Ryan Higgins as Romeo and Carolyn Marie Monroe as Juliet in Greenstage’s Romeo and Juliet. (Photo: Ken Holmes)

Wednesday

• A collection of stories in which “the author seldom allows a trickle of hope to lighten her characters’ anguish” are on tap when Maile Meloy reads from her lauded book Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It @ Elliott Bay Book Co.
• Punishment Park, a yes-it-can-happen-here glimpse of what American political oppression could like like plays @ NWFF
• A Freaks & Geeks party includes four of your favorite episodes @ Central Cinema
• That wascally Seattle Symphony plays along live to cartoon classics projected on a big screen for “Bugs Bunny on Broadway” (through Friday) @ Benaroya Hall

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Thursday

• Action!, a group show featuring work by Joseph Patrick Gray, Keith Tilford, Izzie Klingels, Amanda Manitach, Frank Correa, Nick Bartoletti, Tabor Robak, and DUMB EYES opens @ Ghost Gallery
• Don’t forget the rest of your Blitz Capitol Hill Arts Walk @ all over Capitol Hill, while Penetration, the Cap Hill art walk afterparty goes down @ Unicorn
• Enjoy the summer weather with the pop cutie pies of Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band at a lunchtime concert @ City Hall
• Strawberry Theatre Workshop‘s The Laramie Project opens @ the Erickson Theatre off Broadway
• John Roderick (of The Long Winters) and Jason Dodson (of The Maldives) make beautiful music @ the Triple Door
• Prepare for the opening of Ruined at the Intiman with the panel “America’s Responsibility to Refugees,” featuring Someireh Amirfaiz (Refugee Women’s Alliance), Erika Berg (Refugee and Immigrant Children’s Program, Lutheran Community Services Northwest), Mona Han (Coalition for Refugees from Burma), and Wemba-Koy Okonda (OKONGO) @ Town Hall
• Satirical auteur Preston Sturges gets a well-deserved film series retrospective @ SAM

Friday

• Glenn Barr’s solo show Small Epics opens @ Roq la Rue
• Carissa’s Wierd‘s one-night-only reunion @ the Showbox
• Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Ruined, about war in Central Africa, opens @ the Intiman
• Catch the dark, synthy weird-pop of Fol Chen @ the Sunset
• Shirin Nushat’s adaptation of Shamush Parsipar’s novel Women Without Men casts a light into the private world of Iranian women @ NWFF
• West Seattle Summer Fest kicks off with in-the-street beer, food, and free sets by Kim Virant, Hell’s Belles, the rejuvenated Satchel, and others @ the West Seattle Junction

Saturday

• Day 1 of Greenstage’s Outdoor Theatre Fest, with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Othello, An Inconvenient Squirrel, Romeo and Juliet, Pirates at Princess Island, A Winter’s Tale and more @ Volunteer Park
• It’s the beginning of their annual summer concert series, kicking off with the adult contemporary sounds of Train @ Maryhill Winery
• New Orleanean writer Barb Johnson reads from her bookMore of This World or Maybe Another, with Catherine Kirkwood and Kayleen Dunston @ the Hugo House
• Seattle’s Ivan Doig reads from his mining-in-Butte novel Work Song @ the Elliott Bay Book Co.

• Adrienne Varner and Gust Burns perform piano music from Asia and America, with compositions by Yuji Takahashi, Gust Burns, and John Cage @ the Good Shepherd Center
• Assuming they don’t get shut down early (as per usual), Monotonix gets cray-cray @ the High Dive
• Get crafty @ Urban Craft Uprising
• Caspar Babypants, Kristen Ward, Mark Pickerel & His Praying Hands, and others highlight day 2 of the (free) West Seattle Summer Fest @ the West Seattle Junction

Sunday

• Day 2 of Greenstage’s Outdoor Theatre Fest, with Richard II, As You Like It, Greetings from Styx and more @ Volunteer Park
• It’s a lovely day to eat nine courses of tapas on the patio @ Ponti
• Local writer Janée Baugher brings her love of travel, art, and diaraeses to her new book of poetry, Coördinates of Yes, which she reads from @ Elliott Bay Book Co.
• Dinner and dirty movie with Lynn Shelton and Humpday @ SIFF
• It’s for the children! Rationalize your alcoholism with a week-long charity bar crawl to benefit the Vera Project (aka A Drink for the Kids), starting today @ the Cha Cha
• West Seattle Summer Fest wraps up with free sets from acts including the Dusty 45’s and the School of Rock All-Stars @ the West Seattle Junction

Monday

• Gladys Knight stars in the blaxploitation Alaska pipeline movie Pipe Dreams @ Central Cinema
• PLU archeologist Donald Ryan explores the real-life adventures of the trade in Beneath the Sands of Egypt @ Elliott Bay Book Co.
• You can expect some weird and wonderful English folk from The Unthanks @ the Triple Door

Tuesday

• Nashville’s Katie Herzig and Ben Taylor, the son of James Taylor and Carly Simon, get all singer-songwriter @ the Triple Door
• American reporter Jere Van Dyk was imprisoned by the Taliban for 45 days and he didn’t crack–see how well he handles a Q&A session @ Town Hall