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Monday 9am - 5pm Tuesday 9am - 5pm Wednesday 9am - 5pm Thursday 9am - 5pm Friday 9am - 5pm

Desert Companion, 1289 S. Torrey Pines Drive, Spring Valley, NV (2025)

10/02/2025

🔗Read the full conversation with Daz: https://tinyurl.com/4dunt5xk

How will this theater guy and his partners transform a struggling cinemaplex into a thriving arts incubator? Here's how, in a nutshell

Daz Weller moved from his native Australia to Las Vegas in 2010. In 2017, he became executive artistic director of the Vegas Theatre Company (formerly known as Cockroach Theatre), where he’d win best director honors in the Vegas Valley Theatre Awards for Sweat.

Weller’s newest venture is his biggest challenge — CEO and artistic director of the cooperative transforming the Arts District’s former Art Houz cinemas complex into the Third Street arts incubator, set to open in the spring. But alongside VTC’s partners Vegas City Opera, Laugh After Dark, Las Vegas Sinfonietta, and world-famous magician Teller, he foresees dramatic success.

✍️Janis Hashe

09/30/2025

🔗Read the full story: https://tinyurl.com/39rv8xzd

I've always been shy. As a kid, just the thought of meeting new people would cause me to throw up or have a panic attack.

Now that I’m nearing middle age, the years have sanded down the edges of my social anxiety enough that I can almost pass as comfortable in social settings; confident, even. But I still found myself nervous as I crossed the Green Valley Ranch parking lot on a recent night, about to do something I’d never done: Eat dinner with five complete strangers.

The dinner had been arranged through an app called Timeleft. The process is simple: You sign up, rate yourself on a scale by answering questions such as “How extroverted are you?” or “How creative are you?,” and then you’re notified that you’ve been matched with five other people and would you like to meet them for dinner this Friday? The app picks the people and the restaurant. You just show up.

✍️Reannon Muth

09/26/2025

🔗Read the Full Story: https://tinyurl.com/4ht5exwy

This packed weekend brings a whole lot of variety to its screens and stages. Here's what to see, hear, & do this weekend with Nevada Public Radio's Mike Prevatt.

September 26th: Unseen Territories Premiere
Named after the art project it documents, Unseen Territories is a 25-minute short film that not only honors 14 local Black, Indigenous, and People of Color artists, highlighting their heritages and acts of visibility.

September 27th: "Bugs Bunny at the Symphony"
This year, the Las Vegas Phil has gone Looney. And by that, I mean Looney Tunes, which is celebrating its 85th anniversary. The show, September 27, is called Bugs Bunny at the Symphony, and it will feature 16 Looney Tunes cartoons while their music — originally composed by Carl Stalling and conducted here by George Daugherty — is played by the Phil.

September 28th: Mariposa Que Vuela
The 27th season opener for Opera Las Vegas, Mariposa Que Vuela is the musical autobiography of the organization’s new CEO and president, Cecilia Violetta Lopez. The show tells Lopez’s story, starting with her childhood in Idaho, spent both working and singing mariachi to her mom in the fields. She later attends and graduates from UNLV as a vocal performance major, and she soon ascends to play some pretty significant opera stages, including Carnegie Hall.

✍️Mike Prevatt | Nevada Public Radio

09/25/2025

🔗 Read the full story: https://zpr.io/Kpu6SkbGtsYw

In 2025, even those who can barely operate a cell phone have heard about artificial intelligence and how it’s going to shape the future. But while many are excited about the promise, tech journalist and podcaster Ed Zitron is suspicious of the hype. “All of these companies are claiming that large language models, OpenAI, ChatGPT, and the like, is the next big thing,” he says.

“The problem is, the actual efficacy, the actual abilities of these programs, have been the same for about two years now. These companies keep growing, their stock valuations keep going up. But it’s not coming from any AI sales.”

✍️: Lissa Townsend Rodgers

09/23/2025

🔗 Read the full story: https://tinyurl.com/4x828y4k

Marilyn Herrera isn’t a master gardener. But she loves growing things, and, as a mother of three, believes teaching her kids about plants and the earth is vital.

After reading about the burgeoning seed library movement, she was inspired in 2022 to create East Las Vegas Seed Share, or ELVSS. The first free seed library, at the Solidarity Fridge on Blackthorn Drive, opened in February 2023.

Herrera began by searching online for someone who was sharing seeds through seed libraries, thinking, “Someone else will do it.” But no one was. So, motivated by gardening with her preschoolers and a desire to create community through growing plants, ELVSS was born.

✍️: Janis Hashei

09/16/2025

Sometimes, whisking hot water with vibrant green powder makes for a delectable liquid treat. This is not news in Japan ... but on the internet, it's a newfound obsession.

