What to do in Madison this weekend: Madison Night Market, 'The Lion King' and more Isthmus Picks

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Madison Night Market, Thursday, May 11, State and Gilman streets, 5-9 p.m.: On five evenings each spring and summer, Madison Night Market transforms the downtown shopping district into a full-on pedestrian mall featuring local vendors, artists, buskers, food and more, along with extended hours and special activities at many businesses. Peace Park features music by CumbiaCachaca at 5 p.m. and Cash Box Kings at 7 p.m.; more active entertainment includes Ultrazone Laser Tag (at the top of State Street) and a climbing wall from Boulders. It’s coordinated by the Madison Central Business Improvement District; future dates are June 8, Aug. 10, Sept. 14 and Oct. 19. Find a complete participant list at visitdowntownmadison.com.

Anna Elizabeth Laube album release, Thursday, May 11, Mason Lounge, 5:30 p.m.: Since the release of the 2016 album Tree, the world has caught up to the music of Madison singer-songwriter Anna Elizabeth Laube. In 2022, songs from the album appeared on the Netflix shows Virgin River and Locke & Key, and album track “All My Runnin’” hit a million Spotify streams. Laube’s new studio album, Wild Outside, is another stunner, smoothly blending a diverse array of pop sounds into Laube’s folk base. New originals are joined by covers of iconic artists (The Beatles, Taylor Swift and more) that Laube makes her own. Joined by bassist Nick Moran, Laube celebrates the forthcoming album with a special happy hour show at the cozy Mason Lounge. Fans take note: while the official release date is June 16, CDs will be available at this show.

Hand Made in America: Contemporary Custom Footwear, through May 14, UW Nancy Nicholas Hall-Mecklenburg Textile Gallery: We are so used to mass-produced shoes we have mostly forgotten that they can be made for a specific someone's foot — and be works of art. The shoes and boots in “Hand Made in America: Contemporary Custom Footwear” come from 11 makers from across the United States who are part of a renaissance of handmade footwear. Current gallery hours: 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Wednesday and Friday; 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Thursday; and noon-4 pm Saturday-Sunday.

Disney's The Lion King, May 11-28, Overture Center, Overture Hall: “Hakuna Matata” is not perhaps the most apropos catchphrase for our current national mood, but another sentiment from The Lion King — “We are all connected in the great circle of life” — is as relevant as ever. This musical will pull kids in with its catchy songs, but the elaborately costumed, oversized animals — part puppet, part dancer — energize this stirring tale of life and loss in Africa for everyone. Shows at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 & 8 p.m. Saturday, and 1 & 6:30 p.m. Sunday, plus 1 p.m., May 18. Tickets at tickets.overture.org.

THE HUNT, through May 21, GooseChase app: Big Brothers Big Sisters of Dane County returns with THE HUNT, an annual fundraiser for the organization and its programs. Between April 28 and May 21, use the GooseChase app to complete missions incorporating local landmarks and small businesses, or completed at home. Post photos of finds to earn points for your team and compete for prizes. Before the official start date, teams can compete in early bird challenges and fundraising to earn points. THE HUNT is on. Register at p2p.onecause.com/hunt2023.

Laced, through May 13, Bartell Theatre: StageQ presents the long-awaited Wisconsin premiere of Laced, a new play by New York City-based playwright Samantha Mueller, originally scheduled for a fall 2021 production. Laced considers the ways the LBGTQ community can pull together when threatened, by way of a dialogue among three bartenders from a queer bar deciding how to move forward the night after the bar is vandalized (not coincidentally, Nov. 8, 2016). Final shows at 7:30 p.m., May 11-12; and 4 p.m., May 13. Tickets at bartelltheatre.org.

Waldemar, Thursday, May 11, The Bur Oak, 8 p.m.: Eau Claire’s Waldemar exemplifies the best of melodic indie folk-rock with its debut album Ruthless, recorded in the converted horse barn studio of band member Gabe Larson. It’s heart-on-your-sleeve music in The National realm. With Madison’s Free Dirt, which gets dirtier with the electric guitar rock, and Milwaukee-based experimental singer/songwriter/guitarist Caley Conway. Tickets here.

Yves Tumor, Thursday, May 11, The Sylvee, 8 p.m.: Yves Tumor can sound like hyped-up elevator music, '70s funk, '80s new wave, basic chillwave, and a lot of other hard-to-categorize genres, but it’s always easy to get in the groove. Openers Pretty Sick play hard-driving '90s grunge-pop; and Nation has punk metal down cold. Tickets at ticketmaster.com.

Pieced Together, through May 14, UW Nancy Nicholas Hall-Ruth Davis Design Gallery: This time of the year is always special on campus; students' studies culminate in performances and exhibitions like “Pieced Together: Perspectives in Textiles and Fashion Design.” The student-curated show highlights the work of undergraduates in fashion, textiles, weaving, digital animation and sculpture. Gallery hours are 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on Wednesday and Friday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. on Thursday, and noon-4 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. A student-led tours of the exhibit and class spaces take place from 2-4 p.m., May 12. More info at cdmc.wisc.edu.

