Our music critics have already chosen the 36 best music shows this week, but now it's our arts critics' turn. Here are their picks for the best events in every genre—from Trixie Mattel in Troop Beverly Heels to a Bob Woodward talk, and from A John Waters Christmas to the Winter Beer Festival. See them all below, and find even more events on our complete Things To Do calendar.

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Jump to: Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday

MONDAY

COMEDY

Losing It: Grief Comedy
The witty Claire Webber will host a night of sets on funny sad things by sad comedians, namely Rachel Larendau, Bobby Higley, Matt Valdispino, Sam Miller, Natalie Holt, Dewa Dorje, Lucy Tollefson, Bernice Je, and Heather Paul. This sounds like the perfect balm for a sore heart. It's presented by the Good Mourning festival.

Washington Mutual
Spend a classy improv evening with two hilarious, sensitive, sweet comics: Anthony Householder and Graham Downing. Have a nice drink and some snacks and go on absurd emotional journeys. 

READINGS & TALKS

Revolution in the Air / Building Power On the Ground
Authors and longtime equal rights activists Max Elbaum (author of Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin Mao and Che), Cindy Domingo (co-author of A Time to Rise: Collective Memoirs of the Union of Democratic Filipinos) and Michael Withey (author of Summary Execution: The Seattle Assassinations of Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes) will discuss the evolution of anti-war and anti-racist activism in America from the 1960s to the present.

Seattle Arts & Lectures: Danez Smith
When you’re talking about Danez Smith, the old page-poet/stage-poet dichotomy simply dissolves. Smith is one of the most successful poets working in any form of contemporary poetry in the United States, be it slam, academic, “experimental,” or whatever. Their stage poems contain all the precision of the most well-crafted lyrics, and their page poems burn with the fire of any performance poet. Their latest book, Don’t Call Us Dead, was a finalist for the National Book Award. The book is a compassionate contemplation of black bodies beset by HIV and bad cops and grace. [insert] boy, their previous effort from YesYesBooks, covered similar ground and sold widely, busting out of the niche indie small-press poetry world from which it sprang. They’ve won all the awards you’re supposed to win and then some. All hail. RICH SMITH

MONDAY-TUESDAY

READINGS & TALKS

Neil deGrasse Tyson
Frequently memed celebrity astrophysicist and author Neil deGrasse Tyson will tour in support of scientific knowledge. The show on Tuesday is entitled “Adventures in Science Literacy” and will address "the state of science today"; “The Cosmic Perspective” on Wednesday will be about the emotional impact of understanding Earth's littleness in a vast universe.

MONDAY-FRIDAY

ART

Raven Skyriver: Confluence
Tlingit glass artist Raven Skyriver's detailed glassworks are typically representational portraits of local marine and other wildlife, raising awareness of threats to Northwest ecosystems.
Closing Friday

MONDAY-SATURDAY

ART

Matthew Dennison: Knowledge of Other Places
Matthew Dennison’s narrative paintings featuring tapered-limbed Chagall-like figures are developed through a process of layering, taping, cutting, and sanding. No broad brushstrokes, the process mirrors how Dennison delves into the day’s headlines and extracts interpretations about how we relate to our environment. In an interview for Oregon Art Beat, Dennison said he’s “trying to address some of those things where we can’t control everything
 we think we can and we really don’t.” This is evidenced in The Iceberg, where a figure standing on a cliff stares blankly into the distance while a lone iceberg appears to be slowly melting behind them. KATIE KURTZ
Closing Saturday

MONDAY-SUNDAY

FOOD & DRINK

Miracle on 2nd
In 2014, Greg Boehm of New York bar Boilermaker temporarily transformed the space for his bar Mace into a kitschy Christmas wonderland replete with gewgaws and tchotchkes galore. Now the pop-up has expanded to bars in 50 cities worldwide and will be taking up residence in Belltown’s Rob Roy. The specialty cocktails are no ordinary cups of cheer: Beverages are housed in tacky-tastic vessels (a drinking mug resembling Santa’s mug, for example), bedecked with fanciful garnishes like peppers and dried pineapple, and christened with irreverent, pop-culture-referencing names like the “Bad Santa,” the “Yippie Ki Yay Mother F**r,” and the “You’ll Shoot Your Rye Out.” JULIANNE BELL

