Books & Talks

Luis Alberto Urrea

7:30 p.m. Thu, Powell's City of Books, FREE
In his latest novel, The House of Broken Angels, bestselling author Luis Alberto Urrea chronicles a Mexican-American family as they gather for the final birthday party of the clan’s dying patriarch. The Washington Post called it “a big, sprawling, messy, sexy, raucous house party of a book, a pan-generational family saga with an enormous, bounding heart, a poetic delivery and plenty of swagger.”

Comedy

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Live

8 p.m. Fri–Sat, Revolution Hall, SOLD OUT
Rachel Bloom and other cast members from the very funny CW show break away from the screen to perform live versions of their relatable (and oftentimes raunchy) musical numbers about the struggles of single millennial women.

Music

Mount Eerie

9 p.m. Thu, Revolution Hall, $18
Shortly after losing his wife to cancer in 2016, singer-songwriter Phil Elverum released A Crow Looked At Me, an album that earned immediate praise for its intimate, poetic lyrics about death, suffering, and loss. Elverum returns to the stage to debut his new album, Now Only, which he says provides “a more complex and nuanced picture of mourning and healing.”

Ten Grands

7 p.m. Sat, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, $25–150
Putting 10 grand pianos onstage feels a little gimmicky, but c’mon—that’s a lot of piano on one stage. Portlander Michael Allen Harrison has corralled 10 pianists of widely varied backgrounds, who’ll play classical, modern, and jazz tunes.

Genders

9 p.m. Sat, The Fixin' To, $7
The local four-piece band brings their dreamy, slightly fuzzed-out guitar rock to the St. Johns honky tonk.

Theater

CLOSING Scarlet

7:30 p.m. Thu–Sat, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sun, Portland Playhouse, $25–39
Take Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 19th-century novel about a “fallen woman.” Rewrite it as musical theater. What have you got? A Portland Playhouse world premiere. Written and composed by Portland playwright and former high school drama teacher Michelle Horgen, Scarlet also got help in the development process from Bitch Media, and it features a few performers from PHAME, a local arts and education nonprofit focused on opportunities for the developmentally disabled community. For more, check out our story about the show.

CLOSING Between Riverside and Crazy

7:30 p.m. Thu–Fri, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sat, 2 p.m. Sun, Artists Repertory Theatre, $25–50
The rent might be controlled, but everything else is topsy-turvy in Stephen Adly Guirgis’s Pulitzer-winning drama about a retired NYPD police officer and recent widower whose recently paroled son and friends wander in and out of his Manhattan apartment. “Dizzying and exciting,” said the New York Times.

CLOSING The Three Sisters of Weehawken

8 p.m. Fri–Sat, Siren Theater, $15–20
After several years of putting sketch comedy, improv, and stand-up onstage, the Siren Theater branches into the world of scripted theater. Up first: Deborah Zoe Laufer’s dark comedy about three sisters who long for Manhattan from their dull New Jersey home (paging Anton Chekhov).

Visual Art

The Academy of Saturn

Noon–5 p.m. Thu–Sun, Cooley Gallery, FREE
Acclaimed British duo Jon Thomson and Allison Craighead use data as their palette—geolocated tweets form a wall of poetry, a slide show gets an eerie audio pairing to create a new narrative—to explore our technologically connected and disconnected world.

Smith Eliot

11 a.m.–6 p.m. Thu–Sun, Wolff Gallery, FREE
In Ghost Ships, the Portland mixed-media artist showcases her photo-collaged wooden boxes—small reflections on time, memory, and secrets—alongside newer images in antique bubble-glass frames. 

CLOSING Kamala Dolphin-Kingsley

11 a.m.–5 p.m. Thu–Sat, 11 a.m.–4 p.m. Sun, Waterstone Gallery, FREE
In Umidulus, Portlander Kamala Dolphin-Kingsley creates prints and huge watercolor paintings of flora and fauna—both real and imagined—inspired by Hawaii and the Pacific Northwest.