Our music critics have already chosen the 35 best music shows this week, but now it's our arts critics' turn to pick the best events in their areas of expertise. Here are their picks in every genre—from the end of Seattle Restaurant Week to the storytelling extravaganza Bibliophilia, from Book-It Repertory Theatre's staged version of Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao to the Langston Hughes African American Film Festival, and from the opening of MoPOP's Marvel: Universe of Superheroes exhibit to the special Tulip Festival Street Fair. See them all below, and find even more events on our complete Things To Do calendar.
Jump to: Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday

MONDAY

COMMUNITY

Histories of Capitol Hill and What We'll Build Next
Erik Molano, Town Hall’s Inside/Out Neighborhood Resident for Capitol Hill and the Central District, will lead an event on the Hill's history and the efforts to keep these stories from being wiped away by development. He'll have help from "poets, activists, and historians," with remembrances of black, Jewish, and queer communities.

FILM

Silent Movie Mondays
On a recent podcast, Janice Min, the woman credited with transforming Us Weekly from a C-minus People magazine clone into a culture-defining celebrity news faucet in 2002, observed that the Paris Hilton/Lindsay Lohan era, which Min helped inscribe, now feels like a very long time ago, all but forgotten. It’s a strange parallel to the lingering devotion a small number of viewers keep for the first generation of film actors, who, like nearly all humans, even the most famous, are largely forgotten by the world. I know that going to a silent movie, much less a month’s worth of them, sound like medicine to most people, but this series is a true joy. The majesty of the Paramount Theatre is on full display, as is the glory of the Wurlitzer organ accompaniment. And seeing the films really does feel like time travel. The grammar, pace, and style are simultaneously fascinating and obscure, but the faces are a straight, vivid line from a century ago to right now. This year’s series focuses on the great female stars of early cinema, including Pola Negri in A Woman of the World tonight. SEAN NELSON

READINGS & TALKS

Dr. John Cooper Clarke
If you’re a devotee of the accent that emerges from the northern English city of Manchester (familiar to fans of Mike Leigh films—especially Naked—or the songs and interviews of the Fall, the Smiths, or the brothers Gallagher, among others), you’re probably aware that the dialect exists in its purest and most glorious form in the mouth of John Cooper Clarke, whose hilarious and cutting poetry was part of the original UK punk and post-punk landscape that forged all your favorite bands. Unlike many of those bands, whose value may be more historical and iconographic than artistic, Clarke’s work is as thrilling, funny, smart, and airtight as it ever was. His best works—“Beasley Street,” “Evidently Chickentown,” “Twat,” “I Married a Monster from Outer Space,” etc.—communicate as much anger, outrage, disdain, and social comment as any Sex Pistols or Clash song without leaning on noise. The violence lies in his adherence to form and the sardonic sneer of his ingenious delivery. The 69-year-old honorary doctor doesn’t make it to America very often, and who knows whether there will even be a future, so if you make room for just one event in this whole calendar, make it this one. SEAN NELSON

MONDAY-THURSDAY

FOOD & DRINK

Seattle Restaurant Week
Frugal gourmands everywhere rejoice over this twice-yearly event, which lets diners tuck into prix-fixe menus at more than 165 different restaurants hoping to lure new customers with singularly slashed prices: Three courses cost a mere $33, and many restaurants also offer two-course lunches for $18. It’s an excellent opportunity to feast like a high roller at an accessible price point and cross off some otherwise spendy establishments on your food bucket list, including critically acclaimed restaurants like Tilth, Agrodolce, and Lark. As of April 2, 181 restaurants are participating, but, if that's overwhelming, you can find some of The Stranger's picks for Seattle Restaurant Week here. JULIANNE BELL

MONDAY-SUNDAY

FESTIVALS

Skagit Valley Tulip Festival
For the 35th consecutive year, flower enthusiasts will flock to Skagit Valley to see sprawling fields covered with hundreds of colorful tulips in bloom. The festival is designed as a driving tour, as there's no one spot to enter. There will also be a special Tulip Festival Street Fair this weekend, featuring artisan vendors, concessions, nonprofit group displays, and live entertainment.

