"Based on the results of an online survey asking people to rank what they like best at the theater...So what do people want from a play? Turns out, many pollsters now equate theater with a certain blockbuster musical...The team struggled even more with requests like 'to be transported,' as skits floundered in the twilight zone between comedy and earnestness. If 'The Great American Drama' established one thing, it’s that theater is more than the sum of its parts."
Read more

"The cast is ever game and always personable...But this is a largely shapeless, hit-or-miss evening of comic and/or dramatic bits, and around the two-thirds point my patience ran out. It doesn't help that the piece seems to end several times...If you visit 'The Great American Drama' not expecting anything great or dramatic, you may have a passable time...To my eyes, it's a collection of talent in search of a viable format."
Read more

"There are instances of audience interaction both direct and indirect, and it's at these moments that 'The Great American Drama' feels most alive and the performers closest to connecting. Too much of the rest of the time, there's a crisply pressed artificial quality to the proceedings...The actors are dynamic, resourceful, and apparently tireless, equally adept with the comedy and tragedy that emerge...But they can't quite make it add up to anything."
Read more

“A jagged series of meta-theatrical vignettes with the broad theme of The American Dream…It’s an uneven experience. Essentially it’s a glorified and arch 90-minute, scripted, sketch-comedy show…The staging of the scenes is swift and achieves the suitable tones of humor and occasional seriousness…Some of the sequences ramble and are not so accomplished, but then it’s on to the next one as they are uniformly short…The result is sporadically entertaining and modestly provocative.”
Read more

"Sampson and co-director Greg Taubman wisely take on the challenge by using broad comedy as a starting point and daring to be uncomfortable and even pleasantly boring at times, allowing an actively participating audience to take an occasional breather. When the show goes for maximum discomfort, it’s astonishing...In being daring, however, it is never crass, and in being honest, it is thankfully never saccharine."
Read more

"Each of the performers is friendly, approachable, and personable. They may even have acting chops that would prove satisfactory in a more conventional theatrical framework. But they're not especially strong as improvisers or satirists, nor, as an extensive solo called 'Soulbird'...demonstrates, would you ever see them on 'The Voice.' Nothing here comes close to the kind of wit and panache we associate with even the weakest routines on 'SNL' and other comedy showcases."
Read more

"The cast is talented, inventive and energetic, however the best moment is when Connor is left alone and gets real with the audience. In that moment he exposes his truth, his fears and his hopes...I would like to see this piece developed, but with a broader scope of all ages and opinions. This needs to come from people other than artists, like the people who really buy tickets."
Read more

"On the surface, 'The Great American Drama' looks messy but the inherently thrown-together feel is overcome with passion and heart...Co-directors Sampson and Greg Taubman needed to figure out a way to tighten each moment so any flaw or flub that arose felt deliberate...'The Great American Drama' is unlike anything you’ve seen before. And yet it’s exactly like everything you’ve seen before. It’s an ambitious undertaking that I’m certain will find its footing."
Read more