“In Intralia, the weird park, you walk but the scenes are staged in your mind’s eye and mind’s ear. A participatory show, but in a solitary and covert way.”

“Take a poetic journey through Prospect Park. We recommend an interpretive sound walk to take this weekend.”

“‘Aloes,’ fully explained in William Steinberger’s excellent program note, is noteworthy for its poetic unity. Get to the theater early enough to read the program note before the lights go down.

Once you’ve done so, you’ll be ready to immerse yourself in one of the finest revivals of an Athol Fugard play that I’ve had the good luck to see.”

“Or, An Astronaut Play is a Venus-sized theatrical piece which provides Jupiter-sized pleasure.

While this play is nominally about a space race, larger questions about life, fairness, ambiguity and privilege orbit around these characters. What makes Or, An Astronaut Play so intriguing is its tone and structure. The lightness of the dialogue suggests a witty little trifle filled with dashes of absurdism. The themes are not heavy handed but instead float in the vast void for the listener to absorb.

Izmir Ickbal’s effective and sleekly science fictional set design and Bailey Costa’s lighting design nicely frame this story and its various locations. As directed by William Steinberger, the clear use and movement of four chairs makes the many scene changes transition smoothly. All four actors deliver fine performances. Each evolves quickly and often in a quirky manner. The tone is consistent - funny and thoughtful - with an underlying punch of knowledge gained through life experience. The tone is neither too jokey nor too serious. Balanced like life, I guess.”

“Director William Steinberger steers the cast deftly through the loopy scenes, as logic, time, and credibility are thrown overboard, and absurdism holds sway. ”

“A lively cast comprised of Harrison Unger, Caturah Brown, Tay Bass and Jonathan Cruz deliver exceptional performances during Or, An Astronaut Play.

A smart production! Director William Steinberger’s expertly fast-paced presentation makes the piece visually appealing. Izmir Ickbal’s spare gray scenic design achieves a cool futuristic look that’s enhanced by Rebecca LeVine’s simple yet effective props and spacy graphic design. Lighting designer Bailey Costa and sound designer Brian Hickey’s crafty contributions add a science fiction-style sheen. A selection of well-chosen street clothes are the hallmarks of Barbara Erin Delo’s fine costume design.”

“A simply told yet multi-layered play engaging four students in a competition for a prized position in a space endeavor. We left discussing the impact of self-actualization on one’s life, sources of self-motivation (or lack of), determination, relationships, entitlement, and life purpose and continued the conversation the next day. Bravo!”

“Or, An Astronaut Play raises important questions about America’s ostensible meritocracy, and it does so through the compelling lens of four well-drawn individuals looking for a place in the universe. The production make excellent use of color in its lighting design, and the set is appealingly clean and minimalist. All four actors bring notable depth to their characters, such as Brown skillfully showing Daria snapping her protective public face back into place on multiple occasions and including Cruz’s primarily comic Paul, who has a very funny scene as Claire and Tom’s reluctant go-between. The cast also creates clear chemistry among the characters, whether it is in the details of Tom and Claire’s relationship under increasing stress or those of Claire and Daria’s burgeoning bond. So buckle in with these four would-be cosmic travelers: the internet said so. ”

“The actors all gave quite entertaining performances. The staging of the show was also very well done. Steinberger utilized every corner of the space.

The set was another standout of the play, beautifully designed by Izmir Ickbal. It created a simple yet futuristic look that caught the eye yet was subtle enough to engulf you in the world. With futuristic lighting including many hanging lamps, I was really able to immerse myself in the piece.”

“A fluffy ball of summer fun!

The story of Marviaux’s ‘La Dispute’ is presented through a Tinder-esque smartphone app, as you (the player) construct a dating profile while also spying on the unfaithful lovebirds of the cast as they send cheeky DMs and video chat with each other.

The base plot is a simple bet between a prince and his lover: who tends to cheat first, men or women? By getting four of their hottest subjects together, they seek to find out the answer, while also trying to stir the pot and build love triangles.