WINTER HOLIDAYS

Enchant Christmas
Not to knock quaint community Christmas tree displays, but this inaugural event at the Mariners' home base looks like it's going to raise the standards for holiday light spectacles by a lot. Safeco Field will be transformed into a magnificent winter wonderland complete with the "world's largest Christmas light maze" (which you can explore via an ice skating trail), seasonal concessions, live entertainment, and an artisan Christmas market.   

WildLights
The zoo will light up with more than 700,000 (energy-efficient) LED lights that recreate wild scenes and creatures at the annual WildLights display.

TUESDAY

FILM

'Black Panther' Free Screening
The film criticism magazine Film Comment will present a free screening of the wildly successful sci-fi/superhero movie Black Panther in art theaters across the country, including our own beloved Forum, for Giving Tuesday. 

READINGS & TALKS

Ina Garten
Barefoot Contessa is one of those cooking shows that you don’t even really have to watch. Ina Garten’s instructions on how to prepare, cook, and serve anything from a big breakfast buffet (potato pancetta frittata, yum!) to food for a surprise Italian party (balsamic roasted beef, anyone?) is soothingly delicious background noise. The last few seasons of Food Network’s longest running cooking show all have a “Cook Like a Pro” theme, which spurred her 11th and latest cookbook (and the reason she’s coming to Seattle), Cook Like a Pro: Recipes and Tips for Home Cooks. LEILANI POLK

The Shapeshifting Book: From Clay Tablet, to Paper, to Touchscreen
Amaranth Borusk, Associate Director of the MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics at UW Bothell, will trace the evolution of the book (and other written records) over the millennia.

TUESDAY-FRIDAY

ART

Apparitions
Just in time for the early-dark season, curator J. Gordon has gathered a set of international artists to depict "the ideas behind supernatural beings and creatures in both folklore and pop culture." Paranormal lovers, be aware.
Closing Friday

Youth in Focus
For the past 25 years, low-income city youth have expressed themselves and captured glimpses of their daily lives thanks to Youth In Focus's arts program, which pairs the young photographers with adult mentors.
Opening Friday

TUESDAY-SATURDAY

ART

Maja Petrić: We Are All Made of Light
It’s easy to feel increasingly disconnected from politics, from the country, from our neighbors, from even ourselves. In response, Seattle-based artist Maja Petrić is using her new immersive exhibit, We Are All Made of Light, to look at the ways that humans can plug back into our OG bio-cosmic fabric. Using a heady combination of interactive light, spatial sound, and artificial intelligence developed by Mihai Jalobeanu, Petrić’s installation creates audiovisual trails of each visitor as they move through the space. As the installation goes on, previous visitors’ trails will mix together as part of the constellation of light that new visitors will encounter, connecting everyone with the past, present, and future. “The immersive experience emulates a constellation in which every person becomes one among the stars,” Petrić explained. Trippy shit. JASMYNE KEIMIG
Closing Saturday

TUESDAY-SUNDAY

ART

Bold As Love: Jimmy at Home
This Jimi Hendrix exhibit, which opens on the late, legendary Seattle guitar player's 76th birthday, features archival and family photos, Hendrix's own artwork, personal artifacts, music findings, and more from throughout his life.
Opening Tueday

PERFORMANCE

Annie
This production of the classic musical is being directed by Billie Wildrick (she was the lead in the 5th Avenue’s recent Pajama Game), and she’s joined by an all-female creative team. Two young actors will switch off playing Annie. One of them is a girl of Tongan descent who happened to see 5th Avenue’s production of The Little Mermaid, in which Diana Huey played Ariel, and she turned to her mother and said, “Her skin is brown like me—that means I can do that, too.” Look at her now. Plus, Timothy McCuen Piggee will play Daddy Warbucks, and Cynthia Jones will play Miss Hannigan. CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE

A Christmas Carol
ACT Theatre's production of A Christmas Carol is a dependable, simple pleasure, with just enough variation to warrant returning year after year. For the 43rd (!) edition, Kurt Beattie will direct and Ian Bell and David Pichette will alternate as Scrooge.

