Press
MADISON MAGAZINE says...
Seize the City!
43. Show Off: The Bartell and Broom Street
Madison has long had a reputation as a forward-thinking community—which makes it a great place for innovative theater. Check out a show by Mercury Players Theatre, Strollers Theatre, Encore! Studio for the Performing Arts, StageQ, Madison Theatre Guild or Laboratory Theatre downtown at the Bartell. Or for even more boundary-bending plays, head east to Broom Street, the city’s venerable home for experimental theater. bartelltheatre.org, broomstreet.org Read at: MADISON MAGAZINE
The Capital Times says...
Review: Encore’s “Tidings” wishes you a merry ... oh, whatever
Encore! Studio for the Performing Arts' production of "Tidings from the Seasonally Affected" presents a farcical holiday season that's oddly closer to the one many people go home to than the saccharine sweet Cratchit family or the elaborate fantasy enabled by Uncle Drosselmeyer. Read at: The Capital Times
The Onion: The A.V. Club says...
Tidings From The Seasonally Affected
Encore Studio for the Performing Arts twists the “home for holidays” trope by examining a time in the late ’70s when large numbers of folks with disabilities were released from big institutions and moved to group homes. Mixing humor and drama, Tidings follows Sam, a new group-home member, as she deals with disinterested and nasty support workers while trying to make sense of her new surroundings. Encore Studio is the only professional theater company in Wisconsin catering to people with disabilities, so the play takes on additional layers of depth and authenticity as Sam attempts to find connections with her housemates. Read at: The Onion: The A.V. Club
Isthmus: The Daily Page says...
The frank, funny Lost Track by Encore Studio
The original work by Wendy Prosise and KelsyAnne Schoenhaar examines a young woman's struggle with bipolar disorder. The frank and sometimes funny look at mental illness, which incorporates film sequences, left me thinking that it might ultimately be better as a one-woman show -- almost a Spalding Gray performance piece. Read at: Isthmus: The Daily Page
Tapestry: Third Avenue Playhouse Newsletter (PDF) says...
Encore Studio Educates, Entertains, and Inspires
To Love or Not to Love addresses the typical preoccupations of youth:love, sex and anxiety about the future. But when filtered through the experience ofthe disabled, these issues rise to levels not familiar to most audience members. Institutionalized abuse, some- times suffocating levels of supervision, chronic physical pain and social prejudice are confronted in the play by cast members who know first-hand the tales they undertake to tell. Read at: Tapestry: Third Avenue Playhouse Newsletter (PDF)
