Are you ready to boldly go where no therapist has gone before? Great! Because you’re in need and Dr. Carla needs your money. And now, thanks to the stress of the election, she’s in space! Ask Dr. Carla is a hilarious night of improvisational drag comedy starring Portland’s premier drag clown Carla Rossi—she might not have degrees or qualifications, but she has a Galaxy-class starship with a full bar, liability waivers, and a couch with your name on it. Joined by her green-skinned First Officer Svetlana Trantastic, Carla and Svetty welcome a special celebrity ambassador onto the ship each session so you—and they—don’t have to do all the work. Joining them on the Enterprise is none other than all-time Portland drag legend Poison Waters, beaming up as part of her intergalactic tour from Darcelle XV to the stars of Betazed. Ask Dr. Carla: it’s like a late-night talk show, except it’s unlicensed therapy with unhinged drag queens—in space.

Doors at 6:30, show at 7.

Rated PG-13 / R / Don’t bring your children.

Tickets and more info here.

QUEER HORROR gets possessed by THE CONVENT (2000) with stars Liam Kyle Sullivan (Kelly, "Shoes") and Megahn Perry (Heather the Vampire) in attendance, including a RARE Kelly performance! Hosted by Portland's premier drag clown Carla Rossi, this Halloween season screening is sponsored by Double Mountain Brewery and Cidery. Dress up, get your limited edition bottle of Mother Inferior Blackberry Hard Cider, and hear Carla chat with Megahn and Liam about THE CONVENT, "Shoes," "Text Message Breakup," and more!

Directed by Mike Mendez, THE CONVENT stars Megahn Perry (THE PERFECT HOST, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) as Mo, a Y2K-era goth who sneaks into a shuttered convent with friends Clorissa (Joanna Canton) and Brant (Liam Kyle Sullivan)—until inept Satanists show up and get everyone possessed by demonic day-glo nuns. Enter genre legend Adrienne Barbeau (CREEPSHOW, THE FOG) as Christine, the O.G. Final Girl who fought the nuns decades before, arriving on her motorcycle with an arsenal of weaponry to blow the convent back to hell once and for all. Co-starring Kelly Mantle (RuPaul's Drag Race), Coolio, and Bill Moseley, and playing like a rave-era tribute to NIGHT OF THE DEMONS (1988), THE CONVENT is a fast-paced, hilarious, neon-dripping cult classic that—if you haven't seen it—is about to become your new favorite horror film.

GET TICKETS HERE: https://hollywoodtheatre.org/show/the-convent-with-liam-kyle-sullivan-and-megahn-perry/

Presented by Sign of the Beast Burlesque, Metalesque Fest® is the annual performing arts festival dedicated to heavy metal! Journey to the ninth circle of hell with burlesque, fire, drag and circus acts performed to metal music featuring performers from across the county. This year, we welcome one of the biggest stars of modern burlesque, Lou Lou La Duchesse de Rière! They will appear on both nights of MetalesqueFest on October 4 & 5, 2024 at Dante’s and Star Theater in downtown Portland, OR.

Night 1 - Friday October 4th @ Star Theater (doors at 8, show at 9):

Lou Lou La Duchesse de Rière (Headlining both nights!) -Montreal

Carla Rossi (Host & feature performer!) -Portland, OR

Angora Phobia -Surrey, British Columbia, Canada

Hot Mayonnaise - Portland, OR 

Crème Fraîche – Seattle, WA

Debauchery Productions -Phoenix, AZ  

Desiree De Carlo – Indianapolis, IN

Lou Velvet – Portland, OR 

Harlot O’Scara – Las Vegas, NV

Nadia Desdemona – Portland, OR 

Risqué And Rye –  Olympia, WA

The Muthafuckin Tarzan – Seattle WA

Oshun Hathor –  Michigan

Sweet N’Lo -New York City, NY

UmBruh   – Portland, OR 

Via L’Once - Los Angeles CA  

Get tickets for Metalesque Fest Night 1 here.

