Los Angeles Premiere.
The play won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the 2015 New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play, the 2015 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, the 2015 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play and the 2015 Off Broadway Alliance Award for Best New Play.
“MOVINGLY ACTED… loud and bruising on the outside, sorrowful and soulful on the inside… The grittiness of playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis’ street-smart comedies has sometimes made it difficult to see the religious feeliing coursing through his body of work. His feisty, foulmouthed characters are far from saints. But through these brazen, helpless, semi-sympathetic sinners he has been conducting the most searching inquiry on the American stage into the mysteries and paradoxes of spiritual faith… At the center of this tale is Walter ‘Pops’ Washington, played by Montae Russell in a performance surging with conviction… The surprises that happen are genuinely startling.” – Charles McNulty, The Los Angeles Times
“SPLASH SELECTION!… A SUPERBLY DIRECTED, ACTED, AND PRODUCED MUST-SEE SHOW… Skilled director Guillermo Cienfuegos knows just which buttons to push as the merry septet explodes into fun and fancy. Lots of black humor peppers the proceedings, so get ready to chuckle – and maybe even guffaw. Comments about New York’s mayor in 2015 are especially hilarious… .” – Elaine Mura, Splash Magazine
“WOW!… SENSATIONAL… Director Guillermo Cienfuegos elicits dynamic, nuanced performances from one of the year’s best comedic-dramatic ensembles.” — Steven Stanley, Stage Scene LA
“RIVETING LOS ANGELES PREMIERE PRODUCTION… A SEAMLESS, BREATHTAKING ENSEMBLE… Guillermo Cienfuegos, an always welcome name as director of anything he puts his signature on, puts these seven characters through their paces, sometimes hilarious, sometimes agonizing, in a seamless, breathtaking ensemble. He brings out the sorrow of contemporary urban life, police crimes and corruption, while simultaneously pointing to life-sustaining hope, faith and the people these characters call family. Almost incredibly, everyone in the play ends up in a different place from where they began… NEEDS TO BE SEEN.” — Eric Gordon, People's World
RAVE! – Theatre Notes – SCINTILLATING!… Stephen Adly Guirgis’ script deserves its accolades and in the sure hands of director Guillermo Cienfuegos, Between Riverside and Crazy is an exciting, engrossing piece of theatre with cast of seasoned pros.” – Paul Myrvold
“I WOULDN’T WANT TO MISS ANY OPPORTUNITY TO SEE MORE OF THIS PLAYWRIGHT’S WORK… a seductive and unpredictable ending made all the more satisfying by the gentle pacing of Guillermo Cienfuegos’ direction that lightly strikes all the necessary notes… ” – Sylvie Drake, Cultural Weekly
“INCISIVE DIALOGUE, COMPLEX CHARACTERIZATIONS AND RELATONSHIPS THAT ARE UNIQUE BUT ALSO RELATABLE. The cast and director Guillermo Cienfuegos serve the play well… Cienfuegos evokes a lived-in, natural approach in staging his actors and setting the scene with his technical team.” – Jonas Schwartz-Owen, Broadway World
“ACCESSIBLE AND RELATABLE… Director Guillermo Cienfuegos brings out strong, natural performances from the cast. Montae Russell, on stage every moment except for a wardrobe change, displays an intense intellect mixed with a disarming everyman ordinaryness. Joshua Bitton plays the worthy adversary; his police lieutenant is a well-trained, buttoned-up, controlling ass. Matthew Hancock, who was the hyper, complex Verb in last season’s Hype Man, shows us his lost, yet loving side. Victor Anthony breaks out as the struggling nobody being tossed around by others. A conflicted Lesley Fera, pitch perfect Marisol Miranda, and alluring Liza Fernandez play their pivotal roles with confidence.” — Bill Garry, Discover Hollywood
“POWERFUL PERFORMANCES… There’s humor and wordplay and fantastic music – even a touch of Rudy Giuliani… Director Guillermo Cienfuegos does the script proud in a set decorated to rundown Riverside Drive perfection by Shen Heckel.” — Laura Foti Cohen, Larchmont Buzz
“One can pretty much count on OUTSTANDING THEATRICAL PRESENTATIONS at the award-winning Fountain Theatre… This talented playwright’s tightly-written script, which is skillfully directed by Guillermo Cienfuegos.” – Beverly Cohn, Santa Monica Mirror
“FEARLESS… directed by Guillermo Cienfuegos with a brutally honest understanding of human emotions fully on display by a talented cast of seven.” – Shari Barrett, Culver City News
“BRILLIANT DIRECTION… [A] SUPERB CAST… Guirgis creates a world as real as the one we inhabit ourselves and, just as our clever minds have figured out where he is going with his story, he surprises us with a revelation about human relationships that shocks us even as we recognize that this is the way life is.”— Morna Martell, Theatre Spoken Here