Fefu and Her Friends
One of the finest directors in town, Stranger Genius Award winner Valerie Curtis Newton, will direct a play by one of the best American playwrights, María Irene Fornés. Fefu and Her Friends is a play about a group of ladies preparing for a charitable event in Fefu's country house. The women reveal bold characters constrained by antiquated characterizations of feminine nature, and we catch glimpses of their love, loneliness, and internalized oppression.

In the Heights
Every decade, a musical comes around that reminds the general public that musicals can be popular, cool, and mainstream. The ’80s had A Chorus Line, the ’90s had Rent, the early ’00s had Wicked, and the teens had Hamilton. But before Lin-Manuel Miranda became a household name for creating Hamilton, he was snatching up trophies and accolades for his other hugely popular musical, In the Heights. Broadway fans will go and fall in love again, and newbies will get a chance to see Miranda's earlier work for the first time. CHASE BURNS

WEDNESDAY

ART

45th Anniversary Show
The gallery celebrates its 45 years of highlighting up-and-coming artists with a show of SAM Gallery veterans like Deborah Bell, Troy Gua, Linda Davidson, Nichole DeMent, Kate Protage, and Chris Sheridan.
Closing Wednesday

FILM

Short Circuit Pacific Rim Film Festival
The Short Circuit Pacific Rim Film Festival is the only one of its kind in the world, a festival dedicated to short indie movies created (as the title suggests) in Pacific Rim territories. Presented by CineVic Society of Independent Filmmakers in Victoria, BC, and spanning more than 30 countries in 2018, Short Circuit is hitting the road for the first time, bringing nine of its most exceptional shorts on the road. These include the three-minute sibling-rivalry-fueled Phởmily Feud from Seattle, the charmingly animated South Korean short The Realm of Deepest Knowing, and Gwala Rising, a Papua New Guinea/Portland collab that focuses on the Pacific Islanders’ use of ancient conservation efforts to sustain their marine ecosystems. LEILANI POLK

READINGS & TALKS

Bob Woodward
I just flipped open my copy of Fear: Trump in the White House by veteran journalist Bob Woodward to a random page and saw the words “The president’s unhinged.” The person purportedly saying those words is White House chief of staff John Kelly. The Kelly quote goes on: “The president just really doesn’t understand anything
 He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” The subject at hand is South Korea, but it almost doesn’t matter what Kelly is referring to, because the book is full of passages like this, because the president doesn’t know shit. But Woodward has spent the past two years talking to insiders. He knows his shit. CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE

Renee Hobbs: Mind Over Media
A professor from University of Rhode Island’s Harrington School of Communication and Media, Hobbs focuses on media literacy. This lecture, part of the UW series on "Bunk," will address "contemporary propaganda in movies and entertainment media, news and journalism, public relations and advertising, activism and even education."

Rob Reich: Just Giving—Why Philanthropy Is Failing Democracy
According to Reich (not the popular left-wing economist, but a Stanford professor of political science and philosophy), wealthy donors might actually be subverting democracy by exercising money as power (and getting some sweet tax breaks in the process). What would philanthropy look like if it were pro-justice and pro-democracy?

WEDNESDAY-FRIDAY

ART

Emily Sudd: Sitting in the Dark
Los Angeles artist and university instructor Emily Sudd is becoming known for cheeky, sometimes literal mash-ups of utilitarian ceramic objects and post-minimalist sculptures, like plates and vessels jammed onto an easel-perched canvas or a bisected vase full of melted ceramic detritus. In this exhibition, her 3-D pieces will be accompanied by stainless-steel jewelry chains strung into tapestry-like arrangements. Some are elegant, others rough, chunky, and even downright ugly. Some evoke destructive processes; others seem purely abstract, yet eschew formalism through the use of unconventional materials. All toy with the distinctions between art, junk, implement, and decoration. JOULE ZELMAN
Closing Friday