Presented with a world of pretty, narcissistic oddballs, it’s a delight to dive into the gossipy chat boards and anonymously post ‘oh honey’ or take duckface selfies in order to insert yourself within the narrative. The fun of the experience and the innovation of a dating app being used as a theatrical platform deserve attention and praise. ”

“Steinberger’s interactive production obliterates the usual boundary between audience and performer, allowing theatergoers to not only witness the divide between servant and master, but to actually take part in it. ”

“What InVersion’s Miss Julie stresses is the power shifts in the play - the give-and-take about who is the servant and who the master. It also smartly generates a fair amount of heat when Smith and Darrow both approach and avoid flirtation. Not that a modern townhouse can’t generate its own, but some forms of energy are always in fashion, no matter the setting.”

“Gregor is hectic, adaptable, ripe for intellectual debate, and invitingly weird. The look is ragged, haphazard, and surprisingly colorful, which was just what Steinberger was looking for.”

“This production is a physical theatre production with heightened emotions employing a range of satisfying theatrical devices. Inner monologues, role changing, puppetry, and gender reversal make for a rich, layered theatrical rainbow cake. Director William Steinberger has created a kind of a ‘Brechtian’ experience where the master of ceremonies arrives to distance us from the emotionality of the sad story we are witnessing. He has cleverly crafted a truly avant-garde world full of messy family discourse and the chaotic fallout of a devolving man. The stage was left in magnificent disarray, highlighting the explosive aftermath of a traumatic event. He has orchestrated a really freakish circus sideshow, inciting compulsive viewing.

This emerging theater company must be commended for making their own work with such enormous energy and infectious optimism.”

“Combining passages of historical narrative and personal biography with 20th Century abstraction, the six creator-performers, directed by Will Steinberger, successfully interweave characters and episodes from the last days of the decade-long siege of ancient Troy with the relationship between [Cy] Twombly and fellow artist Robert Rauschenberg. … With eloquent movements, evocative sound, haunting live music, dramatic lighting, and a few simple props, they compare the gestural techniques of modern painting to the passionate acts of lovers and the hand-to-hand combat of ancient battles; the paint and canvas of the studio to the blood and shroud of a fallen combatant on the battlefield; and the horrors and heroics of war to the struggles of ‘great warrior’ artists to create ‘art that matters.’

It’s clever, insightful, and compelling.”

“‘My God! This craze for explication!’

So says a character in Samuel Beckett’s Catastrophe, one of the four short plays that make up InVersion Theatre’s new presentation, Shepard/Beckett. If you have a ‘craze for explication’—or, in other words, if you prefer realism to symbolism—the works of Beckett and Sam Shepard may not be for you; Beckett’s abstract work can confound as much as it fascinates, and much of Shepard’s work follows Beckett’s lead but adds a brooding tone informed by the American counterculture. Yet at their best, these four works can be absorbing. They’re best served by a scrupulous, disciplined approach to the text and the movements, which director William Steinberger provides in this well-done production.

Shepard’s work is more accessible by far, and his Red Cross provides a lot for the audience to enjoy, especially with its wild comic monologues by Lizzie Spellman as a woman who imagines a skiing excursion that turns gory, and by Hannah Gold as a meek maid who gets coaxed into simulating a swimming lesson on a hotel bed. Brian Ratcliffe plays a man with a hygiene problem who affects—and infects—the two women in different ways. In the other Shepard piece, Killer’s Head, Will Thompson delivers a mesmerizing, wide-ranging monologue about horses, cows and trucks, all while sitting in a chair with a bandana across his eyes. It’s only at the speech’s end that we find out the reason for that bandana. In Beckett’s haunting Footfalls, Spellman is affecting as a woman who spends eternity trudging through twilight, hearing only the distant voice of her mother (Gold). And in Catastrophe, Ratcliffe and Spellman are a dictatorial stage director and his eager-to-please assistant, manipulating the body of a silent actor (Thompson) to fit a prearranged vision—and robbing him of his free will in the process.

Sarah Elger’s scenic design has a crisp, clinical look. The stage is filled with boxes and boards covered tightly with white sheets, and the boxes serve as everything from a plinth for the silent actor to stand upon in Catastrophe to a pair of beds in Red Cross. Rachel George’s lighting is as precise as the actors’ movements, varying in extremes of intensity to meet the characters’ moods.

Those with a taste for the experimental will be grateful for these reverent takes on the work of two irreverent artists. ”

“Inspired by the poetry of Wallace Stevens and the streets of our city, the self-guided soundscape is a romantic stroll for one through Philly’s pathways, enhanced by a special app for your smart phone.”

“It’s like a romantic date with the city you love.”