VINEGAR TOM BY CARYL CHURCHILL
Washington University Performing Arts Department, Saint Louis, MO (1997)
“Graduate student Robert L. Neblett, who directs Vinegar Tom, has his cast in motion throughout—indeed, the cabaret goes at a Marx Brothers clip. The naturalism of the discovery, interrogation and death of the supposed witches is thus heightened and becomes, in its rather bald narration, all the more fearful.” – Harry Weber, Riverfront Times
MARISOL BY JOSÉ RIVERA
Washington University Performing Arts Department, Saint Louis, MO (1997)
“Director Robert Neblett and the student cast who performed the play last weekend at Washington University captured and disciplined the raw energy and bold fantasy in Rivera’s script.” – Bob Wilcox, Riverfront Times
RAISED IN CAPTIVITY BY NICKY SILVER
Actors Renaissance Theatre, Saint Louis, MO (1999)
“With Raised in Captivity, Actors Renaissance Theatre ends its summer season on a high, wild note. Nicky Silver's comedy is much funnier than it has any right to be, a savage depiction of people who are incompetent at nothing less than life. Director Robert Neblett and a good cast invite us to laugh at things that would appall us in real life, and we do.” – Judith Newmark, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Director Robert Neblett has staged Captivity at a brisk pace, and he's nurtured his cast into careful and thoughtful performances, even when their very movement is limited like actor [Shewan] Howard's, whose apt depiction of prisoner Dylan is confined to standing stock-still behind the iron bars.” – Sally Cragin, Riverfront Times
“Raised in Captivity by Nicky Silver, directed by Robert Neblett, Actors Renaissance Theatre. This breakneck-paced production hilariously put the funk in dysfunctional family dynamics.” – Sally Cragin’s “Top Five Plays of 1999,” Riverfront Times
“Playwright Nicky Silver should send a big bouquet of roses to the folks at Actors Renaissance Theatre. They make him look good with their production of his Raised in Captivity… Those roses that Silver owes the A.R.T. company go first to director Robert Neblett, who exercises firm control over the playwright's self-indulgent excesses. Neblett wisely has his cast playing the material as if it were completely real and deadly serious. That way we are pulled into the lives of believable people, not repelled by freaks.” – Bob Wilcox, KDHX FM 88.1
“Beautifully cast and directed by Robert Neblett, it’s the best ART production I’ve seen thus far.” – Christopher Jackson, St. Louis News-Telegraph
IPHIGENIA AND OTHER DAUGHTERS BY ELLEN MCLAUGHLIN
Washington University Performing Arts Department, Saint Louis, MO (1999)
“The play's director, Robert Neblett… almost guaranteed the success of this production with his casting… There's some busy stuff in both the text — McLaughlin has an unfortunate tendency of becoming a bit too high-flown — and its realization, but Neblett's quick pace and intelligent blocking hurry us past the sticky and cloying bits.” – Harry Weber, Riverfront Times
SURFACE TENSION: A SHOWCASE OF TEN-MINUTE PLAYS BY CONTEMPORARY PLAYWRIGHTS
(Mostly) Harmless Theatre, Saint Louis, MO (2001)
“Robert Neblett, artistic director of the troupe, hits a more lyrical but equally surrealistic note with Carl Morse's Annunciation; he also directs the disturbingly unresolved closing piece, Matt Pelfrey's Lycanthrophobia.” – Judith Newmark, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“The 10-minute format, at its best, sets up and resolves a well-defined conflict and takes its characters from A to Z (and sometimes back again), all within the compacted time. The best example is The Boy Who Ate the Moon, the highlight of the evening, written by Jane Martin and directed by Robert Neblett, the artistic director of (M)HT.” – Brian Hohlfeld, Riverfront Times
DEFYING GRAVITY BY JANE ANDERSON
(Mostly) Harmless Theatre, Saint Louis, MO (2001)
“Andrew Richards sets the fantastic and poetic tone that director Robert Neblett deftly keeps afloat through the evening. Neblett’s direction, like the play itself, is deceptively simple; the piece, which depends on metaphor and fragile moments between actors, could easily come crashing down but never does. There are a handful of times when Anderson’s writing stretches metaphor to its limit, but Neblett and his cast overcome the flaws and give us a transcendent play about a transcendent subject… (Mostly) Harmless Theatre should be welcomed with drums and horns and full houses. Stop and see this beautiful thing.” – Brian Hohlfeld, Riverfront Times