Magalie Guérin: The Marfa Paintings
Chicago-based artist Magalie Guérin makes abstract paintings that distort perceptions of foreground and background through colorful biomorphic and geometric forms.
Closing Friday

WEDNESDAY-SATURDAY

ART

Eirik Johnson: Pine
What motivates people to carve their initials into the bark of a living tree? This fall, local publisher Minor Matters will be releasing PINE, a book of new photography by Neddy-award winning artist Eirik Johson. For this body of work, Johnson has photographed found instances of tree graffiti, considering the circumstances that might have prompted people to leave such marks. To accompany these images, Johnson has commissioned a digital mixtape by an exciting roster of musicians including SassyBlack, Newaxeyes, Whiting Tennis, and Tenderfoot. This exhibition timed to the book's release will showcase Johnson's work in color photography, illuminated light boxes, and sound. EMILY POTHAST
Closing Saturday

WEDNESDAY-SUNDAY

ART

Peter Ferguson: Mock Robin
Peter Ferguson paints rich, imaginative, warmly hued pop surrealist works that evoke Northern Renaissance strangeness, Boschian creatures, and fin-de-siĂšcle magic.
Closing Sunday

PERFORMANCE

Hollywood & Vine
Enjoy a vintage and magic-filled tribute to Tinseltown with the 20-year-old circus troupe Teatro ZinZanni as they open their new home in Woodinville.

Wonderland
Wonderland returns! Can Can will transform its venue into a snowy chalet and populate it with teasing beauties. If you just want to see pretty people dancing and eat short stacks or crab beignets with the fam, there's also a kid-friendly brunch version. 

THURSDAY

FILM

Night Heat: The 41st Film Noir Series
They proliferated in anxious postwar America and still occasionally return to brood and smolder onscreen: films noirs, born of the chiaroscuro influence of immigrant German directors and the pressure of unique American fears. Once again, the Seattle Art Museum will screen nine hard-boiled, moody crime classics like Lilith.

FOOD & DRINK

Author Talk: Heritage Baking by Ellen King
Ellen King, head baker of Chicago's rustic Hewn Bakery, offers 45 nutritious bread and pastry recipes for bakers of all skill levels. She'll answer your questions and sign your copy of her book, Heritage Baking.

PERFORMANCE

Trixie Mattel in "Troop Beverly Heels"
Comedy queen Trixie Mattel, a contestant on RuPaul's Drag Race Season 7 and the winner of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars Season 3, will come to Seattle to perform in San Francisco legend Peaches Christ's new show inspired by the cult classic 1989 Shelly Long film Troop Beverly Hills.

READINGS & TALKS

Jonathan Lethem: The Feral Detective
Jonathan Lethem is back in familiar territory with his new literary detective novel, The Feral Detective. I’m sure it’s just as smart and hilarious and maximalist as his other books, including his last attempt at the genre, the National Book Critics Circle Award–winning Motherless Brooklyn. In the new book, a burned-out journalist named Phoebe Siegler hires a reclusive detective with a pet opossum to help her find a friend's missing daughter in the California desert east of Los Angeles. When the two discover the kid among a group of weirdo desert dwellers, things start to go wrong for everybody involved. RICH SMITH

The Myth of Capitalism
At this Town Hall event, economist and author Jonathan Tepper, Denise Hearn, and a panel of other experts will discuss their book The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition, which asserts that the U.S. has gone from an open, competitive marketplace to an economy where only a few very powerful companies (e.g. Amazon) dominate "key industries that affect our daily lives."

Word Works: Natalie Baszile
Baszile's mastery of setting is evident in her debut novel Queen Sugar, about an African American woman from Los Angeles who inherits a sugarcane farm in Louisiana. Fiction crafters and other writers are invited to learn from her at this talk.

