Des Moines
“Denis Johnson’s Des Moines outlines a mismatch between surfaces and soul…..the characters live lives that feel almost willfully marginal, but their psyches are shot through with deep and often numinous yearnings.” - The New Yorker
"There’s no more vivid, comic, tragic, and mesmerizing theatrical version of this fallen world than his final play Des Moines," - Esquire
"“★★★★ “SUPERB…brings Denis Johnson’s strange, unsettling play to comic life…a compellingly funny dark ride, especially as performed by this outstanding ensemble under Arin Arbus’ tonally precise direction.” - New York Stage Review
The Same Storm
"[The Same Storm] sheds warm light on the pandemic's darkest moments… it’s a welcome surprise to see Elaine May appear as one of the faces in writer-director Peter Hedges’ impressively diverse and starry ensemble" - Variety
"The Same Storm serves as an important time capsule of how we felt and behaved in the worst of times." - The Wrap
"The best drama the pandemic has produced so far…. effectively articulates how our isolation has only made us all more essential to each other — whether we’re doing the work we’re paid for, or the work that we’re born into. As goes the Damian Barr quote from which this movie gets its title: “We’re not all in the same boat. We are all in the same storm." - Indie Wire
Farinelli and The King
"Watching Mr. Rylance’s Philippe experience Farinelli’s voice, we hear what he hears. And an actor and a singer temporarily turn a night at the theater in an anxious city into an Eden beyond worldly care, all the more precious for its evanescence." -New York Times
"An enjoyable piece of magic for theatergoers during this holiday season. It is a delightfully charming play...The Belasco is transformed into a dazzling setting in the Kingdom of Spain... Davies doppelganger to actor Crane’s tender Farnelli spoiled the audience for any other countertenor they will ever hear. Rylance’s guileless interpretation of King Phillipe proves to serve the suffering King by eliciting compassion and patience." -Huffington Post
"This is a play about the curative qualities of music. While it would be satisfying enough to simply embrace Rylance’s mastery and the glorious works of (mostly) Handel, there is a more significant message...Music can make you feel better." -Newsday
"Fresh and Absorbing" -New York Times
"A decidedly strong girl-power message." -LA Times
"A small-town drama that turns the Salem witchcraft trials into a tenuous metaphor for the intense pressures brought to bear on today’s female youth... the strongest assets here are the young actors: Cuthrell is an affecting standout as the gloomy Catherine." -Variety
"The Sisterhood of Night is so unusually moving and penetrating because it refuses to cloud its emotions in distancing irony, anger, or nihilism. The film has a cleansing sense of earnestness that parallels the sisterhood's yearning for acceptance and connection." -Slant Magazine
Photo Feature by Olivia Bee -Rookie Magazine
Vara A Blessing
"Transcendence in action" -Hollywood Reporter
"Full of flare and exuberance through its stunning cinematography, dance sequences and fabulous use of color." -Screen Daily Review
"Ravishing visuals and an abundance of Indian dance and music provide a sensory tonic" -Variety
"An atmosphere of divine play" -Tricycle
"A love poem to classical Indian dance" -Harper’s Magazine
Slut The Play
"These girls know their bodies, the better to tell us something about ourselves." -The New Yorker
4 Stars! -TimeOut NY
"Engrossing" -New York Magazine
"All female high-schoolers make waves" -Teen Vogue
"The audience consensus is simple: People need to see this." -PolicyMic
Meek's Cutoff
Top Films of the Year Lists include The New York Times, The Guardian, and Cashiers Du Cinema
"A New American Classic" -Time Magazine
"...a tough, quiet revelation of a movie...a bracingly original foray into territory that remains, in every sense, unsettled." -NY Times Critics Pick
"It is an American independent in the truest sense of the word, and it may well be the best homegrown movie we'll see this year." -Slate Magazine
"Reichardt has crafted a haunted dream of a movie to get lost in." -Rolling Stone
"Reichardt strips away the sentimental psychology of the women's movie as ruthlessly as she undercuts the hyper-masculine romance of the Western." -NPR
"Meek's Cutoff is a film that works masterfully with space, time, and history." -Salon Magazine
"Meticulous and immersive, Meek's Cutoff feels like history in three dimensions." -The Onion A/V Club"Michelle Williams Shines in Ambitious, Gorgeous, Meek's Cutoff." -Movieline.com
"Grade A" - Entertainment Weekly
Jesus' Son
One of the top ten films of the year: NY Times, LA Times, CNN
"One of the best films of the year" - Roger Ebert
"One of the top ten Independent Films of the Year" -Rolling Stone
Winner: Best Actor Billy Crudup - Paris Film Festival
Winner: Ecumenical Award - Venice Film Festival
Winner: Little Golden Lion - Venice Film Festival
"In a sea of one-note symphonies, this touching feature is bleak and comic, heartbreaking and affirmative, romantic and tragic, gimlet-eyed and sympathetic, all at the same time." -LA Times
"Jesus' Son surprises me with moments of wry humor, poignancy, sorrow and wildness. It has a sequence as funny as I've seen this year, and as harrowing, and it ends in a bittersweet minor key." -Roger Ebert
"Mr. Crudup plays a lost, irresponsible and stupid young man with discipline and intelligence, using every muscle in his face to suggest the unreachable emotion and the accidental goodness of his character. His F.H. is authentically creepy and unexpectedly charming. If you saw him on the street, you wouldn't know whether to cross to the other side, give him a quarter or take him home with you." -NY Times
Shoppers Carried By Escalators Into The Flames
"Explicitly about the interface of what has been and what is now, Shoppers also takes as a given the collision of everyday bullshit with flashpoints of cruelty and catastrophe." -Village Voice
Feature: Denis Johnson, playwright -New York Magazine
What You Will
"What You Will makes Shakespeare as familiar as breathing, which is yet another beguiling aspect to Rees' delightful show." -San Francisco Chronicle
"You couldn't ask for a more charming host through the world of Shakespeare and the theater. Rees is not only a brilliant actor but also a warm, wonderful human being (or at least plays one convincingly on stage)." -San Francisco Examiner