Did you get a dose of Vitamin D in the eyeballs this weekend? Portland spring is a fickle and fleeting thing, but when it feels good, it feels reeeeally good. Let’s keep that boat afloat this week. Here are some helpers: The Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival is a no-brainer, but if you can swing it on a weekday, it’s bound to be a little quieter. Bruce Campbell plans to stop by Hollywood Theatre to promote his heartwarming new film. Plus, two distinctly different vibes at the Moda: FKA twigs’ clubby avant-garde, and the Blazers playing the New Orleans Pelicans. Lessgo!

Monday, March 30

2026 Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival

When the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm posts photos of their fields with little buds poking through the soil,  it makes me want to whisper words of encouragement to each baby leaf as they emerge from the brutal cold weather. The flower farm’s 42st annual fest kicks off at the end of March with activities like a trail run, tethered hot air balloon rides, wooden shoe making classes, and a tulip market and field shop. Make sure you snag tickets in advance—they’re only available online. We recommend a weekday visit to beat the crowds and boost your mood—after all, who doesn’t love playing hooky to dance in 40 acres of flowers against the majestic backdrop of Mount Hood? () SHANNON LUBETICH

Tuesday, March 31

Les Misérables

Take a trip to the tumultuous era of 19th-century France with this fresh staging of Les Misérables, a Tony-winning testament to love and survival. Former theater kids shouldn’t miss Cameron Mackintosh’s musical adaptation of Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel, and Gen Zers might find it tolerable, too—the production was hailed as “Les Mis for the 21st century” by the Huffington Post. Don’t worry, it’ll maintain the same spirit as the original. Attendees can expect renditions of  “I Dreamed a Dream,” “On My Own,” “Bring Him Home,” “One Day More,” and “Master of the House.” (Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay, 7:30 pm, $$80.05, more info, recommended for ages 10 and older) LINDSAY COSTELLO

Also worth it:

PDX Kink Week, various locations, more info

Round up your polycule and check out the events of Kink Week around the city including comedy shows, strip nights, sex parties, dungeon cocktail hours, puppy play-dates, and more.

Wednesday, April 1

I was introduced to North Carolina-born singer-songwriter Eliza McLamb via her podcast Binchtopia, but quickly became enamored of her incisive writing on her newsletter Words from Eliza and her introspective, clever indie pop. (McLamb recently stepped away from Binchtopia to pursue music full-time.) Last October, she released her sophomore album, Good Story, which explores her urges to self-narrativize and the stories she tells herself and others. “An effective narrative, I came to realize, is a reserve with limited returns,” she writes on Substack. “But I still love to work the magic—I love knowing that a bad time can be a good story, that experience without meaning is only missing a few narrative beats. I love the limits of the story, agency that was once out of reach returning through the act of creation and recreation.” (Aladdin Theater, 8 pm, $26.02) JULIANNE BELL  

Thursday, April 2

Portland Trail Blazers vs. New Orleans Pelicans

Last week our Trailblazers clinched a spot in the postseason play-in tournament. Now on the backs of Deni Avdija’s Most Improved Player award campaign, Jrue Holiday and Jerami Grant’s veteran leadership, and Donovan Clingan playing like a top five center in the league, the hardwood homies have a shot at something special—a winning record for the first time since 2021. Luckily the Zers finish the season playing some winnable games against the NBA’s most mediocre, including the New Orleans Pelicans. Come see the typically injured Zion Williamson as he makes his return to the Rose City, where he rehabbed a knee injury and ate a lot of Screen Door (he’s just like us fr). (Moda Center, 7 pm, more info here, all ages) CAMERON CROWELL

Also worth it:

Tree Fest, Tomorrow Theater, more info
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Friday, April 3

Emergency Horse Magazine Launch

The literary periodical Emergency Horse launched in 1991, but after seven issues, took a long hiatus before making its Fall 2025 return to print. Now, the experimental and genuinely strange art, music, poetry, and features mag is celebrating its ninth release with a reading by contributing writers and editors. The upcoming issue includes work from Portland mixologist and author of The Bar Book Jeffrey Morenthaler, excerpts from Oregon writer Susan Kay Anderson’s book Plant This Book Coast to Coast, and poems from accomplished regional poets. If its past pages are any indication, readers are in for some good surprises too. (Literary Arts, 716 SE Grand Ave, 6 pm, FREE, more info, all ages) JEREMIAH HAYDEN

Saturday, April 4

Satpreet Kahlon: an imagined place (here and now)

I’ve been following Satpreet Kahlon’s career since 2023, when the Panjabi-born artist’s Bellevue Art Museum exhibition the inscrutable shape of longing explored displacement and colonization’s aftermath through a web-like installation of folk ritual and splintered, mirrored acrylic. An imagined place (here and now) builds on the artist’s propensity for multimedia installations, transforming the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA) warehouse into an “immersive exploration of fugitivity, deep space time, geologic memory, and possibility.” In more straightforward, but no less exciting terms, expect a recycled, full-scale replica of near-Earth asteroid/quasi-moon 2025 PN7, plus immersive audiovisual elements referencing Punjab Boliyan couplets. (PICA, 15 NE Hancock, FREE, pica.org, all ages) LC

Ernie and Emma with Bruce Campbell

If you haven’t heard about Bruce Campbell’s latest film, it’s likely because he’s been working to distribute it himself. The Evil Dead star wrote, directed, and stars in Ernie & Emma, a thoughtful, heartwarming story about a man on a quest through grief who finds more than a few laughs along the way. Campbell had planned a summer of screenings and fan conventions to promote the film. Then he had to share difficult news with fans: a diagnosis of treatable but incurable cancer. He still plans to make the Portland premiere, which is sold out. We still expect other theaters to pick this one up for more showings. (Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy, 7 pm, SOLD OUT, more info, all ages) SS

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Apple Hunters!

