reviews

DIRECTING

Bondage by Star Finch/Alter Theater

“Director Elizabeth Carter skillfully matches Finch's poetic language with choreography and eerie-beautiful mimicry. The ending, a breathtaking collision of gothic melodrama, Shakespearean climax and art-house cinema, is gorgeously staged and stunningly unexpected.” -North Bay Bohemian

“Director Elizabeth Carter gives the play a compelling staging…There’s some haunting imagery in the play that gives it a ritualistic, almost fairy-tale-like quality at times.” -Marin Independant Journal

“Directed by Elizabeth Carter, the drama thrills, partly because it’s still so rare to see genuine bravery in theatrical depictions of race, partly because Finch has such a singular mode of expression.” -San Francisco Chronicle

for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf… by NTOZAKE SHANGE/AFRICAN American shakespeare co.

“Ntozake Shange’s 1975 choreopoem For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf lives again in a remarkable new production directed by Elizabeth Carter that bursts, vibrates and sings its stories of loss, joy, pain, strength and most of all, resilience.”-Theatre & Such

“What they say is at once powerful yet heartbreaking, as well as sassy, humorous, philosophical, poetic, and comical. A final note summed up by a quote from Director Elizabeth Carter: “For Colored Girls . . .  is a sistah circle, a ritual we allow ourselves a black women to exorcise our pain, be our whole complicated selves and celebrate our love for one another.  Through this we can heal ourselves for ourselves and shout ‘I found god in myself and I loved her/I loved her fiercely.’ “ -Theatrius

“Director Elizabeth Carter deftly orchestrates the scenes…”- For All Events

“…under the direction of Elizabeth Carter, brought both the dance and the terror. … the show lets joy mix with shame, biting irony with chilling vulnerability, grief and dread with self-love and the capacity to recognize and articulate beauty in a world that so often isn’t beautiful.” -San Francisco Chronicle

Participants/TheatreFirst

“In “A Sure Cure Lure Story,” by Aaron Loeb, marginalized people express their needswith effervescent clarity; but like a game of broken telephone, we hear their words garbled and accusatory….The dueling dialogues that ensue achieve Shakespearean extremes of hilarity and miscommunication, with desperation and pathos on all sides.” -San Francisco Chronicle