PERFORMANCE

The Horse in Motion Presents: Hamlet
Local theater company The Horse in Motion will transform the Stimson-Green Mansion, a well-preserved 10,000-square-foot Tudor-style manse that stands out among the surrounding soulless condos on First Hill, into Hamlet's Elsinore. I didn’t think you could make one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies even more of an existential mind-spiral about the perils and paradoxes of action and inaction than it already is, but director Julia Sears and her crew have found a way to do it. This immersive version will feature two different productions of the play running in the house at the same time, sword fights in the library, and ghostly theatrical surprises. RICH SMITH
No performance on Tuesday or Wednesday

TUESDAY

FOOD & DRINK

All Consuming: Food In Art, History, Romance, and Religion
For Atlas Obscura Society’s new series at the London Plane, journalist Harriet Baskas will present short lectures on edible oddities and cultural comestible curiosities in an attempt to “uncover the social role of food in our lives.” For the second talk, she'll delve into the ways food twines with art and culture, including moments like artist Jana Sterback's meat dress (which used 50 pounds of flank steak and preceded Lady Gaga's version by 23 years), artist Janine Antoni's chocolate bust sculptures (which she formed by licking), the Surrealist dinner party menus with Salvador Dali, Kara Walker's Sugar Sphinx project, and food in Seinfeld and Dickens' Great Expectations. Local artist Francesca Lohmann, who sculpts using taffy, will discuss her work. JULIANNE BELL

READINGS & TALKS

Ancient Jewish Magic
Historian Mika Ahuvia will share her research on "Jewish engagement with magic, angels and demons" in the ancient world, and how these practices have influenced contemporary Judaism.

Åsne Seierstad: A Family’s Journey into the Syrian Jihad
Norwegian journalist Åsne Seierstad, who covers everyday living conditions in active war zones, will share her book about a family of Somali immigrants in Norway whose two teenage daughters ran away to Syria to join the Islamic State.

Claire Dederer: Love and Trouble Paperback Book Launch
It's hard to express what's so good about Claire Dederer's Love and Trouble: A Midlife Reckoning, a memoir about sex, power, female friendship, and the consolations of literature. In her mid-40s, for no particular reason, Dederer experienced "a world-terror that sometimes sent [her] to bed in the middle of the day." "[It] howled at the door, no matter how cozy I was in the house with my funny children and my husband who was always willing to chat with me, no matter the hour," she writes. "My inability to get out of bed puzzled everyone." As she tries to make sense of her despair, her ability to get into bed—to get guys into bed, beginning as a young teenager—replays in her mind and throughout the book. What emerges, in the course of this vivid, hilarious, daring self-portrait of a book, is a person who has achieved clarity about her own contradictions, or at least has figured out how to use those contradictions as an excuse to bring lively writing into the world. RICH SMITH

Dennis Overbye: Confessions of a Dinosaur
Dennis Overbye holds the amazing title of cosmic affairs correspondent for the New York Times. In this talk, called "Confessions of a Dinosaur: Covering the Universe in the Age of the Internet and Disruption," the Pulitzer winner will speak on his area of expertise, science reporting, as well as the fight against fake news.

John Boylan's Conversation: Artists as Activists
John Boylan (of 9e2) will host another of his thought-provoking conversations, with special guests hiphop artist Julie Chang Schulman and designer/artist Laura Dean discussing the role of artists in organizing politically.

RESISTANCE & SOLIDARITY

We The People: An Evening with the ACLU's Anthony Romero
Longtime executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union Anthony Romero will host this talk on fighting the Trump administration to protect individuals' freedom and equality. There will also be opportunities for you to find out how to support ACLU causes.

TUESDAY-SUNDAY

PERFORMANCE

The Great Leap
Here's another chance to get a sense of the work of Lauren Yee, the 20-year-old playwright who already has more than half a dozen works under her belt. This production—produced in association with the Denver Center for the Performing Arts Theatre Company—bounces back and forth between 1971 China (feeling the after-effects of the "Great Leap Forward," and in the midst of the Cultural Revolution) and 1989 San Francisco.

Kiss Me, Kate
The 5th is producing the Cole Porter classic as part of the city-wide Seattle Celebrates Shakespeare festival, with opulent sets and costumes from the critically acclaimed production by the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE

Ride the Cyclone
In this macabre musical comedy, a teenage chamber choir is trapped in fairground purgatory after a roller coaster accident kills them all. Rachel Rockwell will direct this 5th Ave/ACT co-production, which the New York Times called "a delightfully weird and just plain delightful show."

