This weekend was the weekend of a la carte.   Chefs everywhere! I’ve been getting some great product sample offers lately (more to come in a forthcoming post!) which has been a really fun new venture for me. Something about being on the forefront of new technologies, new foods, and

As an immigrant or a refugee, where does your allegiance belong?   Photo by Dan Norman Should you forget where you were born? Should you bide your time until you can return again? Should you try to assimilate where you have moved if you never intended to live there in

Pillsbury House Theatre’s latest series is original, local, and a true product of our times   The show comes with several interactive elements like a quiz on the truthiness of news headlines and a vote of confidence in different media sources – brilliant stuff. Is there anything that can get

Few things are more powerful than an idea whose time has come.   Photo by RICH RYAN PHOTOGRAPHY, 2018 It’s been a little over two years since I saw Broadway’s rendition of Newsies at the Orpheum (read original review here). It was the first opportunity I’d had to see the show

What if I were to tell you…   Graphic by Ten Thousand Things …That there is a show penned by a local female playwright that is set entirely in a car wash, features a highly eclectic spectrum of characters, and it’s totally fabulous? I would be describing Park and Lake,

Of all of the many reasons I’m proud to be a Twin Cities Theater Blogger, the #tctbconvo series is at the very top of my list.   Created as a response to the controversy over Refugia last year, #tctbconvo represents the Twin Cities Theater Blogger’s attempt to host proactive dialogues

LISTEN.   Photo courtesy of the Guthrie Theater Just, listen. That is all I can say after seeing Ifrah Mansour’s magnificent one-woman show How to Have Fun in a Civil War. In a taut, gripping 60-minute performance, Mansour tells the story of fleeing Somalia during the 1990s civil war from

What is the responsibility of great art?  Photo by Dan Norman Is it to the artist? The audience? The culture it portrays? The abstract idea of art itself?  This is an impossible question to answer; every person will approach it from a different lived perspective, and every person will find

Start the New Year off right by learning about DACA, the DREAM Act, and how to truly help your neighbors.   Photo by Mark Van Cleave If I haven’t sung the praises of Karen Zacarias enough yet, let me correct that right now: she is one of my favorite new

For one of my favorite annual roundups (books, duh), look no further. This #shelfie of goodies from my time interning at Graywolf Press is a regular fave. If you’ve never read any of their books, what are you waiting for?!  Devoted Compendium readers may remember my post halfway through last