35 Events to Catch This Fall

Jonathan Wilson looks as trippy as he’ll sound at the Tractor Tavern.
Image: Courtesy Grandstand Media
Books & Talks
Gary Shteyngart
Sept 10 It’s been nearly a decade since Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story painted a satirical panorama of a not-so-distant dystopia, full of Fox Liberty Ultra and hand-held device addiction and transparent jeans. Now he returns with Lake Success, which lampoons a hedge fund manager who takes a cross-country Greyhound trip in the summer of 2016—you know, that not-so-distant time that presaged our current dystopia. Broadway Performance Hall
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Nov 26 & 27 That mustache! Those asteroid factoids! That pedantic charisma! Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson brings two nights of talks—“Adventures in Science Literacy” and “The Cosmic Perspective”—to the Paramount. If you don’t know what to expect yet from an NDT talk, we’d say you’ve been living on another planet, but then you’d know exactly what to expect. Paramount Theater
Classical & More
Opening Night with Ludovic Morlot and Jean-Yves Thibaudet
Sept 15 Kick off music director Ludovic Morlot’s last season with Seattle Symphony at this opening night concert and gala. Hear pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet and players dig into Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and Aram Khachaturian’s Piano Concerto. Then hit the gala for dancing and dinner in true symphonic style. Benaroya Hall

Kamasi Washington blasts sax at Showbox Market.
Image: Kamasi Washington
Kamasi Washington
Oct 17 Labeling saxophonist and bandleader Kamasi Washington as a jazz musician feels as inadequate as calling Kendrick Lamar a rapper. So it makes sense that Washington helped Lamar sculpt the wildly expansive grooves on To Pimp a Butterfly. On his solo work, like this year’s Heaven and Earth, Washington slips between genres with such dexterity that you’ll forget they exist. Showbox Market
Rachmaninov Untuxed
Nov 30 In 2014 Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili played Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with the Seattle Symphony that had The Seattle Times praising its “slithery” finesse. Now she returns for the Russian Romantic composer’s Second Piano Concerto. That it runs only 32 minutes merely intensifies and consolidates its gorgeousness. Benaroya Hall
Comedy
Brian Posehn
Sept 14 & 15 Part of the early-aughts alternative comic cohort that included Patton Oswalt and Maria Bamford, Brian Posehn slings jokes that are as gleefully nerdy, self-deprecating, and scatological as his topics—metal, Star Wars, weed, feces—would lead you to believe. Laughs Comedy Club

Aparna Nancherla unleashes her gloriously deadpan comedy at the Neptune Theater.
Image: Courtesy STG
Aparna Nancherla CANCELED
Sept 22 In terms of the sheer glory of her awkward deadpan, Aparna Nancherla seems in a contemporary league only with Hannibal Buress. When she hits the Neptune expect her to continue to struggle with the pressing questions of our times: “Do you think if two DJs got in a fight, they’d just keep yelling, ‘Ah! The tables have turned!’” Neptune Theater
Mystery Science Theater 3000 Live
Nov 11 Break the show’s fourth wall (but not the movies’) and step inside Mystery Science Theater 3000 on its 30th anniversary tour. Here hosts Joel and Jonah will offer wisecracking commentary at afternoon and evening shows. The B-movies d’jour? The Brain and Deathstalker, a 1983 boondoggle of swords, sorcery, and sandals, complete with a flaxen-haired, loincloth-clad, exceedingly well-oiled hero. Moore Theater
Concerts
Japanese Breakfast
Sept 25 Michelle Zauner’s second album under her Japanese Breakfast moniker is called Soft Sounds from Another Planet, and it is, like its title, lovely and a little cosmic, floating on synths and breathy vocals. But Zauner, a Eugene native, finds grounding in Northwest influences—Elliott Smith, Mount Eerie—and in deeply confessional subjects like the loss of her mother and femininity. Neptune Theater
Jonathan Wilson
Sept 26 Perhaps most known as a producer for artists like Dawes and Father John Misty and Conor Oberst, Jonathan Wilson is a formidable musician in his own right, working from the lush psychedelic tradition and laidback climes of Laurel Canyon. Tractor Tavern
Childish Gambino CANCELED
Sept 29 Polytalented musician, actor, producer, writer, and comedian, Donald Glover (Childish Gambino) created a viral firestorm this year with his “This Is America” video—an incendiary indictment of gun violence and America’s dissonant consumption of black culture. He followed it with a pair of shimmery summer anthems. When he hits KeyArena, idiosyncrasy is certain. KeyArena
Courtney Barnett
Oct 8 Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett has a voice, and an oft-flat affect, that verges on boredom. But instead of coming across as bored herself or blandly withering, she offers wry, witty companionship. On this year’s Tell Me How You Really Feel, she invites you along on garage-rocking strolls, which occasionally break into punk outrage on tracks like “I’m Not Your Mother, I’m Not Your Bitch.” Paramount Theater
Justin Timberlake
Nov 12 & 13 If “Filthy,” the opener on his new record, Man of the Woods, sounds like Justin Timberlake returning to his “SexyBack” roots, much of the rest of the album finds him following those roots deeper, into the earthy sounds of his Tennessee upbringing—a harmonica here, a Chris Stapleton guest spot there. JT retains his signature lithe pop hooks, just with some added twang and texture. Tacoma Dome
Pedro the Lion
Nov 23 Whether he plays under his own name, or with a new group of musicians under Pedro the Lion, David Bazan is a local treasure, navigating the brooding waters of faith and its dissolution in wise, heartfelt indie songs. Here he’s joined by also locally treasured, if a tad sunnier, Chris Staples. Neumos
Dance