Tickets and more information for 2024 Metalesque Fest here.

Local performance artists, assemble!

Risk/Reward presents 20 different artists' thoughts on the 2024 Election. Each piece is made to order, bespoke for this moment, and must be between 2 and 4 minutes in length. In response to Risk/Reward's call for submissions, Portland has turned out: expect theater, music, film, pies, dance, rat-based strip-tease, righteous fury, performative sculpture, a gentle and loving examination of what it is to vote by mail, and (most surprising) maybe even a fleeting wisp of hope in the air.

Buy Tickets

The Election Anti-Party Showcase will feature:

• Pepper Pepper

• Svetlana Trantastic

• Jessica Wallenfels

• Rachel Lindsey Routh & Sorrel Ophelia LaLune

• Sweta

• Thorn Hartspring

• Emily June Newton

• Dustin Curry

• Anthony Hudson / Carla Rossi

• Tracy Cameron Francis

• Michael O'Neill

• Hollynitski and the Extended Voice Ensemble

• Éowyn Emerald

• Divine

• Hand2Mouth Youth Devising Intensive

• Meg Denton

• Mychelle M.

• Zero Feeney / Kid Lich

• Andrea Parson

• A Sentient Karaoke Machine from the Year 3024

The Writers Guild of Astoria and Astoria Visual Arts (AVA) are thrilled to jointly host a reading and reception for the winner of the 2024 North Coast Writer’s Residency, Anthony Hudson, at the AVA Gallery on Saturday, September 21, 2024, at 3:00 PM. Light refreshments will be available. This is a free event and the entire community is welcome.

Anthony’s residency focused on continuing his in-progress memoir, “Looking for Tiger Lily,” of which he has said: “Charting my coming into consciousness as an Indigiqueer artist, drag performer, and writer in the Pacific Northwest, this book is as built into our landscape as my ancestors are.”

In the project, Hudson connects modern events with history through his coastal native ancestors. He is a member of the Grand Ronde tribe, and his memoir will largely focus on Two-Spirit identity, Indigenous history, and self-discovery. Anthony is known for performing in Portland as a drag clown, and brings 15 years of writing experience in script writing, essays, and performance scores.

Guild President Marianne Monson said, “We’re thrilled to welcome Anthony Hudson to Astoria for the 2024 residency. Hudson's work stood out for its compelling weaving together of the native history of this region with modern day concerns. It will be an honor to have a Grand Ronde/Siletz author working and reading in our community.”

This is the sixth year of the Writers Guild’s Writer in Residence program. Chosen writers are hosted in a private setting for a week so that they can focus on their projects. The program is one of the ways the guild seeks to support and cultivate promising writers, especially those who live in the Pacific Northwest. The annual residency culminates in this reading at AVA Gallery.

Queer horror isn’t a subgenre; it is the genre. Founded in 2015, QUEER HORROR is the only LGBTQ+ horror screening and performance series in the country—and now it’s a party! Carla Rossi’s Queer Horrors presents short horror films intercut with live (or undead?) drag performances from Portland’s finest ghouls, all curated and hosted by Carla Rossi. Featuring an artist market led by Jason Edward Davis, psychic readings, and culminating in a dance party—complete with a Friday the 13th costume contest—Carla Rossi’s Queer Horrors is guaranteed to be a scream.

With performances by: IZOHNNY, Rummy Rose, Gerrin Delane Mitchell, Blossom Drearie, and Carla Rossi

Artist Vendors: Jason Edward Davis, Alex Murd, Hell Bent for Glitter, Low Brow Antics, Matty Newton Illustration, Trash People from the Dump

DJ’d by Shannon F ( LIGHT ASYLUM )
Tickets and more info here!

