Photo by Steve Graue | City Lit Theater
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THE BIRTHDAY PARTY
“If you were concerned that Chicago’s storefront theaters lost their mojo during the pandemic, get thee to Terry McCabe’s gripping production of The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter. . . McCabe has cast the show flawlessly, anchored by perfect-pitch Elaine Carlson as Meg, whose comic cluelessness devolves into hideously willful blindness. . . Highly recommended, as in Do. Not. Miss.”
Kelly Kleiman | Chicago Reader “. . .Particularly captivating among the company is Elaine Carlson as Meg” Colin Douglas | Chicago Theatre Review “. . .an absolutely wonderful production. Highly recommended on the basis of casting alone.” Bill Esler | Buzz Center Stage |
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MRS. WARREN'S PROFESSION
JEFF AWARD NOMINEE 2020 – PERFORMER IN A PRINCIPAL ROLE
“…a breakthrough performance by Elaine Carlson in the role of Mrs. Kitty Warren…a powerful performance, one that knocked me off my feet.” Bill Esler | Buzz Center Stage “…a biting, whirlwind performance by Elaine Carlson in the title role. Carlson's read on Mrs. Warren's larger-than-life personality, humor, righteousness, and ultimate disillusionment exemplifies the proscenium-sized grandiosity of Shaw's best characters—even in cozy blackbox.” Dan Jakes | Chicago Reader |
Photo by Tom McGrath | Promethean Theatre Ensemble
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Photo by Scott Dray | Eclipse Theatre Company
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WHY TORTURE IS WRONG AND THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE THEM
JEFF AWARD NOMINEE 2020 – PERFORMER IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
“Examples of top-shelf legit satire onstage are few and far between, making this production a must-see show of the season….Elaine Carlson brings the house down.” Sheri Flanders | Chicago Reader “Steve Scott’s astute and generous direction allowed for the characters to have as wonderful and as awful aspects as human beings could have….Some of the most jaw dropping Durang-esque moments of audacity were saved for Carlson, and she won a gold medal for Luella’s personality gymnastics." Sophie Vitello | Chicago Theatre Review |
MAD BEAT HIP & GONE“Carlson has a great time with the role, layering a mischievous desire to prove she’s still alive and attractive with an inner anger”
Karen Topham | Chicago On Stage “A delightful performance by Elaine Carlson.” Nancy Bishop | Third Coast Review “[Carlson] brings the perfect balance of wry humor and anger and resignation and cautious optimism that are what we have left when our first youthful dreams don’t turn out the way we think they will.” Kevin Curran | Chicago Theatre Review |
Photo by Tom McGrath | Promethean Theatre Ensemble
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Photo by Tom McGrath | Promethean Theatre Ensemble
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THE MADWOMAN OF CHAILLOT
A CHICAGO ON STAGE TOP ACTING PERFORMANCE OF 2018
“But it's ultimately Carlson's show, and she comes ready to play. Watching her is like a master class in character acting.... She's a joy to watch.” Karen Topham | Chicago On Stage “The ‘precieux’ magic begins and ends with Elaine Carlson’s magisterial title madwoman…. A one-woman Bastille Day, Aurelia’s resilient confidence finds the perfect outlet in Carlson’s inexhaustible ebullience.” Lawrence Bommer | Stageandcinema.com “Deftly directed by John Arthur Lewis, the play stars Elaine Carlson in an incandescent, irrepressible version of The Madwoman.” Debra Davy | Splash Magazine |
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J.B.
“By the end of the play, thanks not only to the hypnotic rhythm of the free verse but to the sheer skill of Carlson and McCabe, play and production, mask and character, are all but stripped away. The audience is unstuck from their own experience, and up to the very moment when the undeniably pat ending comes, it genuinely seems as if the players might break from the stage and the story might take an entirely new turn.”