Pacific Northwest Ballet begins its season with a tribute to choreographer Jerome Robbins.
Image: Courtesy Angela Sterling
Jerome Robbins Festival
Solo: A Festival of Dance
All Premiere
Nov 2–11 This mixed-repertory gathers three Pacific Northwest Ballet premieres together for a new show. Alejandro Cerrudo (whose work Memory Glow debuted here in 2014) brings Silent Ghost, Alexander Ekman brings Cacti. And PNB soloist Kyle Davis, who joined the company a decade ago, will present New Davis for its world premiere. McCaw Hall
Food & Drink
Fremont Oktoberfest
Sept 21–23 If you really want to go full Rhineland, you head to Leavenworth in October. But if you need to don your dirndl more locally, Fremont offers the city’s major option. The German festival is also one of the city’s bigger beer fests, filling your stein with more than 80 local and international brews. For oompahing tubas you’ll have to head a little closer to Munich, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Fremont
Great Pumpkin Beer Festival
Oct 5 & 6 Love it or loath it, pumpkin beer can’t any longer be labeled a novel trend. Now in its 14th year, Elysian Brewing’s gourdy ode returns complete with its giant pumpkin filled with pumpkin brew and tapped. Last year saw over 80 pumpkin beers from across the country (20 from Elysian itself), along with food and orange-clad crowds and, of course, jack-o'-lanterns. Seattle Center
Special Events

A WWI artifact map, part of WW1 America on display at MOHAI.
WW1 America
Sept 1–Feb 10 Coinciding with the centennial of Armistice Day on November 11, MOHAI brings the nationally traveling exhibit to Seattle for its West Coast debut. WW1 America explores the War to End All Wars through an American lens, telling stories both famous and less known, including Northwest narratives like the militarization of the Puget Sound and the Seattle General Strike of 1919. Museum of History and Industry

Cirque du Soleil is back in town with Volta.
Image: Courtesy Patrice Lamoureux
Cirque du Soleil Volta
Sept 7–Nov 4 The big-time big top company brings its show Volta to Marymoor. This one’s about Waz, a boy who’s trying to find acceptance in the world. But as with any Cirque du Soleil, the story’s just an apparatus for the troupe of acrobats to trampoline, twirl, and—in this case—flip on BMX bikes, until performers and crowd alike are dizzy with spectacle. Marymoor Park
Luminata
Sept 22 The mellower and exceedingly more clothed sibling to the Fremont Solstice Parade encircles Green Lake to celebrate the autumnal equinox. Seattleites arrive at dusk, sporting lighted costumes and elaborate lanterns—snakes, dragons, and glowing orbs all seem to levitate in the night air—to celebrate our slow descent into the wintery dark. Green Lake Park
Lit Crawl
Oct 11 Book folk do love a pun—and a drink. Lit Crawl returns for the city’s most sprawling and tipsy party of letters, with bars and venues orchestrating readings around downtown and Capitol Hill. It all ends at the new Hugo House with an afterparty where you can pick up your favorite performer’s book or a nightcap. Various locations
Borealis, a Festival of Light
Oct 11–14 Centered at MOHAI but diffused throughout South Lake Union, this inaugural festival draws artists into a grand scale art competition. Europe has held such events for over a decade, but this marks the first in the U.S. Light displays and video will be projected onto building facades and—along with a slate of food trucks, beer and wine gardens, and live music—turn the city’s most technological neighborhood into an exhibition astronomically large and illuminating. Various locations
Theater
Skylight
Sept 7–30 David Hare’s 1995 play finds two erstwhile lovers reuniting in a London apartment to cook dinner. She’s a schoolteacher, he’s a successful businessman. What follows delves into the workings of lost love and intimacy, yes, but also the dynamics of class in an unsteady economy. ACT Theatre

