It’s been said that you should never meet your heroes. However, as a workaholic Asian-American trying to make her way in the comedy world from the heart of Iowa, I’ve never been one for listening to the word “should.” So, when I had an opportunity to have a conversation with comedy icon Margaret Cho, I had to go for it.
Iowa City events
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Mission Creek Festival and Brink announce lineup for Day Party, a new, one-day festival of music, arts and food
Saturday, April 25 will mark the first Day Party, a one-day mini-festival in downtown Iowa City co-directed by Mission Creek Festival and Brink, a literary nonprofit supporting hybrid writing. Tickets went on sale Friday morning.
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Review: The Milk Carton Kids and Sierra Hull present two sides of folk in one big night at the Englert
Grammy Award nominees The Milk Carton Kids and Sierra Hull performed to a buzzing Englert Theatre crowd on Thursday night, co-headlining a show that would please most any folk music fan. The Milk Carton Kids opened up with a stripped down, folksy acoustic set that had incredible harmonies and intricate guitar and banjo work. The […]
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‘Art is my escape’: Paintings, drawings, a Popsicle stick sculpture and other intricate work make up the 2026 Art from the Inside Out exhibition, debuting Friday
“My biggest inspiration for my artwork is God, injustice and purpose,” said Ivan Flores, an incarcerated artist with work featured in the fourth annual “Art From the Inside Out” exhibition. Coordinated by Inside Out Reentry Community, the exhibition is currently on display in Iowa City through Feb. 14 at the Public Space One Close House. […]
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Worth a Rewatch: A Black American filmmaker shook up the French New Wave with 1967’s ‘The Story of a Three-Day Pass’
The Story of a Three-Day Pass was awarded the critics’ choice award at the 1967 San Francisco International Film Festival, and all of a sudden Melvin Van Peebles found himself in a position that was almost unbelievable. He was a Hollywood darling. A decade before, when Van Peebles went looking for a job in Hollywood, […]
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Worth a Rewatch: ‘The Thing’ finds normal people resisting a violent invasion of their snowy home
There’s nothing like beginning the year at the end of the world. As Iowa City’s FilmScene prepares for its yearly showing with two screenings, how does John Carpenter’s cult classic, a film infamously received as off-putting during the Reagan era, land on our laps as we face our own rising tide of conservatism and real-world violence? […]
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Review: A cozy costume party inside a fever dream, Dada Prom brought surreal fun and funds to Public Space One
On a cold, snowy Saturday night in Iowa City, around 150 costumed art-lovers gathered at the historic Close House mansion for Public Space One’s Dada Prom. Despite the total snow accumulation topping off at around five inches, PS1 announced that the fourth annual fundraiser was the “most successful Dada Prom by far.” Dada Prom also […]
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With ‘Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat,’ chef Samin Nosrat boiled cooking down to its elements. At Hancher — and with her new book — she reflects on why we set a table in the first place
If there’s anything we all could use at the end of 2025, it’s comforting food with good company. Helping patrons get into the holiday feasting mindset, Hancher Auditorium hosted a conversation with acclaimed chef and author Samin Nosrat and Iowa City’s own Carmen Maria Machado on Nov. 13. The auditorium, buzzing with food enthusiasts of […]
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Review: Yo-Yo Ma reflects on finding his sound, overcoming doubts and what makes us human at Hancher
Yo-Yo Ma sits in the middle of the stage, one leg draped over the other, as he listens to a question from someone in the audience. “Ask me anything” appears on a large screen above him. One of the questions comes from a young man, a cello player who wants to know how to overcome […]
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Review: Private school parents clash over uncomfortably familiar issues in ‘Eureka Day’ at Riverside Theatre
Jonathan Spector’s 2025 Tony Award-winning Eureka Day, with its sharp humor and painfully familiar questions about privilege, progressivism and public health, has found a lively and incisive staging in Iowa City. Under the direction of Kathleen Johnson, Riverside Theatre’s production embraces the play’s contradictions with a mix of warmth and unease — a balance that, […]
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Review: ‘Cello goblin’ Rushadicus and Iowa City’s Weapon X brought an electric circus to the Close House
The music that is popular, the artists that are famous and the commercial music industry that promotes them, exists in a completely different world from the music Public Space One presents.
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Review: Bards bask in the joys, discuss the challenges of their craft at the first Iowa City Songwriters Festival
On Friday at The Den, legendary star and Wilco lead singer Jeff Tweedy spoke with Hancher’s Executive Director Andre Perry about the mourning process he goes through after an album does not perform as expected. “After a while, you just have to let go,” Tweedy said.
