What are your weekend plans? See a play, party with Tenino, or immerse yourself in UFOs
Live theater about real issues
Don’t miss your last chances to see Harlequin Productions’ “This Flat Earth,” a play written in response to escalating gun violence in this country, told from the perspective of a 13-year-old girl, played by two local middle-school student actors, Annabeth Collett and Cosette Yanasak. The final performances are at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Sept. 16-17 at the State Theater, 202 Fourth Ave. E., Olympia. Tickets are $35 for adults, $32 for seniors and military, and $20 for students and youth, although Friday is a Pay What You Choose performance. Harlequin warns that the play deals with gun violence and death, and is suitable for those 11 and older. To protect those on stage, masks will still be required while inside the theater.
Ride the rails
The city of Tenino is celebrating 150 years since the Northern Pacific Railroad drove in the final spike in the sleepy Scattercreek Valley in 1872 and named the depot Tenino. Tenino Railroad Day will take place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Tenino Depot Museum, 399 W. Park Ave. A Caboose Ribbon Cutting will kick off the day, displaying a restored caboose built by the Great Northern Railway in 1923 that wasn’t retired until 1967. Other festivities include musical and theatrical performances, vendors and food, educational booths, and a Museum open house. Admission is free.
Party with the aliens
To honor the 75-year anniversary of the first major UFO sighting in America, which happened over Mount Rainier, three venues in Chehalis — City Farm Chehalis, McFiler’s Chehalis Theater and the Lewis County Historical Museum — will host the Chehalis Flying Saucer Party. The museum will be free to enter and will host multiple UFO-themed exhibits, including a new permanent exhibit on Kenneth Arnold, the man responsible for that first sighting. At 1 p.m., the museum will host a free Saucer Drop, when toy discs containing prizes will be tossed from the museum’s gazebo. At McFiler’s Theater, free flying saucer cartoons will be playing all day. For $5, attendees can view “The Day the Earth Stood Still” at 8 p.m. Renowned UFO experts will give presentations all day at City Farm, with a panel Q&A at 6:30 p.m. Each presentation costs $10 to attend, or $60 for a VIP pass to all, available at flyingsaucerparty.org through Friday. Proceeds will benefit the Lewis County Historical Museum.