"A majestic new play."
Christopher Kelly, Star Ledger

"ILLYRIA...works its way between your ribs."
Sara Holdren, New York Magazine

"ILLYRIA affords distinctive...pleasures that no one these days does better than Mr Nelson. I mean the sense of experiencing life, in all its trivia and eventfulness, happening in a very specific moment, among people who know one another well."
Ben Brantley, The New York Times

"Uses the stage not as a pedestal but as a field of whispered dreams."
Michael Shulman, The New Yorker

"Chekovian discussions unfold against a subtly evoked backdrop of lurking menace. At stake is not just free Shakespeare but the characters' livelihoods amid ongoing McCarthyite witch-hunts..."
Max McGuinness, Financial Times

"Playgoers are well aware of Nelson's excellence at probing the hopes and illusions of modern-day characters. Here, he takes the larger-than-life Papp & pals and places them into something of a backstage morality play with sheathes of undercurrents worthy of old Will."
Steven Suskin, Huffington Post

"ILLYRIA's artists catch us up in their rich, reeling talk. But the scale and scope here is vigorously human..."
Alan Scherstuhl, The Village Voice