THE CO-OP WARS is an energetic new musical about the explosive yet little-known history behind the Twin Cities’ thriving grocery co-ops. In 1970, a group of young revolutionaries bent on starting a non-capitalist food network began selling cheap bulk foods off a friend’s back porch in South Minneapolis. The idea caught on, but so did the attention of militant Marxists. It wasn’t long before radical ideologies clashed - literally and figuratively - over the fate of the Twin Cities’ fledgling co-op stores and the futures that they represented. In an all-out war of hippies vs. communists – which revolution won out? And what does it all mean when the cost of local, healthy food is still too high for most workers today? Straddling the co-ops of the past/present and fueled by the infectious sounds of the late 60s/early 70s counterculture, we’re excited to make THE CO-OP WARS a new musical anthem that pays homage to generations of activists at the intersection of food, labor, equity, and the dream of something better than capitalism.