WEDNESDAY

READINGS & TALKS

Aimee Nezhukumatathil and Susan Rich
Celebrate National Poetry Month with readings by Aimee Nezhukumatathil (whose succulent narrative verses can bring warmth to a chilly Seattle day) and Susan Rich (an excellent writer whose imagery ranges far).

Christopher Moore: Noir
Fans of Moore's lightweight humor will most likely delight in this hard-boiled (but silly) love story between Sammy "Two Toes" Tiffin and a hot blonde lady named Stilton, which also somehow involves Roswell, a snake, and the Air Force.

William T. Vollmann: No Immediate Danger: The Risks and Impact of Nuclear Power
William T. Vollmann's book No Immediate Danger: The Risks and Impact of Nuclear Power offers first-hand accounts of life in northern Japan after its devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Vollman "cautions against nuclear power, drawing parallels to other sprawling practices such as fossil fuel extraction and industrial manufacturing as contributors to climate change."

WEDNESDAY-SATURDAY

ART

Susanna Bluhm: Mississippi & Arizona
Many of us reacted to the 2016 election by crying, binge drinking, and unfriending family members on Facebook. Susanna Bluhm vowed to visit as many so-called "red states" as possible over the next four years to have firsthand experiences in places she only knew through the media. "I'm not trying to have the quintessential experience of each state," says Bluhm, but she's also "not observing from a distance." Mississippi & Arizona is what happens when a queer, white mother who happens to be one of the most sensuous and thoughtful oil painters in the Pacific Northwest seeks out intimate experiences in two places very different from her own. EMILY POTHAST
Closing Saturday

WEDNESDAY-SUNDAY

ART

The Time. The Place. Contemporary Art from the Collection
To celebrate its 90th anniversary, the Henry will display a diverse spread of more than 50 works from their contemporary collection. The theme is essentially "time and place"—broad enough to justify pulling out all their most interesting and beloved pieces, regardless of subject matter.
Closing Sunday

PERFORMANCE

An Octoroon
ArtsWest will continue its sharp reflections on race relations and history this season with An Octoroon, Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins's play set in the latter days of American slavery, in which a young man inherits a plantation and falls in love with the titular "octoroon"—a woman with one-eighth black heritage. Will their relationship survive the machinations of a cruel overseer?

THURSDAY

FILM

Alfred Hitchcock's Britain
Sure, with the exception of the modestly budgeted, black-and-white Psycho, Hitchcock is known for his lavishly Freudian Technicolor thrillers from the ‘50s and ‘60s. But the films he made in his native Britain are just as worthy of note—taut, intricate, their perversity more elaborately disguised. This series includes the masterpiece The 39 Steps and the excellent Young and Innocent, plus the better-known but more Hollywoodized Dial M for Murder. This week, watch The Lady Vanishes.

READINGS & TALKS

Dock Street Salon: Anca L. SzilĂĄgyi and Ross McMeekin
Two of the authors we were most excited about in the winter will read from their recent debut novels: SzilĂĄgyi with the magical realist Daughters of the Air, about a Jewish survivor of Argentina's Dirty War, and Ross McMeekin with The Hummingbirds, in which an escapee from a bird-worshipping cult takes up with a beautiful, married aspiring actress in Los Angeles.

A Survey of Female Surrealists
Stranger contributor Emily Pothast will offer an overview of the innovations of important female surrealist artists like Leonora Carrington, Kay Sage, and Maria Martins. A workshop with surrealistic prompts and techniques will follow.

THURSDAY-FRIDAY

COMEDY

The New Improvised Musical
Whether or not you've seen a million iterations of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, this improvised parody will definitely involve the unexpected in every performance: new songs and a new take on the story of two straitlaced victims falling into the clutches of a sexy scientist.

THURSDAY-SATURDAY

PERFORMANCE

Bibliophilia
Word Lit Zine editor Jekeva Phillips created this storytelling extravaganza, along with Theater Schmeater, in an attempt to breathe some life into boring old book fests. Instead of just having people read their carefully arranged fantasies in close proximity to wine and cheese, she's pairing improv actors with regional writers to bring literary works to life. There will be games! Prizes! Special guests! Improvised plays inspired by poems! Dramatic interpretations of real-life stories told by audience members! Other things to get exclamatory about include the excellent headliners (poet Quenton Baker and Hugo House prose writer in residence Sonora Jha), as well as the Bibliophilia Pub Crawl in Belltown, which starts the week before on April 12. Participating bars have mixed up new cocktails inspired by literature, and the proceeds will be used to pay the performers. RICH SMITH

