A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant at Noyes Cultural Arts Center

Chicago Tribune - Somewhat Recommended

"...Up in Evanston, director Katy Walsh has a diverse array of hugely talented North Shore kids in her show, and she puts on a full-blown, suburban-style mock pageant, replete with many clever staging gags, including the heart-tugging moment when L. Ron finds himself face to face with an agent from the IRS. Some of these kids are hysterically funny, and the Next show features additional material and musical numbers, all of which enhance the glorious L. Ron experience."

Chicago Reader - Recommended

"...With its smug certainties and self-serving creation myth, this 65-minute pageant also spoofs Nativity reenactments and passion plays. Familiarity somehow defies contempt, though, and the show comes across as an ecclesiastical infomercial. A Red Orchid Theatre's competing version delivers a much more equivocal ending, but both productions present salvation on the cheap--never more simplistic than out of the mouths of babes."

Windy City Times - Recommended

"...Without any adults to stand in their spotlight, these kids see their opportunity to shine as does their director, Kathryn Walsh. Walsh has supplied them with the clever staging—and confidence—to inspire laughs from the audience rather than achieve them by incident."

ChicagoCritic - Somewhat Recommended

"...As it played out at Next Theatre, this 65 minute satirical comedy with songs loses its charm a few minutes into the show. It struck me that I was witnessing a musical pageant at a grade school–the kind of show you see if one of your family member’s kids are appearing in. The production values, understandably, are not what you’d expect from an professional Equity theatre company like Next Theatre."

Chicago Stage and Screen - Somewhat Recommended

"...I congratulate Next for taking a chance on doing this show while it is also being done (a slightly different version) at another theater with an older cast. But for me it just didn't work as I had hoped it would. Parody is not easy to do, even for more experienced actors, so asking kids to take shots at this man, whose believers do not see him as their God but as their Savior, is quite a task. Many feel that what L.Ron Hubbard has created is an opportunity to feed off other's misery by allowing them to reach heavenly bliss, but only by taking his courses, which of course added to his riches."