 7 pm, Wonder Ballroom
Paste magazine heralds the Denver-based nu-folker’s “creative rebirth.” Spin loves his “massive, alluring” voice. And NPR Music says Rateliff is on fire with an eponymous new album that leans to the “rockier side of soul.”

COMEDY

Nathan Brannon
Friday at 7:30 pm & 10 pm, Alberta Street Pub
Self-described “comedian, motivational screamer, and gangsta-azz gardener” Nathan Brannon brings his brutally honest, incisive anecdotal humor to the Alberta Street Pub for a live comedy album recording. Brannon has opened for comedian Dave Chappelle, and his first comedy album, I Black Out, explored topics from race to poverty. The always funny Bri Pruett opens.

THEATER

OPENING Fertile Ground Festival of New Works
Thursday–Sunday, various times & locations
The annual Fertile Ground Festival is an immersive incubator for new artistic performances of various mediums. The festival, now in its eighth year, features more than seventy-five performances throughout the city, including new productions from Milagro, Lakewood Center for the Arts, Action/Adventure, and Polaris Dance Theatre, among others. 

OPENING Adventures of Dex Dixon: Paranormal Dick
Thursday–Saturday at 7:30 pm, Sunday at 2 pm, Brunish Hall
A new work from Portland musical theater company Stumptown Stages follows the hard-boiled protagonist through the gritty streets of the “Fair City," in whose dark alleys he finds both guns and puns.

OPENING I Want to Destroy You
Friday–Sunday at 7:30 pm, Sunday at 2 pm, Shoebox Theatre
Playwright Rob Handel’s commissioned work, premiering at Theatre Vertigo, draws inspiration from conceptual artist Chris Burden’s unique relationship with violence for an exploration of ethics (and roofing).

Shackleton: the Untold Story
Saturday at 8 pm, Alberta Abbey
Local narrator Lawrence Howard shares an untold tale about legendary polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. Shackleton’s well-known Antarctic adventure rarely touches upon the doomed men on the other side: the Ross Sea Party. The Portland Story Theater shares this piece as part of the Fertile Ground Festival.

CLOSING The Book of Mormon
Thursday–Sunday at 7:30 pm, Saturday at 2 pm, Sunday at 1 pm & 4 pm, Keller Auditorium
Uganda, Utah, and singing evangelicals—in the hands of South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, that’s the recipe for one of the most successful musicals of the 21st century.