Dina Martina

“The Comparable Dina Martina” will hit the stage at 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 4, at Vashon Center for the Arts.

It’s a return to the island for drag diva Dina Martina, after sold-out shows last season at VCA. She has toured globally, sharing the bill with Margaret Cho, Alan Cumming, Justin Vivian Bond, and Bridget Everett, and received The Stranger Genius Award, two Seattle Times Footlight Awards, and two nominations for GLAAD Media Awards for Outstanding off-Off Broadway Show.

Camp icon John Waters credits Dina Martina with going “way beyond drag into some new kind of twisted art.”

The show has mature content. Get tickets at vashoncenterforthearts.org.

UMO’s Squeeze

Vashon’s UMO Ensemble will perform its newest production, “Squeeze,” from April 4-13, at Seattle Public Theatre, located at 7312 West Green Lake Dr N, in Seattle.

The play, written in collaboration with award-wining playwright Trista Baldwin and directed by Elizabeth Klob, features performances by Acrobatic Conundrum’s Terry Crane and Emma Curtiss, Seattle actor Rhys Daly, and UMO Ensemble members Meghan Ames, David Godsey, Janet McAlpin and Lyam White.

In the production, five characters search for connection, space, and freedom in a world constrained by fear, loneliness, scarcity, and greed — exploring the uncertainty of the present time with humor, pathos, and acrobatic physicality using ladders and platforms reminiscent of Buster Keaton. With dystopian fun-house vibes, “Squeeze” challenges its audience to adapt and connect with a world on the edge.

Founded in 1989, UMO Ensemble has performed more than 30 original productions that have been seen in theaters and festivals throughout North America and Europe.

A native of the Pacific Northwest and a former resident of Vashon, playwright Baldwin was the co-founding producer of the Twin Cities’ Workhaus Collective, a theater company that produced 25 new works in 10 years. Her work has been produced around the country, Off-Broadway and internationally in countries including Australia, Chile and Japan.

The show’s estimated run time is 75 minutes with no intermission, with the audience invited to join in conversation with the ensemble after the show. Get tickets and find out more at tinyurl.com/ywbtuhzw.

Jam in the Atrium

Hard swingin’ jazz will be played from 1-3 p.m. Saturday, April 5, in the latest installment of the Jam in the Atrium series, at Vashon Center for the Arts, showcasing the artistry of jazz pianist Reuel Lubag and his performing comrade, drummer Ed Littlefield.

Lubag, a legend in the regional jazz scene, has played at festivals including the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival and Port Townsend Jazz Festival, and also served as a jazz ambassador for the U.S. Department of State in 2014 in the American Music Abroad program.

Over the years, he has played with Dizzy Gillespie, Joe Williams, Doc Severinsen, Pete Barbutti, Steve Allen, Bud Shank, the Glenn Miller Orchestra, Buddy Greco, Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra, Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, Cab Calloway Orchestra, Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra and many others.

Littlefield, a percussionist, educator, and composer, is Tlingit, from Sitka, Alaska, and has released three albums featuring traditional Native melodies, which he also arranged into the jazz idiom with the Native Jazz Quartet. A multi-talented artist, he is currently working on a three-year project to create the first ever Lingít (the Tlingit language) opera, combining traditional contemporary Lingít melodies inside the western opera genre, with an all-Indigenous cast.

Jam in the Atrium host and island bassist Bruce Phares will join the performers on April 5.

Tales of the Alchemysts

Tales of the Alchemysts Theatre will perform “Surviving Survival: Two Short Stories by Chava Rosenfarb,” at 7 p.m. Saturday, April 5, at Vashon Havurah, at 15401 Westside Hwy SW.

The renowned theater troupe weaves music, song, and dance into the surreal tales of Yiddish writer Rosenfarb, newly translated by her daughter, Goldie Morgentaler.

Evocative and unsettling, the stories explore the intricacies of memory, guilt, and the delicate balancing act of moving through pain to achieve stability.

Tickets, $25, can purchased in advance at vashonhavurah.org or at the door with a credit card, PayPal or cash.

Find out more at alchemysts.org.

“Changer: A Hard Telling”

A special screening of “Changer: A Hand Telling,” will take place at 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 8, at Vashon Theatre.

Filmed on Lower Elwha S’klallam Tribe land, the film is a timeless, cross-cultural storytelling event bridging Native myths and Deaf culture.

“Changer” reimagines storytelling through movement, myth and memory. Using deaf actors and blending Indigenous traditions with contemporary performance, the film uses the simple yet evocative image of a hand to guide audiences through a joinery of transformation and resilience.

After the screening, filmmakers Roger Fernandes (S’Klallam) and Fern Renville (Dakota), as well as the film’s producer, will be on hand to answer questions and tell more about the creation of the film.

The Vashon screening is co-sponsored by the Backbone Campaign, Vashon Land Trust, Vashon Heritage Museum, Vashon Theatre, Island GreenTech, and the Meaningful Movies Project.

