Chicago Tribune
- Not Recommended
"...The princesses — played by Kasey Foster, Judith Lesser, Molly Plunk, and co-director Vanessa Stalling — are one-dimensional grotesques with misshapen bodies (they bulge with padding). I suspect that's a comment about body image, but we're still left with figures that seem removed from the subject. And we don't care about them."
Chicago Sun Times
- Somewhat Recommended
"...The 85-minute piece, created and directed by Jim Lasko in collaboration with his cast of five women, has its moments. Yet for the most part, this almost entirely nonverbal theater piece has precious little that is new to say. And even the clownish antics of its quintet of game-for-anything actresses (and the dirty little secret in this regard is that despite their grotesque padding, wigs and makeup, they are all leggy and great looking) can't camouflage the essential vapidity of the material."
Daily Herald
- Recommended
"...The Princess Club" delivers what we've come to expect from this edgy, resourceful ensemble: high energy, sincerity offset with a healthy dose of impudence and eye-catching visuals."
Windy City Times
- Somewhat Recommended
"...This is an often funny and always visually enchanting production as well as a comprehensive, kinetic portrait of the pernicious, insidious influences that bombard girls their every conscious moment. But for all its smarts and wit, The Princess Club stumbles in some respects. It takes forever to get going, and then becomes mired in repetitiveness, a fault that edges into pretention as points are hammered home again and again and again and again."
Chicago Free Press
- Recommended
"...The show’s underlying muse would be obvious even without the explicit admission in the program: “What is this princess image which seems so poised to take over my daughter’s young life?” writes Jim Lasko, who co-directs this engaging show along with performer and Redmoon vet Vanessa Stalling. Their search for answers takes them far beyond the saccharine and too-often-sexist Land of the Disney Princesses and into the chaotic world of 21st-century girl culture."
Gay Chicago Magazine
- Highly Recommended
"...As much an examination of the princess’s place in the fairy tale, it is an examination of fairy tale’s place in pop culture. Whimsical and wicked, magical and macabre, beautiful and bizarre, “The Princess Club” is a unique adventure into imagination made flesh."
Time Out Chicago
- Somewhat Recommended
"...Set in the storage room of a toy store, it shows us the secret social life of dolls after hours. Turns out, Cinderella, Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty, in all their frolicking, taunt one another in the uniquely harmful way that only other girls can. If only this scoop were as fun for us as it is for the cast."
ChicagoCritic
- Recommended
"...Redmoon has more extreme talent per inch of program credits than any other company I know. Perhaps the highest compliment that can be paid to director Lasko is to note that he has managed to give everyone enough space to shine and brought it all together in an even and coherent package where no single individual or contributing element totally steals the show."