“While it may seem jarring to juxtapose Monet with a cadre of contemporary characters, it all works seamlessly in Anderson’s clever and compassionate script, which is given loving care and splendid treatment by director Robert Neblett….this debut by the (Mostly) Harmless Theatre of a full-length production is impressive, and delightful in its execution.” – Mark Bretz, Ladue News
FUDDY MEERS BY DAVID LINDSAY-ABAIRE
(Mostly) Harmless Theatre, Saint Louis, MO (2001)
“Neblett’s direction is firm yet allows for some wonderful interplay and interpretation by his talented cast… highly satisfying… a treat for the intellect and soul.” – Mark Bretz, Ladue News and KDHX FM 88.1
“…the event du jour, (Mostly) Harmless Theatre’s production of the comedy Fuddy Meers, is so damned funny that we challenge you to name a funnier play.” – Byron Kerman, Riverfront Times
“BEST OF SAINT LOUIS 2001” ISSUE OF RIVERFRONT TIMES
(Mostly) Harmless Theatre, Saint Louis, MO (2001)
“The (Mostly) Harmless Theatre has produced just two full-scale shows, Defying Gravity and Fuddy Meers (as well as an evening of 10-minute plays), but both displayed polished, mature and professional work worth watching. The ambitious company is under the artistic direction of Robert Neblett, who seems intent on going out on an artistic limb, not just to shock (as many companies think they must) but to stimulate and provoke.” – Editor’s Choice – Best New Theater Group, Riverfront Times
THE LARAMIE PROJECT BY MOISÉS KAUFMAN AND THE MEMBERS OF TECTONIC THEATER PROJECT
(Mostly) Harmless Theatre, Saint Louis, MO (2002)
“In its best production yet, (Mostly) Harmless Theatre seizes the issue with fervor. Director Robert Neblett digs in with steadfast nerve and an eye toward the big picture. It frees the actors to concentrate on ‘little pictures’ - sketches of the Wyoming residents who are the hearts and souls of the drama… The production looks wonderful, thanks to Bruce A. Bergner's outsized, multilevel set and Glenn M. Dunn's elegiac ‘big sky’ lighting. When Neblett ends the first act with a tri-level tableau of the emergency-room doctor, the bicycling boy and the police officer, or depicts the nationwide memorial vigils with a scattering of actors carrying candles and umbrellas, he releases the emotional potential of design. That's a big step up from using design merely to establish time and place.” – Judith Newmark, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“The 10 (Mostly) Harmless actors and their director bring this town and its inhabitants to vivid, individualized life.” – Bob Wilcox, West End Word
ANTON IN SHOW BUSINESS BY JANE MARTIN
(Mostly) Harmless Theatre, Saint Louis, MO (2002)
“Director Robert Neblett breezes through their story with a light, easy-on-the-audience touch… Casey even voices the dark possibility that drama means more to performers than to audiences. Interestingly, Neblett has her deliver this line while she's riding a stationary bicycle. It's a rich moment; she's moving, but not going anywhere.” – Judith Newmark, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
FOUR MODERN NOH PLAYS BY YUKIO MISHIMA
(Mostly) Harmless Theatre, Saint Louis, MO (2003)
“This visually ravishing, avant-garde production draws its strength from the same source as dreams: from constellation of resonant images, at once evocative and contradictory… Neblett, who has not so much directed the four plays as choreographed them, and his design team--Bruce A. Bergner for the set, Glenn M. Dunn for lighting, Amy Soll for costumes-- employ the actors almost as props. They, too, are images for in the audience to invest with meaning, not ‘characters’ in any normal (or for that matter, recognizably stylized) sense. If we couldn't understand them, or in fact if they said nothing at all, the plays would retain their potency.” – Judith Newmark, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“The poetry of the theatre… works brilliantly. Bruce A. Bergner’s set, with its front and back scrims painted with Japanese calligraphy and its furniture and flower of metal pipe, evokes both the ancient and the modern that Mishima combines in his plays. Glenn M. Dunn’s lights can transform a modern space into the otherworldly realm of death and spirits that haunts Mishima’s work. Amy Soll’s costumes help the actors make this transition, as does director Neblett’s arrangements of stage pictures and movement and his use of music and sound. Neblett has added what he calls, using director Robert Wilson’s term for joints between pieces, ‘knee plays,’ brief interludes using highly stylized movements in the Japanese tradition that help set a mood and tone for the performances. He’s particularly fortunate to have Tomoko Kamimura, with her unforced concentration and smooth movements, in his cast for these.” – Bob Wilcox, West End Word
