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THE DUNES
"...a winner ... thanks to playwright Craig Pospisil's smart and funny dialogue ... It's a reminder how timeless theater can be."
-News-Press
"...written by accomplished playwright Craig Pospisil...the play shows his gift for dialogue that fits the characters he creates, all with a craft that made the play worth watching. I urge you to go see THE DUNES. You will be viewing the work of a young playwright about whom, someday, you will say, 'I saw him when.'"
-Sanibel-Captiva Islander
"[THE DUNES is] a serious, understated drama that left wide emotional voids that should move any viewer. Written by award-winning playwright, Craig Pospisil, THE DUNES...is a fine production."
-Florida Weekly
THERE'S NO HERE HERE
"Winning and whimsical"
-Broadway World.com
"The best of the evening includes the opening salvo THERE'S NO HERE HERE by Craig Pospisil, a Midnight in Paris-esque mind trip about a writer living what he is writing at a Paris café, with attendant appearances by Gertrude Stein, a capricious French chick, and an arrogant French waiter, who demands not to be treated as a stereotype. The quickening playfulness of the work transcends the familiar nature of the concept; it’s Woody Allen without the travelogue sentimentality."
-Rural Intelligence
"The evening opens on a playful note with Craig Pospisil’s inventive THERE'S NO HERE HERE, in which a struggling American writer in Paris learns a lesson from an unlikely muse about the nature of the creative process."
-Berkshire Eagle
MONTHS ON END
"MONTHS ON END [is] a triumph. I can't say I've seen a more refined exercise in ensemble theater than Craig Pospisil's MONTHS ON END. The multiple symmetry of this dazzlingly charming show about relationships is a triumph in itself: 12 scenes spanning 12 months, 10 actors intertwining as friends and/or relatives in a show that's a marvel of thespian equality. Pospisil's play could in fact be broken down into 12 one-acts, all of which could stand on their own. And yet these 12 vignettes all form crucial pieces in the eternal puzzle known as human relationships, an area in which the playwright displays an assured knowledge that spans deep sorrow to unbounded happiness."
-Ann Arbor News
"What advice should the father of the bride give to the bride when she is experiencing an emotional meltdown just two minutes before countdown? 'Pretend you're in an airplane that's crashing ... and you've got this parachute, but it has some tears in it.' [This is just one] of the dozens of hilarious moments in writer Craig Pospisil's MONTHS ON END."
-City Pulse
"MONTHS ON END rings with emotional truth, humor. [An] endearing contemplation on love ... entertaining and satisfying."
-Oakland Press
"... delectable ... MONTHS ON END is a rich, assured work. It progresses from what seem to be clever, self-contained skits to a mosaic view of a connected group, seen month-by-month throughout a single year."
-Rochester City News
DRIFT
"Great musicals often feel personal. Their details are so sharply etched, their stories ring so true, we are sure their authors must have lived through the events.
DRIFT excels in its nonmusical moments. Pospisil's uncommonly sharp book offers penetrating monologues for most of the supporting cast, particularly meek Justin, whose relationship status leaves him feeling like Czar Nicholas II after the Russion Revolution [...and] Pospisil captures the seething frustration of everyguy, Mike..."
-BackStage
"Bookwriter Craig Pospisil starts this new musical with boy losing girl ... What follows is a musical which both comes to terms with the fact that today, the boy doesn't necessarily get girl back. In a world filled with musicals that trade in parody, the truly adult emotional center of DRIFT refreshes.
After the separation, David joins a therapy group filled with men who are also dealing with relationship issues, as with the central premise of the musical, Pospisil fills the group with a variety of men whose problems have more than a modicum of credibility. Particularly interesting is his inclusion of [Thomas,] a gay man who happens to be married to a woman. ... Pospisil is to be applauded for bringing such a character to the stage.
Alongside David's work with the group, Pospisil charts the expected events in his separation ... All of these elements are handled with care and a minimum of cliche.
-American Theatre Web
Articles about the NYMF production of DRIFT:
http://www.playbill.com/news/article/101573.html
http://www.broadwayworld.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=11709
SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN
"SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN is a smart, clever, contemporary piece of theater."
-Cincinnati City Beat
"... a smart, sharply crafted play."
-NYTheatre.com
"... masterful ... delightful ..."
-Stage Directions Magazine
"Craig Pospisil does something rare and difficult in his episodic comedy, SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN ... The laughs come easily and frequently."
-Rochester City News
"It's a wonderful play. It's a quirky and romantic comedy ... but it's also alive with contemporary social poignancy."
-Dayton Daily News
"We're all 'in between' something as life goes by. We're between birth and death; between puberty and adulthood; between jobs; between singleness and commitment -- well, you know. The delightful romantic comedy SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN ... gives us a chance to look at our lives, think about what we are seeking and what we really want, while we laugh at one man's successes and failures."
