PRESS
Nominated for Five Tony Awards, including Best New Play and Best Director
Tony Awards
Takes you by surprise over and over again... It is, at first blush, a raucously foul-mouthed little farce... But scratch the surface and you'll find a dead serious black comedy... directed with ultra-precise comic aplomb. Every joke explodes at the right millisecond staggeringly funny and promising without limit.
Wall Street Journal
Two Drama League Award nominations including Outstanding Production of a Play
Drama League
Darkly delightful... Inspires goosebumps... Flat out hilarious! Mr. Askins' black comedy about the divided human soul stands out as a misfit both merry and scary...explosively funny... a true tour de force... under the finely honed direction of Moritz von Stuelpnagel.
New York Times
Four Lucille Lortel Award nominations including Best Revival and Best Director
Lucille Lortel Awards
So ridiculously raunchy, irreverent and funny it's bound to leave you sore from laughing... It can't be outdone — and shouldn't be missed!
New York Daily News
Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Best New Play
Off-Broadway Alliance
Moritz von Stuelpnagel directs with a flair for allowing the play's little absurdities to reveal themselves naturally and a skill with onstage physicality.
Associated Press
Praise to the angels! The freshest and funniest Broadway comedy in years, a welcome breath of foul air... Directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel, the production maintains a fine balance of satire and humanity... You may even feel a little exorcised. It entertains the devil out of you.
Time Out New York
SDC Joe A. Callaway Award nomination for direction
Stage Directors and Choreographers Society
A gleefully heathen comedy... scabrously funny that steadily darkens into suspense and Grand Guignol horror... The show also brings a welcome breath of fresh air via director Moritz von Stuelpnagel... Stuelpnagel and his terrific cast tackle this darkly funny material with a shrewd balance of heightened reality, warped sitcom and underlying pathos, landing all the jokes while never denying the genuine sorrow and anger.
The Hollywood Reporter
Outer Critics Circle John Gassner Award nomination for Best New Play
Outer Critics Circle
Nominated for Three Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Play
Tony Awards
Playing an aging matinee idol in the bouncy new revival of Present Laughter, Mr. Kline blissfully plies the witty athleticism and derring-do that won him two Tony Awards and an Oscar. The combination of artifice and rue, of elegant and fretful heart, is the essence of Coward... Pulling off a great Coward, with its filigree contradictions is a rare accomplishment!
New York Times
Not only is Mr. Kline's performance a triumph, but this revival is the best staging of a Coward play — any Coward play — that I've ever seen. Essendine is played for truth, not as a caricature, which simultaneously makes him interesting and — yes — even funnier. Mr. Stuelpnagel's staging proves him to be a master of stage comedy, physical and otherwise. Nevertheless, it's really something to see how he puts Mr. Kline and the supporting cast through their comic paces.
Wall Street Journal
I've just learned what it takes to create an absolutely splendid revival of Noël Coward's Present Laughter. Step 1: Cast Kevin Kline; Step 2: Hire a director whose name sounds like a punchline Coward might have considered — Moritz von Stuelpnagel. But not any Moritz will do. Find the one who helmed the equally hilarious but tonally rather different Hand to God. Stuelpnagel's assured, charged staging serves the play and characters.
Time Out New York
At the risk of joining the critics crew who toss out the adjective "magnificent" far too frequently, I'm going to say that in Stuelpnagel's revival Kline is magnificent. Is there an encomium that tops "magnificent"? If so, Kline is that, too. And more... A production nipping at the clicking heels of perfection. It has been said of Noël Coward that he was "industry in caps and bells." With Present Laughter those bells are ringing with the fleeful persistence of Big Ben's.
Huffington Post
Talk about a match made in heaven! Kevin Kline was born to do Noël Coward, and his casting yields a performance of unimpeachable skill, made all the more delectable by its lightness of touch... Stuelpnagel steadily ups the tempo orchestrating a giddy circus by the time all the conflicts come to light. But once the mayhem dies down, the director and Kline allow those late scenes to breathe beautifully, finding the poignancy of his inability to be alone. It's a pleasure to see old-fashioned entertainment like this done with such style!
The Hollywood Reporter
More than the previous two revivals, the production takes seriously the mess that radiates from Garry's narcissism, and with that seriousness refuels the hilarity of the farce that overlays it. In the hands of Kline and a vividly intelligent supporting cast, it's a great and frank and still modern comedy. The scene in which he finally calls out the sexual subterfuges of his comrades — and definitively rids himself of his own extraneous women — successfully counterweights the plays many trivialities.
Vulture
Directed with classy restraint by Stuelpnagel... this is a revival that, despite a cast of farce experts, treats the broad moments as rare offhand treats that flash suddenly on characters as momentary glimpses of humanity's silliness. This production has one absolutely critical element for Coward. Style.
Newsday
Noël Coward's sublime comedy of manners is as delightful, delicious, and "delovely" as ever. Stuelpnagel does exceptional work with his ensemble, maximizing the manic comedy while while allowing his leads to rise above type. There is humanity among these crazy characters and far more depth than you'd expect.
NY1
Two Drama League Award nominations including Outstanding Revival of a Play
Drama League
Is it chance or synchronicity that brings Bernhardt/Hamlet, a muscular comedy about a woman unbound, at this grim and transitional moment in gender politics? So clever it uplifts, so timely it hurts... A deluxe Roundabout production, a breakneck backstage comedy, swiveling among scenes of romance, Rialto gossip, rehearsal drollery and literary exploration... One of the most thrilling endings I've seen in years... Bernhardt/Hamlet, directed with wit and verve, is a deep-inside love letter to the theatre as a kind of laboratory in which experiments in both art and equality are possible.
