Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended

"...Brian Bell's perfectly illustrated staging combines character-creating costumes, scary puppets, and a set that, well, sets off the action in every sense. Elizabeth Birkenmeier as a novice Dream-Giver and Victoria Abram-Copenhaver as the messed-up kid are everything they should be every moment they're onstage. A dream show indeed."
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Centerstage - Highly Recommended

"...Adventure Stage Chicago has once again produced an intelligent, thought-provoking play for the entire family. What's more, this marks two-time Newberry Award-winning children's author Lois Lowry's first theatrical adaptation of one of her own novels. The result is a startlingly beautiful - and faithful - adaptation that promises to evoke smiles, provoke a few tears and inspire audiences to think about bravery, confidence, family and love."
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ChicagoCritic - Highly Recommended

"...The Adventure Stage is the introduction to theater I wish all children could have. From the outset, before the play even begins, it engages the children of the audience in a discussion of a theme central theme to the play. The discussion was a wonderful hors d’oeuvre, in the literal sense of the word, and really served to frame and organize the characters’ struggles. This particular play, then, asks difficult social questions head-on with answers that seem slightly obvious to an adult audience but potentially revelatory for children. Never does it lecture. It raises lots of tough questions and gives many unblinking, difficult answers, but it also asks the children of the audience to ask their own questions, come up with their own answers."
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Steadstyle Chicago - Somewhat Recommended

"...The cast as a whole was successful at conveying a sense of community and revealing the message to the children in the audience of confidence and self-esteem. However, the story itself was a bit stale and seemed to drag on. Laura B. Kollar's costume designs were appropriate and authentic for the reality scenes within the play but the designs for the Dream-Givers were less than they could be and were a bit out-dated."
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