THURSDAY-FRIDAY

ART

Tara Booth: Everybody loves a clown, so why can't you?
Tara Booth’s near-wordless universe is dominated by a smeary, lopsided cartoon woman whose emotions—simple delight in everyday pleasures, caffeine-fueled mania, fire-breathing rage at the injustice of the world, grief at the death of her dog—are scrawled all over her shapeless face. Deliberately clumsy and instantly readable, Booth’s work stirs up the amusement and pathos of commedia dell’arte, as seen in her graphic novellas DUII and Nocturne. The Chicago-based artist comes to Mount Analogue to produce a site-specific installation, and she will paint directly onto the walls of the gallery, whose furnishings will reflect her sensibilities with “potato chip bags, hand-painted plant pots and bedding, and some framed original works.” Cold Cube Press is also releasing Spicy Metal II, a comics zine with work by Booth and Neon Saltwater. You should buy it. JOULE ZELMAN
Closing Friday

THURSDAY-SATURDAY

ART

Clotilde Jiménez: Apple of My Eye
London-based artist Clotilde JimĂ©nez’s self-portrait collages are fascinating in that they take on an almost Frankenstein's monster–like quality, this aggregate idea of identity and self. Culling the figures in his portraits from scraps of free magazines, kitchen towels, and cloth, and combining them with drawn or painted-on elements, his work is a deft exploration into the queer black male body and JimĂ©nez’s own identity. I like this idea of finding scraps of yourself in the most random places—plus his collages are fun to look at. JASMYNE KEIMIG
Opening reception Thursday

THURSDAY-SUNDAY

COMEDY

A(n Improvised) Christmas Carol
You may think you know the story of A Christmas Carol, but you have no idea. Watch a team of improvisers re-create Dickens's tale based on audience suggestions.

PERFORMANCE

Dragon Mama
Welcome to the second installment of Sara Porkalob’s extremely well-named trilogy of plays, The Dragon Cycle. After several iterations and permutations, the celebrated local playwright’s Dragon Lady found its fullest form as a hilarious and heartwarming musical about her own badass Filipino gangster grandma and her mother’s struggle to care for the family in hard times. Part II, Dragon Mama, follows Porkalob’s mother, Maria, through 25 years of life in Bremerton. The play promises “queer love in a barren land, a dope ’90s R&B soundtrack, Filipino gangsters, and ghosts.” If Dragon Mama ends up developing the way Dragon Lady did, you’ll want to get in early to enjoy the pleasures of watching Porkalob’s genius transform the show over time. RICH SMITH

My Ántonia
Look, Willa Cather is a literary lesbian prairie goddess and My Ántonia is one of her most famous masterpieces. Published in 1918, My Ántonia is a story of an orphaned boy from Virginia who befriends a bunch of bohemian immigrants in Nebraska. The play version of the novel is lyrical, pretty, and very American in a way that will make even a depressed, sapphire-blue liberal cry patriotic tears. Usually, American prairie shit gives me hives, but My Ántonia is good stuff. CHASE BURNS

Our Great Tchaikovsky
Hershey Felder embodied Irving Berlin last year to the measured praise of Sean Nelson, who lightly criticized the added schmaltz while calling Felder "an astonishingly gifted vocalist and pianist." Felder's past performances have brought other geniuses to life, including George Gershwin, Beethoven, and Leonard Bernstein. This fall, Felder will return as the tragic Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, composer of Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, in another exploration of the musically creative mind.

The Twilight Zone: Live!
In sixth grade, I was in a short school production of “To Serve Man” (“It’s a cookbook!”). I played one of the aliens. That particular Twilight Zone episode is also adapted for the stage in Theater Schmeater’s traditional holiday presentation, which also features adaptations of “The Shelter,” “Death’s Head Revisited,” and “The Changing of the Guard.” Rachel Delmar directs. LEILANI POLK

A Very Die Hard Christmas
Marxiano Productions, who most recently created the hit show Bohemia, will stage a merry holiday musical from a script by the top-notch sketch comedy outfit the Habit, which peppers the rip-roaring action with songs, jokes, and more.

FRIDAY

COMEDY

Alistair McMeekin | Anthony Householder | Chris Yoon
Anthony Householder, who's performed in indie and Jet City productions as an improviser, has a special presence: warm, innocent, naively passionate, and faintly wounded. For his Solo Performance Month bit, he'll talk about the "comedy and beauty that everyday moments from a single day have to offer." Chris Yoon, who's known for going on first dates onstage, will perform; and Alistair McMeekin will do his first solo show ever. 