-Boise Weekly
GUNS DON'T KILL and A QUIET, EMPTY LIFE
in the Letters to the NRA
"The tenor of the show’s writing ranges quite widely. At times the tone is chilling ... Sometimes the show swerves into delightfully pointed comedy: Craig Pospisil’s Guns Don’t Kill gives us ... an aged grade-school teacher who comes to class wielding a .22 to protect her students and the Constitution;
Elsewhere ... Letters goes for narratives of tragedy and pathos. Pospisil’s A Quiet Empty Life, which presents a Virginia Tech widow’s despair as narrated by her dead husband. The fraught emotions [are...] quite affecting."
-Portland Phoenix
GUNS DON'T KILL
in Undershorts at City Theatre
"Undershorts is one hell of a night at the theater. [...] It’s impossible to pick favorites because they’re all so good, and because Undershorts would be so much less satisfying without any of them. [...] One could interpret Craig Pospisil’s “Guns Don’t Kill” as sly social commentary, but it’s probably more fun to take it as a face-value explication of how much fun 2nd Amendment crazies can have as elementary school teachers.
Something about material this racy seems to energize its actors, directors, and audiences until everybody in the theater feels like an adventurer; an expeditionary into the artistic wilds where notions like “taste” and “propriety” hold no sway. There is a sense that you don’t know what you’ll find out there, and each little discovery and turn feels like revelation crossed with delight.
- Miami News Times
"Bondi gets a wacky star turn in Craig Pospisil's Guns Don't Kill, about a teacher who intends to beat any violence-prone classroom intruders to the punch.
- Miami Herald
LIFE IS SHORT
"Craig Pospisil mines the everyday for universal truths."
-Oakland Press
"Pospisil knows how to write funny dialogue."
-Times-Union
IT'S NOT YOU
"Good sketch comedy is difficult to write, but a director's and actor's dream to perform; you just ride the wave, .... So it is with the ninth edition of The Theater Project's 'Winter Cabaret' ... The key to its success is the selection of vignettes - material so solid that what's onstage is is delicious as the desserts for sale at intermission. ... 'It's Not You, by Craig Pospisil, sets up an emotional game of musical chairs as a band of four subway-riding friends reduces to three via jettisoning the unlucky chosen one...[in this] sharp, swiftly played piece."
-Portland Press Hearld (Maine)
TRAIN OF THOUGHT
"Staged on a New York City subway car, this clever, contemporary urban comedy takes us inside the heads of four late-night travelers headed downtown . . . Pospisil draws out neat surprises from his characters as they move toward their destinations (metaphorical as well as literal); the writing is crips and witty and has the ring of truth."
-NYTheatre.com
FREE (in Rogue Machine Theatre's Shorts and Sweets)
"Rogue Machine is having a spectacular season. Their newest production, Shorts and Sweets ... is a heck of a good time. ... Free by Craig Pospisil is about all the stuff that weighs us down. It’s a cute three-hander with terrific actors ... a naughty slice of devil’s food cake."
-Eye Spy LA
FREE (at City Theatre)
"In it's annual Summer Shorts Festival, City Theatre offers an illuminating demonstation of the difference between the fun of joke-fueled sketch comedy and the fullfilment of well-crafted short plays. Yes, at least half of the sixteen pieces in this year's festival are funny, a few riotously so.
But both the compact comedies and the serious minded dramas ... have a beginning, a middle and an end; rich characters that seem to bring a history in their little moment in the spotlight; ... even the plays that make you laugh the hardest have darker, unsettling notes. ... Program B has equal riches. On the wild side, Craig Pospisil's FREE finds an anxiety-ridden man, stripping down to his underwear on the subway, then flashing everything that momma gave him."
-Miami Herald
"... hilarious ... touching ... FREE, Craig Pospisil's sweet and refreshingly Sixties paean to nudity."
-Miami New Times
FREE (from theAtrain(re)plays)
"Both evenings had a great mix of musicals and plays. Though the musicals were the show stoppers, some of the plays are the most engaging and effective pieces. In FREE by Craig Pospisil, we find a grown man who strips completely nude on an empty train car. Once he has re-clothed, he persuades a fellow rider to remove her clothes as he guards the doors from peeping eyes. There is something so sneaky and satisfying about the thought of stripping on the subway, and the quiet way the story is revealed is wonderfully fulfilling."
-TheCinemaSource.com
THE FLOPS (from theAtrainplays, Vol. 20)
"The big finale ... involves characters from various Broadway bombs such as Carrie: The Musical. They are stuck on the A train by a curse only explained by the re-invented Satre line, "Hell is other musicals." Just about every inch of the stage is filled in this grand slam of pirated melodies and one-liners. It's campy and sure to be a favorite of musical theater lovers."
-NYTheatre.com
"But for devotees of the beleaguered musical form, there is a grand guilty pleasure at evening's end. Taking a cue from The Twilight Zone, characters from Broadway flops are thrown together in a kind of subway hell, and it is a hoot and a half. Beach bunnies from the sunburned Good Vibrations and other banished characters, including blood-drenched Carrie herself, welcome the newest tenant, John Lennon."
-Talkin' Broadway.com
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