Christine Malcom | EDGE Media Network Contributor “...a passionate, sometimes furious revival.... All 23 roles in the play are played masterfully by an ensemble of nine women.” Dmitry Samarov | Chicago Reader |
Photo by Tom McGrath | City Lit Theater
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Photo by Tom McGrath | Promethean Theatre Ensemble
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THE LION IN WINTER
JEFF AWARD NOMINEE 2017 – ACTRESS IN A PRINCIPAL ROLE
“Carlson makes the Chekhovian switches between high comedy and tear-jerking drama as effortlessly as turning out the kitchen light.” Aaron Hunt | NewCity Stage “But it is Carlson who truly soars. Her Eleanor not only holds the lions share of jokes and delivers them with royal flair but cracks open like an egg to expose her scared underbelly of love and longing. It is a superb role superbly rendered.” Ben Kemper | Chicago Theatre Review |
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A PERFECT GANESH
“Steven Fedoruk's gauzy, colorful staging for Eclipse Theatre Company features some fine performances, particularly from Elaine Carlson as Margaret, whose flinty exterior is chipped away to reveal the pain underneath.”
Zac Thompson | Chicago Reader “Elaine Carlson is fearless in her portrayal of a woman not easy to like.” Hedy Weiss | Chicago Sun-Times “Elaine Carlson does wonders in the role of Margaret, making a fearful, cantankerous, distrustful, and deeply prejudiced woman somehow emerge as strong, loyal, forbearing and kind in an unassuming way.” Kim Campbell | GapersBlock |
Photo by Scott Dray | Eclipse Theatre Company
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Photo by Tom McGrath | Promethean Theatre Ensemble
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TIGER AT THE GATES
“Jamie Bragg's cryptic-but-sardonic Cassandra, Elaine Carlson's ribald Hecuba (who describes war as "the bottom of a baboon. … Scarlet, scaley, glazed, framed in a clotted, filthy wig") and Heather Smith's anguished Andromache carry the emotional weight.”
Kerry Reid | Chicago Tribune “Fans of mythology will enjoy seeing ideological clashes with such humanistic grounding. This company did well by taking a risk, and deserves support.” Jacob Davis | Chicago Critic |
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AT HOME AT THE ZOO
“At first, it would be easy to mistake Homelife as a knock-off version of A Delicate Balance or any of Albee's many other plays featuring a midlife couple dancing around unnamed fears and dissatisfactions. But thanks in large part to Elaine Carlson's urgent but warmly funny portrayal of Ann, the piece provides more than just a curtain-raiser for the Peter-and-Jerry Show that follows …. Her Ann is beguiling, with hints of darker anguish hidden beneath a carefully tended conscience.”
Kerry Reid | Chicago Tribune |
City Lit Theater
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Photo by Austin D. Oie | City Lit Theater
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THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE
“But the most intriguing presence in this sinister slumber party is Dr. Montague’s wife (Elaine Carlson), a woman with a gift for conducting séances. Carlson is terrific in the role, a garrulous mix of goofy, ghost-friendly chatter and a subtly disturbing penchant for blithely rapping on dangerous doors.”
Catey Sullivan | Chicago Theater Beat “It is Elaine Carlson’s Mrs. Montague and Kingsley Day’s Arthur who nearly steal the show, though. Their completely delightful, character based humor provides for plenty of laughter amidst the plentiful gothic spooks.” Brian Kurst | Sheridan Road Magazine |
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PYGMALION
“So if Kate Fry's characteristically elvish Eliza is no lady, neither is Daniel J. Travanti's egotistical Higgins a gentleman. Those accolades belong to his colleague, Colonel Pickering, his housekeeper, Mrs. Pierce, and his mother, the Dowager Mrs. Higgins-- personalities usually played as fussy old foozles, but as portrayed by, respectively, Roger Mueller, Elaine Carlson and Ann Whitney, emerge as wise counselors well aware of the responsibilities that accompany privilege.”
Mary Shen Barnidge | Windy City Times |
Apple Tree Theatre
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Photo by Eric Borts | Eclipse Theatre Company
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RIMERS OF ELDRICH
“Wilson stirs a witch's brew of tiny tales, overlapping dialogue, and ironic hymns in his 1966 play. Director Steven Fedoruk's 17 cast members tautly transform the script's ‘collages’ into a devastating group portrait.”
Lawrence Bommer | Chicago Reader “What is revelatory here is the way in which Wilson's words, delivered with lyricism and clarity by the 17-member cast, unveil the trouble in this small town...Working a spare, small space, an ensemble of terrific prowess create clucking gossips; damaged dreamers; teens hurtling toward nowhere; taciturn farmers; ancient, bruised seers and many others with depth and humanity.” Catey Sullivan | Windy City Times |
