For her work on 2009 JAW WEST Playwright's Festival of new works
One of the joys of JAW is getting to watch the actors (most of
whom are two plays during the festival) inhabit such different roles on the
same weekend, or even on the same day. For example, Kate Eastwood Norris played
a proper (if unusually inquisitive) Victorian English woman in Naomi Iizuka's
"Concerning Strange Devices From the Distant West." On the next day,
she was hilarious as a flirty, trashy hair-flipping single mom in Stephanie
Timm's "On the Nature of Dust," and at least a couple of regular
audience members didn't recognize her as the same actress. -by Marty Hughley, The Oregonian
For Stella Strong in the
world premiere of Sheila Callaghan's Fever/Dream at Woolly
Mammoth Theatre directed by Howard Shalwitz -May/June 2009
Jumping
out of the ensemble for her born-to-play-it comfort level is statuesque Kate
Eastwood Norris, who delivers the utterly likable and utterly castrating Stella
Strong with pinpoint accuracy. Her sense of comedy is as flawless as it is
understated. -by KateWingfield –
Metro
Weekly
Director Howard Shalwitz amps up a superlative cast to a
feverish pitch. Once you get warmed up, you’re either chuckling or falling off
your seat laughing with the supercharged, high-octane energy, melodramatic, deadpan farce this tightly-wired ensemble delivers.The play is full of exquisitely staged moments.
When
Basil’s underling Aston Marton (a wonderfully corporate-cool Kenyatta Rogers)
woos Stella (the incomparable Kate Eastwood Norris), he text messages a parody
of Calderon’s baroque poetry, which we read via a flashing digital
banner: “Yr glimmering eyes shame the stars.” “When will U open
your petals to me again?”--by Rosalind Lacy – DC TheatreScene
For Sophie in Fin Kennedy's US premiere of How
To Disappear Completely and Never Be Found at Portland Center Stage - Feb/Mar 2009
Kate Eastwood Norris brings a calm, sweet presence in the strange role of a forensic pathologist who might be
a figment of Charlie's fevered imagination or the scientific sleuth piecing together Charlie's life story through his autopsy. Marty Hughley- The Oregonian
For
Eleanor and Esme in Tom Stoppard's Rock & Roll directed by
Blanka Zizka at The Wilma Theater in Philadelphia - Sept/Oct 2008
…We also meet Max
(David Chandler), a passionate communist forever defending his ideals, wife
Eleanor (the truly amazing Kate Eastwood Norris) Eleanor's struggle with breast
cancer in Norris' powerfully painful portrayal…Stoppard mixes all this and
more, breaking through the details of two decades to connect people and ideas
in a poetic finale reminiscent of his heady-yet-heartfelt Arcadia, but with
rock 'n' roll flair. Governments and
philosophies come and go, but nothing crushes the human spirit. Rock on,
people. - by Mark
Cofta - Philadelphia City Paper
Kate Eastwood
Norris gives every dimension to Eleanor and later, doubling as the daughter
Esme, she plays subtlety in a very different key. Together it is one of the
best performances of the year.- by The Edge's –Lewis Whittington
Kate Eastwood
Norris in a tremendous performance wages a battle with cancer.-by Philadelphia Weekly's J. Cooper Robb
Meanwhile, back in England, Max's wife, Eleanor, Kate Eastwood Norris,
a classics professor, is dying of cancer…by Act 2, Esme (Norris) has a teenage daughter of her own ...(a) terrific performance...-by
Toby Zinman - The Philadelphia Inquirer
Kate
Eastwood Norris gives a tour de force performance as both the rigid, dying
Eleanor and the sympathetic, but lost daughter, Esme. When Eleanor rends her
garments to reveal her cancer ridden body it brought me to tears. This is in
spite of the fact that the bald cap she was wearing was too large, having to
encapsulate all of her lovely hair for when she plays the daughter. But it
didn't matter. She got Eleanor and she got me.-by Claudia
Perry – Aisle Say, PA
The
production has a swift pacing, spare attractive turntable stage, little sentiment.
As frequent with its creator, Stoppard's women carry the play's heart.
Max's
materialism is challenged by his cancer-ridden wife in the most powerful scene.