Ready to take the leap into therapy? Great! Because you’re in need and Dr. Carla needs your money. Ask Dr. Carla is a hilarious night of improvisational drag comedy starring Portland’s premier drag clown Carla Rossi—she might not have degrees or qualifications, but she has a full bar, liability waivers, and a couch with your name on it. Joined by her enterprising receptionist Svetlana Trantastic, Carla and Svetty welcome a special celebrity client onto the couch each session so you—and they—don’t have to do all the work. This time it’s Pepper Pepper, who, in their new guise as a GAYDHD Life Coach, Attention Midwife, and Creativity Consultant (certificate forthcoming) will help Dr. Carla and her guests achieve new states of optimal presence while moving past limiting beliefs. Ask Dr. Carla: it’s like a late night talk show, except it’s unlicensed therapy with unhinged drag queens.

Doors at 6:30 PM, show at 7 PM.

Rated R / PG-13 / do not bring your children.

Get tickets to August 16th’s session here.

Co-presented by Queer Horror and introduced by Portland’s premier drag clown Carla Rossi! Doors open at 6:00 PM.

An intimate, revelatory, and heartfelt cabaret show starring living legend and cult film icon Mink Stole alongside San Francisco drag impresario, filmmaker Peaches Christ. Mink and Peaches have been close friends for over two decades and they would like you to join them for an evening of storytelling, film clips and live song in a wildly entertaining and uncensored exposé that is as hilarious as it is revealing. If you’re a fan of John Waters’ films, Divine, drag history, or cult movies, you don’t want to miss this one of a kind event. 

Tickets and more here.

QUEER HORROR busts out an icepick for BASIC INSTINCT (1992)! Hosted by Portland's premier drag clown Carla Rossi, this '90s tribute screening opens with our most unhinged preshow yet—starring Portland drag all-stars and sponsored by Double Mountain Brewery and Cidery!

Directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Sharon Stone in a legendary performance, BASIC INSTINCT follows no-good, gun-happy, coke-snorting homicide detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) as he investigates a sex murder ripped straight from a book by queer novelist Catherine Tramell (Stone). Did Catherine kill her lover (played by pinup legend and Elvira's former beau, Bill Cable)? Will she kill Nick? And what will Catherine's murderous raver girlfriend Roxy (Leilani Sarelle) and Nick's psychologist girlfriend Beth (Jeanne Tripplehorn) do about it? Written by Hollywood's sleaziest screenwriter, Joe Ezsterhas (SHOWGIRLS), and partially inspired by Verhoeven's queer thriller THE 4TH MAN, BASIC INSTINCT is an anti-cop, anti-Hollywood satire that lampoons Americans' love for law and fear of sexuality—all dialed up to 11 and featuring one of the greatest femme fatales in film history.

Get tickets to BASIC INSTINCT here: https://hollywoodtheatre.org/events/basic-instinct/

QUEER HORROR celebrates Feminist March and Carla Rossi's birthday with BIRDS OF PREY (2020)! Hosted by Portland's premier drag clown Carla Rossi, this birthday celebration opens with a preshow tribute to Carla's favorite clown queen Harley Quinn, sponsored by Double Mountain Brewery and Cidery!

Produced by Margot Robbie and directed by Cathy Yan, BIRDS OF PREY AND THE FANTABULOUS EMANCIPATION OF HARLEY QUINN stars Robbie as the queer psychiatrist-turned-antihero, right on the heels of her breakup with Mr. J—and Gotham is coming for Harley with a laundry list of grievances. But when gay crime boss Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor) and his hench-boyfriend Victor Zsasz (a bleached-blonde Chris Messina) put a bounty on teen pickpocket Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco), Harley allies with Detective Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez), chanteuse Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), and The Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) to take back Gotham with a wave of radical femme vengeance. A frenetic, ultraviolent explosion of color, sound, wicked writing, and pitch-perfect performances, BIRDS OF PREY is the end-all Harley Quinn film: a chaotic queer fantasy in line with TANK GIRL and the funniest feminist superhero film ever made.

