Verböten
The House Theatre of Chicago
Music and Lyrics by Jason Narducy
Book by Brett Nevue
Directed by Nathan Allen
HAROLD AND MIMI STEINBERG / AMERICAN THEATRE CRITICS ASSOCIATION CITATION
JOSEPH JEFFERSON NOMINATION
-- Best Production, Musical (Midsize)
-- New Work
"If this cast were to go into the studio to record a cast album,
I would be there to buy the first pressing."
"A nearly perfect balance between the anarchic spirit of early punk and the narrative-moving character work of musical theater. It's among the rare rock musicals that genuinely sounds like rock music."
"Highly Recommended!"
"3.5 out of 4 stars"
-- Chicago Sun-Times
"[A] promising new musical at The House Theatre of Chicago with clear off-Broadway prospects ... Verböten already has a better original score than plenty of the shows I’ve seen of late on Broadway."
-- Chicago Tribune
"A flood of pure joy and unstoppable adrenaline."
"Simply astonishing ... the power to light up your heart and send you scrambling for your lighter."
-- Chicago Reader
"An unabashedly great time!"
"Marika Mashburn's kickass rock number is a showstopper."
-- NewCity Stage
"His older sister (powerfully portrayed by Marika Mashburn), despite her own emotional problems, becomes the only “adult” in Chris’ life to provide advice and some semblance of order."
"Another must-see show by The House."
"Highly Recommended!"
-- Chicago Theatre Review
"It would be difficult to conceive of a play with more anger, heart, and energy than Verböten."
"Highly Recommended!"
-- Chicago Onstage
"A two-hour whirlwind of nostalgia and foot-tapping, head-banging music ... Verböten is an absolute must see.
"Highly Recommended!"
-- Picture This Post
For Services Rendered
Griffin Theatre
Written by W. Somerset Maugham
Directed by Robin Witt
JOSEPH JEFFERSON NOMINATION
-- Best Supporting Actor
CHICAGO TRIBUNE'S THEATRE TOP 10 of 2019
-- Honorable Mention
"The performance to watch is from Marika Mashburn, playing Eva Ardsley, a woman on whom the stresses of caretaking and bottled-up desire has taken a formidable toll. This is a profoundly moving piece of Chicago acting, offering a level of emotional intensity that, on a potent Sunday afternoon, carried through the exhausted bows."
"3.5 out of 4 stars"
-- Chicago Tribune
"Compelling!"
-- The New York Times
"Witt's 12-person ensemble uses every word of the classic script to its collective advantage, carefully playing up the ironic comedy and the implicit vulnerability behind each earnest confession. This, along with their ability to react to each other's decisions in scene, keeps each arc from feeling too clean and each character from feeling like a product of a far-off time. Despite the size of the ensemble, no player feels insignificant, a testament to each actor's firm grip on their character's role in advancing the play's narrative and its moral."
-- Chicago Reader
"Mashburn makes romantic desperation painfully palpable."
"Highly Recommended!"
-- WTTW
"A number of fine performances. An evening filled with indelible moments."
"... all the momentum of a runaway train barreling onward toward tragedy."
-- Chicago Sun-Times
“Perfect for fans of Downton Abbey.”
“Beautifully done!”
-- CBS Chicago
"The performances from the cast are all well attuned to the shocking soap-opera dynamics of Maugham's script—especially Mashburn who gets to let loose as Eva with a flashy Act III rant that becomes a breakdown."
-- Windy City Times
It's Only a Play
Pride Films & Plays
Written by Terrence McNally
Directed by Jon Martinez
"Bless Marika Mashburn. Thank Dionysius that this lovable lady is playing the well-intentioned producer who doesn’t always know what’s going on. Bless everything about Julia’s blind ignorance to the nastiness that lurks in the world of theater and her prayers to the theater Gods. We do, after all, rely on 'the kindness of strange people.'”
"The cast of seven effortlessly fills the space as if they were a cast of seventy ... A gift to the theater folk that, while general audiences may enjoy, is especially meaningful to them. We get the in-jokes. Even if you haven’t set foot on a stage in thirty years, you feel a kinship with the artists. You feel like part of their story."
-- NewCity Stage
"BEST PLAYS IN CHICAGO!"
"One particular actress in this production makes this show a must see. Marika Mashburn plays Julia, a perpetually optimistic producer whose kind heart and sharp business acumen is only hampered by her uproarious inability to see any wrong choice that she makes ... Everything from Mashburn’s short stepped and hurried gait, to her offstage exasperation over her reportedly violent pet dog, adds up to create a lovable and endearing comedic character."
-- Picture This Post
"Marika Mashburn brings youthful and joyful execution to her rendering of the play's producer, Julia Budder."
-- Windy City Times
"Mashburn is a hoot as Julia, the somewhat ditzy but straight-faced doyenne who mouths endless malapropisms."
