Ghost Bike presented by Buzz22 Chicago at The Greenhouse Theater Center

Chicago Reader - Somewhat Recommended

"...Jacqmin supplies witty set pieces as Ora encounters Cerberus, Charon, and Persephone, among others, and Sara Sawicki makes the most of them in her staging for Buzz 22. But Aurora Adachi-Winter's Ora is so petulant and self-engrossed--so consistently and unredeemably like a spoiled child--that it's hard to believe she's got any friends at all, much less one for whom she'd cross mortal boundaries. "

Windy City Times - Highly Recommended

"...This is a staggering load of tech-spec to pack into 90 minutes, even with Matt Deitchman's original score and Nathan Drackett's choreography facilitating swift changes in the subterranean landscape, making for a few moments of opening-night lag. A playbill insert acquainting us with the myriad phantoms we encounter would also expedite our orientation to each new locale. The lesson underlying all religious myth, however—that we are powerless to control our fates—is never eclipsed by the theatrical legerdemain. When Eddie finally speeds Ora on her way back to the light, our elation is as manifest as our epiphany upon sighting the sidewalk shrine erected to his memory ( coincidentally, called a "ghost bike" )."

Centerstage - Somewhat Recommended

"...While Ricky Staffieri infuses Eddie with a likable, dorky quality and a quiet earnestness, Aurora Adachi-Winter’s Ora is almost entirely one (loud) note. Always shouting her lines, Ms. Winter plays her entire performance, even before Eddie’s fatal accident, as an angry, shrill twenty-something who’s pissed off at the world. The audience finds very little to like about this character (as played in this production) except her determination to reclaim Eddie. It isn’t until the play’s final moments that Ms. Winter softens and earns the audience’s empathy. By that point theatre goers would rather hop on their bikes and leave."

Time Out Chicago - Recommended

"...Jacqmin's work was originally commissioned and produced by the theater department at Wisconsin's Carthage College, where she's taught, and there's definitely something about the collating of bits of Greco-Roman, Norse, Hindu and Buddhist afterlife tales through the lens of urban hipster cyclists that reminds me of freshman-year honors humanities. But Ora's quest is well constructed, and director Sara Sawicki's snappy, inventively physical staging and her game actors' embrace of the approach are reminiscent, in the best way, of the early years of the House Theatre. It's a sincerely solid ride."

Stage and Cinema - Recommended

"...Right on the heels of their excellent run of the Dungeons & Dragons-themed She Kills Monsters, Buzz22′s world premiere production of Laura Jacqmin’s Ghost Bike has proved that the young theater company is growing up into something extremely impressive."

Chicago Theatre Review - Highly Recommended

"...Ghost Bike is fun and sweet and painful and thrilling all at once and is perhaps one of the most active and inventive shows this year. It is always in motion and brings our modern sensibilities to commingle with the old stories that make up the cultural connection of the Second (to none) City. But its real power lies not only in its fancy tricks with great mythologies but in illuminating the little mythologies: the stories we conceive about our childhoods, our friends, our families, our relationship to our home turf and to our own, closer than we ever think, mortalities. Sometimes these stories are pretty accurate and sometimes they swing far wide of the mark but they are what carry us throughout our lives and, like any good bike, need a tune up once in a while, before they can carry us over the horizon of our destiny."