Get tickets to BIRDS OF PREY here: https://hollywoodtheatre.org/events/birds-of-prey/

Doors Open 6:30 p.m.; Performance starts at 7 p.m. Tickets are $25.
Rating: PG-13 / R / Don’t bring your children.

Ready to take the leap into therapy? Great! Because you’re in need and Dr. Carla needs your money. Ask Dr. Carla is a hilarious new night of improvisational drag comedy starring Portland’s premier drag clown Carla Rossi—she might not have degrees or qualifications, but she has a full bar, liability waivers, and a couch with your name on it. Joined by her enterprising receptionist Svetlana Trantastic, Carla and Svetty welcome a special celebrity headliner client (this month it’s Portland’s own David Saffert & Jillian Snow as Liberace & Liza!) onto the couch each session so you—and they—don’t have to do all the work. Ask Dr. Carla: it’s like a late night talk show, except it’s unlicensed therapy with unhinged drag queens.

Get tickets here!

Doors at 6:30 p.m.; Musicians Perform at 7 p.m.; Film at 7:45 p.m. Tickets $15.

Join us for the world premiere of Thom Hilton’s MATINEE BABY, the new short film fiscally sponsored by PAM CUT.

Matinee Baby
2024. Directed by Thom Hilton. Not Rated. Runtime: 20 minutes.
In this raunchy and outlandish queer comedy, best friends Robby and Noah-Lee – employees at the historic Clinton Street Theater – find themselves confronted by a parade of increasingly wacky, genre-tinged suitors. Created by local writer Thom Hilton and featuring a key performance by drag performer Carla Rossi, MATINEE BABY arrives on screen one year after its successful community crowdfunding campaign, with contributions from over 130 donors and two dozen local businesses. The film is set to make its festival debut in March.

This special premiere event will include an interactive lobby display of makeup designs by Sprout Chinn and costumes by Lucas O’Brien, former fashion editor at VOGUE. The film will screen following a concert of selections from the film’s soundtrack by Jewelry Exchange, Jajoma, and The Apricots. A moderated Q&A with select members of the cast and crew to follow.

QUEER HORROR does the dance of the BLACK SWAN (2010)! Hosted by Portland's premier drag clown Carla Rossi, this winter edition opens with a preshow ballet starring Portland drag all-stars and sponsored by Double Mountain Brewery and Cidery!

Directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Natalie Portman in an Academy Award-winning performance, BLACK SWAN transforms Portman into Nina Sayers, a hungry young dancer suffering under the expectations of herself, her domineering mother (Barbara Hershey), her predatory artistic director (Vincent Cassel), and the angry diva (Winona Ryder) she's set to succeed in a new production of Swan Lake. But as Nina tortures herself to become the Black Swan, a romance with a beautiful rival (Mila Kunis) sends Nina spiralling into a whirlwind frenzy of self-discovery, self-actualization, self-destruction, and ultimate perfection.

Get tickets to BLACK SWAN here: https://hollywoodtheatre.org/events/black-swan/

Ikanum are traditional stories, and our annual show is intended to showcase the contemporary art/artists/stories of the region's people.

Come join us for the opening reception of the 2023-2024 Ikanum show from 5 to 7 PM on November 30th, with an ikanum told and presented by Felix Furby & Anthony Hudson!

Join My Father’s Father’s Sister: Our Ancestor Shimkhin curators Felix Furby and Anthony Hudson as they talk about their groundbreaking exhibit at Chachalu Museum in Grand Ronde, how they uncovered and honored a queer ancestor, and why Indigenous worldviews and access to academic material about Tribal people and histories are crucial to cultural revitalization and healing.

Streaming live at 6:30 on Tuesday, November 21 via Native Arts and Cultures Foundation’s YouTube and Facebook pages.