Comedy Night Hosted by Mycole Brown
Seattle-based QTPOC comics Evelyn Jensen, Dan Hurwitz, Andy Iwancio, and Henry R Williams will perform stand-up sets.

Jimmy Carr
A generically handsome white man who speaks in a posh British accent, Jimmy Carr uses his clean-cut, button-downed demeanor as a Trojan horse to tell some filthily funny and downright morbid jokes. The shock of these ribald and caustic quips comes largely from Carr’s conservative, suit-jacketed stage presence. He can also come across as an English Steven Wright, packing much clever absurdity into concise one- or two-liners. Carr’s delivery is so prim, that even when he’s offending you, you feel grateful. Watching his clips on YouTube, I LOLed so loudly and frequently, I began to get concerned looks from my colleagues.DAVE SEGAL

Mark Ableidinger | Dandyland: Queering Motherhood One Day at a Time
Mark Ableidinger (an improviser in Wood 4 Sheep) and queer dandy parent Laurie Lynch, an Intiman Emerging Artist, will perform at Solo Performance Month.

True Love at First Date, But Gay | Molly Tollefson | Desirae McCain | Dentistry: A Love Story of Debt and Despair
This Solo Performance Month lineup will feature storyteller/vlogger AarontheJin, improviser/sketch actor Desirae McCain, Molly Tollefson, "Sally/Cannoli," and actor Diana Tan, whose show is fully entitled "Dentistry: A Love Story of Debt and Despair" and is about really really messing up your teeth.

FOOD & DRINK

Chef Collaboration Dinner with Linda Miller Nicholson and Emme Ribeiro Collins
You may know Linda Miller Nicholson better as “Salty Seattle,” the wildly popular Instagrammer whose vibrant feed (with more than 200,000 followers) depicts handmade pasta created with a prismatic palette of plant dyes. For this dinner, she’ll team up for a three-course collaborative dinner with chef Emme Ribeiro Collins, a Mamnoon alum who’s competed on Cutthroat Kitchen and MasterChef, and who now runs Alcove, a communal Afro-Brazilian-meets-Pacific-Northwest restaurant in the former space of her family’s restaurant, Tempero do Brasil. Expect bright Brazilian flavors and some seriously brilliant Technicolor pasta. JULIANNE BELL

PNW Crab Feast
If the Pacific Northwest is known for one crustacean, it's the Dungeness Crab, whose meat is famously sweet and tender. This class—which includes lunch—will teach you how to choose your crab, how to break it down and clean it, and how to prepare a crab feast.

PERFORMANCE

La Petite Mort’s Anthology of Erotic Esoterica
See "the darker side of performance art" at this eerie, secretive variety show with circus arts, burlesque, music, and more. Feel free to wear a mask if you'd rather not be seen.

Midnight Snack with Nina Bo'nina Brown
Shake off your late-night sleepies with a buffet of tasty queens, beginning with a drag happy hour and continuing with a show. Nosh your eyes on the feats of Nina Bo'nina Brown (from RPDR), Cherry Markos, Cookie Couture, Cucci Binaca, Dion Dior Black, and One.

READINGS & TALKS

Jeffrey Yang: Reading and Conversation with Don Mee Choi
Hey Marfa is this poet and translator's response to a residency in Marfa, Texas, incorporating painted and penciled landscapes by Rackstraw Downes. After reading from Hey Marfa, Don Mee Choi will engage Yang in conversation.

Ryan Stoa: Craft Weed: Family Farming and the Future of the Marijuana Industry
Six years after Washington became the first state in the nation to legalize recreational weed, business is booming. And as more states and countries decide to legalize this heady plant, it’s having a major impact on the market. In Craft Weed: Family Farming and the Future of the Marijuana Industry, Ryan Stoa argues that instead of allowing mega corporations and agribusiness to dominate the market, cannabis still has a chance to stay small, prizing small producers over the Anheuser-Buschs of the industry. What will it take? Get some answers when Stoa reads from his book and fields questions at this event. KATIE HERZOG

FRIDAY-SATURDAY

COMEDY

Jake Johannsen
With deceptive awkwardness and breathlessness, Johannsen deftly handles every subject from the mundane to the political to the extraterrestrial.

