New Country presented by Fair Trade Productions at The Den Theatre

Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended

"...And you don't need to know much about country music (much less new country) to appreciate the forlorn cries of Hank Williams, or the electrifying performances-particularly Sarah Lemp as Sharon, an ill-used woman with a thing or to say about it. Rather than getting bogged down in all that, it would be a lot better to simply go and see this play as soon as you possibly can."

ChicagoCritic - Recommended

"...The implied decline in what makes for a good image in a country star is yet another issue Roberts and director Ian Streicher raise and then don’t fully focus on, along with the Spears’ family’s personal drama and how it entangles those around them. However, the screwed-up Southern family business is a genre that has been well-established by such writers as Lillian Hellman and Horton Foote, and Mark Roberts’s New Country makes a fine addition to it. There are more than enough laughs and cringes to fill up the night. You’re likely to come away wishing New Country was longer."

Chicago Stage and Screen - Somewhat Recommended

"...I also kept waiting for Sharon's anger to cool regarding a failed relationship she's obviously better rid of. For all the power of Lemp's performance, her presence feels tangential. Her conversation with Uncle Jim became the play's center regardless as I grew impatient with the spurned lover whose actual spurning we also never witness. Justin and his managers eventually stumble back in passably intoxicated, but by then Sharon and Jim have absorbed most of the play's 85 minutes making a series of pained disclosures. Those cowhide chairs that initially looked so cozy had started looking harder."

Around The Town Chicago - Highly Recommended

"...Though generally interspersed with laugh-out-loud moments and dialogue, very little about this play’s themes is actually funny. For at its core, it is about heartbreak, disillusionment, ambition, infidelity, and loneliness, and while we leave laughing at the jokes as we come out of the theatre, it’s a tribute to director Ian Streicher that it is these very serious impressions and emotions that have been provoked in us and which stay in our minds."

Chicago Theatre Review - Recommended

"...This highly entertaining play by Mark Roberts is an auspicious debut, both for Fair Trade Productions and for this playwright,(at least one other of his plays is scheduled for a September production). Featuring a slick combination of fast-paced comedy and R-rated dialogue, mixed with interesting, larger-than-life characters and just a modicum of drama, this new play by Fair Trade Productions is an entertaining evening of adult theatre."

Third Coast Review - Recommended

"...New Country at the Den Theatre is great entertainment before or after a dinner at one of Wicker Park's many Milwaukee Avenue restaurants. It's a short, snappy comedy with a human side. Written by Mark Roberts and directed by Ian Streicher, New Country stars a few well-known Chicago actors as well as Roberts himself."