QUEER HORROR opens the box and unleashes HELLRAISER (1987)! Hosted by Portland's premier drag clown Carla Rossi, and with a preshow starring Portland drag all-stars, this Halloween night screening is sponsored by Double Mountain Brewery and Cidery. Dress up and trick or treat for your own signed bottle of Carla and Double Mountain's new Call Me By Your Pain Peach Belgian Ale after the show!

Written and directed by out gay creator Clive Barker, HELLRAISER follows Kirsty (Ashley Laurence), who just wants to live a normal teenager's life. Unfortunately, her family has just moved into the home of her hedonistic, sadomasochistic, and freshly-skinned Uncle Frank (Sean Chapman), who has entered into a murderous love game with Kristy's wicked stepmother Julia (Clare Higgins), just in time for Pinhead (Doug Bradley) and the cenobites to come and collect what's theirs. A stunning debut based on Barker's novella The Hellbound Heart, HELLRAISER is a gorgeous, gory, and outrageously horny injection of iconic '80s queer horror.

Get tickets for HELLRAISER here: https://hollywoodtheatre.org/events/hellraiser/

QUEER HORROR celebrates 25 years of PRACTICAL MAGIC! Hosted by Portland's premier drag clown Carla Rossi, this anniversary screening opens with a preshow starring returning Portland drag all-star Pepper Pepper and sponsored by Double Mountain Brewery and Cidery.

Based on the book by Alice Hoffman, PRACTICAL MAGIC stars Academy Award winners Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman as Sally and Gillian Owens, two sisters in a family of witches whose husbands are all cursed to die. But when their aunts (Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest) leave town, they soon find themselves raising the dead and simultaneously fending off demonic possession and a handsome murder detective (Aidan Quinn). Co-starring Goran Visnjic, Evan Rachel Wood, Camille Bell, Chloe Webb, and character actress Margo Martindale, PRACTICAL MAGIC is a cross-genre oddity and classic that will leave you craving midnight margaritas.

Get tickets here.

What happens when a drag performer writes their first play? The Portland Drag Theatre Workshop, curated by Anthony Hudson in partnership with Risk/Reward, presents an afternoon of readings + previews of theatrical works by Portland drag performers who are best known for cabaret and nightlife, and who have been given time, support, and mentorship to develop and share something new and all their own. Presenting A View from My Back by Valerie DeVille, First Among Seconds: The Amazing Resurrection of Magdalene Woods by James Joiner/Loretta Lordchild, and Seasonal Delusions by Baby LeStrange, the Portland Drag Theatre Workshop is Sunday, June 25 at 2pm before the 15th Annual Risk/Reward Festival of New Performance, and is supported in part by the Regional Arts & Culture Council. Hosted by Anthony Hudson and Pepper Pepper. Ages 18+ only.

QUEER HORROR returns for its first ever re-watch with DEATH BECOMES HER (1992) on 35mm! Hosted by Portland’s premier drag clown Carla Rossi, this resurrected edition opens with a preshow starring Pepper Pepper and Carla—re-mounting their epic fight from 2017—and all sponsored by Double Mountain Brewery and Cidery!

Directed by Robert Zemeckis and co-written by queer screenwriter Martin Donovan, 1992’s DEATH BECOMES HER turns lifelong Hollywood rivals Madeline Ashton (Meryl Streep) and Helen Sharp (Goldie Hawn) into immortal frenemies after they acquire an elixir of youth kept by the mysterious Lisle von Rhoman (Isabella Rossellini). Unfortunately everlasting youth—and Madeline and Helen’s feud—survives well after their pulses cease. Co-starring Bruce Willis, DEATH BECOMES HER is jam-packed with breakthrough effects, iconic one-liners, and legendary performances that cement its status as a camp classic for an eternity to come.

NOTE: to protect our performers, masks will be required in the auditorium (except when actively eating and drinking) during this event.

