Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties by Jen Silverman
Mad Horse Theatre Company
Mad Horse Theatre Company
"Hannah Cordes directs an uproarious and moving production...As soon as Collective Rage ended, I wanted to watch it again.
Mad Horse’s ensemble of Betties is electric. Their swift, deft pacing is riddled with delicious inflections – an infinitesimal pause in a compliment, the quick turn of a voice from a whisper to a yowl. Each Betty begins seeming like a trope but opens into a fascinating, fluid person seeking happiness, love, and to be seen....It’s gloriously cathartic. I left Collective Rage feeling like I’d just had a massage, a sauna, a drunken wrestling match, a spiritual epiphany, and a dance party at Bubba’s. Which is to say: So. Much. Better. Spend your own ticklishly transformative night with the Betties. You’ll feel better, too." - The Portland Phoenix
"The show featured an uproarious yet nuanced ensemble of “Betties”...under Hannah Cordes’ vibrant and gleeful direction. As the Betties vented, sparred, considered their vaginas, staged a play-within-a-play, and ate a mound of rainbow ice cream, “Collective Rage” offered us a vision of radical tenderness, as messy and colorful as it gets." - The Portland Phoenix, "Highlights from the Year in Theater"
Mad Horse’s ensemble of Betties is electric. Their swift, deft pacing is riddled with delicious inflections – an infinitesimal pause in a compliment, the quick turn of a voice from a whisper to a yowl. Each Betty begins seeming like a trope but opens into a fascinating, fluid person seeking happiness, love, and to be seen....It’s gloriously cathartic. I left Collective Rage feeling like I’d just had a massage, a sauna, a drunken wrestling match, a spiritual epiphany, and a dance party at Bubba’s. Which is to say: So. Much. Better. Spend your own ticklishly transformative night with the Betties. You’ll feel better, too." - The Portland Phoenix
"The show featured an uproarious yet nuanced ensemble of “Betties”...under Hannah Cordes’ vibrant and gleeful direction. As the Betties vented, sparred, considered their vaginas, staged a play-within-a-play, and ate a mound of rainbow ice cream, “Collective Rage” offered us a vision of radical tenderness, as messy and colorful as it gets." - The Portland Phoenix, "Highlights from the Year in Theater"
The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
Fenix Theatre Co.
"A giddy al fresco production...This “Comedy” is a scrappy and effusively creative delight of physical comedy and silliness...It’s all ridiculous and great. And one of the greatest delights of this production is how stratospherically Harrison and Micalizio manage to suspend our disbelief, slipping seamlessly between utterly different sets of human beings...The whole cast is all-in on the absurdities, fleet and nimble and excited to draw us into the chaos...In all, there’s much to celebrate here." - The Portland Phoenix
"It’s a production tailor-made for the park setting where plays must compete with distractions from any number of natural and manmade sources. When the lines occasionally get swallowed up in ambient noise, mimed passages and sight gags are still there to please. The performance space expands from the bandshell stage around and into the audience to bring a sense of up-close involvement for the folks seated on blankets or in lawn chairs." - The Portland Press Herald
"It’s a production tailor-made for the park setting where plays must compete with distractions from any number of natural and manmade sources. When the lines occasionally get swallowed up in ambient noise, mimed passages and sight gags are still there to please. The performance space expands from the bandshell stage around and into the audience to bring a sense of up-close involvement for the folks seated on blankets or in lawn chairs." - The Portland Press Herald
Rabbit Rabbit by Shannon Wade & Nolan Ellsworth
Maine Playwrights Festival
"Ellsworth and Wade’s idiosyncratic script seeps compellingly between the odd, the comedic, and the poignant, and the cast is all-in on inhabiting this weirdo vibe, all the way through the show’s final swerve of an ending – which is surprisingly, tenderly affecting."
The Portland Phoenix
The Portland Phoenix
Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl
Fenix Theatre Co.
