Washington Post - Recommended
"...Although Lipton wrote “No Place to Go” in response to the financial crisis more than a decade ago, Gardiner’s shrewd decision to revive the show amid the pandemic accentuates the unnerving specter of joblessness. If this is an employee evaluation, then he gets full marks — for casting Smith, of course, and for understanding that “No Place to Go” has a way forward."
DC Theater Arts - Recommended
"...While the play reflects the uncertainty of our times, Gardiner and the production do so with surety and style. The cast is led by veteran performer Bobby Smith, in his 28th production for Signature Theatre, and backed by an amazing musical trio, Tom Lagana on guitar, Grant Langford on tenor and soprano saxophone, and Ian M. Riggs doing quadruple duty as music director and arranger as well as playing the bass and guitar."
MetroWeekly - Recommended
"...From the firm, fertile ground of Ethan Lipton’s one-man-plus-band musical No Place to Go, Signature reaps a mighty fine production, staged adroitly by Matthew Gardiner, and ably carried by the company’s one-man-band leading man Bobby Smith."
Talkin Broadway - Recommended
"...The production now in the ARK Theatre at Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, is an insightful and often very funny consideration of the plight of the overworked, undercompensated, and unappreciated employees who run the nation's offices. Bobby Smith is a likable Everyman as George, a 50-year-old man who has been working "permanent part-time" for 10 years as an "information refiner.""
Washington City Paper - Highly Recommended
"...The piece, which librettist and composer Lipton first performed at New York's Joe's Pub a decade ago, is an ideal showcase for the expressive pipes and the careworn demeanor of Signature Theatre regular Bobby Smith, who shares the inner deliberations of this undervalued man through a series of 11 songs. Most are mid tempo jazz numbers, though there are ballads, rockers, and even a James Brown-style funk pastiche called "The Mighty Mensch." (The terrific three-piece band sharing the stage with Smith is made up of Tom Lagana on guitar, Grant Langford on saxophone, and Ian M. Riggs-who collaborated on the score with Lipton a decade ago-on upright bass and other instruments.)"
MD Theatre Guide - Recommended
"...When “No Place to Go” first premiered in 2012, it was called a “musical ode to unemployment,” coming just a few years after the financial crisis. Now, Signature’s production comes a few years into the rapid changes to corporate America brought on by the pandemic. In many ways, this production feels like a eulogy for the old corporate world. In another ten years, after all, the kind of company culture George enjoys may not even exist anymore."
Theatre Bloom - Recommended
"...No Place to Go by Ethan Lipton is the antithesis of the Frank Loesser musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying—it’s about the experience of losing a job, and a sense of purpose, without trying. It is also a comedic look at our modern society that smacks you in the face with how honest and real it is, and I loved it."
BroadwayWorld - Somewhat Recommended
"...The show could be appreciated as a vivid historical snapshot if there were simply more meat on the script's bones. Unfortunately, the monologues and songs, with sometimes creaky transitions, feel like fragmentary, promising starts to ideas never fully fleshed out."
