All Recipes Are Home

Working Group Theatre, based in Iowa City, will present All Recipes Are Home, an original play with music and dance. Tickets are required for this free public event, which will start at 6 p.m. Monday, April 13, on the outdoor stage on Grinnell College’s central campus.

Incorporating dance and live folk music by the Awful Purdies quintet, this play tells the story of Josef, a young man who sets off across Iowa after receiving a postcard recruiting workers for a booming farm. Josef arrives after an arduous journey and finds that the farm has been foreclosed. He then takes a job at a local meatpacking plant. Meanwhile, his sister, Marie, and his fiancée, Erin, trek across the state to bring Josef a beloved family recipe that they believe will make him long for home. Through food, this  play aims to remind all of us of the comfort of home and the life we seek together.

The play encompasses interviews with Iowa farmers conducted by Sean Christopher Lewis, writer and director of "All Recipes Are Home." He spent seven days in northeast Iowa talking and working with farmers, food workers and those connected to the land, the history and the recipes of the state. The result is a play that is representative of the collective food story of Iowa.

Lewis and two other Master of Fine Arts graduates of the University of Iowa — Martin Andrews and Jennifer Fawcett — founded Working Group Theatre in 2009. Since then, the group has created more than 30 new plays and events, fostering community dialogue around important issues and gaining a national reputation for challenging and insightful work.

All Recipes Are Home is an original full-length play commissioned from Working Group Theatre by Hancher Auditorium/The University of Iowa, Grinnell College, and the Center Stage Series at Luther College.

Tickets and Attendance

Although the outdoor performance at Grinnell College is free, tickets are required. Ticket distribution will begin at noon Wednesday, April 8, in the box office of the Bucksbaum Center for the Arts.

Attendees are invited to bring nonperishable food items and donations to the show, where they will be collected by Mid-Iowa Community Action (MICA), which is working with United Way to support the local food pantry.

In case of inclement weather, the play will be performed in Sebring-Lewis Hall in the Bucksbaum Center for the Arts.

For questions concerning access or to request accommodation for a disability, please contact conference operations.