Summer, 1976 Reviews

Washington Post- Highly Recommended

"...Benesch and her creative team come at the material with restraint; there's nothing of fussiness or gimmickry here. In fact, I'd say I couldn't think of a more gratifying way to experience Auburn's nifty play, and that's knowing that lights no lesser than Laura Linney and Jessica Hecht created the parts on Broadway last year. Except that it has just occurred to me that I'd cough up actual cash to sit through another "Summer," were somebody at Studio willing to extend Norris and Twyford's engagement - and ask 'em to alternate roles."

DC Theater Arts- Highly Recommended

"..."I hate the name Holly." Delivered in deadpan by Kate Eastwood Norris in the opening moments of David Auburn's Summer, 1976, the otherwise innocuous line elicits a disproportionately large laugh, like an inside joke. And it is, in a way, as prolific Washington actress Holly Twyford sits just a few feet away, utterly unfazed by the line or the laugh, and remains dutifully in character. So it goes for the duration of the play's 90-minute run in Studio's Milton Theatre, where the pervading sense is that one is settled among friends."

Talkin Broadway- Highly Recommended

"...David Auburn's play Summer, 1976 may seem low-key in its close examination of the growing friendship between two very different women, but the individual and joint performances of two of the DC area's best and most beloved actresses, Kate Eastwood Norris and Holly Twyford, help bring it to rapturous life in the intimate Milton Theatre at Studio Theatre in Washington."

Washington City Paper- Highly Recommended

"...Studio Theatre’s sophisticated and heartfelt production of Summer, 1976 takes audiences to a midwestern landscape where hippie culture thrives, postmodernism is all the rage, and Roe v. Wade is still (and newly) in effect. Watching this divinely intimate two-hander directed by Vivienne Benesch, it’s easy to lose track of the minutes spent in the Milton Theatre where an unexpected friendship between Diana (Kate Eastwood Norris) and Alice (Holly Twyford) challenges the trajectory of the two women’s lives. This production, which reveres the day-to-day moments that define a life, is an utter triumph that showcases Benesch’s and the two actors’ unique talents."

Washington Blade- Highly Recommended

"...Now at Studio Theatre, the thoroughly satisfying two-hander tracks the unlikely friendship of Alice (Holly Twyford) and Diana (Kate Eastwood Norris), two very different women who meet as young mothers during the Bicentennial summer."

Stage and Cinema- Highly Recommended

"...What are the makings of female friendships? What holds them together and what causes them to shift off course? These are just two of the philosophical questions raised by David Auburn's latest masterpiece and recent Broadway hit Summer, 1976, currently at Studio Theater. Known best for his heady play Proof, for which he won a 2001 Pulitzer Prize, about a young woman struggling with genius and possible mental illness, this memory play again captures the feminine perspective in thoughtful and provocative ways."

MD Theatre Guide- Highly Recommended

"...Bittersweet and thought-provoking, Auburn's play, in the cradle of Vivienne Benesch's direction, focuses on the powerful but oft overlooked depth in adult female friendships. Offering two complex leading roles to DC powerhouse actors (whose resumes are so long, they skip listing them out in the program), "Summer, 1976" is theatrical excellence concentrated down to its essentials: performance and intimacy."