Chicago Tribune - Recommended
"...Is "To Master the Art," the play, a work of formidable dramatic art? Non. It is a serviceable, romantic, accessible, gentle piece of biographical writing from William Brown and Doug Frew that cannot help but wrap up its central couple, Julia and Paul Child, in the kind of halo that, I think, they both would have eschewed, given the choice. Some of the dialogue is a tad forced, although many of the supporting characters in the Childs' orbit (chefs, pals, collaborators) are colorful, exuberant types, mostly broadly played here. But enjoyably so."
Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended
"..."To Master the Art," the utterly delicious play by William Brown and Doug Frew now at the Broadway Playhouse (a remount of the original 2010 TimeLine Theatre hit), cooks up Child's evolution during the crucial decade she spent in Paris beginning in 1948. This was when she first discovered French cuisine, enrolled at the Cordon Bleu, and joined forces with Simone Beck ("Simca") to write "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," the massive tome that became a bestseller."
Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended
"...William Brown and Doug Frew's delicious play To Master the Art follows Child's progress from relative hickishness as a new arrival in post-World War II Paris, through a decade-long immersion in la gastronomie francaise, to the eve of her rebirth as a doyenne."
Windy City Times - Highly Recommended
"...It's vastly entertaining, especially Act I which is peppered it with big laughs. Wisely, the laughs are not simply gags but always grow out of the characters. Act II grows more serious-and more intellectually substantial-as Child and her cookbook collaborators ( Simone Beck and Louisette Berthold ) struggle to find a publisher, while Paul-who was a State Department officer with the United States Information Agency-is caught up in the shameful Red Scare of the 1950s."
Time Out Chicago - Recommended
"...The show's leading strength is its leading actor. Woditsch is thoroughly delightful, embodying Julia's affable forthrightness and "that fluty voice," as another character puts it, without resorting to Streep-y imitation. She also maneuvers through the script's often clunkily expository passages with enough skill and velocity that you almost don't notice the history-lesson cramming. Fine supporting turns from the likes of Jeannie Affelder as Child's co-author, Simca Beck, and Sam Ashdown as a Cordon Bleu classmate from Carolina join with warm environs created by scenic designer Keith Pitts, lighting by Charles Cooper and music by Andrew Hansen to make this, if not a four-course meal, at least a tasty morsel."
Chicago On the Aisle - Highly Recommended
"...If this lovely play, written by William Brown and Doug Frew, possessed an intimate charm in its original 2010 staging at TimeLine Theatre that cannot be replicated in the Broadway Playhouse's grander proscenium venue, its essential warmth and honesty remain undiminished - thanks largely to Karen Janes Woditsch's still-impeccable turn as Julia Child and Craig Spidle's again empathic portrait of her indulgent and adoring husband."
Stage and Cinema - Highly Recommended
"...The play's ingredients may not always blend like Julia's French onion soup or famed cassoulet, but this tasty time trip makes us "present at the creation" of a food icon and the loving husband who aided and abetted her savory saga. Four courses and four stars!"
ChicagoCritic - Highly Recommended
"...Brown and Frew have effectively blended history, character sketches of the famous into a love story that is both accurate and compelling. This love story about food will quench the most demanding theatrical appetite. We get to know and appreciate the journey of the Child's. This is a terrific production of a worthy story."
Around The Town Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...This is the production that TimeLine Theatre World Premiered back in 2010. Moving this sterling production with 6 of the original 10 cast members back to reprise their roles to rave reviews and I can't imagine that what others will say about this production that could be any different. It is as solid as it was before in a little larger venue ( although still easy to see and hear) and once again Karen Janes Woditsch is a delight as she becomes Julia Childs for this dynamite story telling experience. TimeLine is known as the company that presents stories that are inspired by history- and they do a marvelous job. Moving the production to the larger theater is a great way to allow more people, including tourists , an opportunity to see one of Chicago's finest theaters at work!"
Chicago Theatre Review - Highly Recommended
"...As a bio-drama this production will inform while inspiring adventurous cooks to give Ms. Child's recipes a try; as an entertainment the play will appeal to adult audiences through its poignance, humanity and humor; but for many, TimeLine's production will serve as a theatrical appetizer that will prompt audiences to visit their Theatre again for upcoming productions, and also maybe to find and enjoy a good French restaurant following the show."
Third Coast Review - Recommended
"...Food and politics go hand in hand in TimeLine Theatre’s online revival of To Master the Art, written by William Brown and Doug Frew, and directed by Brown. To Master the Art had its premiere at TimeLine in 2010 and was then remounted a few years later, in 2013, at the Broadway Playhouse. As we are all cocooned in our homes, now is the perfect time to get reacquainted with Brown and Frew’s entertaining work and with its subject, the indefatigable Julia Child. Video recording and editing for the online version is by Marty Higginbotham."
TotalTheater - Highly Recommended
"...The spunky six-foot-two, "fluty"-voiced daughter of a staunch Republican from Pasadena, California, may not seem the stuff of heroism-isn't she famous, not for her work with the secret service during WW II, but for her COOKING?-so why is Julia McWilliams Child remembered today even by feminists too young to have seen her anywhere but on television? Co-authors of To Master the Art Doug Frew and William Brown acquaint us with the reasons in this shamelessly romantic biodrama of the woman who, once embarked on her chosen path, never veered from her convictions or her commitment to her beloved husband-defying global politics, homeland unrest, Red Scare-predators, chauvinistic mentors and sexist publishers, all in pursuit of ensuring that even the most humble of citizens ate well."