Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...Above all, "Into the Beautiful North" is a love letter to resilience and pride in one's own culture, even when that culture is being torn down by external and internal forces. Sixteenth Street's production honors both the ridiculous and sublime elements in this highly entertaining and thought-provoking tale."
Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended
"...Co-directed by Miguel Nunez and Ann Filmer, Karen Zacarias’ adaptation of Luis Alberto Urrea’s epic novel hews closely to the original source in creating a world that’s both intensely specific and enduringly universal. The young protagonists might be on a quest to save their tiny town from drug traffickers, but their pluck and smarts wouldn’t be out of place in the New England of “Little Women” or Panem of “The Hunger Games.""
Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended
"...The genius of Urrea's narrative lies in its embrace of the whole. For all its seductions, the United States is neither Satan's pit nor the promised land-or rather, it's both and neither. The people who make for places like Kankakee may be deluded or desperate. They may want to disappear or they may simply get lost. Some of them, many of them, may even wish they could head home."
Chicago Theatre Review - Highly Recommended
"...It’s all brought together of course by Zacharias’s Nayeli (indeed you have to squint to see past her brightness) channeling the optimism of the story, that good people can be found out there, that there are things still worth fighting for. Into the Beautiful North is about the surprises to be found in people. It’s hilarious, and gripping and wonderfully odd but by the end you can feel your heart truly warmed. Ready to be delighted all over again by a fistful of butterflies. And what a wonderful end of an evening that is."
Buzznews.net - Highly Recommended
"...Directed by Ann Filmer and cast member Miguel Nuñez, Into the Beautiful North rides the peaks of absurdity and valleys of real life horror like a roller coaster. Though we may be chuckling at Nayeli’s silhouetted Jack Sparrow-fantasy-lover one minute and cringing at an all-too-real incident of homophobia or xenophobia the next, the play is very much a coherent whole. Partly that’s because of a brilliant design by Joanna Iwanicka (set), Cat Wilson (lighting), Rachel Sypniewski (costumes) and Barry Bennett (sound/music), which capture the look of a Technicolor Western. We’re half-in the land of myth, where good and evil, love, and coming of age journeys are all outsized, so, of course, anything can happen."
Picture This Post - Recommended
"...Co-Directors Ann Filmer and Miguel Nuñez, along with a talented production team have unleashed this adroit cast to inject this lite-hearted script about a serious subject with unbound mirth. Go to enjoy that and then let full-frontal digestion of the tragedy at its core come later."
NewCity Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...Watching this show is like seeing a Mexican superhero comic book adventure play out on stage in some of the best possible ways. The adventure team includes two badass chicks-Nayeli (Ilse Zacharias) and Vampi (Allyce Torres)-and a super colorful, super funny gay guy named Tacho (Esteban Cruz). As they go on their journey, they meet other characters. Some are helpful, others not so much but all are beautifully written and developed. These characters are portrayed by an outstanding group of four actors (Brandon Rivera, Miguel Nuñez, Andres Enríquez and Juan Munoz) who each play between four and ten characters a piece (including Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow, who Nayeli dreams of kissing)."