It’s opening night out a season of producing works by women playwrights with ties to the Pacific Northwest, this staging of Apple Hunters! also concludes a six-year residency of Mellon Foundation playwright-in-residence E.M. Lewis at Artists Repertory Theatre. If you liked other works by Lewis—Magellanica (2018), True Story (2023), among others—make it your beeswax to see this one. Set in rural Washington, Apple Hunters! follows four lifelong friends on a quest  for a potentially extinct apple cultivar. You know that these apple metaphors are really about being a man and friendship. (Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison, through April 26 $5-$60, more info, all ages) SS

FKA twigs / Brutalismus 3000

Lady in the streets, freak in the beats chameleonic artist FKA twigs bares it all with every release, her late-2025 album Eusexua being no exception. Though I’m partial to her more experimental early work, twigs’ output the last few years has largely been remix-ready festival anthems, the deeper cuts of which fit in nicely with any mixtape you’re pulling together for a crush. The only time I’ve seen twigs was at Seattle’s Moore Theatre on her Magdalene tour, back in her swordplay poledancing days—one of the best live shows I’ve ever witnessed. Let’s see what she’s got in store for us this time. (Moda Center Theater of the Clouds, 1 N Center Ct, 8 pm, $50+, rosequarter.com, all ages) NOLAN PARKER

Also worth it: 

Holi Festival of Colors, Pioneer Courthouse Square, more info

Portland’s largest Holi party, celebrating one of India’s biggest festivals, will bring music, dance performances, and dishes like dosa and vada pav to the Square. Bollywood and bhangra DJ Prashant will preside over the festivities and get celebrants hyped for color throws on the hour. Colored powder—made from flower petals and imported from India—will be available for purchase for $5 per packet in both bright and pastel varieties.

Trillium Festival, Tryon Creek State Natural Area, more info

A certain three-petaled, three-sepaled beauty marks the beginning of spring, and if you haven’t spotted her before, this festival is sure to be a “Who is she?” moment. Catch the native perennial’s bright white blooms dotting the Tryon Creek trails like little jewels.

Sunday, April 5

Twin Peaks, in entirety

That gum you like is going to come back in style, and by “that gum,” we mean “David Lynch’s entire Twin Peaks series.” The Pacific Northwest’s damn-finest (sorry) cultural export will screen in entirety at Clinton Street Theater, “for the first time in history,” they claim—how has nobody done this before?? The year-long(!) program will open with Twin Peaks’ extended pilot “Northwest Passage,” obviously, followed by the second and third episodes all screened in one sitting. Laura Palmer is blue-lipped and wrapped in plastic, but you knew that. Time for a revisit. (Clinton Street Theater, 2522 SE Clinton, $20, cstpdx.com) LC

2026 Oregon Contemporary Artists’ Biennial: The Price of the Ticket

Titled after a James Balwin anthology this time around, Oregon Contemporary’s biennial surveys artists who are “defining and advancing Oregon’s contemporary art landscape,” as curated by scholar-historian TK Smith. The biennial also acts in response to the 250-year anniversary of the Declaration of Independence signing, and will present Todd McGrain’s newly created bronze Bust of York alongside the original, which was toppled from its Mount Tabor plinth in 2021. Artists Jaleesa Johnston, DeepTime Collective, and Joe Kye will offer seances and immersive performances on First Saturdays through July; partner venues Ori Gallery and Multnomah County Central Library, among others, will host additional programs. (Oregon Contemporary, 8371 N Interstate, through July 5, FREE, oregoncontemporary.org, all ages ) LC

The Decline of Western Civilization, Parts I, II, and III

This is what we want to see from the newly reopened Portland Art Museum’s Whitsell Auditorium; for it is the holy purpose of art museum theaters to show multi-part films that audiences don’t have the fortitude to watch uninterrupted at home. Penelope Spheeris’ trilogy of gritty music scene documentaries starts out with her 1981 raw portrait of LA punk bands like Germs, Black Flag, and X—among many others—then checks back in seven years later for a look at LA’s heavy metal rockers (Gene Simmons, Aerosmith); the film’s centerpiece is an interview with Ozzy Osbourne as he cooks breakfast in a bathrobe. The third, released in 1998, finds earnest gutter punks living rough, some squatting in abandoned buildings or sleeping on the city’s streets, including a young Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers. (PAM CUT @ The Whitsell, 1219 SW Park, 2-8:30 pm, $15 per film, more info, not rated) SS

Amy Bay: oh deeear mee 

Amy Bay’s latest solo exhibition continues to pull at the artist’s recurring conceptual thread: floral painting as a radical act. In the past, Bay’s compositions have zoomed in on ripe flora exploding from all angles, occupying each painting’s entire frame; her works have also functioned as feminist critiques of art history’s anti-flower stance and homages to all things decorative, patterned, and lush. In Bay’s 2024 exhibition The Book of Love, her petaled meditations focused on the comfort of these motifs—her latest, oh deeear mee, unfolds as a more mysterious “lamentation and celebration,” filling both of Nationale’s exhibition spaces with monotypes, works on paper, and paintings inspired by decorative floral wallpapers. (Nationale, 15 SE 22nd, nationale.us, all ages) LC

Looking for even more events happening this week? Head on over to EverOut!

Lindsay is the Portland Mercury's staff writer and the former arts calendar editor for EverOut Portland and EverOut Seattle. Send arts tips and pictures of birds to lindsay@portlandmercury.com.