Admission is by donation, with all contributions supporting the filmmakers’ travel and their next project.

View the film’s trailer and find more information at tinyurl.com/yutet4ve. To share a Facebook invitation to the event, tinyurl.com/ff4zntwm.

“Forty Bouts in the Wilderness”

A launch of “Forty Bouts in the Wilderness,” by island poet by Katy E. Ellis, will take place at 5 p.m. Thursday, April 10, at Vashon Bookshop.

The book is Ellis’ second, full-length poetry collection about returning to difficult places, either by choice by what seem like fateful accidents.

The book, named first runner up to the 2024 MoonPath Press Sally Albiso award, was released in March. Other books by Ellis include the prose-poetry-novel “Home Water, Home Land” (Tolsun Books), and an award-winning chapbook, “Night Watch” (Floating Bridge Press). Her work has most recently appeared in Mom Egg Review and SWWIM, and in the Canadian journal, PRISM International. She has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Learn more katyeellis.com.

Margaret Roncone, Vashon’s beloved poet laureate, will open the event by reading some of her new work.

Vashon Havurah Concerts

The Vashon Havurah, 15401 Westside Hwy SW, will host two Celtic music performances this spring.

At 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 11, Bangers and Blunders, a young, Colorado-based traditional Irish music duo, will take the stage. Members Shannon Muenchow and Graeme Danforth originally met at Irish sessions in the Denver/Boulder area and are now bringing traditional tunes to life with twin-fiddle melodic interplay and driving rhythmic renditions on fiddle and Irish bouzouki. There will be an Irish music session after the concert, so bring your instruments. A $20 donation is requested at the door.

Renowned Scottish guitar master, Tony McManus, will play in concert at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 17, with a $25 donation at the door.

Hailed by John Renbourn as “the best Celtic guitarist in the world,” McManus has also been listed as one of the “50 transcendent guitarists of all time” by Guitar Player magazine. His music draws on traditions from the entire Celtic world, along with still further-ranging flavors including jazz and eastern European music. Long applauded for his ability to transpose the delicate, complex ornamentation characteristic of traditional bagpipe or fiddle tunes onto his own six strings, McManus is increasingly acknowledged as a pioneering figure in bridging the realms of Celtic music and other guitar genres.

Reservations are recommended for both shows — email janstrolle@comcast.net.

Amanda Knox book launch

Just days before islander and author Amanda Knox stages a book reading event in Seattle, she will make an on-island appearance to read passages from and answer questions about her much-anticipated new book, “FREE: My Search for Meaning.”

At the Vashon event, she’ll sit in conversation with Voice of Vashon’s Jeff Hoyt at 5 p.m. Saturday, April 19, at Puget Sound Zen Center, at 18005 Vashon Highway. In addition to the reading and Q&A, Amanda will sign copies of the book that will be for sale at the event. Tickets are $15 and go toward the $30 book purchase price. (Couples will get one free book for two ticket admissions.)

Reserve seats for this event, presented by Knox-Robinson Productions and Debra Heesch, at brownpapertickets.com.

Nathan & Jessie

Island presenter Debra Heesch will bring Nathan & Jessie — a jazzy country duo on resonator guitar and accordion that blends male and female voices in English, Spanish and French — to Snapdragon’s stage for two shows on Saturday, April 19.

The first show that night runs from 6-7 p.m.; the second from 8-9 p.m.

Nathan Rivera and Jessie Andra Smith hail from Temecula, California. Their performances include all-original music, stories of their travels and interactions with the audience that make for an warm experience. Love of sharing their music has taken Nathan & Jessie all over the world, frequenting places throughout the Pacific Northwest and other locales including Mexico, Canada, France and New Orleans.

“Wild Cucumber” launch

Vashon’s Inaugural Poet Laureate Ann Spiers will launch her new book “Wild Cucumber/New and Selected Poems” at 4 p.m. Sunday, April 27, at the Land Trust Building’s back garden, at 10014 SW Bank Rd.

Publishers John Pierce and Holly J. Hughes will be celebrating and selling books.

8th annual VIVA show

All island artists are invited to enter the 2025 Vashon Island Visual Artists members’ show, “Our Island, Our Home,” at Vashon Center for the Arts, May 2–25.

This exhibition invites island artists to explore the meaning of “home” through relationships — family, friends, community, and the land and sea, reflecting the close-knit spirit of Vashon life. The show is open to all current VIVA members — join or renew now to participate. The deadline to enter is April 11.

Visit vivartists.com for more details and to enter.

(Left to right) Carl Shutoff, Shellie Shulkin, David S. Klein and Laura Ferri, company members of the Tales of the Alchemysts Theatre, will perform on Vashon on April 5. (Courtesy photo)

Vashon’s acclaimed UMO Ensemble will perform its latest show, “Squeeze,” from April 4-13, at Seattle Public Theatre. (David Vitz photo)