CRITICS' NOTEBOOK - ACTING.
WHAT ARTISTS ARE SAYING...
Jocelyn's offbeat persona & striking directness (it can read as innocence...or mystery) seem made for the 'downtown' aesthetic I've happily seen emerge. It's long been clear to me that this new aesthetic would require - & hopefully create - a pool of actors of tremendous specificity, actors who've grown up & into it's demands. They'd be adventurous & flexible in unconventional storytelling & theatrical contexts. They'd develop an intrinsic understanding of unusual approaches to language, and be able to play emotional fullness within rhythmic or proscribed speech. They'd be pro-active in bringing inquiry to developing this work, as close partners with their frequent collaborators. Jocelyn has emerged as one of these actors; that she's found her way to the center of a brave new theater is ample demonstration of her future promise.
-Susan Bernfield, Producing Artistic Director of New Georges
Jocelyn is like the love child of Willem Dafoe & Audrey Hepburn...she's got the dark, rangy intelligence of Dafoe, but the grace & poise of Hepburn. Wicked cocktail!
-Sheila Callaghan, Playwright & Screenwriter
So Leslie Caron. Gorgeous, a face not just of beauty, but character and warmth.
-Mercedes Herrero, Actor
A Jean Seberg for the Williamsburg set, this pixie is transfixing. More bobcat than tomboy, she packs a potent punch. If you tinker with this belle, she'll have you eating her fairy dust! JK is a clever & brave actress, a crafty producer, a delicious collaborator, & a creative beehive of activity. She brings the honey - and the sting.
-Tina Benko, Actor
One of the queens of the downtown irregulars.
-Jeff Jones, Playwright & Host of Little Theatre
The intelligence of her choices, along with an amazing energy, focus, & physicality, make her compelling & singular. Jocelyn reminds me of a David Greenspan or Karen Kandel in being a true creature of the theatre, and an invaluable resource to other artists. We who work on new plays & new forms need Jocelyn, and can expect much.
-Ian Morgan, Associate Artistic Director of The New Group
Original rendering by Sherif Mowafy. Original photo by Louis Ozawa Changchien.
WHAT REVIEWERS ARE SAYING...
The play accomplishes something so powerful and so nuanced, I hadn't realized it would be possible on the stage ... and it really could only be possible as a woman - driven story. Kuritsky expands and explodes ideas of victim-hood. The subject matter and the character of Erika are both minefields, and Kuritsky dances around the bombs with astonishing skill.
-Claire Gordon (Last Week Tonight With John Oliver) on Stet
Kuritsky shows the vulnerability under the strong and coldly seductive Estella that is so often absent from more traditional adaptations of the novel.
-Culture Catch on That Poor Dream
Portrayed with splendid creepiness by Jocelyn Kuritsky.
-The Village Voice on The Awake
[An] appealing lighthearted Muslim-Jewish romantic comedy... [A] tryout with a Palestinian terrorist puppet [opposite Louise Lasser & Jocelyn Kuritsky] gives the pic a small, necessary jolt into the more complex issues involved.
-Variety on Peace After Marriage
Two outstanding actors, Jan Leslie Harding and Jocelyn Kuritsky, are featured performers.
-Tom Murrin (Papermag) on 3 2's; Or AFAR
[Jocelyn Kuritsky is] a fragile geek of a college girl, April, sputtering her way into a fit of trembling so intense that she seems capable of splitting her own atoms. ...Director Paul Willis...gets superlative performances from his cast.
-TheaterMania on Crawl, Fade to White
Some supporting actors give excellent performances. Jocelyn Kuritsky, who plays Michael's little sister, Sarah, a depressed, anxious teen, is nasal and angular, both comedic and tragic in her adolescent pain.
-Off-Off Online on Michael & Edie
Jocelyn's a core member of Woodshed Collective and ALSO plays a mean Crippled Girl. She’s odd and devastating. I found myself in a back courtyard watching her do the weirdest, saddest ‘exotic dance' you ever did see, for coins, after she and her mother get kicked out of their tiny apartment. I sat there thinking – one day, in theory, these days – watching a crippled girl dance exotically on a weird back porch on 86th and Amsterdam – will be the Golden Years.
-Bekah Brunstetter (I Care Deeply Blog) on The Tenant
The superb Jocelyn Kuritsky thoroughly convinces as the trusting wife.
-Blogcritics on Father of Lies
Jocelyn Kuritsky's confession, which begins, 'I used to, um, fart...a lot...when I encountered a man I liked,' is hysterical.
-The Village Voice on Seating Arrangements
The non-English speaking foreign exchange student is an old trope by now, but as played by ghoulish and stick figured Jocelyn Kuritsky, this character's foreignness becomes as frightening as it is hilarious.
-The Playgoer on Have You Seen Steve Steven?
Since this is the venerable Flea and the actors are the Bats (the resident company of young up-and-coming actors) the acting is the best part of the show. Bats Jason Dirden, Ben Horner, Parrish Hurley, Susan Hyon, Jocelyn Kuritsky, Aurelia Lavizzo, and Stas May display a great sense of ensemble acting and comedic timing.
-A CurtainUp Review on Smoke & Mirrors
Jocelyn Kuritsky and Jessica Pohly as the two heroines of the story give incredibly intense performances.
-One Producer in the City on The Luck of the Ibis
Jocelyn Kuritsky's Mina, a prostitute with the proverbial heart of gold, totally won over my own tarnished heart.
-Obscene Jester on 12 Ophelias
CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK - PRODUCING.
WHAT CRITICS ARE SAYING ABOUT CO-CONCEIVED/DEVELOPED PRODUCTIONS...
KPOP is no mere sugar bomb. Underneath the glam and the (highly enjoyable) gimmickry, the show is a candid and increasingly discomfiting look at the struggles faced by Asian artists — be they pop stars or actors — trying to break into an American market.
-Vulture/New York Magazine on KPop
Davies’s arresting examination of campus rape culture as reported by the media comes to the June Havoc Theatre, where, through the joint forces of The Muse Project and Abingdon Theatre Company, director Tony Speciale steers a superb cast into a moral danger zone where factual truth and emotional truth don’t quite square...
-Exeunt Magazine on Stet
Woodshed Collective, the exceptional theater company that created the piece, has made it their mission to upend the conventional notion of theater, obliterating the boundaries between spectator and performer, and turning public spaces into intimate vortexes of wonder.
-Gothamist on Empire Travel Agency
Gorgeous production... This is a sophisticated and brave show from a young, talented and ambitious company, both of which are worth watching.
-New York Theatre Now on That Poor Dream
Woodshed Collective has, with great imagination and wonderful detail, transformed the old five-story West-Park Presbyterian Church into a ramshackle Parisian apartment building circa the nineteen-sixties. The only downside is that you can’t see everything.
-The New Yorker on The Tenant
Most definitely a work of dazzling genius.
-Gothamist on The Confidence Man
A deconstructed masterstroke.
-New York Press on 12 Ophelias