THE SKRIKER BY CARYL CHURCHILL
Dallas Hub Theater/SATER, Dallas, TX (2005)
“This is one of the most demanding plays, dramatically and technically, of the last decade. SATER's more than capable production far surpasses what the company has done to date. It marks the arrival of an important new force on the Dallas theater scene.... Much credit must go to the director, Robert Neblett, who is new in town. He and his design team have done a good job focusing the swirl of activity around the three leads. No doubt more time and a bigger budget could have made the function of these mysterious figures clearer. But then, mystery is the whole point of The Skriker.” – Lawson Taitte, The Dallas Morning News
“Some local theatres in the Halloween season look for unsettling and supernatural plays, but Dallas Hub Theater has outdone itself with Caryl Churchill’s The Skriker. … The Skriker is a brilliantly inventive play, oddly compelling, that keeps unfolding its meanings long after you see it. The play creates a world on the metaphysical borderline, and somehow it plunges its imagery directly into the unconscious, like the shot to Uma Thurman’s heart in Pulp Fiction. Shane Arts Ensemble has put a fierce energy into the play under Robert Neblett’s direction. … this company makes Churchill’s play vividly memorable.” – Glenn Arbery, Park Cities People
“SATER and the Dallas Hub Theater previously had a mixed record, at best. But in Caryl Churchill's The Skriker they tackled one of the most challenging British plays of the last decade, and did it brilliantly. No doubt director Robert Neblett, recently from New York, gets a lot of the credit.” – Lawson Taitte, The Dallas Morning News (“Breakthrough Production of 2005” Award)
“After some uneven productions, their [SATER’s] take on Caryl Churchill’s eerie The Skriker was unforgettable.” – Glenn Arbery, D Magazine (“Bravo! Why Dallas Theater Matters,” March 2006)
THE DREAMER EXAMINES HIS PILLOW BY JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY
Theater Fusion/Festival of Independent Theatres, Dallas, TX (2006)
“The second show of this FIT opening night is a regular play – and a darned good one. John Patrick Shanley wrote The Dreamer Examines His Pillow long before winning the Pulitzer Prize for drama last year. The earlier play is less subtle and historical-minded, but its exploration of love, sex and the unconscious mind sizzles with electricity. Robert Neblett, who made a big splash locally with Dallas Hub Theater's The Skriker, directed Dreamer for Theater Fusion.” – Lawson Taitte, The Dallas Morning News
“The Keller-bound Theater Fusion took on one of two John Patrick Shanley plays, 1985's The Dreamer Examines His Pillow. Directed by Robert Neblett, it's beautifully acted by Elizabeth Van Winkle, who discovers disturbing similarities between her slacker, artist-wannabe sometimes beau Tommy (Todd Haberkorn) and her father (T.A. Taylor), a real artist -- namely, that both guys don't treat women right. GRADE: A-” – Mark Lowry, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
JORDAN BY ANNA REYNOLDS AND MOIRA BUFFINI
Inevitable Theatre Co./Out of the Loop Festival, Dallas, TX (2007)
“Confession: For years, I've harbored a secret resistance to one-person shows. When I go to the theater, I've whispered to myself, I want to see a real play. Call me a reformed character. I saw four one-person shows at WaterTower Theatre's Out of the Loop Festival over the weekend and loved them all…. British playwrights Anna Reynolds and Moira Buffini based Jordan on the real case of a depressed and despairing mother who tried to kill her baby and herself – but only the baby perished. Inevitable Theatre Co. chose the piece as its debut production, and founder-director Robert Neblett cast Baylor University acting teacher Sherry Ward as the woman on trial for her life. Ms. Ward establishes herself as a major talent hereabouts in this harrowing show, co-sponsored by the Mental Health Association of Greater Dallas…. I can't single out a favorite. I can't even rank these four shows. They're all amazing performances – of real plays.” – Lawson Taitte, The Dallas Morning News
