Give It a Second Thought

Emmy nominee returns to her Dallas theater roots for first-ever fundraiser

Allison Tolman was nominated for a 2014 Emmy for her work on FX's Fargo.

Photo courtesy of Second Thought Theatre

Allison Tolman returns to Dallas this fall to headline a first-ever fundraiser for the theater she helped found, Second Thought Theatre. Dubbed Second Thought State of Mind, the event takes place October 25 at Bridge Bistro, where the Emmy nominee and, now, Mindy Project guest star will join theater supporters for an evening of food, drinks and conversation.

Tolman was born in Sugarland, Texas, and earned a BFA in theatrical performance from Baylor. After graduating she moved to Dallas, where she helped launch Second Thought Theatre in 2004. In 2009, she was accepted into Second City's Conservatory Training Program and later went on to write and perform sketch and satire with several groups throughout Chicago.

Tolman, who is now headed for Hollywood, received the Emmy nod for her role as Molly Solverson on the FX hit Fargo. She will not return for the second season — a decision Fargo creator Noah Hawley called a "crime and a tragedy" — because it's set in 1979, and Tolman's character would be only 4 years old.

"Since leaving Dallas, my career has taken me from Chicago to Calgary to Los Angeles, but I couldn't be more proud to be coming back to my artistic hometown for this event," Tolman said in a release. "At its root, this business is about people, and I've been privileged to work with some of the best people I've ever known through Second Thought.

"In shoddy rental garages and tiny black box theaters, in makeshift dressing rooms and corner booths at loud bars, and on the sets we lovingly built ourselves while cursing quietly — in all these places we shaped this company while this company was busy shaping us. In the last year and a half I've been blessed with incredible good fortune which has turned my career toward television and film. But everything I know about being patient and hardworking, about teamwork and humility and loyalty and miracles — every single one of those things I learned in the theater.

"Second Thought was my most beloved theater. It will always be my home."

Tickets to Second Thought State of Mind: Allison Tolman are on sale now at 2TT.co. Each $50 ticket includes entry to the event, two drink tickets and a light dinner courtesy of Bridge Bistro. The evening begins with canapés at 6 pm, followed by a moderated Q&A with Tolman.

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Mural News

Netflix House will debut in Dallas with murals from acclaimed artist

Netflix House

Jeremy Biggers at Netflix House

A long-awaited immersive venue is opening in Dallas, and it will debut with local art on its walls: Netflix House, a year-round exhibit revolving around Netflix shows and movies, will open at Galleria Dallas on December 11, with two murals from award-winning Dallas multi-medium artist Jeremy Biggers.

Netflix House is an immersive dive complete with merchandise store, film house, arcade, and restaurant-bar. When it opens, Dallas will be the second location in the U.S., following Philadelphia, where it debuted in November 2025, also with murals from a local artist.

A graduate of Booker T. Washington High School for Performing and Visual Arts, Biggers is a renowned artist whose murals can be found spashed on walls across Dallas. Many, such as the Selena portrait on the wall outside Top Ten Records at 306 S. Bishop Ave., have become local landmarks.

He's a logical choice, having worked with a number of corporations including Nike, Adidas, the Dallas Mavericks, and IBM, for whom he created the "THINK" mural in their Dallas corporate office. His works have also been exhibited nationally, including a 2024 solo exhibition "be safe out there bro" at Band of Vices, a gallery in Los Angeles.

"Being chosen to be the artist to paint this mural, it would have been a disservice to myself, as well as the art scene in the city, not to try to infuse myself into it," he says.

$\u200bJeremy Biggers at Netflix House$ Jeremy Biggers at Netflix HouseNetflix House

Biggers did two murals featuring his interpretation of Netflix figures including the Squid Game Young-hee doll, characters from KPop Demon Hunters and megahit series Stranger Things, plus Pandy and DJ Catnip, the best friends in the interactive series Gabby’s Dollhouse.

Both murals are intensely colored works that incorporate Biggers' signature motif: a grid of polka dots spread across the image.

One is on the exterior of Netflix House, at the parking entrance, a colorful collage of characters, measuring 38 feet x 50 feet — the tallest mural Biggers has tackled. He painted it with aerosol; it took him two months to complete.
The other is on the interior, on the mall side entrance of Netflix House, measuring 57 feet x 12 feet — a study in moody blacks and blues, with accents of neon-red that give it a 3D effect.

“I'm trying to tell the story of Netflix, and the story of where Netflix has been historically, where Netflix is headed in the future, and then also infusing my own narrative and my own language visually into that story,” he says.

“They could have opened this anywhere, so for Dallas to be one of the very first locations — that’s a testament to us as a market, as consumers of arts and consumers in general," he says.

Jeremy Biggers at Netflix HouseNetflix House

galleries openings