BOOKS & TALKS

Juan Thompson
7:30 pm Thursday, Powell's City of Books
What’s it like to grow up as the son of legendary gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson? In memoir Stories I Tell Myself, Juan Thompson gives the lowdown. 

COMEDY

PiggyBack
7 pm Thursday, Funhouse Lounge
Comics and improvisers, unite! Local stand-ups perform sets, which Funhouse improvisers then riff on, in a style chosen by the audience.

The Liberators
8 pm Saturday, Siren Theater
In this Mood Music show, some of Portland’s best improvisers use your music—as in, whatever you’ve got stored on your phone—to soundtrack their ad-libbed scenes. Time to polish those playlists, folks.

DANCE

Louder Than Words
7:30 pm Thursday–Saturday, Newmark Theatre
Three works make up one of Northwest Dance Project’s biggest spring shows, including Airys, from artistic director Sarah Slipper, and an as-yet-unnamed world premiere from the company's new resident choreographer Ihsan Rustem. Plus, read our Q&A with Slipper about the hits dance has taken in recent years, and why there's so much hope for the future.

FILM

Frame by Frame
7:30 pm Thursday, Hollywood Theatre
Mo Scarpelli and Alexandria Bombach's documentary follows four Afghan photojournalists trying to find their way in a post-Taliban world—a media landscape that's freer than before, but still fraught with challenges. Co-director Scarpelli will attend the screening.

MUSIC

Yonder Mountain String Band
8 pm Friday, Crystal Ballroom
Despite the exit of lead vocalist Jeff Austin in  2014, the Colorado bluegrass band has still seen success, and just released a new album titled Black Sheep.

Radiation City
6 & 9:30 pm Saturday, Mississippi Studios (early show is all-ages)
Right from its humble basement-show origins, Portland's terribly sexy “space-age doo-wop” outfit seemed as interested in creating community as it was in making records. The band’s members have run a record label, produced albums, and taken a handful of Portland acts on the road during their seven-year run. Their most inspiring collaboration was a brilliant 2013 hip-hop remix album with producer G_Force. Now, as elder statesmen of the Portland music scene, they’re reinventing themselves as an outlandish experimental pop group, with a new album, Synesthetica, that dropped in February.  

The Music of Arco Pärt
4 pm Sunday, Lincoln Hall, Portland State University
If you’re looking for music you can wave a candle to, you’ll be in good hands with Estonian classical composer Arco Pärt. He’s referred to as a “sacred” performer and in 2014, his piece Adam’s Lament won a Grammy for Best Choral Performance. 

Slayer
7:30 pm Sunday, Roseland Theater, SOLD OUT
This fall, the thrash metal titans released 11th album Repentless to mixed reviews. But these maniacs thrive on controversy—and Rolling Stone, for one, counts this as the band’s most “vital, bloodthirsty offering since 2001’s God Hates Us All.” (The show is sold out, but PoMo Assistant Editor Ramona DeNies scored a pair of tickets. Will she survive?)

THEATER

CLOSING King Lear
7:30 pm Friday & Saturday, Post5 Theatre
In Post5 Theatre’s first show of 2016, Tobias Andersen stars as Shakespeare’s maddest king.

OPENING Davita's Harp
7:30 pm Saturday and 2 pm Sunday, Milagro Theatre
Jewish Theatre Collaborative presents an original adaptation of Chaim Potok’s novel about a girl growing up in New York City in the 1930s, grappling with questions about Judaism, atheism, and communism. 

The Lady Aoi
7:30 pm Thursday–Saturday and 2 pm Sunday, Imago Theatre
Yukio Mishima’s erotic thriller invokes both medical stasis and midnight incubi in what director Jerry Mouawad calls the Japanese version of Fatal Attraction.

Stupid F**king Bird
7:30 pm Thursday–Sunday, 2 pm Saturday–Sunday, Gerding Theatre
Chic actresses, suicidal playwrights: Chekhov’s 1895 drama The Seagull gets an update in Aaron Posner’s take on classic themes of generational schism and aging. (Plus, read our Q&A with the Oregon-born playwright.)

VISUAL ARTS

OPENING Esprit
11 am–5 pm Friday & Saturday, Adams & Ollman
In this group exhibition, artists use everyday objects—ranging from old furniture to umbrella parts to house keys—to create emotionally charged, sculptural works. 

Contemporary Native Photographers and the Edmund Curtis Legacy
10 am–8 pm Thursday–Friday, 10 am–5 pm Saturday–Sunday, Portland Art Museum
Wendy Red Star, Zig Jackson, and Will Wilson engage with the early-20th-century photogravurist’s groundbreaking collection The North American Indian. 

Rowland Ricketts
11 am–6 pm Thursday–Saturday, Museum of Contemporary Craft
From hand-grown indigo dye (“sukumo”) prepared the ancient Japanese way, Ricketts creates an immersive, site-specific installation featuring hand-dyed linen and historic textiles.

Gigi Conot: Coalesce
8:30 am–5 pm Thursday-Friday, Pushdot Studio
The Portland-based photographer meshes hundreds of images culled from city walks into vivid, “digitally blended” kaleidoscopes of color.