An Enemy of the People
You can’t go wrong with Ibsen. This 1882 play, written as a response to criticism of his previous work, Ghosts, is about the dangers of hypocrisy in the public sphere (but also about the perils of seeming like an elitist asshole, even when you’re right). A prominent doctor discovers that the water of the mineral spa is polluted and therefore dangerous, and tries to warn the town, only to be shouted down by the town’s government, the press, and the public. The resonances with the current moment are both obvious and subtle, which is to say, ask not to whom the title refers—it refers to thee. This is a testament to the elasticity of Ibsen’s narrative framework. How elastic? Well, the movie Jaws borrowed it almost exactly. And the stage version doesn’t even have a phony-ass shark to overlook. SEAN NELSON

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago
Hubbard Street Dance Chicago company has been racking up enraptured reviews for 40 years, performing and commissioning works by Lynne Taylor-Corbett, Margo Sappington, Daniel Ezralow, Nacho Duato, JirĂ­ KyliĂĄn, and Twyla Tharp. For this brief run in Seattle, they'll bring you choreography by Tharp, William Forsythe, Crystal Pite, and Nacho Duato.

Year of the Rooster
Olivia Dufault's play satirically examines cockfighting and toxic masculinity in America.

THURSDAY-SUNDAY

FILM

Langston Hughes African American Film Festival
I have yet to attend a Langston Hughes African American Film Festival that doesn’t have an important black-directed or black-themed film that’s somehow been missed by the wider film community or is unavailable in any format—web, disk, cable, theater. In fact, without this festival, I would not have seen one of the most important documentaries of this decade, The Stuart Hall Project by John Akomfrah. I have only seen it once, and that was during the Langston Hughes Film Festival of 2014. There is also the three-hour biopic of the Haitian revolutionary Toussiant Louverture, Toussiant Louverture. I have only seen it once, in 2015, and yet, it’s always on my mind. This festival has got it like that. CHARLES MUDEDE

FOOD & DRINK

Specialty Coffee Expo
This four-day expo will feature coffee skills training, workshops, lectures, and exhibits on all things java for those in the coffee industry and amateur coffee enthusiasts alike.

PERFORMANCE

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Book-It brings Junot Díaz’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, to life onstage. Elise Thoron directs the Literature to Life adaptation, during which audiences will follow Oscar de León’s journey as he grapples with adolescent love, a looming family curse, and the meaning of life—or at least his own life. In light of Díaz’s most recent essay for the New Yorker about his own childhood trauma, the heartbreak from this story may reveal even deeper depths. Those with faint hearts, beware—according to the overview, “the show contains mature content including strong language, slurs, and references to suicide.” SOPHIA STEPHENS

Emergence
In Emergence, created by the Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite, a "swarming, scurrying group of dancers" acts out the impulse towards social hierarchy. In Alejandro Cerrudo’s Little mortal jump, genres collide and transform. Yuri Possokhov has his Pacific Northwest Ballet debut in RAkU. See these three modern works, all in one night.

FRIDAY

FILM

Puget Soundtrack: Afrocop Presents 'A Scanner Darkly'
It’s always a good idea to buy your tickets early to Puget Soundtrack, which matches a cult film with musicians about town to tease out new sensations and emotions from movies you thought you knew. Afrocop—a funk/fusion jazz trio with a penchant for abstract keyboard explorations and banging backbeats—seems like an inspired choice. About the film, the 2006 animated sci-fi thriller that’s based on a Philip K. Dick novel, Marc Savlov at the Austin Chronicle once wrote that it “seems almost tailor-made for the midnight movie/stoner audience, and I mean that in a good way”—so it should be the perfect fit for 4/20, even if our Charles Mudede did once pooh-pooh it for its “weak” substance.