-- Around the Town Chicago
"... the extremely likable Marika Mashburn ... is a delight."
-- Chicago Onstage
"The cast of this fast-paced, laugh-a-minute farce is individually and collectively topnotch ... bring a tank of oxygen, because you just may find yourself breathless from laughing."
-- Chicago Theatre Review
"... positively cute Marika Mashburn ... hilarious portrayal of the life of creative persons after opening night made me question my own purpose as a critic, and in the best possible way. This cast uses sincere desire to succeed and sheer cheek to show the audience what it means to participate in any creative aspect of live theater and what it means to seek approval for your work."
-- PerformInk
Hatfield & McCoy
The House Theatre of Chicago
Written by Shawn Pfautsch
Directed by Matt Hawkins
"... a superb Marika Mashburn is cold, distant and often inebriated (her shotgun and whiskey jug are always in her hands)."
"... the equally formidable Levicy (show-stopping work by Marika Mashburn), a woman who likes, and needs, her whiskey."
-- Chicago Sun-Times
"... The company’s exquisite Marika Mashburn, as the feisty, moonshine-swilling Levicy ... Strong performances abound in this production. This company’s signature mixture of a good story, live music, strong vocals and inventive choreography all meld together, creating an exciting drama."
-- Chicago Theatre Review
"The characters are as tender as they are vicious, as likeable as they are frightening and as talented musically as they are dramatically. This tintype picture-perfect cast is as entertaining as it is compelling."
-- Gay Chicago Magazine
"Highly Recommended!"
"... a very funny Marika Mashburn ..."
-- Around the Town Chicago
"A hilarious Marika Mashburn (Levicy Hatfield), cradling her shotgun named ‘Justice’, is deadly with the one liners."
-- The Fourth Walsh
"The performances here are universally wonderful ... Outstanding theatre. It represents the best of what theatre can be: entertaining, thought-provoking, dramatic, even educational. The House has another hit on its hands."
-- Chicago Onstage
"Marika Mashburn is a stand out performer."
-- BuzzNewsChicago
Birds of a Feather
Greenhouse Theatre Center
Written by Marc Acito
Directed by Jacob Harvey
"Marika Mashburn brings endearing moxie as the zookeeper. "
-- Chicago Tribune
"The four-person cast shows impressive range and depth."
-- Chicago Reader
"As the zookeeper, Mashburn deftly avoids damaging femme stereotypes and delivers her monologues with truth, comedy and a ton of heart...A lovely piece of theater."
-- NewCity Stage
"Marika Mashburn, always a treat, no matter what role she undertakes ... is delightful as a lonely Manhattan Zookeeper. She also opens the play as Paula Zahn, in a spot-on impersonation of a bitter, professional woman."
-- Chicago Theatre Review
"Well-acted, hilarious and moving. I really loved it."
-- Ada Grey Reviews for You
"Endearing cast. A warmly winning quartet."
-- Stage and Cinema
The Assembled Parties
Raven Theatre
Written by Richard Greenberg
Directed by Cody Estle
"Their grown daughter, Shelley, is the perpetual odd woman out. (Marika Mashburn nails the persona of a woman who knows she's mostly tolerated by those around her but can't quite even work up the energy to resent that state of affairs.)"
-- Chicago Tribune
"Aunt Faye’s ungifted daughter Shelley (Marika Mashburn) is so assailed by her viciously critical parents that one half expects her final appearance to involve an ax."
-- NewCity Stage
"...their nerdy daughter, Shelley (beautifully portrayed by Marika Mashburn, who has great comic timing)."
-- Around the Town Chicago
"Marika Mashburn is aptly kooky as Shelley."
-- Third Coast Review
Death and Harry Houdini
The House Theatre of Chicago
Written and Directed by Nathan Allen
"... mother-in-law-from-hell, Cecilia Weiss. Marika Mashburn is a hoot."
-- Chicago Sun-Times
"On the weird side is Houdini's mother, a difficult and addled woman who receives most of the show's laughs."
-- Chicago Reader
"Mashburn's Cecilia is an amusingly unsmiling icon to her son, a demanding monster-in-law to his wife / assistant."
-- Miami Herald
"Marika Mashburn is hilarious and dark as Houdini's mother. This is a masterful production -- wholly immersive and daring as hell."
-- PerformInk
"... an absolutely flawless Marika Mashburn."
-- Florida Theater On Stage
"Mashburn is a monster-in-law nightmare (who) wickedly utters in a gibberish that The House refers to as Mashburnese. It hysterically sounds like a legit version of a small village's Yiddish."
-- The Fourth Walsh
"Marika Mashburn wins big laughs."
-- Chicago Critic
"Marika Mashburn, speaking a language of her own design, rules the roost like a queen into her old age."
