CRITIC’S PICK "Getting Intimate at ‘Dr. Ride’s American Beach House’: In a witty new play by Liza Birkenmeier, restless friends find themselves challenged by the first American woman in space."
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4/5 Stars "The route of Birkenmeier’s plot is tightly mapped in retrospect, but full of worthy little detours into character...'Dr. Ride' takes its sweet time to rev up, but it goes the distance when the engine kicks in. It’s a specific and evocative depiction of identity and power at a crossroads."
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"After 80 luscious minutes of conversation, the company somehow has material for a whole nother play, a ten-minute scorcher between Sally Ride (Sieh) and an old friend Molly (Markey)...The play itself just keeps soaring up and up and up."
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"Dr. Ride's American Beach House and the Secret Lives of Lesbians in the 1980s: Sally Ride's historic space journey inspires four women on a St. Louis rooftop."
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"A conversation piece for four women who take to a St. Louis rooftop…its air of laziness extends to the playwright, Liza Birkenmeier, who -- despite her knack for distinctive dialogue and a certain offhand, off-the-wall wit -- can't be bothered to come up with anything like drama."
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4/5 Stars: "A sensitive work by an up-and-coming playwright. Ars Nova, a company that discovers and nurtures new artists, adds Birkenmeier's name to the roster of young dramatists whose future plays can be pleasantly anticipated."
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"Liza Berkenmeier's historically inspired play offers a meditation on queer desire and repression."
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"Has all the elements of a fascinating drama but as presented by Ars Nova at Greenwich House it is all about subtext and undercurrents which may go right over the heads of many audience members. Little happens but there is much tedious talk which is a cover-up for what goes unsaid."
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