Up in Smoke 40th Anniversary
Weed culture and low comedy can be nauseating bedfellows, but after 40 years, Cheech & Chong’s debut film, Up in Smoke, remains an indelible document of counterculture insinuating itself into the mainstream, one van made entirely out of “fiberweed” at a time. The film is gross, inappropriate, and in poor taste at every turn, but, as Harry says to Sergeant Stedenko at the crucial moment, sometimes you just need to “go with it.” PS: Yes, that is Tom Skerritt as Strawberry, and yes that is Strother Martin as Chong’s father, and yes those are proper LA punks/new wavers at the battle of the bands. Far out, man. SEAN NELSON

You Were Never Really Here Opening
Joaquin Phoenix's dazed masculinity is put to the service of Lynne Ramsay's adaptation of a novel by Jonathan Ames, about a veteran detective who tracks missing girls and becomes enmeshed in a conspiracy. Ramsay directed We Need to Talk About Kevin, and by all accounts, her collaboration with Phoenix is just as harrowing a portrait of the peculiarly American appetite for violence.

FOOD & DRINK

Kamusta: Hello Boodle Fight Pop-Up
This recurring pop-up serves Filipino food in the "boodle fight" style, a military tradition in which food is heaped over banana leaves on the table and guests dig in with their hands. Chef Jan Zoleta Parker has created a Filipino menu with Chinese and Spanish influences as well as European techniques.

Stranger (Pastas and Wines and Other) Things Dinner
It’s estimated that there are at least 350 pasta shapes out there, from agnolotti to ziti, and, as Tom Douglas’s website notes, Italy’s Ministry of Agriculture has documented more than 350 types of grape varietals. What a shame, then, that most of us never get to try more than the same few classic staples. This dinner from Douglas’s handmade pasta restaurant Cuoco aims to break out of that mold with lesser-known pastas like testarolo and wines from obscure grapes like Freisa and Frappato. The menu will also push diners to explore new flavor frontiers like crispy tripe salad, fava leaf farfalle, black garlic orecchiette, and Fernet panna cotta with rhubarb marmalade. Only adventurous palates need apply. JULIANNE BELL

PERFORMANCE

Kylie Minogue's Acid Playhouse
Start the evening with a happy hour of Minogue tunes before you plunge "down the rabbit hole"—Uh Oh, Dolce Vida, Betty Wetter, Arson Nicki, and others will shock your senses with pop-acid looks as NARK of Bottom Forty spin psychedelic remixes of the singer's hits.

Taylor Mac: A 24-Decade History of Popular Music (Abridged)
The thought of having to spend more than an hour and a half in a theater gives the average American restless leg syndrome (I think that's a fact). But if there's anyone who can make a person overcome theaterphobia, it's Taylor Mac. The playwright, performer, (MacArthur grant-winning) genius, and luminary of early-21st-century American theater brings a sliver (read: only a couple hours) of their TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR "A 24-Decade History of Popular Music" to Seattle, with an evening that's focused on the years 1956 to 1986. You should go because there's nothing like it and opportunities to see pieces of this historic production are very rare. CHASE BURNS

Trust Issues Podcast Live
Stranger journalist duo Heidi Groover and Sydney Brownstone (with the collaboration of The Stranger's Ryan Sparks) delve into rumors, urban legends, fake news, and other peculiarly stubborn falsehoods that frequently invade our brains. Past subjects have included Satanic Panic, human-animal hybrids, crisis actors, coffee enemas, and Jewish weed plots.

READINGS & TALKS

The Secret Signature: The Adventures of Tchang and Hergé
From UC Berkeley professor of Chinese Andrew F. Jones, learn about the friendship and work of Belgian comic book artist Hergé (author of the Adventures of Tintin) and Chinese sculptor Zhang Chongren (or Tchang, as he was known in French).

Sloane Crosley: Look Alive Out There
Sloane Crosley, author of the very popular and funny self-revealing essay collections I Was Told There'd Be Cake (a Thurber Award finalist) and How Did You Get This Number, has written another shrewd book about quotidian yet bizarre encounters in her home of Manhattan, with characters like "a feral teenage neighbor" and "the British grifter who is holding her digital identity hostage."

FRIDAY-SATURDAY

FOOD & DRINK

Leavenworth Ale-Fest
Soak up the mountain view, sip "local, regional and international brews with the emphasis on independent breweries," and groove to a lineup of music from Northwest bands.

PERFORMANCE

The Emerald Titty
Get ready for naughty Seattle-based puns (long live the SLUT!) at the After Midnight Cabaret's tribute to all things Emerald, from miserable rainy winters to cheap hamburgers and "from Nirvana to Sir Mix-a-Lot."

Spring 2018 Cornish Dance Theater
Watch Cornish dancers perform works by Danielle Agami, Natascha Greenwalt, Wade Madsen, Sam Picart, and Deborah Wolf.

