Underground Railroad Game Reviews
Washington Post- Recommended
"...By the time the evening draws to a close, an audience member is likely to feel that what transpired at Woolly was far more than a game. As reductive as the exercise that teacher Stuart and teacher Caroline have devised may appear to be, the play that Sheppard and Kidwell have constructed is a fascinatingly complex latticework that will have you parsing its lessons long after, in the epilogue of your own experiences."
DC Theater Arts- Recommended
"...If you feel theater should challenge you to the point where you are squirming and shallow-breathed, go and see it. If you don’t like being challenged when you see a play, go see it anyway for what it will show you about the human condition."
MetroWeekly- Recommended
"...Vaguely unhinged and occasionally exciting, Jennifer Kidwell, Scott R. Sheppard, and Lightning Rod Special’s Underground Railroad Game is reminiscent of the kind of childhood dress-up game that gets wilder and weirder the longer it goes unsupervised."
MD Theatre Guide- Highly Recommended
"...“Underground Railroad Game” is sure to shake up the subconscious, providing plenty of food for thought to chew on for hours, if not days, later. It’s best to come prepared with an open mind. Some may find certain scenes squeamish, otherwise may marvel at how far this off-centered comedy dared to go."
Theatre Bloom- Highly Recommended
"...Moving history forward and making progress are not the same thing. In a highly provocative, yet critically acclaimed, exploratory and awkwardly intense theatrical experience, Teacher Caroline and Teacher Stewart takes the 5th grade students of Hanover Middle School— *caw caw* GO HAWKS!— through an interactive and immersive educational model of the Civil War. Only they aren’t really Teacher Caroline and Teacher Stewart, they are Underground Railroad Game’s co-creators Jennifer Kidwell and Scott R. Sheppard, and the 5th grade Hanover Middle School students are you, the audience. Debuting in back half of the 2017/2018 season at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, The Ars Nova Production of Underground Railroad Game, directed by Taibi Magar, is a raw and unabashedly forward exploration of a troubled history intermingled with explorations of romantic and sexual entanglement between races via the lens of fantasy and fetishism."
DCTheatreScene- Somewhat Recommended
"...If nothing else, the show turns the tables on the role of black and enslaved women. We’ve seen more than enough of the sexual brutality, the complete subjugation and powerlessness of black women throughout history. Here, the power base is turned upside down with a depiction of an enslaved woman in a huge contraption of a dress heightened to tower over the white male who at first tries to describe her before he weakens with curiosity and lust and crawls beneath her huge contraption of a skirt. And that’s just the beginning of the upside-down sexual travesty."
BroadwayWorld- Highly Recommended
"...It can be unsettling to reflect on the experience of learning about slavery in middle school: was the content accurate and appropriate, or harmful to our perceptions of history and the present day? Jennifer Kidwell and Scott R. Sheppard explore this - and much more - in their creative, fearless production of UNDERGROUND RAILROAD GAME at Woolly Mammoth Theatre. No matter how uncomfortable or thought-provoking you found American history class, it's nothing compared to this searing comedy."