"Fenix Theatre’s ‘Eurydice’: a veritable feast for the senses...The audience was rapt throughout, leaning in...The audience’s job was made easier thanks to the strength of this production, paced exquisitely by director Hannah Cordes: At Sunday’s performance, the sun dipped and darkened the park just as Eurydice descended to the Underworld. The small ensemble created a cohesive time and place from disparate worlds; Ruhl’s “real world” is nearly as strange as the Underworld, and her time is recognizable but unnameable." - The Portland Press Herald
"Don’t miss Fenix Theatre’s spectacular Eurydice...As water streams and drips, the way between the two worlds in Eurydice is more fluid than you might think. And the worlds of the living and the dead are both, in a sense, public spaces — realms we all must navigate. What better place to practice the watery rites of these worlds, then, than out in the open, in our shared urban space of stones, trees, and the pool where delighted kids splash? Fenix’s perennial outdoor staging also harkens back to the very roots of Eurydice, director Hannah Cordes notes, as “Greek theatre was born outside, and is designed to be experienced alongside nature.” - The Conway Daily Sun
"As individual as the performances are, the actors click when they have to, so that everyone’s idiosyncrasies fit like pieces of a puzzle." - The Portland Press Herald
"Don’t miss Fenix Theatre’s spectacular Eurydice...As water streams and drips, the way between the two worlds in Eurydice is more fluid than you might think. And the worlds of the living and the dead are both, in a sense, public spaces — realms we all must navigate. What better place to practice the watery rites of these worlds, then, than out in the open, in our shared urban space of stones, trees, and the pool where delighted kids splash? Fenix’s perennial outdoor staging also harkens back to the very roots of Eurydice, director Hannah Cordes notes, as “Greek theatre was born outside, and is designed to be experienced alongside nature.” - The Conway Daily Sun
"As individual as the performances are, the actors click when they have to, so that everyone’s idiosyncrasies fit like pieces of a puzzle." - The Portland Press Herald
Willy's Excellent Adventure by David Susman
Maine Playwrights Festival
"As directed by Hannah Cordes, the style is just short of absurd as Laura Sacks Morris, Tom Handel, Jared Mongeau, Adam Ferguson, James Herrera and Tom Gostanian play out author David Susman’s vision of an America with all those stuffy definitions of success and failure thrown out the window." - The Portland Press Herald
Various Productions: Audience Reactions and Feedback
"The show was engaging from beginning to end!"
"Every one of the performers were amazing! Most fun we’ve had at a fringe show this year!"
"A must see!"
"It was beautiful, playful, and honest. I loved it!"
"Congratulations on a masterful production. Brilliant staging and use of the space. Thank you to you and the cast for a wonderful show. One of the best evenings of theatre I’ve spent in Maine! You were brave to do the Sarah Ruhl piece [in Deering Oaks]; I was so excited to see it and you did not let me down. Hopefully it will open up more daring and innovative productions to follow."
"Congratulations on a beautiful show! I'll come back and see it again, for sure. I felt like you made the script come alive in such a graceful and deep way! I’ve read the play before but it was a transforming experience to see it done the way you all did!"
"I thought it was absolutely terrific! The acting was superb, the costumes were very creative, the "sets" were so simple yet so evocative of time and place, the choreography was amazing. I enjoyed every minute of it. And to have birds accompanying the play from the canopy was amazing!"
"What an incredible show! The location was, indeed, magical. The students just owned it all, the language, the location, the million wonderful choices. I had a wonderful afternoon thanks to your hard work - incredibly beautiful work."
"Total delight"
"Your web series is so fun! So nice to see these amazing pops of creativity abounding during this time. Definitely brightens the heart that's for sure!"
"That was the best 50 minutes of my life"
"Every one of the performers were amazing! Most fun we’ve had at a fringe show this year!"
"A must see!"
"It was beautiful, playful, and honest. I loved it!"
"Congratulations on a masterful production. Brilliant staging and use of the space. Thank you to you and the cast for a wonderful show. One of the best evenings of theatre I’ve spent in Maine! You were brave to do the Sarah Ruhl piece [in Deering Oaks]; I was so excited to see it and you did not let me down. Hopefully it will open up more daring and innovative productions to follow."
"Congratulations on a beautiful show! I'll come back and see it again, for sure. I felt like you made the script come alive in such a graceful and deep way! I’ve read the play before but it was a transforming experience to see it done the way you all did!"
"I thought it was absolutely terrific! The acting was superb, the costumes were very creative, the "sets" were so simple yet so evocative of time and place, the choreography was amazing. I enjoyed every minute of it. And to have birds accompanying the play from the canopy was amazing!"
"What an incredible show! The location was, indeed, magical. The students just owned it all, the language, the location, the million wonderful choices. I had a wonderful afternoon thanks to your hard work - incredibly beautiful work."
"Total delight"
"Your web series is so fun! So nice to see these amazing pops of creativity abounding during this time. Definitely brightens the heart that's for sure!"
"That was the best 50 minutes of my life"