FRIDAY-SUNDAY

ART

All Power: Visual Legacies of the Black Panther Party
This exhibition of photographs, from Michelle Dunn Marsh and Negarra A. Kudumu's 2016 book of the same title, undermines the popular idea that the Black Panther aesthetic was limited to "gun-toting, well-dressed black men with berets and gun-toting, well-dressed women with Afros." Contemporary photographers and visual artists—including locals like Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes and Christopher Paul Jordan, as well as nationally celebrated figures like Endia Beal and Carrie Mae Weems—flesh out themes of black identity, anti-racist resistance, and cultural, spiritual, and intellectual iconographies that reach far beyond surface-level militant chic. Through art, the curators hope to turn our focus to the Black Panther Party's cultural and societal ambitions and demands: freedom, justice, shelter, education, employment, and safety from police violence. Gain a more cogent appreciation of how aesthetic beauty can strengthen the art of protest. JOULE ZELMAN
Opening Friday

FILM

Orcas Island International Mini-Fest
See movies from the US, the UK, Brazil, and Australia at this three-night fest, including Death of Stalin, You Were Never Really Here, Sweet Country, On Chesil Beach, Beast, and Gabriel and the Mountain.

PERFORMANCE

Dina Martina: Cream of the Drawer
Here's how Stranger critics have described Dina Martina in the past: "Seattle's most gifted malapropist"; a "psycho-drag superstar"; a "walrus prostitute"; "a cut-rate Elizabeth Taylor impersonator who went skydiving but her parachute failed and she crash-landed into a Shoney's buffet"; and "a singer who cannot sing, a dancer who cannot dance, and a storyteller who seems to have situational brain damage." We've also given her creator, Grady West, a Genius Award. It's no insult to our colleagues to say that none of these descriptions quite encapsulate the Platonic essence of Dina. You'll have to see her for yourself—buy tickets quickly.

The Wolves
Ben Brantley at the New York Times says Sarah DeLappe's debut play, The Wolves, is like a Robert Altman movie about a suburban girls indoor soccer team except in play form, and that's all I really need to hear to buy a ticket. In case you need more: Freehold Theater Lab's Christine Marie Brown will play the role of a soccer mom charged with wrangling up the likes of nine up-and-coming actors. Those include Meme GarcĂ­a, an excellent character actor and theater artist who's recently returned to the Pacific Northwest after polishing up her classical chops at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and Rachel Guyer-Mafune, whose pluck and charm brightened Book-It's production of Howl's Moving Castle and WET's Teh Internet Is Serious Business. Sheila Daniels directs. RICH SMITH

SATURDAY

ART

Henry Gala & Dance Party
Celebrate the Henry's exhibitions with cocktails, dinner, and a short program. After that, dance the night away (until the clock strikes 12).

FILM

Drone Cinema Film Festival
Ambient music producer and past David Lynch collaborator Kim Cascone runs this festival combining experimental, non-narrative film, video, and animation with drone music. This year, it will be produced in the Netherlands and Seattle, with live music by Khem One. The theme is "LUNAR/SILVER," so expect some trippy moon-gazing.

FOOD & DRINK

Hama Hama Oyster Rama
If you've ever tried a Hama Hama oyster, you know they're not quite like any other oyster out there. Harvested at low tide from Hama Hama’s farm, they’re briny and salty with a hint of citrus. Once a year, bivalve-crazed beachcombers can visit and learn all about how their oysters are raised. Take tours with intertidal ecologists and oyster growers, harvest all the oysters and clams you can shuck, and put your shoveling and shucking skills to the test with the "Shuckathalon" competition. There’ll also be activities for kids, a beer and wine garden, live music, and lots of food. JULIANNE BELL

GEEK

Marvel: Universe of Superheroes
According to comics sales tracker Comichron, Marvel—now a property of Disney—accounts for nearly 40 percent of the market. This cultural behemoth will be MoPOP's latest geek culture blockbuster, with art, props, and costumes from the Marvel comics and film universe, including hallmarks like Captain America, The Avengers, and Jessica Jones, plus recent juggernauts like Black Panther. Your favorite superheroes have morphed over the years, and one of the most interesting aspects of the exhibition is the chance to discover their generational permutations. The organizers also promise a look into how these mass-culture objects of obsession relate to "real-world issues like gender, race, and mental illness." But there will be simpler pleasures on offer too, like "immersive set pieces" depicting classic comicscapes and ambient musical scores by Lorne Balfe and Hans Zimmer. JOULE ZELMAN

READINGS & TALKS

the empty season
Party with poets Catherine Bresner, Noah Eli Gordon, and Rae Armantrout on the occasion of the publication of Bresner's the empty season collection from Diode Books.

