Books & Talks

Dawn Anahid MacKeen
7:30 p.m. Thursday, Powell's City of Books, FREE
The investigative journalist’s new book, The Hundred-Year Walk: An Armenian Odyssey, retraces her father’s desperate flight through Turkey and Syria as he tried to escape the Armenian genocide at the turn of the 20th century.

Paul Auster
7:30 p.m. Friday, Powell's City of Books, FREE
The divisive author—some praise his galloping, vivid plots; others claim he’s clever but empty—has just published a new novel, 4 3 2 1, which clocks in at nearly 900 pages and follows four parallel lives of the same boy. (We don’t quite get it, either.)

Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen
8 p.m. Friday, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, $55–95
Promising “deep talk and shallow tales” (probably about Real Housewives), the journalist and late-night host put their bestie act onstage.

Sandor Ellix Katz
7:30 p.m. Sunday, Powell's City of Books, FREE
Affectionately nicknamed “Sandorkraut,” Sandor Ellix Katz is one of the biggest names in the contemporary fermentation scene. The impressively mustachioed Tennessean’s first book, 2003′s Wild Fermentation, gained a cult following and became known as the “fermentation bible.” Last year, he revitalized the book with an array of color photos and fun new recipes. He'll chat with Food Lover’s Guide to Portland author Liz Crain. For more, check out our Q&A with Katz.

Comedy

Mortified Portland
7 and 10 p.m. Saturday and 7 p.m. Sunday, Alberta Rose Theatre, $16–23
Portlanders take the stage to revel in the most embarrassing moments of their youth, reading aloud childhood writings about first kisses, summer camp, and other such glorious milestones.

Dance

Interlude
7:30 p.m. Thursday–Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday, CoHo Theater, $15–25
Six works, six choreographers, six dancers—never has 6-6-6 been such an angelic trio. Performed by PDX Contemporary Ballet, Interlude "highlights the contrast between the skeletal body and fluidity of movement." Set to a soundtrack of violin and spoken word, this provocative piece summons women to come together in tumultuous times.

Cabaret Boris & Natasha
8 p.m. Friday–Saturday, Performance Works NW, $12–15
Choreographer and Performance Works NW director Linda Austin corrals a salon-style evening of “unruly, unconventional entertainment”—think gender binary-busting performance art, oboe music, and an all-male gaggle of nondancers.

Film

Banff Mountain Film Festival
7 p.m. Thursday–Saturday, Revolution Hall, $18–20
It’s the ultimate armchair traveling experience: heart-quickening adventure films about people doing outrageous things in the mountains.

OPENING Portland Black Film Festival
Various times Thursday–Sunday, Hollywood Theatre, $9 per screening
Pam Grier—Foxy Brown herself—headlines the fest, appearing at a 35 mm screening of 1973’s Coffy, in which she plays a vigilante nurse who hunts drug dealers. Other picks include I Am Not Your Negro, Raoul Peck’s lauded documentary about James Baldwin, Prince concert film Sign o’ the Times, and digital restorations of two decades-old films.

OPENING Portland International Film Festival
Various times and locations Thursday–Sunday, $12 per screening ($350 festival pass)
Every February, big screens across the city get splashed with standout cinema from around the globe. It’s the biggest, baddest, and most ambitious film festival in the state, and it’s turning 40 this year, promising cinephiles nearly 100 feature films across genres and languages. For more, check out some of our festival picks.

Music

Arvo Pärt Festival
Various times and locations Thursday–Sunday, festival pass $98–165
Steep yourself in the meditative, strictly orchestrated work of the Estonian composer, with performances by new music group Third Angle, organist Bruce Neswick, and vocal ensemble Cappella Romana—and even a candlelit production of Pärt’s landmark Passio.

Cherry Glazerr
9 p.m. Thursday, Doug Fir Lounge, $12
While still in high school, Clementine Creevy caught the attention of Burger Records, eventually leading to her role as singer Margaux in Amazon’s Transparent. Her garage-pop trio's sophomore album, Apocalipstick, was released earlier this year.

Peter Mulvey
8 p.m. Friday, Alberta Rose Theatre, $17–20
Nearly nonstop touring and 20 albums have helped make Mulvey an indie folk circuit hit. Added bonus: his recent TEDx Talk about life on other planets will kinda blow your mind. 

The Doubleclicks
8 p.m. Sunday, Doug Fir Lounge, $15
If you’ve always thought Portland should have a nerdy sister duo who sing songs about Dungeons & Dragons while playing the cello and cat-themed toy keyboard, where have you been? Because the Doubleclicks have been around since 2011.

Theater

OPENING His Eye Is on the Sparrow
7:30 p.m. Thursday–Saturday and 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Gerding Theater, $25–60
Larry Parr’s “musical biography” charts the turbulent life of Ethel Waters, who defied the challenges of Jim Crow in her journey from the black vaudeville circuit to Broadway and Hollywood.

OPENING Marjorie Prime
7:30 p.m. Thursday–Saturday and 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Artists Repertory Theatre, $25–50
Before Jon Hamm, Geena Davis, and Tim Robbins make it into a movie, catch the stage version of Jordan Harrison’s sci-fi-tinged play about aging, memory, and (ooh!) holograms.

OPENING Pen/man/ship
7:30 p.m. Thursday–Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday, Portland Playhouse, $25–34
It’s 1896, and a group of African Americans are on a ship bound for Liberia. Hostilities mount and family secrets trickle out in Christina Anderson’s maritime drama.

OPENING Trifles and Dutchman
7:30 p.m. Friday–Sunday, Back Door Theater, $15–25
Defunkt presents an evening of challenging one-acts: Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman and Susan Glaspell’s Trifles, two plays that dig deep into America’s complicated path through race and gender inequality.

CLOSING The Flick
7:30 p.m. Thursday–Saturday, Imago Theatre, $25–42.50
Annie Baker’s 2013 play, set in a shabby movie theater in Massachusetts, won the Pulitzer. It has also caused minor audience revolts, with huffy midshow walkouts. Yes, it’s three hours long and rife with pauses and repetition. But Baker is a seriously sharp and empathetic chronicler of human malaise (she’s also funny!), and Third Rail has done a bang-up job with her work in the past.

Visual Art

OPENING Francesca Capone
Noon–6 p.m. Thursday–Sunday, Nationale, FREE
In Text Means Tissue, the interdisciplinary artist explores femininity and language via her own handwoven pieces, furniture made with a New York artist, and writings about the relationship between women and textiles.

OPENING Todd Norsten
11 a.m.–5 p.m. Thursday–Saturday, Adams & Ollman, FREE
With just a few words or a simple phrase tossed onto the canvas, Norsten’s paintings are minimal, cheeky, and even lyrical.

Torrent Tea
10 a.m.–10:30 p.m. Thursday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m. Friday–Sunday, Newspace Center for Photography, FREE
From a small perch in inner Southeast, Newspace takes on big issues: the industrial-prison complex, democracy, nuclear materials. Now comes Torrent Tea, a group exhibition from artists of color showing portraits of blackness and queerness. It aims to take back the medium of photography “from a canon that has historically neglected their participation.”

Constructing Identity
10 a.m.–8 p.m. Thursday–Friday and 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Saturday–Sunday, Portland Art Museum, $19.99
PAM organizes a new exhibit drawing together contemporary work by African American artists—from the masterful silhouettes of Kara Walker to the rhinestone-encrusted paintings of Mickalene Thomas—and art from the middle decades of the 20th century. Get a sneak peek in our slideshow.