Los Angeles Times - Recommended
"...“Inherit the Wind,” which opened on Sunday at Pasadena Playhouse, keeps a respectful distance from the historical record. Director Michael Michetti capitalizes on this artistic license to give the play a modern makeover. The dialogue and characterizations still reveal their age, but the theatrical presentation has been filtered through a 21st century aesthetic."
Stage and Cinema - Highly Recommended
"...Michael Michetti's inspired production, which opened last night at the Pasadena Playhouse, chooses to set the play in today's times with the racially diverse cast in Sara Ryung Clement's modern costumes, with many on stage dressed casually in T-Shirts with some sporting personal tattoos and manbuns. Despite not changing a word of the script, the issues, prejudices, and religious intolerance all ring true in 2023. Brad Enlow's bare bones but effective scenic design uses office chairs and tables in front of a wall with damages and cracks. The line between the "us" of now and the "them" of then is blurred by placing audience members in risers on right of the stage as well in a jury box just below the stage."
LA Splash - Highly Recommended
"...The cast and crew of INHERIT THE WIND got in just right. The 2023 adaptation makes the old story fresh and new, thought-provoking, and especially relevant for today’s society. INHERIT THE WIND is highly recommended."
Stage Scene LA - Highly Recommended
"...Inherit The Wind may have made its Broadway debut way back in 1955 and the real-life events that inspired it may have taken place nearly a century ago, but under Michael Michetti’s inspired direction (and given the play’s renewed relevance in today’s ever more polarized America), the multiple Tony-winner’s Broadway-caliber Pasadena Playhouse revival feels as if it could have been written yesterday."
ArtsBeatLA - Highly Recommended
"...One of the great pleasures of theater is seeing a revival of a classic play not only succeed on its own merits but also be relevant to modern times. Certain works such as The Crucible or Enemy of the People never stop being relevant, because the themes of neighbor turning upon neighbor or the lone voice of reason being suppressed by the powerful unfortunately reflect a constant of human behavior. Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s Inherit the Wind is another such show, with its contest between religious hysteria and science, which if anything reflects our current time more than when it was written in 1955. The new production at the Pasadena Playhouse is superb on all levels and is a must-see."
Ticket Holders LA - Highly Recommended
"...Inherit the Wind caused a heap of controversy and its share of shocked viewers way back in 1955 but we, as artists unafraid to tackle the inequities of twisted values and the absurdity of our society from Euripides to Moliere to Tennessee Williams, are the entity of change most overlooked in the history of our species’ existence. This production made me leave the Playhouse almost unable to speak simply because how much it renewed my faith in what so many of us stand for and champion at all costs in our sometimes questionably Quixote-like existence spinning out of control on the doomed surface of our troubled planet."
Its Not About Me - Recommended
"...Despite the heaviness of the subject, the play is actually surprisingly full of mirth. I was not aware that Inherit the Wind is so funny. The show is amusing for at least three-quarters of it; I don't know if that was the case for the original, but for some reason, I don't think so. (I had planned to watch the movie when I got home that night to find-out if it was somewhat comedic back then, too, but then the horrors of today's world, on the news, got my attention instead.)"
The Hollywood Times - Highly Recommended
"...Two of the nation’s leading lawyers go head-to-head in the ultimate battle of wit, wisdom, and will in this powerful drama. In a fresh production boldly reimagined for today, will this small-town courtroom bring us together or tear the nation apart?"