The Turn of the Screw fills McCaw Hall with ghostly opera.
Image: Courtesy Philip Newton
The Turn of the Screw
Oct 13–27 Director Peter Kazaras brings his staging of Benjamin Britten’s opera (itself an adaptation of the Henry James’s beguiling novella) back in an expanded, McCaw Hall–sized production. Something has to contain all the atmosphere and ambiguity its ghostly libretto generates. McCaw Hall
Oslo
Oct 12–Nov 11 This 2017 Tony Award–winner for best play follows Norwegian diplomat Mona Juul and her husband as they coordinate between Israeli and Palestinian leaders’ peace negotiations, which led to the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords. It could land like a political science lecture but instead plays as a riveting thriller and reminder of the humanity, both good and bad, involved in headline negotiations. ACT Theatre
Native Gardens
Sept 6–30 This comedy gets topical over the topiary when a pregnant PhD candidate and her ambitious lawyer husband move into a DC house and meet their new neighbors, a semiretired couple with an English-style garden. The peace is quickly disturbed when a fence line becomes grounds for a territorial dispute. Who’s to say that big issues—race, class, privilege, borders—can’t be played for big laughs? Intiman Theater
Visual Art
Janna Watson: Moody as Light
Sept 6–22 Janna Watson’s abstract mixed media panels emanate wild connotative energies. The swooping, zooming, churning brushstrokes and emphatic negative space combine with hits of color to resemble everything from flowers to light to people to movement itself, often all at once. Foster/White Gallery
Group Therapy
Sept 15–Jan 6 Twelve artists and healers converge at the Frye for a show that both explores and proffers self-help. Maybe that’s Liz Magic Laser’s padded-room video project, Primal Scream. Maybe it’s Cindy Mochizuki’s Fortune House, in which the artist exchanges tarot card and tealeaf readings for monster stories. However various the methods, the exhibition/clinic is intended to find new modes of expression and connection. Frye Art Museum

Haein Kang: Illusion
Oct 4–25 Sit in a spare room. Close your eyes and music begins, a concerted plinking made by weights striking wood, metal, glass—like a John Cage piece played on found instruments. Open your eyes and the music stops. This is Haein Kang’s Illusion installation. An electroencephalogram (EEG) headset picks up alpha brain waves, created only when your eyes are shut, and these waves prompt the instruments’ rhythm. (At an October 11 workshop guests will be invited to try the headset on. While on display at 4Culture, it will be modeled in video.) Wearing the device invokes a synesthesia, to disrupt the lines dividing sight and sound, thought and action. Kang—who’s long lived at the intersection of art and tech, in Seoul, in San Francisco, now in Seattle—was curious about exploring neuroscience because of how little we understand about the mind. It remains, like any good artistic subject, largely mysterious. To call the piece cerebral is not a slight. It’s just a smidge too on the nose. 4Culture
Peacock in the Desert: The Royal Arts of Jodhpur, India
Oct 18–Jan 21 Around 250 historic art works from Indian courtly life—many of which are leaving their palaces for the first time—come to SAM for a show that’s stunning both in its centuries-long scope and in its detail: See a 19th century shield bedazzled with rubies, diamonds, emeralds, chalcedony, agate, and rock crystal. Large photo murals will render Jodhpur’s Mehrangarh Museum for further context and splendor. Seattle Art Museum
Annie Morris
Oct 24–Dec 8 Painter and sculptor Annie Morris loves to iterate. On paper that can mean hundreds of faces inked in jittering repetition, or perhaps nudes painted on wooden clothes pins. At this show, towers of plaster orbs, multicolored and many-sized, rise like colorful, counterbalanced rock stacks. Winston Wächter Gallery
Updated 12:31pm on August 24, 2018 to reflect that Aparna Nancherla's Neptune show has been canceled. Updated 1:48pm on September 27, 2018 to reflect that Childish Gambino's show has been canceled.