by Brian | Sep 23, 2014 | Blog, Reviews
Reviews have been pouring in, and they have been incredibly positive about this brave, risk-taking show!
Buy tickets today!
Here’s the first batch, as of end of week 1:
“A hit … adroitly and powerfully staged by Brian Katz, one of the Bay Area’s best directors… It is a true ensemble production with each actor adding a quality performance to the whole doing justice to Vonnegut’s most popular work.” Kedar Adour, For All Events
“Dazzlingly mounted…is a challenging evening of theatre and Brian Katz and company pull this off with a grand style.” -Richard Connema, Talkin’ Broadway
“Collectively, the cast paints a compelling picture that reflects Vonnegut’s creation: a fusion of war story, bizarre science-fiction adventure and a quirky portrait of Americana” Leo Stutzin, The Huffington Post
“(This) version scores high with fans with the book since it focuses on some points the screen play missed. This is a windy fast play, 90-minute romp without intermission through Vonnegut’s nonlinear narrative. The cast is great … all the moments hit right on. All 3 Pilgrims – and the narrator “Man” make this a moving night of theatre.” -Vince Mediaa, Mediaa Film & Theatre Reviews
Buy tickets today!
by Brian | Mar 16, 2012 | A Bright Room Called Day, Blog, Reviews
Another review today, and just as amazing! Charles Kruger from Examiner.com has a lot to say about the politics and relevance of Kushner’s play, and what it means today. Plus he called it “gripping”, and that Custom Made is “one of the groups leading the way” with the “a reawakening of the importance of history and politics in the theatre.”
We couldn’t agree more.
Continue reading on Examiner.com Tony Kushner’s ‘A Bright Room Called Day’: Gripping theatre at CustomMade – San Francisco Theater | Examiner.com https://www.examiner.com/theater-in-san-francisco/tony-kushner-s-a-bright-room-called-day-gripping-theatre-at-custommade-review#ixzz1pJ1MUBPc
by Brian | Mar 16, 2012 | A Bright Room Called Day, Blog, Reviews
The reviews have started to roll in. Here’s BeyondChron.com’s Lee Hartgrave on A Bright Room Called Day It is a heck of a rave, here’s a highlight and then click the link below to read more!
“This is a play that is masterfully explosive. The political fiction can be very scary in this amazing gorgeous scenario. Kushner has a knack for words, as his play jumps around from poetry to prose …. The story is riveting, as it brings out all the human foibles that you can carry in a German bag of tricks in 1932. The exhilarating actors are moody, athletic. Complex and talented in this inspired work.”
Read the full review at https://www.beyondchron.org/depts/index.php?itemid=9981&catid=2#more
by Brian | Feb 2, 2012 | Little Brother, Reviews
Sam Hurwitt stopped by and said some very cool things about Little Brother. Great shout-outs to the cast, director and design team. We especially love the closing lines:
It’s a tense, power-packed play with some hilarious lines and stirring speeches, eloquent, touching and infuriating in all the right places. The show’s not just a pleasure to watch; it’s also a bit of due diligence that just may help preserve your democracy.
Read the entire review here!
by Brian | Jan 28, 2012 | Little Brother, Reviews
This article appeared on page E – 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle. That’s page 1 of Datebook. Awesome!
Little Brother: Drama. By Josh Costello, adapted from the novel by Cory Doctorow. Directed by Costello. Through Feb. 25. Custom Made Theatre Company, Gough Street Playhouse, 1620 Gough St., S.F. Two hours. $25-$32. (510) 207-5774. www.custommade.org.
“As you read this, drones are flying overhead,” warns a program note for Custom Made Theatre’s world premiere of “Little Brother.” Point well taken. Sure it’s science fiction, but the most sobering aspect of Josh Costello’s bracing adaption of Cory Doctorow’s best-selling young-adult novel may be how rapidly events have caught up with the 2008 book.
Not that the Bay Bridge has been destroyed in a terrorist attack, as in the story. Nor has Homeland Security set up a secret detention center on Treasure Island – Gitmo-by-the-bay – and begun “disappearing” thousands of local citizens.
But other developments in the near-future world of “Brother” – the continued erosion of civil liberties, the growth of public and private surveillance, the emergence of “leaderless” online resistance and the sudden eruption of youth-led mass movements from Cairo to Wall Street – had materialized before Costello’s dramatization opened last week at the Gough Street Playhouse. That’s one reason the show has generated enough well-deserved buzz to extend its run another two weeks.
Briskly staged by Costello, “Brother” is a fast-paced techie-political adventure upholstered in clever live and animated video projections and energized by Chris Houston’s score and Daunielle Rasmussen’s freewheeling choreography. It’s also, Doctorow fans be warned, a radically cut and altered version of the book, but one that retains its attitude and rabble-rousing message.
Performed with youthful conviction by three actors, “Brother” is not the story of 17-year-old Mission hacker Marcus (a magnetic Daniel Petzold) – as his companions keep reminding him – but of cataclysmic events as witnessed (and influenced) by him.
Those include some high-tech hacking, being secretly and brutally interrogated by Homeland Security, sparking a groundswell of cyber-grassroots resistance to the burgeoning security-police state and falling back into its hands. Marissa Keltie is compelling as his super-smart, very direct hacker rival turned dedicated partner and girlfriend.
Keltie and Cory Censoprano play all the other roles – teens, teachers, parents, cops, interrogators (chillingly), reporters and more. Some aren’t filled out or differentiated as well as they could be, and there are holes and lapses in the script. “Brother” takes a little while to pull you in, but once it does, the story and actors generate a momentum that’s hard to resist.
Costello succeeds best in interweaving the story’s thriller plot and its comically touching romance with its outspoken politics. By the perhaps too-wishful-thinking end, we’re all fired up to embrace the Bill of Rights – as radical as that document now seems.
E-mail Robert Hurwitt at [email protected].
This article appeared on page E – 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Read more: https://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/27/DDJS1MSQI2.DTL#ixzz1knWNv5Bd
by Brian | Jan 19, 2012 | Little Brother, Reviews
We had another reviewer at previews, and didn’t even know it. Surprises like these don’t suck, especially both reviewers were careful to point out the shows were previews (a bit of a taboo in the theatre community.)
But -> no harm, no foul, right? Its another rave, and is 5/5 stars. What a great start!
Here’s a highlight…
…the play stays true to the voices of its young characters, who are a convincing mixture of precocious intelligence, naïve idealism, and adolescent cynicism