Uncle Mike Ruins Christmas
Mike Murphy (Uncle Mike, on Saturdays), Graham Downing (Cousin Graham, on Fridays), and Jet City cast members re-enact and trample over your fond Christmas memories in a happily vulgar performance. Not necessarily for squeamish types.

FOOD & DRINK

Winter Beer Festival
At this tasting event, you can try unique wintry sips—ranging from “dark malty stouts” to winter warmers to barrel-aged rarities and other hard-to-find seasonal wonders—from more than 50 different Washington Brewers Guild member breweries. Local favorites like Aslan, Cloudburst, Standard, Stoup, Optimism, Lucky Envelope, Georgetown, and more will all be in attendance. Proceeds will benefit the guild. JULIANNE BELL

PERFORMANCE

Veils
Lia Sima Fakhouri directs Tom Coash's play about a black American Muslim who, during a study-abroad trip to Cairo, starts a blog about the practice of veiling with a non-veiled Egyptian woman. Protests related to the coming Arab Spring, different approaches to feminism, and pretty shocking acts of violence—one of the characters is forced to take a "virginity test"—strains the burgeoning friendship and the hopes of finding common ground between U.S. and Egyptian Muslims. RICH SMITH

FRIDAY-SUNDAY

PERFORMANCE

Acrobatic Conundrum: Something Stolen
Acrobatic Conundrum trades the cheeseball spectacle of circus arts for the more expressive vocabulary of modern dance without sacrificing the athletic rigor associated with the form. The theme of this performance is "Something Stolen," which the organizers describe as "an homage to circus past, art translated into movement, and thrilling feats that plagiarize life experience itself."RICH SMITH

SATURDAY

ART

Elizabeth LaPensée: heart of the game
Guggenheim Fellowship-winning Anishinaabe/MĂ©tis/Irish artist and writer Elizabeth LaPensĂ©e explores issues of Indigenous sovereignty through game design, both digital and analogue. For this exhibition, she offers a chance to discover her "interventions," including Thunderbird Strike, the "iPad singing game" Honour Water, the role-playing game Dialect, and levels from an Indigenous answer to Oregon Trail, called When Rivers Were Tails. This exhibition is produced in collaboration with yəhaw̓.
Opening Saturday

Indigenous Family Day
Meet indigenous creators and buy their work, listen to the library Artists in Residence Native Kut, Roldy Aguero Ablao, and Fox Spears in a panel discussion, and watch Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World at this family-friendly day celebrating Native art. 

A Minor Matters Evening with Michelle Dunn and Friends
Seattle-based art book publisher Minor Matters will host an evening of conversations inspired by the work they've put out, including a World AIDS Day conversation with Adrain Chesser and Michelle Dunn Mars, a panel with Paul Berger, Isaac Layman, and Eirik Johnson, and a panel with Negarra A. Kudumu, Nicholas Galanin, and Robert Wade.

COMEDY

Stoner Chicks with Fat Cats
Stoned and sober women comedians Phoebe Richards (often seen at ComedySportz), Kayla Teel (Jet City), and Stephani Thompson (Jet City) will act out silly stories about all the best things in life: "feminism, pizza, pussies and weed." With guest stars Fat Cats.

FOOD & DRINK

Cherry Bombe Issue #12 Celebration
Started by Kerry Diamond and Claudia Wu in 2013, the twice-yearly feminist food magazine Cherry Bombe, which has since expanded to encompass a cookbook and a podcast called Radio Cherry Bombe, aims to uplift women in the food industry. Christina Tosi, Ruth Reichl, Nigella Lawson, and Martha Stewart are just a few of the culinary icons who have graced its cover. Join the founders for the release of their 12th issue at Fremont’s female-owned cookbook store Book Larder. Your ticket includes snacks, drinks, and a copy of the new issue. JULIANNE BELL

Holiday Candy and Confections
Learn to make six different kinds of festive holiday candies and confections like velvet fudge, chocolate bark, toffee, and more. You'll go home with gift bags, boxes, ribbon, and paper with which to wrap up your creations for holiday gifts. 

