Things to do: See a concert in a graveyard, celebrate Pride, binge Nicolas Cage flicks

It’s that time of year when everything is awash in green and yellow, and we become TrackTown, USA proper. But if you’re a regular reader of my arts and culture recommendations, odds are that’s not your cup of tea. No matter: if you want to run, run so far away, you just might be able to escape with some of these events.

Let’s get into it:

Pride Through the Decades

Happy Pride, everyone! Start celebrating the season with this drag and burlesque variety cabaret show, themed around LGBT Pride throughout the decades in live performances. 

• When: 8 p.m Thursday, June 11
• Where: The Space Bar, 150 W. Broadway, Eugene
• How much: Tickets are $10 online (plus a $1.79 fee), with an option to add additional digital tips for performers.

‘Self Centered: A Portraiture Exhibition’

For the next two months, a corner of Eugene is filled with hundreds of faces in the gallery exhibit “Self Centered,” at the downtown Radiant Community Arts building. I was floored by the variety of style, medium and subjects across the portraits in the exhibit — my favorites were M.V. Moran’s gorgeous, piercing-stare charcoal pieces of women. Can’t make it out this week? Don’t worry. This exhibit opened last week, during the First Friday ArtWalk, and will be on view for June and July.

• When: Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesdays through Fridays.
• Where: Radiant Community Arts, 110 E. 11th Ave., Suite C
• How much: Free

Second Friday Art Walk

Itching for even more art? Don’t worry — the third of four monthly art walks in Eugene and Springfield is this weekend with the Second Friday Springfield Art Walk. Highlights for this month’s display of Springfield talent include a collection of works from Top Drawers, a local sketching group that has met every week for more than 20 years, Candace Hunter’s fabric-based fine art “The Way It Felt,” and a display from the Plein Air Painters of Lane County’s works painted live in different scenic outdoor Lane County locales. 

• When: 5-7:30 p.m. Friday, June 12
• Where: At participating venues across downtown Springfield; a full map of participating venues is available on the Emerald Art Center website, but you should start at the Emerald Art Center at 500 Main St. to pick up your pamphlet for a self-guided tour. 
• How much: Free. 

‘Intimate Apparel’

When there’s a Lynn Nottage play on a stage near you, you should be running to grab a seat. We’re lucky in Eugene to have a June production of “Intimate Apparel,” a Nottage play about a lonely Black seamstress in turn-of-the-century New York City who makes lingerie for her wealthy Manhattan clients. Nottage is an acclaimed, two-time Pulitzer-winning playwright whose works focus on working class Black stories. The play’s production in Eugene is more than just canny programming. I interviewed Stanley Coleman, the director of this production, for a piece on Minority Voices Theatre, the in-house theater company at VLT that has worked for nearly a decade to improve representation on Eugene stages. 

• When: Running through June 21, with performances at 7:30 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and at 2 p.m. on Sundays.
• Where: The Very Little Theatre, 2350 Hilyard St., Eugene
• How much: Tickets are available online, at $21 for adults and $15 for students on Thursdays and $26 for adults and $20 for students on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. 

Harp and fiddle

How about a Celtic harp and fiddle concert in a cemetery? The Eugene Masonic Cemetery’s summer concert series is starting up again this weekend, where Linda Danielson and Janet Naylor — fixtures at the Eugene Scottish Festival, Saturday Market and Holiday Market — will be wielding their instruments and playing songs from Ireland, Scotland and England, with some tunes from Scandinavian countries and Spain.

• When: 2 p.m. Sunday, June 14
• Where: Eugene Masonic Cemetery, 2498 Miami Lane, Eugene
• How much: Free

Tish Hinojosa at Tsunami Books

How about a Monday evening concert from a low-key Latina country legend? Austin, Texas, singer-songwriter Tish Hinojosa will be stopping in Eugene early next week, bringing her “blend of folk, country, Latino [music] and pop” to Tsunami Books for an intimate concert. Hinojosa has played at the White House during the Clinton administration, and has also performed with artists including Joan Baez and Pete Seeger.

• When: 7:30 p.m. Monday, June 15
• Where: Tsunami Books, 2585 Willamette St., Eugene
• How much: Tickets are $29.50, and can be purchased online or by calling the store at 541-345-8986

Movies

Special screenings

The standout pick in the world of special screenings is the Eugene Weekly-Art House Nicolas Cage Film Festival! “CAGE FEST” is this Friday and Saturday, with a bevy of Cage-starring films. Here’s the festival slate, in chronological order by first screening:

Friday, June 12 

• “Raising Arizona” at 6:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.
• “Gone in 60 Seconds” at 9 p.m.

Saturday, June 13

• “Lord of War” at 11 a.m.
• “Con Air” at 1:15 p.m. and 6:10 p.m.
• “The Rock” at 1:45 p.m. and 9:15 p.m.
• “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” at 6:45 p.m.
• “Ghost Rider” at 9:30 p.m. 
• “Adaptation” at 4 p.m. 

“Raising Arizona” is in my top three Coen Brothers movies of all time (if you’d ever like to hear a long-winded ranking of them all, I will happily oblige), but I have to admit: I harbor a 2010s-era ironic love for “Con Air,” when the bizarre 1997 plane action flick got a nostalgic, so-bad-it’s-good bump in notoriety. 

You might be asking: What, no “Face/Off”? Well, not quite — you’ll just have to wait for September when it screens as part of the Art House’s John Woo series. 

Box office

It’s hard to go wrong with a Steven Spielberg alien movie. “Disclosure Day” is a return to a constant theme for Spielberg, starring Emily Blunt and Josh O’Connor as two people who become enmeshed in a government conspiracy to not disclose the existence of extraterrestrial life. It’s getting good reviews and, one data point tells me Spielberg is cooking with some nostalgic, return-to-form gas: I’ve heard tell of an action sequence with a car and a train. 

Playing at Metro Cinemas, Regal Valley River Center and Cinemark Eugene Springfield. 

For more fare from an entertainment icon decades into a career demanding fierce fan loyalty, “Stop! That! Train!” is a drag queen disaster action comedy about two stewardesses (Ginger Minj and Jujubee) who must save the day when a high-speed train is in danger of being derailed during a massive storm. While the biggest name in the film is, of course, “Drag Race” grand dame RuPaul, I wanted to shout out the hilarious and wonderful Jujubee, one of the heroes of the tale. This is going to expose me as a massive dork, but Jujubee — and fellow “Stop! That! Train” cast member Monet X Change — were standout performers during the liveplay series “Dungeons and Drag Queens.” 

Playing at Metro Cinemas and Cinemark Eugene Springfield. 

Thank you for reading, Lookout members. If my picks aren’t up to your liking, check out our events calendar for more things to do. As always, if there are any events I should include here, or any feedback for this weekly list, drop me a line at annie@lookoutlocal.com.