Featuring five characters all named Betty, this production smartly helmed by Natka Bianchini brings to the forefront of our imaginations just how far (or not) we’ve moved the needle on female and/or queer visibility…Director Natka Bianchini’s clever use of staircases, cubes, string, toys, tinsel, and blowups offers a visual feast among the deliverance of an empowering and evocative new work.”

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MARYLAND THEATRE GUIDE

Director Natka Bianchini excels at milking this play for every gem it has. Bianchini exhibits a precise understanding of the demands of the text, leaning into the queer form and poking at the structures of traditional theatre…She guides the actors to all craft transcendent character arcs, beginning as general stereotypes and quickly evolving into empowered archetypes and three-dimensional characters.”

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BALTIMORE INDEPENDENT THEATRE REVIEW

Natka Bianchini’s nuanced direction was wonderful. She was able to pull out the harshness and tenderness of each character effortlessly. She had a true understanding of the text and you could tell she encouraged her actors to really lean into the absurdity and realness of the emotions in the language. Bravo.”

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BALTIMORE INDEPENDENT THEATRE REVIEW

This was laser-focused, superb direction, with tight, just-right staging, and the sure hand of a real pro. Natka Bianchini raises the bar to new heights.”

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BROADWAY WORLD

This is a fantastic piece of theatre, relevant to our time and crafted by a cast of brilliantly talented actors and directed with heart.”

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THEATRE BLOOM

Director Natka Bianchini and the cast succeed in embodying the script’s questions and themes in characters whose reality is palpable.”

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DC METRO THEATRE ARTS

It was my favorite class of the semester, if not my college career! Natka was an incredible and caring professor and the course could not have been better.”

I have never had so much productive and engaging discussion in one class before. Some of the topics were challenging to discuss, but I feel like everyone learned a lot about different intersectionalities and did so in a very enjoyable and academic environment.”

Thank you for a wonderful semester, for sharing your passions, wisdom, knowledge, and expertise with me and opening new doors for me in terms of experiencing and resonating with plays in an entirely new way. I have always loved seeing live performances of plays. Now I love reading and analyzing them too.”

I would like to thank you for setting a strong example of open, respectful, and creative leadership the past 4 years. Through class and your own directing, you have taught me a lot about the creative process and inspired me to hopefully find further outlets to continue to create in the future.

I truly cannot emphasize enough how thankful I am and how lucky I feel to have been able to do the things that I did and feel as though I created something that I can be proud of, and that I had the best guidance imaginable during that process.”

To put it simply, Natka has been one of the biggest influences of my college career. She has helped give me direction and taught me what I needed to know to travel along that path. Any student would be lucky to have her.”

Dr. Bianchini explores the extraordinary intimacy between playwright, Samuel Beckett, and director, Alan Schneider in this scrupulously documented history, detailing the specifics of Schneider’s obsessive desire to accurately portray Beckett’s plays in accordance with the author’s wishes. In an age where director’s concepts weigh far more heavily than the playwright’s intentions, Bianchini’s focus on Schneider’s interpretive art is refreshing, absorbing, and incredibly helpful not only to Beckett scholars, but to any directing students interested in understanding how to approach a script.”

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DR. DAVID A. CRESPY, PROFESSOR OF ACTING, PLAYWRITING, AND DRAMATIC LITERATURE, UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI

As a director of plays Dr. Bianchini has mastered the genre of the director’s note in the program. They are substantive yet accessible to a general theatergoing audience. For example, in her note on Caryl Churchill’s Cloud 9, a play I have taught multiple times and seen a production of at NYC’s Atlantic Theater Company, she shows her understanding of Churchill, the play, and how both relate to our current understanding of identity as a social construct with broad and personal ramifications in society and people’s lives…”

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DR. LINCOLN KONKLE, PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY

This is a very important book. Alan Schneider’s legacy as Beckett’s foremost American director is well established, yet no book-length examination of their groundbreaking collaboration has been published until now. The library shelves buckle beneath the weight of Beckett scholarship, so why has this vital area remained under-examined for so long? Bianchini makes a compelling argument that Schneider has been consistently and egregiously misunderstood.”

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DR. GRALEY V. HERREN, PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, XAVIER UNIVERSITY

“This book is a readable, often fascinating work that relies on a host of source material never before brought together: the notes and bibliography total more than a quarter of the book’s length.”

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RICHARD JONES, JOURNAL OF AMERICAN DRAMA AND THEATRE

Dr. Bianchini’s scholarship is of the utmost significance in the continuation of the narrative of Beckett’s theatrical presence in America as it is of his collaboration with the American director, Alan Schneider....Dr. Bianchini’s book is sure to make a favorable impression with Beckett scholars worldwide.”

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DR. KATHERINE WEISS, ASSOCIATE DEAN, CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, LOS ANGELES

“Bianchini makes the case for Schneider’s artistry in realizing Beckett’s vision successfully; he is not merely a passive facilitator but a unique reader of Beckett’s material, emphasizing synthesis and balance in the plays. This means directorial interpretation is a fundamentally creative act.”

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JOSEPH ANDERTON, JOURNAL OF BECKETT STUDIES