She is the very gifted Kate Eastwood Norris, who later doubles as her own
daughter.-by WRTI's Lesley Valdez
Zizka capitalized on the
play’s humor and intergenerational family relationships to integrate the big
ideas into the lives of the characters and find an emotional depth that the
Broadway production lacked. (Marx, for all his talk about “praxis,” would have
been proud). The intimacy of the Wilma’s smaller stage helped, and Norris’s
heart-wrenching performance as Eleanor showed that human passions, like Eros,
“don’t fit nicely into a system.” Between Norris and Zizka, they even managed
to make Stoppard’s otherwise obtuse discussions of cognitive science seem
plausible. -by Jim
Rutter – Broad Street Review
The Philadelphia theater
season has begun with a remarkable set of shows, all of which I've seen merit
praise and audience attendance. One of these show, Tom Stoppard's "Rock
'N' Roll," currently at the Wilma Theatre, features a character, played
with honesty and intensity by Kate Eastwood Norris, who has breast cancer and
talks about her disease, and her place as an individual person who wants and
needs personal attention and affection in the midst of controversies about
politics and the translation of poetry. Norris is splendid in expressing,
intellectually and emotionally, the basic truth, that people come first and
should be valued for who they are and what they've accomplished while they have
the time who earn and appreciate the attention. Norris' moving performing puts
breast cancer, the fighting of a disease, and the unfortunate moment when one
knows it might or will be terminal, into striking human perspective.- by Neal
Zoren – Delaware County Times
For Lady Teazle
in The School For Scandal directed by Richard Clifford at
the Folger Theatre – May/June 2008
As the singularly self-absorbed Lady Teazle, Norris gets
some of the best lines, and delivers them with accustomed aplomb.---Peter Marks – Washington Post
Norris, who recently received her second Helen Hayes Award
in two years, succeeds in making her character's witty remarks and occasional
physical gags seem effortless.---Susan Berlin – Talkin’ Broadway.com
For Lady Macbeth in Macbeth directed by Aaron Posner and Teller
at Two River Theatre, NJ and Folger Theatre, DC – Jan-April 2008
Ms. Norris, a Washington-based regional-theater actress
whose work I mean to follow from now on, plays Lady Macbeth not
as a harpy à la
Bette Davis but as a wholly believable woman lured astray by the siren song of
ambition.---Terry Teachout – The Wall Street Journal
Norris is a convincing study of
rapaciousness and guilt whose frail moments are also staged with sensitivity. ---Paul Harris- Variety
These Macbeths are quite a
couple, and Ian Merrill Peakes and Kate Eastwood Norris do justice to the
unjust two-some. Their love scenes are erotic, and their fights are physical.
Neither he nor she is above slamming the other against a door when anger
invades the soul...Given that Lady Macbeth is the smarter of the two, Norris
matter-of-factly delivers the specifics of her murderous plan while Peakes
squints in confusion. Norris excels as the woman behind the man who's always
one step ahead of him. After the first murder, he's appalled by the blood,
while she's intoxicated by it. Norris is hardly the battle-axe that many a Lady Macbeth has
routinely been in other productions. She's a cool, sleek honey blonde. That she
seems so elegant makes matters worse, because she appears to be a noble woman
who should know better.---Peter Filichia – NJ Star Ledger For
Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing directed by Kim Rubenstein at Shakespeare Santa Cruz –
summer - 2007
…one of the
flirtiest Beatrice and Benedicks ever to coo and spar… Kate Eastwood Norris
turns Beatrice into a proto-Carrie Bradshaw, a woman too smart and sexy to need
a man to complete her (she's gutsy enough to sit at a table by herself at the
masked ball), but unable to fight her yearning for Benedick---Karen
D’Souza - San Jose Mercury News
Kate
Eastwood Norris as Beatrice and Ian Merrill Peakes as Benedick open new windows
to the inner life of their characters. These athletic actors risk not allowing
the brilliance of their barbed repartee to govern their choices. As a result
Benedick and Beatrice come alive as fully human. We envy their devastating
