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The Must List: Earshot Jazz, Queer Film Festival and Seattle Opera Presents Hansel & Gretel

What to do this weekend in Seattle

Hansel & Gretel opens October 15

Must See
It’s Time for the 21st Annual Queer Film Festival
(10/13 to 10/23, times vary) Don’t miss this year’s 21st annual Twist: Seattle Queer Film Festival. Now the largest event of its kind in the Pacific Northwest and opening at the Egyptian Theatre on Capitol Hill, the festival features everything from major motion pictures to up-and-coming talent in queer film from producers all over the world. 

Must Bravo
Humperdinck’s Hansel & Gretel Returns to Seattle Opera 
(10/15 to 10/30, times vary) German composer Engelbert Humperdinck’s folk-tune-influenced adaptation of the famously dark Grimm Brothers fairy tale from 1812 has not been seen at Seattle Opera for 23 years. But this October, Halloween comes early with the return of this musical drama of starvation, sorcery, cannibalism and bravery.  

Must Jam
Get Groovy at the Earshot Jazz Festival
(Through 11/11, times vary) This year’s Earshot Jazz Festival promises to be another blowout event with performers that include Rudresh Mahanthappa (Bird Calls), Kris Davis and Craig Taborn, The Manuel Valera Trip, the Rez Abassi Trio, Renee Baker, Dave Douglas & The Westerlies and Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra (Miles Ahead).

Must See
Seattle Shakespeare Company Presents Medea 
(10/18 to 11/13, times vary) Is there an artist of the ancient world whose work is more at home in our own time than Euripides? The modernity of his psychological realism is as astonishing today as it must have been then. Seattle Shakespeare Company stages his most famous, and possibly darkest, tragedy.  

Must Experience            
The Taste of Iceland Returns
(10/13 to 10/16, times vary) Savor all that Iceland has to offer at this annual four-day festival featuring authentic Icelandic cuisine, music, art and more. Fill up during its dinner series at The Carlile Room, witness an art installation at the Nordic Heritage Museum, hear a reading from Icelandic authors at KEXP studios, and take in a gratis concert at Neumos (10/15) packed with Icelandic artists Fufanu and JFDR and Seattle band Kinski.

 

Rearview Mirror: Godzilla, Cork, and a New Sushi Spot

Rearview Mirror: Godzilla, Cork, and a New Sushi Spot

Things I did, saw, ate, learned, or read in the past week (or so).

POPPING OUR SENSES I don’t think I’ve ever given much thought to a wine cork beyond the satisfying pop it makes when opening a bottle, but after spending a morning at DeLille Cellars in Woodinville with about 50 other people, I have a new appreciation for it. The occasion was “(Pop) Open Your Senses,” a…

Best Bookstore: Beguiled Books

Best Bookstore: Beguiled Books

This Pioneer Square darling is easy to spot: pink doors and candy-striped details mark its home near Occidental Square. Beguiled Books started in 2024 as a mobile bookstore, making its way from table to tent to trailer, and finally to its current brick-and-mortar space. Labelling itself as “Seattle’s Original Romance Bookstore,” Beguiled specializes in just…

Best Art Gallery: Foster/White Gallery

Best Art Gallery: Foster/White Gallery

A pillar in Pioneer Square’s arts ecosystem, Foster/White Gallery opened in 1966 (then called Richard White Gallery) as the first space of its kind in the neighborhood. It soon gained notoriety for showing preeminent Northwest artists such as Morris Graves, William Morris, George Tsutakawa, and Dale Chihuly. In the decades after founding the gallery, its…

Best Museum: Seattle Art Museum

Best Museum: Seattle Art Museum

A vote for Seattle Art Museum is really a vote for three different art outings. The downtown museum pairs ambitious exhibitions with a global collection; the Seattle Asian Art Museum occupies SAM’s original 1933 Art Deco home amid the 43 acres of Capitol Hill’s Volunteer Park; and the Olympic Sculpture Park puts art out in…