Books & Talks

Eva Hagberg Fisher

7:30 p.m. Thu, Powell's City of Books, FREE
Eva Hagberg Fisher spent much of her youth competing against her peers instead of building connections, but after a massive health scare she had no choice but to ask for help. The onetime Portlander discusses her new debut book, How To Be Loved: A Memoir of a Lifesaving Friendship, with local author Sophia Shalmiyev.

Andrea Gibson

8 p.m. Fri, Wonder Ballroom, $20–23
In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, award-winning slam poet and activist Andrea Gibson sought a response to our country’s political discord. So they partnered with Portland’s Tender Loving Empire to release Hey Galaxy, a full-length poetry album addressing such topics as the Orlando nightclub massacre, white privilege, and LGBTQ struggles. Since that album came out in January 2018, Gibson unveiled a poetry collection, Lord of the Butterflies, and in April will release How Poetry Can Change Your Heart, co-written with Megan Falley, about the transformative power of verse.

Comedy

Shane Torres

8 p.m. Thu, 7:30 and 10 p.m. Fri–Sat, Helium Comedy Club, $17–32
Once, Portland could claim this Fort Worth–born funnyman. But Torres, whose underachiever persona belies a whip-smart comedic zing, left for New York four years ago. Now, he returns to the stage where he was crowned Portland’s Funniest Person back in 2013.

Dance

Compagnie Hervé Koubi

8 p.m. Thu–Sat, Newmark Theatre, $25–38
Last time Hervé Koubi’s dance company strolled through Portland, they left three sold-out performances in their wake. Now they’re back, thanks to White Bird, with 13 male street performers from Algeria and Morocco to perform Koubi’s latest, The Barbarian Nights or the First Dawns of the World.

Materialize

7:30 p.m. Fri–Sat, 2 p.m. Sun, New Expressive Works, $15–25
PDX Contemporary Ballet founder Briley Neugebauer has said she takes modern dance and puts pointe shoes on it. This season, the company’s fourth, muses on existentialism and Richard Yates’s novel Revolutionary Road, and this particular show features four original works by company dancers exploring themes from femininity to consumerism to grief.

Music

Beirut

8 p.m. Thu, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, $34.50–54.50
Beirut began in 2006 as the solo project of Zach Condon, but it soon expanded to include other musicians and collaborators on its pop and world-music projects. The group hits the Schnitz in support of its new record, the organ-heavy Gallipoli.

Sallie Ford & the Sound Outside

9 p.m. Fri–Sat, Mississippi Studios, $20
The acclaimed Portland singer-songwriter reunites with her band for two nights of rollicking, jangly, soulful fun at Mississippi Studios.

CLOSING PDX Jazz Festival

Various times and venues, Thu–Sun, prices vary
This year's fest comes to an end with tributes to both Grover Washington, Jr. and Michael Brecker as a well as a performance by Grammy-winning bassist Stanley Clarke. 

Theater

OPENING Tiny Beautiful Things

7:30 p.m. Thu–Sat, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sun, The Armory, $25–80
Based on Cheryl Strayed’s book of the same name, Tiny Beautiful Things chronicles the author’s journey as agony aunt as The Rumpus’s Dear Sugar, in a play the New York Times called a “handkerchief-soaking meditation on pain, loss, hope, and forgiveness.”

OPENING Leonard Cohen Is Dead

7:30 p.m. Fri–Sat, 2 p.m. Sun, Imago Theatre, $15–20
Apologies to fans of Leonard Cohen—Jerry Mouawad’s latest original work has nothing to do with the late legendary musician. Instead, the Imago cofounder draws inspiration from sci-fi, Reservoir Dogs, and Jean Genet’s Splendid’s (a police drama that was never staged in the French writer’s lifetime). Mouawad, ever the theatrical iconoclast, promises a kinetic, visceral world in which “crime is acceptable and dead singers lead the world.”

Come from Away

7:30 p.m. Thu–Fri, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sat, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sun, Keller Auditorium, $35–135
When the second tower was struck on September 11, 2001, all non-military flights were grounded, leaving thousands of passengers and crew stuck in various locations across North America. Somehow the town of Gander, Newfoundland, became the temporary home for nearly 7,000 stranded passengers and crew. Those events inspired this Tony Award-winning musical, now landing in Portland on its Broadway tour.

CLOSING A Doll's House, Part 2

7:30 p.m. Thu–Fri, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sat–Sun, Artists Repertory Theatre, $30–60
Playwright Lucas Hnath scored a Tony nomination for this show, which imagines a sequel to Ibsen’s 1879 drama. In Hnath’s play, which the New York Times called “smart, funny, and utterly engrossing,” Norwegian housewife Nora Helmer returns after 15 years away, now a successful writer—and in need of her husband’s signature on the divorce papers. The stellar Linda Alper stars in this Artists Rep production.

Visual Art

OPENING Rumors

11 a.m.–6 p.m. Thu–Sun, Wolff Gallery, FREE
Seven women make up Small Talk Collective, a local photography group that formed in 2015 and now presents a new exhibit at Wolff. Their work ranges from misty nature shots to moody domestic scenes to spare still lifes.

CLOSING Jinhyun Cha

Noon–5 p.m. Thu–Sun, Blue Sky Gallery, FREE
South Korea-based documentary photographer Jinhyun Cha’s Post-Border Line considers Korea’s state of division via candid moments of reflection. His black-and-white, street photography-style images of the Korean Demilitarized Zone reflect on both physical and ideological borders.

Think of Me

11 a.m.–5 p.m. Thu–Sat, Adams & Ollman, FREE
This group exhibition explores the meaning of keepsakes and mementos, with work from artists Anthony Campuzano, Felipe Jesus Consalvos, Paul Lee, Em Rooney, and Dennis Witkin. Expect both 2-D and 3-D pieces, ranging from abstract drawings to folk-art collages to mise-en-scène displays.