facility at verbal jousting, but we also seee how their mocking masks their
vulnerabilities and costs them the very thing thay both so much desire.--- Mark Bradlyn - Santa Cruz Sentinel
For Widow Quin in Playboy of the Western World directed
by Bob Moss at Shakespeare
Santa Cruz – summer - 2007
…the finely
nuanced performance of Kate Eastwood Norris in the complex and difficult role
of the Widow Quin …superb --- Philip
Slater - Santa Cruz Sentinel
For Kay
Fein and Jayne
Summerhouse in She
Stoops To Comedy by
David Greenspan at Woolly Mammoth in March and April 2007 – directed by Howard
Shalwitz earning Kate her second Helen Hayes Award
Around a
king-sized bed onstage…Norris flings accusations and wounded looks. At, er,
Norris. Back and forth she goes, flipping from actress Jayne to designer Kay
and well nigh nailing the illusion of a verbal brawl between two worthy
opponents….splendid... --- Peter
Marks – The Washington Post
This is the
funniest performance from Kate Eastwood Norris since, well – since the last
time she was on a stage. This woman makes unfunny funny, but that isn’t a skill
she needs here. Here, she has material worthy of her talents and she makes the
most of it. Reviewers often refer to musical theatre performers who can “stop
the show” with a fabulous song…but when is the last time you’ve seen someone
stop a show without a song? Norris accomplishes this with a crystal clear comic
dialogue with herself that has her twisting and turning at top speed, creating
both sides of a conversation with such clarity that no one in the audience
doubted which character said what, while, at the same time, providing “herself”
with both the set ups and the punch lines for a series of gags that builds to a
wonderful theatrical climax. --- Brad
Hathaway – Potomac Stages
For Kari in The Pavilion, by Craig Wright at Two River
Theatre in NJ, directed by Aaron Posner – winter’ 06
Kari is
tenderly played by Kate Eastwood Norris as a woman determined to cope. With her
face frozen in a wan smile of regret, she clutches her sweater closed as though
trying to hide her broken heart. Still working at the bank, down in the
basement among the safe-deposit boxes, and still married to Hans, the local
golf pro who rescued her in her time of need, she hates golf almost as much as
she despises the memory of Peter and their unborn child.--- Naomi Siegel - NY Times
Kari,
whose marriage to the local golf pro prompts a highly humorous and supremely
sad anecdote, does an abrupt one-eighty, and Ms. Norris handles it smoothly.
You believe it. In fact, you believe everything about this strong, gentle,
intelligent survivor – and that’s really good acting. …and oh, yes, enriched by
Kate Eastwood Norris’s definitive Kari, (Aaron Posner’s) Two River directorial
debut is a success.---Philip Dorian - The Two River Times
---For Puck
in A Midsummer
Night’s Dream at the
Folger Theatre, Washington DC -Oct/Nov ‘06 directed by Joe Banno, earning Kate
a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress
John Huston
once suggested that 99% of directing is casting.if so, Mr. Banno may have
achieved 99% of his 99% with his inspired choice of the fabulous Kate Eastwod
Norris as Puck. Puck is manic, but Norris paints the whole auditorium with joy;
Puck is mischievious, but Norris makes us all co-conspirators in a never-ending
adventure of love. Norris is, indeed, so versatile that had Banno chosen to
lodge Dream in a shop selling kitchen appliances
instead of in the 1930’s, Norris would have rendered Puck convincingly as a
toaster oven, and afterward served us all grilled cheese sandwiches. ---Tim Treanor – DC Theatre Review
---For Rosalind in As You Like It and Goneril in King Lear at Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA – summer of 2006
directed by Aaron Posner and Skip Greer, respectively
Norris is a
delightful Rosalind, drawing us in to share her fear of the unknown…the
forbidden fruit titillation at the idea of Rosalind disguising herself as a man
(she’s a lovely, lanky, tentative youth) nicely prepares the way for the
sexual-tension comedy of her mock-wooing scenes with the unsuspecting Orlando…a
radiant cowgirl…---Robert
Hurwitt – San Francisco Chronical
Kate
Eastwood Norris shines as the ruthless Goneril, the most monstrous of Lear’s
daughters, always scheming, always ready to strike.--- Karen
D’Souza – San Jose Mercury News
|
