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Press coverage

our shows hit it big in new york and beyond

“Suddenly the Rep is one of the Bay Area’s leading export companies,” exclaimed the San Francisco Chronicle in a recent story that celebrated how our shows have been traveling to cities nationwide. Here are the rave reviews for shows that you saw locally before they were reborn abroad…

 

2006: Broadway, off Broadway and beyond

Bridge & Tunnel: Tony Taccone’s Broadway debut

After the stunning success of Surface Transit, Artistic Director Tony Taccone teamed up again with solo performer Sarah Jones for Bridge & Tunnel. In 2005, they workshopped the show with audiences at Berkeley Rep before bringing it to Broadway in January 2006. The show became a huge hit, extending for five months and winning a Tony Award for its star.

  • “REMARKABLE…a sweet-spirited valentine to New York City…smoothly directed by Tony Taccone…Admire, please. Gasp and applaud to your heart’s content.”—New York Times
  • “FRESH and forward-thinking…The world could use more of the wit, warmth and profound empathy that Jones’ Bridge is built on.”—USA Today
  • “DAZZLING…poignant and powerful…a generous, funny valentine to the kaleidoscopic, cacophonous melting pot of New York…after further workshopping at Berkeley Rep (where Taccone is artistic director), the show has been seamlessly fine-tuned.”—Variety
  • “The nicest show on Broadway…a welcome-to-New York destination event.”—New York Newsday
  • “AMAZING…hilarious…accomplished with rapid-fire speed thanks to Tony Taccone’s efficient direction.”—Associated Press
  • “The best new play on Broadway…rich, boisterous, and enormously touching…Director Tony Taccone uses Jones’ lanky body, supple alto, and hard-to-pin-down ethnicity to masterful effect.”—New York Sun
  • “In focusing on the immigrant experience, Ms. Jones is honoring anew, and embodying in theatrical form, the durable dream that keeps drawing immigrants to America…it happens to be the subject of that popular performance piece that has been playing in New York Harbor for more than a century now. That one is also a solo show, starring a big green dame with a torch. Ms. Jones’s Bridge & Tunnel is naturally somewhat smaller in scale, but it’s a worthy sequel. A lot funnier, too.”—New York Times

At the end of 2006, Charles Isherwood of the New York Times included the show in his Top 10 list of the year’s best plays: “I could probably fill a 10-worst list with solo shows, but Sarah Jones’s ebullient panorama of the immigrant experience in New York City made me forget all those endless 90-minute nights of angst-ridden self-indulgence. The ease with which Ms. Jones slipped into a dozen different souls was matched by a rare gift for defining a character with a precise, indelible sound or image: the crook of a wagging finger or the musical lilt of an accent.”—New York Times

Taccone, Kushner and Sendak take Brundibar to New York City

After making it a holiday hit at Berkeley Rep in 2005, Artistic Director Tony Taccone brought Brundibar to New Haven and New York City in 2006. His stunning collaboration with Tony Kushner and Maurice Sendak played to sold-out houses and was nominated for two Drama Desk Awards.

  • “A little musical charmer…lively comic performances…evocative sets…Mr. Kushner and his collaborators, the celebrated children’s book author Maurice Sendak and Kris Stone, who designed the production, and the director, Tony Taccone, allow this essentially frolicsome opera to sing for itself…Euan Morton, of Taboo fame, tears into the tasty role of Brundibar with infectious relish…as the unlikely survival of this opera suggests, the joy and beauty that music and art express can outlast evil even when they cannot defeat it.”—New York Times
  • “Like all good fairy tales, Brundibar is composed of lightness and shadows, both elements scrupulously observed in Tony Taccone’s gorgeously designed and remarkably well choreographed production.”—Variety
  • “Tony Kushner has now adapted the piece with tender intelligence…the peerless illustrator Maurice Sendak has contributed designs that bulge with lumpy loveliness…Brundibar does not skimp on entertainment—but neither does it shy from the shadows of its history.”—Time Out New York
  • “light, flavorful fun…Tyranny has proven remarkably resilient, of course, but so, thank God, has Brundibar.”—Newsday
  • “delightful…irresistible…an experience as ineffably moving as it is enjoyable…The production has been done at Yale Repertory Theatre and Berkeley Repertory Theatre, whose artistic director, Tony Taccone, re-creates his lovely staging”—Backstage
  • “brilliantly played by Euan Morton…we never lose sight of Hoffmeister and Krása’s intention: to show the power of the community, and the grit to be found in hope. Maurice Sendak’s beautiful sets add to the reality and the fairy-tale nature of it all.”—The New Yorker
  • “Off-Broadway’s most fascinating new show…Brundibar is a unique, smart and very enjoyable musical play that will speak to children, intrigue adults and entertain nearly all of us.”—AM New York

Les Waters brings Eurydice back to life

After making the show a local success in 2004, Associate Artistic Director Les Waters took Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice to Yale Repertory Theatre in 2006. The show made Charles Isherwood’s list of the Top 10 plays of the year in the New York Times. Read the entire rave review. (4.5MB PDF)

  • “DEVASTATINGLY LOVELY…realized, impeccably, by the director Les Waters…it may just be the most moving exploration of the theme of loss that the American theater has produced since the events of Sept. 11, 2001…you may find yourself taken to heights of emotion (sad depths, really) that theater too rarely achieves. Maybe it was all the water imagery, but I fought off tears for half the play…Like all fine poems, songs and paintings, it’s a love letter to the world that deserves to be remembered for a good long time.”—New York Times
  • “POWERFUL…Along Eurydice’s journey as imagined by Ruhl and realized by Waters are moments of aching beauty…heartfelt performaces, individual scenes of exquisite beauty and some stunning production feats…Ruhl’s leading characters captivate the audience at hello, which helps later as both go to hell and (almost) back.”—Variety
  • “PAINFULLY HUMAN and exquisitely otherworldly…A stunningly beautiful production of a profoundly resonate play by an infinitely astute playwright…Director Waters’ sensitive staging [makes] this one of the most simple yet heartrending love scenes on any stage in an elephant’s memory…an exemplary production of a such a mature and fresh work.”—New Haven Register
  • “Eurydice is GREAT THEATER…What a mythical, magical and sometimes watery enchantment…Director Les Waters reinforces the combined realms of Ruhl’s imaginative and freewheeling script [in] a bravura mix of linguistic, acting, costume and musical styles.”—Hartford Courant
  • “PRAISE THE GODS…an unexpected tale of love, loss, rebirth, and temporary shelter…the true wonder of Eurydice is not its sustained illusions, marvelous as they are, but the depth of the emotions it channels…endlessly surprising.”—New Haven Advocate

 

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