How much do you know about the Philippines, really?   Photo by Bruce Silcox Did you know it was colonized twice? Did you know that Filipinos share a lot of cultural heritage with Latinx peoples? Did you know that the tribal origins of Filipinos date back more than 6,000 years?

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

The Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company brings precision and sass to this timely piece. Photo by Stephen Hage How much do you know about Gilbert & Sullivan? If you’re a fan of musicals you’ve likely seen the Pirates of Penzance at some point in your life, but did

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

Sacred cows of the theater be warned: your days of being untouchable are careening towards a swift end.   Photo by Petronella Ytsma And what great news that is! Seriously, I’ve been advocating for years, ad nauseam (#sorrynotsorry), that we need to really feel comfortable revising things for the modern

One of the biggest buzzwords since the 2016 presidential election has been “resistance” More people are feeling disenfranchised and activated than ever, which can be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it. People have energy and they need to channel it somewhere. But what does

When you hear the phrase “good writing,” what does it mean to you?  Everyone has different answer for this question; after all, we have different tastes and preferences, different values and backgrounds, and so the style and subject matter can widely range between what are considered to be good pieces

Where should forgiveness begin and end?   Pictures speak louder than words. That is the question at the heart of Cardboard Piano, a gutwrenching play about the liminal nature of morality, kindness and grace when they are applied in the harshest imaginable circumstances. Who is deserving of mercy in light