Masatsugu Ono: Lion Cross Point
One of contemporary Japan's most important novelists, Masatsugu Ono, is also a professor and translator of Francophone literature. This winner of the Akutagawa Award—the most major literary prize in Japan—will discuss his work Lion Cross Point, a gentle ghost story about a boy recovering from trauma in his village hometown.

SUNDAY

COMEDY

Musical: Stephen Sondheim Improvised
Using audience suggestions, the cast will improvise a brand-new musical based on the work of Stephen Sondheim, the genius responsible for Into the Woods, Sweeney Todd, Company, Sunday in the Park with George, and more. It's an almost insanely ambitious concept to try to match Sondheim off-the-cuff, so check out UP performers using every ounce of their wits and skills.

FOOD & DRINK

Citizen Cafe X Mochi Doughnuts
Raised Doughnuts will serve their crispy, chewy mochi doughnuts (which just so happen to be gluten-free!) hot and fresh out of the fryer. Come early and savor a doughnut with a cup of coffee on Citizen's roomy patio.

Cochon555
Billing itself as "the most talked-about culinary tour in the country," Cochon555 is a swine-centric competition built around creating awareness of heritage breed pigs and supporting family farmers. A week before the event, five local chefs will be paired up with their very own heritage-breed hogs, each of which is sustainably sourced from family farms and weigh in at more than 200 pounds, to create six or fewer dishes to be judged. This year’s contenders include Mitch Mayers of Lark, Andrew Whiteside of the Georgian, Jeremy Arnold of Hitchcock, Bobby Moore of Barking Frog, and Derek Simcik of Scout PNW. The winner will be christened the reigning “Prince or Princess of Pork” and advance to the Grand Cochon competition in Chicago. Meanwhile, five barkeeps will participate in a battle royale of their own as they vie to craft the best punch bowl. JULIANNE BELL

Revel Noodle + Dumpling Cooking Class
At this intimate class, learn how to make dumplings and noodles in the style of the famous ones from Revel from James Beard award-winning chef Rachel Yang herself and her crew.

Six Seven & Woodinville Whiskey Co. Mixer
Sip customized whiskey cocktails from Woodinville Whiskey Co. and snack on bites from Six Seven.

A Spring Foraged Dinner with Langdon Cook
What better way to celebrate Earth Day than with wild foods gathered from the Northwest? Food writer Langdon Cook will present a four-course dinner showcasing seasonal delicacies scrounged from the land and the sea. Guests will learn where these foraged foods grow and how best to prepare them. In the spirit of the holiday, a portion of the evening's proceeds will go toward the educational programs at the Seward Park Audubon Center, which aims to inspire children and adults to “develop an insatiable curiosity in the natural world through environmental science, outdoor education, and play.” JULIANNE BELL

PERFORMANCE

Manifesto v. 5
See dramatically acted excerpts of the play anthology Manifesto v. 5, featuring six plays by the contemporary playwright Lauren Yee. Pamala Mijatov, formerly artistic director of Annex Theatre, will direct. The plays are Terra Incognita by Benjamin Benne, Nadeshiko by Keiko Green, Roz and Ray by Karen Hartman, Bo-Nita by Elizabeth Heffron, Sound by Don X. Nguyen, and Do It For Umma by Seayoung Yim.

READINGS & TALKS

James Comey: A Higher Loyalty
Not surprisingly, as soon as tickets were announced, they were snapped up. Everyone wants to hear from the man whose infamous letter may have scuppered Hillary Clinton's chances in the 2016 election, and who was fired in 2017 by Trump because, by the president's own admission, the administration hoped the Russia investigation would thereby let up.

Poetry y traducciĂłn: A Bilingual Reading
Bilingual poets Eugenia Toledo (who fled the Chilean dictatorship in the 1970s) and Francisco AragĂłn (a San Francisco-born activist and CantoMundo fellow) will give a joint poetry reading followed by a discussion on Spanish translation. Carolyne Wright of Hugo House will moderate.