Horicon Marsh Bird Festival, May 12-14, Horicon Marsh Education and Visitor Center: Unlike a lot of local festivals that throw in everything from beer tents to marching bands, this festival keeps a pretty tight focus on birding. Horicon is the largest freshwater cattail marsh in the U.S. and is a magnet for migrating birds. The three-day event offers many guided trips, with birding by bus, boat, bike and more. Most require registration. See the full schedule at horiconmarshbirdclub.com.

Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Friday, May 12, Overture Center-Capitol Theater, 7:30 p.m.: The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra presents a pair of works in honor of the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s birth (delayed from a past season): Symphony No. 6 (the Pastoral); and Piano Concerto No. 1, which will be ably addressed by Michael Mizrahi, a professor at Lawrence University in Appleton and international concert performer. The show opens with a suite of works drawn from composer-in-residence Bill Banfield’s opera Edmonia, with guest singers from the UW Mead Witter School of Music: soprano Jerzy Gillon, mezzo soprano Madison Barrett, and soprano Isabel Celata. Tickets at overture.org. (Also: Mizrahi plays a Salon Piano Series concert, 7:30 p.m., May 13, at Farley’s House of Pianos; more info at eventbrite.com.)

TS Foss album release, Friday, May 12, Mickey's, 10 p.m.: Singer-songwriter-guitarist Tyler Fassnacht has long been a welcomely ubiquitous presence in the Madison music landscape in bands (Proud Parents, Fire Heads) and solo (Baby Tyler, noisy; TS Foss, quiet). When plans for extensive touring in 2020 were blown up by the pandemic, Fassnacht began working on a final magnum opus as a swan song to following musical dreams. Thankfully the resulting album project, Everything Finished, helped keep the fire burning. The first TS Foss album recorded with a full band, the group incarnation will also debut at the release show. With Tommy Goodroad & the Highway Birds, Dusk, Loveblaster. Read Jeffrey Brown's preview here.

King Iso, Saturday, May 13, The Annex, 6:30 p.m.: With lightning fast raps and brutally honest songs about maintaining mental health (and surviving when things get rougher), King Iso has made a rapid rise in the hip-hop universe. This spring’s tour is in support of the 2022 release 8 P.M. Med Call, but since then King Iso has released a steady series of collaborative singles, with Ekoh, Jehry Robinson, X-Raided and ZOMBIEZ. This Midwest Mix-up concert also features Taebo Tha Truth, Dustin Warbear, Obscure, TG Music, Therealtaco and YSM the Prince. Tickets at eventbrite.com.

Madison Youth Choirs, May 13-14, Verona High School PAC: Madison Youth Choirs spring concerts feature music themed to the lessons of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s novel The Little Prince; each of the three concerts has a different program, in all featuring 400 young singers among various ensembles. Works range from modern composer Lisa Nehrer to J.S. Bach to Cyndi Lauper. Also featured is local composer Scott Gendel, whose sweeping setting of two folk songs in “Across the Water” will serve as MYC's signature piece on the choirs' tour to Scotland this summer. Concerts at 7 p.m., May 13, and 3 and 7:30 p.m., May 14; tickets at madisonyouthchoirs.org.

Loving Cup, Saturday, May 13, High Noon Saloon, 7:30 p.m.: Did you know Madison is home to a top-flight Rolling Stones tribute band? If not, this is your heads-up for an extra special opportunity to get your “Rocks Off.” The ensemble (including members of VO5, Lynda & the Zeros and others) will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Exile on Main St. with a front-to-back performance (rescheduled from November), along with more Stones classics. With an opening set by The Low Czars (which includes Isthmus calendar editor Bob Koch). Tickets at ticketmaster.com.

Northside Farmers' Market, Sunday, May 14, Northside Town Center, 8:30 a.m -12:30 p.m.: Serious farmers' market fans love the Northside Farmers' Market, which opens for the season this Sunday. There’s plenty of free parking, an outstanding selection of vendors, usually with pastries and breads, pies, fish, honey, cheese, beef and pork, mushrooms, all kinds of veggies, and this time of year, seedlings for your own garden. Plus entertainment, tacos and tamales, smoothies and more. The market continues weekly outside through Oct. 29; find more info at northsidefarmersmarket.org.

Theo Katzman, Sunday, May 14, Barrymore Theatre, 8:30 p.m.: Theo Katzman grew up in New York in a jazz family. His father played trumpet in the Tonight Show band. He went on to study jazz at the University of Michigan, performing in an all-instrumental jazz group based in Ann Arbor. After that things got less jazzy and more rock. When not touring with the funk band Vulfpeck, Katzman’s solo work leans to the harder end of indie pop. His latest release, Be the Wheel, showcases the multi-instrumentalist’s softer, songwriter side; it's more folk than funk. With May Earlewine. Tickets at ticketmaster.com.

Find the individual Picks collected here, and as part of the full calendar of events.