seeing things

Things to Do in Portland This Week

A Dolly Parton tribute at Darcelle’s, Bikini Kill at the Crystal, Indigenous art at PAM, and Neil Simon in Hillsboro.

By Rebecca Jacobson and Margaret Seiler September 1, 2026

Bikini Kill plays the Crystal Ballroom on Sunday, September 6.

You’re reading Seeing Things, our regular column about the concerts, art shows, comedy sets, movies, readings, plays, and other events we’re attending. Sign up to receive it in your inbox each week.


Tribute Forever Dolly

7PM Thu, Sept 3 | Darcelle XV Showplace, $25

The legendary drag club puts on what's sure to be a legendary celebration of a legend. All proceeds will benefit the Dolly Parton Imagination Library.

Alex Lathrop and Ariel Puls in Bag & Baggage’s take on Neil Simon.

theater Barefoot in the Park

7:30pm Thu–Sat & 2pm Sun, SEPT 3–20 | BAG & Baggage Productions, FROM $30

This classic Neil Simon play premiered on Broadway in 1963 starring Robert Redford and Elizabeth Ashley; Redford also starred, alongside Jane Fonda, in the 1967 film adaptation. The plot is scant—it's four days in the lives of a newlywed couple in a fifth-floor walkup in New York City—but Simon's dialogue zings. Hillsboro's Bag & Baggage produces.

FILM A Page of Madness (with live score)

7PM FRI, sept 4 | TOMORROW THEATER, $25

Teinosuke Kinugasa's spooky 1926 experimental silent film, set in a Japanese mental hospital, gets a live score from some veteran Portland musicians: Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss of Quasi, and Rachel Blumberg and Kathy Foster of Soft Rumble. 

visual art The Stars We Do Not See: Australian Indigenous Art

SEPT 5–JAN 3 | PORTLAND ART MUSEUM, $27.50

Melbourne's National Gallery of Victoria provided nearly 150 works for this exhibition at PAM, which features pieces by Indigenous artists from across Australia, spanning from the late 19th century to the present. The work spans genres, too—ochre bark paintings, sound installations, photography, weavings, and more.

FILM Sherman's March

3PM Sun, sept 6 | TOMORROW THEATER, $15+

Treated to a 4K restoration to mark its 40th anniversary last year, Ross McElwee's 1985 movie started out as an attempt to make a documentary about the scorched-earth campaign by the Union Army's Maj. Gen. Willian Tecumseh Sherman during the Civil War and famously turned into a 16mm Southern travelogue about the women in his life: lovers, crushes, fascinations, relatives, favorite teachers. For a soothing voice to accompany you on an adventure, McElwee's calm narration is right up there with that of Rick Steves.

ROAD TRIP Oregon State Fair

Thru Mon, SEPT 7 | Salem, TICKET PRICES VARY

Fair concert lineups are often a combination of "Who's that?" and "Huh, they're still alive/around?" While that's certainly the case at the Oregon State Fair (a surviving Beach Boy played his old band's hits on opening weekend), the event is still bringing some big names: Sunday night sees Twisted Sister grace the stage of the L. B. Day Amphitheater, with Skid Row's Sebastian Bach filling in for an ailing Dee Snider, while Weird Al Yankovic's Bigger & Weirder tour closes things out on Monday afternoon. Concert tickets include fair admission for the day, while fairgoers who didn't buy a concert ticket can line up to claim limited free seating as space allows. 

FILM Xanadu

6:30PM SUN, SEPT 6 | HOLLYWOOD THEATRE, $10–12

Olivia Newton-John on roller skates. Gene Kelly’s final film role. A Don Bluth animated sequence. An ELO-heavy soundtrack. And more than a dash of Greek mythology. This fantastical 1980 musical is best enjoyed on a big screen, in the company of others. Warning: Spontaneous singalongs may occur.

MUSIC Bikini Kill

8 pm SUN, SEPT 6 | CRYSTAL BALLROOM, SOLD OUT

Founded in 1990 in Olympia, Washington, Bikini Kill disbanded in the late ’90s but, as if answering a bat signal that the world needed to hear "Rebel Girl" and "Anti-Pleasure Dissertation" live, has embarked on multiple reunion tours over the past decade. It's no surprise this all-ages show in the hometown of singer-songwriter (and author) Kathleen Hanna is already sold out.


Ongoing

Burlesque Dolly!

thru Sept 20 | Paris Theatre, $39+

Old Town's Paris Theatre, newly renovated and under the management of the Seattle-based Can Can Productions, hosts an original jukebox musical following the Queen of Country "as she uses her supernatural powers to transform the world into a glittery utopia." Madam Cooper, proprietor of a parlor around the corner that puts on six-minute peep shows, plays the star. Expect rhinestones, tassels, and big ballads. —RJ
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