Last fall, the traditional Japanese tea, better known as matcha, unexpectedly became a global sensation. Las Vegas hopped on the bandwagon, and the tea soon was available in all kinds of products … from lattes to ice cream, cakes, and more. The viral demand for matcha, however, is so high that suppliers are facing a shortage. In Japan, they call it the “matcha boom,” according to Leo Lukidi.

Lukidi is the owner of Tea & Whisk, a Las Vegas business that sells teas from around the world. He says this boom is a serious issue for suppliers, because matcha takes years to cultivate — one of many things many consumers don’t realize.

🔗 Read the full story: https://zpr.io/MTpqLuXB2njz
✍️: Maicyn Udani | Nevada Public Radio

09/09/2025

Sustainability helped make Roberts’ career, but now he says it’s become the status quo. In a world of growing ecological crises, leading green architects such as Roberts are turning toward resiliency.

Architect Jeff Roberts spent years as a designer with blue-chip firm LGA, where he developed the Springs Preserve master plan and designed the Desert Living Center & Gardens, which helped put sustainable design on the map in Las Vegas.

In a world of growing ecological crises, leading green architects such as Roberts are turning toward resiliency, which considers not just a building’s energy performance, but also the way it nurtures its human occupants, protects the environment, and enhances its community’s social well-being.

Roberts is also leaning into his Indigenous heritage — he’s an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation — delving deep into ITEK, or Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge.

🔗 Read the full story: https://tinyurl.com/bdeb663n
✍️: T.R. Witcher

09/04/2025

The moment you walk into Seafood City, the scent of Jollibee chicken and the sound of Taglish chatter engulf your senses, taking you to Manila, Philippines.

But the supermarket on South Maryland Parkway is special compared to its chain sisters across the country. This one is the heart of Clark County’s newest official cultural district: Filipino Town.

The Las Vegas Valley is home to more than 200,000 Filipino people. The one-mile stretch of Maryland Parkway between Desert Inn and Flamingo has always been a hangout spot for their community. But thanks to 90-year-old Rozita Lee, now they can officially call it their own.

🔗 Read the full story here: https://knpr.org/desert-companion/2025-08-28/welcome-to-filipino-town
✍️: Maicyn Udani | Nevada Public Radio

08/28/2025

The Clark County School District does right by its students more than its reputation might suggest. Take its music education program: It has earned the Best Communities for Music Education designation for the 26th consecutive year, one of only six U.S. school districts to reach that milestone. It raises the question: Where do CCSD music teachers maintain their chops? For these three, it’s the stages they grace long after that final school bell.

🔗 Read the full story: https://tinyurl.com/344hrwz8
🧾 Pick up a copy of Desert Companion's Health Issue out now!
✍️ Mike Prevatt

08/26/2025

Megan Blattspieler has always admired artisanal fashion. One vintage dress, discovered during a thrifting trip in Palm Springs, was all it took for her to pursue her dream.

With a background in fashion merchandising, Blattspieler was inspired not only to re-create the dress, but to do it as ethically as possible. She didn’t want to conform to the fast fashion industry or exploit underpaid factory workers.

So, in 2019, she created Alissi (alissi.co) — a sustainable fashion business forged by the women of the desert. But not just the Mojave Desert. Sure, any Southern Nevadan can shop from Alissi. But the business wouldn’t exist without its partnership with the Saheli Women of India’s Thar Desert.

🔗 Read the full story: https://tinyurl.com/4pzrkbf5
✍️ Maicyn Udani

08/21/2025

Real estate deals are a big part of every American city’s story, shaping their economies and character. In Las Vegas, they have done more than influence its history: The city we know simply would not exist without them.

These are seven that made a difference in a variety of ways.

Read the story here: https://tinyurl.com/vkp4wzux or pick up a copy of Desert Companion's Health Issue!

08/15/2025

It’s that time of year when school starts and the seasonal programming calendars of many venues begin. Just don’t call it fall, because it sure as hell won’t feel like it until the next issue of Desert Companion. Still, there’s a ton on offer culturally, especially during September and October. Fortunately for you, we’ve fine-tuned our event filter in an anti-algorithmic fashion. Which is to say: We won’t predict what you will like — instead, we’re gonna tell you what you should like.

Check out the full guide here: https://tinyurl.com/usdehvjj or find a location to pick up a physical copy of Desert Companions health issue!

Writing - Mike Prevatt⁠
Illustration - Miguel Manich

Desert Companion

10/02/2025

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08/28/2025

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Monday	9am - 5pm
Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5pm
Friday	9am - 5pm