Kate Rockwood

A week before the play "The Terrible Girls" opened, I attended a reading by Rebecca Brown, on whose eponymous novel the play is based. Quick to smile and easy with the crowd, she remarked, "It's like Christmas. I get a play and then I get to do a reading too." She describes "The Terrible Girls" as a novel, or rather a series of episodes involving two characters, named I and You, that add up to something in the end. Brown adds, as an afterthought, "some serious, some funny."...

Originally published May 2001, University of Chicago's Free Press

Tucked into an unassuming storefront with a seating capacity of roughly 100, About Face Theatre seems an unlikely setting for performing a play that celebrates one of the most famous poets in American history. Yet this is exactly what About Face attempts and beautifully accomplishes...

Originally published November 7, 2000, Maroon newspaper

One could easily imagine the Neo-Futurist cast of "Roustabout" as a group of hyperactive fifth graders putting on a play at summer camp, awash in unabashed enthusiasm, using hand-me-downs for costumes and scraps for props, relying on the audience to imagine pesky details like scenery...

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Originally published September 4, 2006, Centerstage Chicago

If you've ever spent the better part of a sunny day trapped inside a cubicle, you'll be able to relate to "The Water Coolers," a musical that pokes light fun at the world of palm pilots, office politics and meeting overload...

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Originally published September 4, 2006, Centerstage Chicago

Eclipse Theatre Company's latest offering, "Spinning into Butter," centers around a New England college and the controversy that arises when racist notes are found taped to an African American student's door. Rather than struggle to give voice to every viewpoint in the fray, the play focuses on young dean Sarah Daniels and her intellectually-informed but emotionally-discordant liberalism...

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Originally published July 31, 2006, Centerstage Chicago