Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...Manual Cinema has long been based in Chicago, but the word is very much out nationally, and the company now spends a lot of time on the road. "The End of TV," for example, was commissioned by and premiered at last year's International Festival of Arts and Ideas in New Haven, Conn., where I expect people were blown away by the originality of the creative impulse. But even for those of us who have attended other Manual Cinema rodeos, this piece is something special. If feels far longer in gestation than the other works I've experienced and thus achieves much deeper levels of emotional engagement. And its execution is formidable."
Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended
"...In an unnamed midwestern city sometime in the early 90s, an elderly white woman lives out her days entirely through her television, while a young black woman struggles to get by in a faltering economy. Their stories echo and intertwine in The End of TV, Manual Cinema's transfixing new multimedia show, which is receiving its Chicago premiere at the Chopin Theatre. It's a beautiful thing to look at and listen to, with enough real empathy for our country's living conditions to give it contemporary resonance."
Chicagoland Musical Theatre - Highly Recommended
"...This show is like none other in the city; it's not quite a play, it's not quite a motion picture, it's, well, Manual Cinema, which just so happens to be the name of the performance group executing the show."
Third Coast Review - Highly Recommended
"...The End of TV is a magical hour in the theater. I enjoy seeing revitalized productions of work by my favorite playwrights like O'Neill, Shepard, Williams, Brecht, Stoppard and Shakespeare. Sometimes they enable you to hear those old words in a new way. But it's even more exciting to see theater created in a new and revolutionary shape. Manual Cinema was formed in 2010, and is now touring in Europe with another production."
Chicago Theater and Arts - Highly Recommended
"...The genius of this production is that it is performed using a combination of live action, shadow puppetry and video to create a sophisticated visual effect that seems more like a dream that is both real and unreal, and at the same time distinct and indistinct."
Picture This Post - Highly Recommended
"...The big more here is the music--seven talented musicians whose music supports and enhances the visuals, much like a silent movie. Ben Kauffman and Kyle Vegter wrote the music and lyrics. Like this writer, you too may yearn to understand each word as it was performed, a la musical theater. That rarely happened, so one must assume that the vocals were meant to be under the orchestration. The lyrics are reproduced in the program. The band also plays each Saturday evening following the performance."
Splash Magazine - Highly Recommended
"...The End of TV is an “art popsong cycle” set to an original soundtrack with live music and visuals. The music is excellent, with multi-channel sound design, blues rock infused with a classical edge, the musicians very talented- they sing while playing! There are intriguing shadow puppets, cunningly masked/painted and wigged performers, numerous props, multiple screens, live feed cameras, 3 old-fashioned overhead projectors, and a host of performers working it all. Two manic characters on a side-screen portray television shills huckstering goods and meditative/religious salvation amid the cacophony of ads."