BUY TICKETS HERE: https://hollywoodtheatre.org/events/death-becomes-her-in-35mm/

QUEER HORROR presents the world premiere of Body Academics' Portland-made rock opera EVIL BABYLON (2023)! Hosted by Portland’s premier drag clown Carla Rossi—who also portrays EVIL BABYLON's villainous Queen Urethrea—this special edition opens with a triumphant performance by the artists and is sponsored by Double Mountain Brewery and Cidery.

A film by local collective Body Academics, and supported in part by the Regional Arts and Culture Council, EVIL BABYLON is a phantasmagorical, psychosexual science-fiction movie musical masterpiece: the story of a sexually-repressed evangelical race car driver and the kink-positive party planet that leads him on a journey towards self acceptance. Made with all-original music, incredible animation, and starring a bevy of Portland drag all-stars, EVIL BABYLON is a riotous new spectacle that must be seen to be believed.

NOTE: to protect our performers, masks will be required in the auditorium (except when actively eating and drinking) during this event.

BUY TICKETS HERE: https://hollywoodtheatre.org/tickets/21013/

When Portland’s premier drag clown Carla Rossi is unleashed on the Portland Art Museum, her human avatar, Anthony, struggles with the crushing pressure of expectation as he traces his place in a lineage of Native artists and ancestors—and with Oregon’s settler history, which brutally intersects with Anthony’s own in an unexpected revelation. Alternating between drag numbers and earnest storytelling, The Weight of the World is an all-new work from Anthony Hudson celebrating Two-Spirit identity, the work of Oscar Howe and Jeffrey Gibson, and the perseverance of Oregon’s Tribes in the face of Oregon itself.

The Hollywood Theatre’s bimonthly program QUEER HORROR returns for a Valentine's Day PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK (1975)! Hosted by Portland’s premier drag clown Carla Rossi, this date night opens with a preshow starring PDX all-stars Kimber Shade, Valerie DeVille, and Wanda Bones, and is sponsored by Double Mountain Brewery and Cidery.

Directed by Peter Weir from Joan Lindsay's classic novel, PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK follows an Australian girls' school's titular class picnic on Valentine's Day, 1900. But when three girls and their teacher suddenly vanish, as if into the Hanging Rock itself, it sets the remaining schoolgirls, their unflinching headmistress Mrs. Appleyard (Rachel Roberts), and the neighboring colony on a collision course with obsession and doom. Gorgeously filmed (and inspiring Sofia Coppola's THE VIRGIN SUICIDES) and featuring multiple queer-coded characters, PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK is a sumptuous masterclass in existential terror and how to make it beautiful.

NOTE: to protect our performers, masks will be required in the auditorium (except when actively eating and drinking) during this event.

BUY TICKETS HERE: https://hollywoodtheatre.org/tickets/20420/

The Indigenous Community Art Showcase is an evening celebrating the work of artists and creators including:  

• DC-based intertribal Native American Northern drum group, Uptown Singerz, who will be performing Native American powwow drumming that includes both traditional and intertribal songs. They will be accompanied by Miss Chief Rocka, performing a traditional Native Shawl Dance and Hoop Dance.

• A conversation with Rose Powhatan, a local Pamunkey mixed-media artist whose work spans written pieces and visual art.  

• A livestream conversation with Anthony Hudson, the Portland-based artist, writer and sometimes better known as Portland’s premiere drag clown Carla Rossi. Two of Hudson’s digital performances will be displayed in the lobby, including Lamp Back, commissioned by and installed permanently at Pacific Northwest College of Art, and Martyr, or: Your Own Prairie Bonnet Jesus. Both video installations see Rossi explore themes around injustice and marginalization of Native communities. A third video, When It Was Hers, showcases a personal poem by Hudson.

• A reading of ADY by Rhiana Yazzie who will be joined by Regina Victor to present her two-person play that explores the collision of Navajo life and sexuality in this play about real-life muse, Ady Fidelin, a Caribbean dancer and only Black woman living in amongst the artists of the surrealist movement in France. Directed by Angelisa Gillyard.