WEDNESDAY 2/21Â Â
The Kids Arenât Alright: Troubled Teens on Screen
(FILM) Teen movies really hit their stride once the youngins started hanging out in malls in the early '80s. Suddenly, teens were more visible, and with that visibility came more complex and rebellious young roles on screen. Local filmmaker Jeremy Cropf will chat about some of the most enduring teen films of the last 40-odd years in this series, which includes screenings of Jennifer's Body, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and more alongside hybrid lectures on teen representation with themes corresponding to high school grades ("Freshman Year: The Invention of the Teenager" [February 21], "Sophomore Year: Dark Comedy and Social Satire" [February 28], and so on). Show up if you're into Euphoria. (SIFF Film Center, 305 Harrison St, 7 pm, $16.50) LINDSAY COSTELLO
THURSDAY 2/22Â Â
(MUSIC) Through a prodigious work ethic and extraordinary talent, Shabaka Hutchings has become perhaps the faceâand lungsâof the UK's 21st-century jazz renaissance. The London multi-instrumentalist established his rep as a saxophonist for disciplined yet freewheeling groups such as Sons of Kemet, the Comet Is Coming, London Brew, and Shabaka and the Ancestors. The last 15 years have proven Hutchings's stylistic versatility and predilection for sacralizing Black musical history while psychedelicizing it into the future, as well as his prowess on clarinet, quena, shakuhachi, and the Brazilian pĂfano flute. It's the latter three instruments that this AndrĂ© 3000 collaborator mainly deploys as a solo artist. On 2022's Afrikan Culture, Shabaka delves into much chiller, introspective realms, augmented by tinkling bellsâan underrated timbre. Titles such as "The dimension of subtle awareness" exemplify the beguiling moods Hutchings conjures here. With a new album on the horizon, Shabaka is likely to debut some previously unheard gems, as well. (Town Hall, 1119 8th Ave, 8 pm, $40-$55) DAVE SEGAL
FRIDAY 2/23Â Â
Blackstar Symphony: The Music of David Bowie with John Cameron Mitchell
(MUSIC) Celebrate the Thin White Duke's "golden years" with the Seattle Symphony, which will perform a unique interpretation of David Bowie's emotionally intense final album, Blackstar. The lyrics will be sung by actor/writer/director John Cameron Mitchell, who is best known for creating the cult-classic film and Broadway musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch. If you've seen his cover of "Moonage Daydream" in the TV adaptation of Lindy West's Shrill, then you probably saw this coming. (Benaroya Hall, 200 University St, 8 pm, $55-$140) AUDREY VANN
SATURDAY 2/24Â Â
(THEATER) If you've ever wondered what that building by the Green Lake swimming area is, it's a playhouse. And if you're wondering if you should see a show there and when, the answer is most definitely yes, and right now, before the current production closes. Once More, Just for You is a world premiere play about time travel and the very human desire to change the past and do right by those we love, and who love us. I managed to snag tickets to opening night and laughed harder than I've laughed at any recent performance (except maybe Petite Mort at Pacific Northwest Ballet, which was innuendo-laden and full of cacti), though the humor here is more about the awkwardness and earnestness of being human. The production is refreshingly sincere, bringing someone in the row behind me to tears during one of the more touching monologues. (Seattle Public Theater, 7312 W Green Lake Dr N, various showtimes through Feb 25, $10-$100) SHANNON LUBETICH
SUNDAY 2/25Â Â
(COMEDY) Alfred Kainga is a Zimbabwe-born comedian based in Dallas. I'm a Zimbabwean-born writer based in Seattle. But the reason why I will not miss Kainga's show at the Crocodile is, one, he really is funny, and, two, he draws directly from a stream of humor that is incomparable, the national humor of Zimbabwe. We are a very funny people. I kid you not. We know how to laugh. Indeed, my own sense of humor is, by Zimbabwe's national standards, at best fourth-rate. Kainga is much closer to the top, close to that region that leaves you completely in stitches. And it's great to see his star rising (he made a lot of buzz with his performance on Kevin Hartâs Hart of the City). There is a good reason why Doris Lessing called her book about Zimbabwe African Laughter. (Here-After, 2505 First Ave, 7 pm, $25) CHARLES MUDEDE
MONDAY 2/26Â Â
(MUSIC) Clementine Creevy began writing the latest Cherry Glazerr record, I Don't Want You Anymore, at home during the pandemic, so the outline for many of the songs came to fruition on the computer. As a result, several tracks feel more expansive and experimental than the band's previous full-throated rock efforts. "Bad Habit" is a guitarless moody and glitchy dance track that would be at home on the Euphoria soundtrack, maybe playing during one of Kat's cam-girl sessions, and eerie jazz trumpet surprisingly haunts "Golden." But a Cherry Glazerr record isn't a Cherry Glazerr record without a few emotive guitar onslaughts, and those are well represented in tracks like "Ready for You" and "Soft Like a Flower," which sounds like an ode to the late-90s grunge-tinted radio rock in the best way possible. It's cathartic, but a slower burn than 2019's Stuffed & Ready. Feeling some complicated feelings? Turn it on, get comfortable in a dark room, and let its buzzing rage clear the fog from your head like a Sonicare toothbrush for your love-drunk brain. (Neumos, 925 E Pike St, 7 pm, $25-$30, all ages) MEGAN SELING
TUESDAY 2/27Â Â
(BOOKS) With 10 poetry collections, two memoirs, and several plays and children's books under her belt (not to mention four albumsâyep, she's also an accomplished saxophonist), three-time Poet Laureate of the United States Joy Harjo (a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation) will head to Seattle after winning Yaleâs 2023 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry. She'll chat with self-described "punk-ass sick neurospicy indigiqueer" Arianne True, an alum of the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. (Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave, 7:30 pm, $10-$35) LINDSAY COSTELLO
