Festival 2018 has been making news with national, regional, and local press covering our premieres and world-class performers across all genres. Celebrate their accomplishments with a look back at our Festival in Reviews.
Radicals in Miniature
“Gordon takes on this role—storyteller, monologist—with profound responsibility. From the outset his language is clipped and economical, whole sentences coming out as pure poetry. He throws his voice only to reel it back in, then dance along its sharp edge for a while. Beneath him, Quillen comes in with the miscellany that builds a memory: phone numbers, repeated phrases, snippets of music that crawl into the corners of one’s brain and take root there.” -The Arts Paper
A Billion Nights on Earth
"A Billion Nights on Earth is that rare thing: an evening of theatre for children that is not children’s theatre. Rather than a brightly colored cartoon story with enough double entendres to keep the parents awake, creator and director Thaddeus Phillips has taken the braver step of reminding us adults that we are at our best when we are like our children." -The Hartford Courant
Merchant of Venice: New England Premiere
“This “Merchant of Venice” plays up the play’s awkward racism and sexism in a way that the audience can not choose to downplay or ignore. Shylock’s speeches take on different tones, volumes and genders. The individualized performances are mesmerizing in such an intimate outdoor space.” -The Hartford Courant
Pepperland: East Coast Premiere
"(Pepperland) had its East Coast premiere at the Shubert Theater here, as part of the city’s International Festival of Arts and Ideas. It’s a series of brainy notions: lyricism is held in check by cerebration." -The New York Times
Requiem for an Electric Chair: World Premiere
“Requiem for an Electric Chair is a work of catharsis and witness, a way of both processing [Toto Kisaku’s] own trauma and alerting the world to the suffering of others.”...“We are living in the world and people are talking about it being global but it's not really true,” Kisaku said. “People have an ignorance of many things happening behind that wall.”’ -The Arts Paper