Holiday Cookie Extravaganza
Add gumdrop cookies, cold dough cakes, snowflake cookies, and other sweet treats to your holiday baking repertoire. Gift-wrap materials (including boxes, ribbon, and paper) are included in the class.

READINGS & TALKS

Erika Lee: The A. Scott Bullitt Lecture in American History
Erika Lee, a lauded historian of immigration and Asian American history who teaches at the University of Minnesota, will present a lecture titled "A History of American Xenophobia from Japanese American Incarceration to the 'Muslim Ban,'" wherein she will trace the evolution of contemporary xenophobia from the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans to the current administration's travel ban. After the lecture, Lee will be joined in conversation by Tom Ikeda.

The Value of a Work of Art Can Be Measured By the Harm Spoken of It: Conversations with David Shields
Distinguished intellectual David Shields will appear three times to argue with guests about "lived experience, art, and politics" in discussions based on his own writing and film. The themes will include War Is Beautiful with Whitney Otto, Lynch: A History (a film about Marshawn Lynch) with Kurt Streeter, and I Think You’re Totally Wrong: A Quarrel with Caleb Powell.

Word Works: Rebecca Makkai
Rebecca Makkai, whose The Great Believers is a finalist for the National Book Award, will address Hugo's audience for a talk on "writing across difference": depicting characters who are potentially very different from you and your frame of reference, whether because of demographics, setting, or time period. The organizers write, "With so much valid concern and debate around the touchy issue of appropriation, writers can find themselves crippled by fears: Do I have permission to write this? What if I get it horribly wrong? Even if I do it well, will people be upset that I wrote outside my own life?"

SATURDAY-SUNDAY

ART

Robert Hardgrave and Jeremy Eaton: hARDGRAVeATON
"It’s more like challenging each other to work off what’s in evidence,” Jeremy Eaton said when I asked if his process with Robert Hardgrave was like that of the dadaist "exquisite corpse" game. Their growing rapport as friends and respect for each other as art collaborators can be seen in the works on paper they’ve cocreated over the past four years. Eaton’s background as a comic illustrator brings narrative into Hardgrave’s Xerox transfers and bold mark making. There is a tentativeness in their early pieces, while recent works show their two styles fully enmeshed. It doesn’t hurt that they’re neighbors, too. KATIE KURTZ
Closing Sunday

PERFORMANCE

George Balanchine's 'The Nutcracker'
If you haven't seen this Christmas classic since you were a kid, give it a go this year. In 2014, PNB replaced its beloved Maurice Sendak set with one by Ian Falconer, who did the Olivia the Pig books, and I'm glad that they did. The new set is gorgeous in a Wes Anderson-y way, and it reflects the genuine weirdness and beauty in the story. I mean, the last 45 minutes of this thing is a Katy Perry video starring dancing desserts and a glittery peacock that moves like a sexy broken river. Bring a pot lozenge. RICH SMITH

SHOPPING

Urban Craft Uprising 2018 Winter Show
You're bound to find something special for a loved one or for yourself at the winter edition of "Seattle’s largest indie craft show," which features over 150 artsy vendors.

SUNDAY

COMEDY

A John Waters Christmas
John Waters comes every Christmas, doesn’t he? It feels like it. The potty-mouthed, anarchist-fetishizing, original daddy of filth is putting in his time yet again this year, and we’re lucky to have him. If you ever wanted your face or butt or bloody tampon to be signed by the troubled mind behind Hairspray, Pink Flamingos, and Female Trouble, he’ll do it here—as long as you buy some merch. It’s worth it. CHASE BURNS

FOOD & DRINK

addo Themed Brunch: Grinch Who Stole Christmas
If Whoville had five-course holiday tasting menus (who's to say they don't?) they might resemble Chef Eric Rivera's brunch inspired by How the Grinch Stole Christmas.