Can't Miss It: Wednesday

Theatre: We often short West Seattle because...well, we forget why, just like we forget they're over there, doing whatever they do in West Seattle. At the moment, though, they're doing Rebecca Gilman's The Sweetest Swing in Baseball and it's made critic Joe Adcock a believer:

As a play crafter, Gilman is a wonder. Every scene, every character -- every speech, practically -- contains a surprise. The surprises build to neatly engineered climaxes and conclusions. But the neatness is all technique. Emotionally and morally, Gilman's work is confrontational, transgressive, unsettling -- and uniquely admirable.

An insecure artist falls to pieces in the face of success, and checks in to a psychiatric hospital after a suicide attempt. When she realizes they think she's too sane to stay, she starts channeling slugger Darryl Strawberry, and things start to pick up for her. Too bad that didn't work for Strawberry.

7:30pm // ArtsWest, 4711 California Ave SW // Tickets $29 general, $10 25-and-under

Opera: Puccini's Tosca at Seattle Opera sounds like a winner. People keep asking us if we've been yet. "It's really good," they say, a little surprised that the old warhorse got to 'em again. Seattlest Ronald called it "a nightmare played out to sumptuous music":

The story, on the other hand, is a potboiler involving a beautiful opera singer, Tosca; a fugitive politician, Angelotti; a famous painter, Cavaradossi; and a villainous police chief, Scarpia. By the end of the opera, the genuine Napoleon has won, and all the fictional characters are dead. But, hey, that's entertainment!

Here's a preview clip of the show. To the right, that's the dazzling Lisa Daltirus and Greer Grimsley (in a photo by Rosarii Lynch).

7:30pm // Seattle Opera, McCaw Hall // Tickets: $25-$169

Film: Over at the Grand Illusion, they have a Rural Route film festival going on: 97 minutes of "fun and serious pieces from all around the world. Arctic owls in Montana, Canadian riding lawnmower races, films about light pollution, a Ukrainian poetic peasant masterpiece, dancers in the snowy Norwegian tundra, plastic lawn deer lost in Brooklyn, a man’s captivating search for his ancestors in Lithuania, and some good ol’ banjo playin’ at a Kentucky old folks home." Who wants to miss that? Nobody!

7pm // Grand Illusion, 1403 NE 50th // Tickets: $4-$8 at the door

The listed events were chosen by the editors of Seattlest and brought to you by the 2009 Toyota Corolla.