Breath, Boom presented by Eclipse Theatre Company at Athenaeum Theatre

Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended

"...Grimly authentic performances fuel Eclipse Theatre's potent production of Kia Corthron's bleak, sometimes brutal Breath, Boom. Written in an expressionist idiom that juxtaposes terse, fragmented dialogue with ecstatic monologues, the drama focuses on Prix, a black girl from a Bronx public housing project. Corthron chronicles her protagonist's life from 1986, when she's the ruthless and feared teenage leader of an all-female gang, to 2000, when she's a 30-year-old ex-con, working as cook on the 5 AM shift at a Burger King and augmenting her minimum-wage income by peddling drugs and food stamps."

Windy City Times - Highly Recommended

"...Two hours of bearing witness to such inhumanity ( be grateful for the intermission ) takes a much harder toll on its actors than its audience, but director Mignon McPherson Stewart and her steel-nerved ensemble never falter in their dedication to their material, its power rendered even more intense by the intimate proximity of the Athenaeum's Studio Three. Acclimating to the scale of normality prevalent in Corthron's dramatic universe is not easy, but this Eclipse Theatre Company production offers as thorough an appreciation for the fleeting moments of light to be found in a world of darkness as audiences bereft of first-hand experience could ask."

Third Coast Review - Recommended

"...Kia Corthron’s play, Breath Boom, makes us think twice about the nature of gender and violence. The tense and sometimes brutal story focuses on a Bronx girl gang and the beatings they inflict on each other and occasionally gives us a glimpse of their dreams. The cast of 10 women (one man appears occasionally) move through a series of somewhat expressionistic scenes in claustrophobic settings. Eclipse Theatre‘s production is thoughtfully directed by Mignon McPherson Stewart."