New York Times
Nominated for Two Tony Awards
Tony Awards
Lively, weaponized, and richly caustic... a fascinating reminder that before any social change becomes mainstream, someone has to be a pioneer, and that someone often twists painfully in a storm until there's enough supportive wind beneath her wings.
Chicago Tribune
A lush, brightly executed showpiece... when Janet McTeer strides in, she crackles with the vitality, sensuality, and flytrap wit of a genuinely lived-in diva.
Entertainment Weekly
Under Stuelpnagel's tightly choreographed direction, this solid cast of characters encircle Bernhardt like planets following their star. And blazing stars they certainly are!
Variety
Whatever combination of passion, narcissism, and bravery swirl to form an actor's decision to tackle Hamlet must merit a spot in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Short of that, we will have to rely on the wondrous Janet McTeer's star turn in Theresa Rebeck's spirited, funny new play Bernhardt/Hamlet to guide us up theatre's Mount Everest.
Deadline
Four Outer Critics Circle Award nominations including Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play
Outer Critics Circle
The production by Moritz von Stuelpnagel goes all out on realism and energy. The fresh smells wafting from the stage are mouthwatering. Esparza has great fun playing the kind of guy tough enough to sport a tattoo of pig parts, and sensitive enough to experience rapture while slicing an onion with a handcrafted Japanese knife. More important, he resists the temptation to make Harry more sympathetic than he should be.
New York Times
The second act of Theresa Rebeck's new comedy Seared begins with a six minute scene containing not a single line of dialogue. It may be the sexiest scene you will see on stage this year... Seared is a fast-paced workplace comedy that even non-foodies will find hilarious... Under the superb, precisely choreographed direction of Moritz von Stuelpnagel, the actors go through their frenetic verbal and physical paces like expert farceurs.
The Hollywood Reporter
The fun part is how Esparza and Mason match Rodriguez's flamboyance in defending their respective characters' fiefdoms. Moritz von Stuelpnagel directs, and if there has been a more fired-up ensemble on the New York stage this year, I haven't seen it.
The Wrap
Drop everything and see Seared! One of the best new plays in New York, and a welcome reminder what fluent, sharp-as-hell writing and alive, intelligent direction can achieve. Seared is as generous a play as it is clever, hilarious and finally piercing.
Daily Beast
Rebeck knows exactly how to ramp up the shouting and plating, how to pepper every exchange heavily with conflict. She and Stuelpnagel are a good match in the physical comedy department; both are good at seasoning a show with door swinging farce, an energy that keeps the action moving.
Vulture
Drama League Award nomination for Outstanding Production of a Play
Drama League
The familiar, whitewashed story of Pilgrims and Native Americans chowing down together gets a delicious roasting from expert farceurs... That this aspect of the satire works as well as it does is a credit to the swift pacing of Stuelpnagel's and the acuity of his casting... Satire doesn't get much richer!
New York Times
Very, very funny... Under the expert direction of Moritz von Stuelpnagel, the performers' uproarious turns make their characters as endearing as they are daffy. All that makes The Thanksgiving Play something for which to be truly thankful.
The Hollywood Reporter
An uproarious elementary school backstager, it is by far the funniest satire yet written about the woke warriors sleepwalking through American society... Director Stuelpnagel provides an energetic staging that skirts the line between ridiculous and all-too-real.
TheaterMania
Extraordinarily intimate physically, and beautifully staged by the director... I found the play exhilarating. It suggests just how much richer the theater will be when it is truly open to artists of all kinds.
New York Times
A sharp, modern-day reinvention... Director Stuelpnagel is adept at toggling between humor and heartbreak, as is the impressively diverse six-member cast.
Time Out New York
Mike Lew's brilliantly imaginative Teenage Dick... starring an impressive Gregg Mozgala as Richard... is every bit as tragic and gruesome as in the original [Richard III].
Newsday
Nominated for an Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Best New Play
Off-Broadway Alliance
Nominated for a Drama League Award for Outstanding Production of a Play
Drama League
The production has style to spare... directed with pedal-to-the-floor intensity! Inventive and stylish! The cast members fling themselves into the dizzy frolics with terrific verve!
New York Times
One of the most delightfully original comedies to show up in these parts for far too long a stretch... an effervescent party favor... Just call this an outstanding ensemble, and bow low to Director Moritz von Stuelpnagel for seeing that they are outstanding. Look forward to whatever he does next and after that and after that.
Huffington Post
Very, very funny! The staging is masterful in its breathlessly paced, controlled chaos!
The Hollywood Reporter
A playful, tongue-in-cheek comedy... under Stuelpnagel's effectively whirlwind direction!
Associated Press
Directed with inventive physicality and humor, the cleverly designed production makes entertaining grist of Penny's spiky interplay with the other cyclists... The affable cast keeps all this engaging in a goofy cartoon way.
New York Times
Easily one of the better new plays I've seen in a long time... Unfolds into a deeper meditation on commitment and love, tourism, the brevity of life, and finding an identity in the act of acknowledging one's responsibility to others... Lew's largely realistic script is full of verve, and the production is expertly brought off by Stuelpnagel, who taps into the play's lighthearted comedy and its more perplexed somberness.
Village Voice
A darkly humorous take on the cross-country, self-discovery journey... A refreshing and intelligent exploration of millennial malaise and its itchy place within the American generational drama... Adroitly captures the cross-country genre in its own uniquely cartoonish way... Deftly walks the line between ridiculous and deadly serious... Director Stuelpnagel hits all the comic beats in Lew's script, keeping the play zooming along like a well-oiled huffy.
TheaterMania