-- Chicago Theater Beat
"Marika Mashburn infuses the story with subtly infectious humor as Cecilia Weiss, Harry's mother."
-- Chicago Stage Review
Maybe Baby, It's You
Fox Valley Repertory
Written by Charlie Shanian and Shari Simpson
Directed by Brigitte Ditmars
"Whatever IT is, Mashburn has it ... Portraying a Southern belle, Medea (my favorite role), a British wife and a brainy science snob, to name a few, Mashburn’s charismatic stage presence, delivery, range and sheer likability had me wondering why we haven’t yet seen her showing off her comedic chops on Saturday Night Live.”
-- Kane Country Chronicle
"Marika Mashburn can easily send the audience into stitches with just a well-timed glare or a smartly observed behavior. Who knew that Mashburn's low-key placement of a tissue near the end of the show could garner such knowing laughs of recognition?"
-- Daily Herald
The Nutcracker
The House Theatre of Chicago
By Jake Minton, Phillip Klapperich, Kevin O'Donnell and Tommy Rapley
Directed by Tommy Rapley
"Marika Mashburn, as Clara’s grieving mother, projects sharp and tactile emotion with every syllable and gesture."
-- Chicago Theater Beat
"As Martha, she was a wonderful mom; she was just going through some very hard times."
-- Ada Grey Reviews for You
"...an undeniable crowd-pleaser; The Nutcracker sets the bar high for a season dominated by parody and other earnest-yet-stiff adaptations of holiday classics."
-- NewCity Stage
"Along the way, the exuberant cast directly engaged the place deep inside all of us where we can let go of and transcend grief; the sheer magic of the performers particularly touched the real children in the audience."
-- Splash Magazines
Season on the Line
The House Theatre of Chicago
Written by Shawn Pfautsch
Directed by Jess McLeod
"Marika Mashburn is terrific as the ship’s mate, a distinctive director of her respective show-within-the-show."
-- TimeOut Chicago
"Standouts include Marika Mashburn as a yappy, disheveled actress/director."
-- Chicago Theater Beat
"... with the invaluable help of Marika Mashburn who gives an outstanding supporting, comic performance as Elizabeth Fricke."
-- Around the Town Chicago
"Marika Mashburn is pricelessly funny and boundlessly energetic as Elizabeth Fricke."
-- Chicago Theatre Review
A Summer's Day
Akvavit Theatre
Written by Jon Fosse
Directed by Wm. Bullion
"Marika Mashburn waits for her husband to return from a fishing trip on a drizzly day [and] creates an almost unbearable tension; we feel both uneasy and unspeakably sad."
-- TimeOut Chicago
"The power of this play [comes] from his wife’s sadness, both present and future. She doesn’t mourn or wail; the depression seeps."
-- NewCity Stage
The Magnificents
The House Theatre of Chicago
Written by Dennis Watkins
Directed by Molly Brennan
"Particularly entertaining is Mashburn and her turn as an Edith Bunker-esque loveable dingbat of a wife limited to nonsense dialogue comprised of Yiddish, Russian and English gibberish."
-- NewCity Stage
"An aging magician and his adoring wife (Marika Mashburn, who speaks in perfectly comprehensible babble)..."
-- Chicago Sun-Times
"The wife, played by Marika Mashburn, speaks in an ambiguous foreign tongue that is quite comical at times and disturbing at others."
-- BuzzNewsChicago
The Wooden Breeks
Lookingglass Theatre Company
Written by Glen Berger
Directed by Heidi Stillman
"... randy moppets (tasty Marika Mashburn) are a hay-bale ride of hormones."
-- TimeOut Chicago
Dave DaVinci Saves the Universe
The House Theatre of Chicago
Written by Jake Minton and Chris Mathews
Directed by Nathan Allen
"The clever cast is excellent with a great sense of camp. Standouts from this terrific ensemble include Marika Mashburn as Princess Pampamelia."
-- Gay Chicago Magazine
Valentine Victorious
The House Theatre of Chicago
Written by Nathan Allen
Directed by Dennis Watkins
"... a deceptively mad old scientist, Dr. Crane (an absolutely hilarious Marika Mashburn, ad libs and all)."
-- Chicago Sun-Times
"... and (best of all) Marika Mashburn's stooped Dr. Crane, who is more than just a little old lady. Her pantomime of mowing down an enemy brought applause from the audience. Great stuff / Great fun!"
-- BroadwayWorld
Out of the Dust
Audible Audio Edition
Penguin Random House
Book by Karen Hesse
"Read with disarming simplicity and straightforwardness by Marika Mashburn, an Oklahoma native."
-- School Library Journal Review
All photos except The Assembled Parties, Maybe Baby, It's You, and Out of the Dust by Michael Brosilow.