“…bold, confrontational, challenging, and brilliantly put together…. The power that the actress (Sherry Ward) had in making the audience feel for her was so overwhelming that just her stating two words would give me goosebumps. If you ever watched that movie, Monster, your probably remember how you sympathized with Charlize Theron's character even though she was a serial killer. You endure that same conflict when you see Sherry Ward portray this true story about Shirley Jones, who suffered post-partum depression and murdered her baby. Her accent, mannerisms, and subtle personality gave her an outstanding realistic quality. I can't rave enough about her talent to compel during such a weighty show. The technical aspects of lighting and set were just there to support her acting. Slight light changes and where she placed herself on or next to the only piece of furniture (a humongous chair) were enough to create her entire world.” – Shawn Parikh, Pegasus News
DOG SEES GOD: CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE BLOCKHEAD BY BERT V. ROYAL
Inevitable Theatre Co., Dallas, TX (2007)
“Inevitable Theatre Company gave Dog Sees God its area premiere on Thursday, and you could hardly make a better case for the piece. That talented director Robert Neblett has cast the show with mostly college-age performers, and they make very convincing high school kids. Never fear, they act like pros.” – Lawson Taitte, The Dallas Morning News
“The current production’s music, pop hits of the 70’s-90’s, re-recorded by today’s artists with punker edges and urgency, is just one example of Inevitable Theatre’s producer/director Robert Neblett’s creative genius at play…. I can’t imagine a tighter, more effective staging of this play, anywhere… Robert Neblett has assembled a strong cast and production staff that outshines many of the longstanding, ‘professional’ ensembles in the Metroplex. His actors inhabit their characters with ferocious veracity while impeccably respecting the work’s artistic parameters and director’s vision. First-class set and costumes reflect the play’s brooding, pensive tone…. I want to wrap my arms around this young cast and promise them the world will reward their generosity of spirit, tolerance and artistic integrity. Can I do that, honestly? If this play inspires more people to emulate their bravery in creating thought-provoking art, in finding good reason to not demonize anybody, my promise might become a reality.” – Alexandra Bonifield, Pegasus News
“Robert Neblett's direction is clean, concise and organic…. Neblett keeps his entire cast grounded in realism, which serves the piece quite well. He wisely steers his young company away from becoming caricatures, but instead makes them more like real teens. Neblett's keen eye for casting is displayed perfectly within his company of young thespians…. Neblett uses every inch of the intimate Bathhouse Cultural Center stage to full effect…. I was immensely impressed. Kudos as well for his terrific choices of background and scene change music. Each song serves as a soothsayer, narrator or homage to the Peanuts gang…. I seriously urge high school students to view this - they just may see themselves within these characters; hopefully, what they see will make them think twice before saying or doing the wrong thing. They just might save a life. Maybe even their own.” – John Garcia, TalkinBroadway.Com
“It may leave you with more questions than answers but quite often, that is just the sort of theatre that will reverberate long after you saw the show. Inevitable describes it as a "wicked comedy" and certainly the desire to elicit humor is evident from time to time, but DSG is just as likely to infect you with a stubborn case of melancholy and rage…. There will probably always be a certain degree of tension in the theatre when it comes to whether we should depict the world as it is or needs to be. In its own, curious, subversive way I think maybe Dog Sees God succeeds at both. And it’s brilliant.” – Christopher Soden, EDGE Dallas
SURFACE TENSION: TEN-MINUTE PLAYS (AND THEN SOME…) BY CONTEMPORARY PLAYWRIGHTS
Inevitable Theatre Co., Dallas, TX (2008)
“As a living relic of the old days of gay stereotypes, Mr. Neblett himself makes a rare stage appearance [in Mr. Charles, Currently of Palm Beach]… the segment in which the character gives a short history of gay theater was hilarious. Dark and intense seem to bring out the best in this director. Predictably, the little plays about werewolves, remnants of a cruel dictatorship and rape were all terrific. The final piece, in which two people recite the highlights of their lives as they prepare to jump off one of the Twin Towers, made it hard to suppress tears.” – Lawson Taitte, The Dallas Morning News
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