Press & Reviews
For poetry & playwriting
Moral Support
“Moral Support is a gentle memory play; nostalgic and autobiographical. William Considine has written a bittersweet tale about an estranged mother’s cry for help and her son’s lifelong struggle to believe her. It’s a slice of life, well written and acted with skill; a personal cri de coeur that resonates long after the final curtain. … [The concluding scene] is moving and hopeful.”
– Jan Ewing, Hi! Drama
“William Considine tears the bandage off the unhealed wound of his family’s disintegration in the unsparing memory play Moral Support, having its Off-Off-Broadway premiere at the Medicine Show Theatre in Manhattan. [T]he drama takes us deep into the broken heart of a dysfunctional family torn apart by alcoholism and emotional abuse. … Playwright Considine, who has said that Moral Support is frankly autobiographical, takes his audience on a sometimes harrowing tour of a very private place.” – Robert Viagas, Arts Independent
“Alcoholism. Abuse. Divorce. Dysfunctional families. All of these are familiar themes in American drama. Rightly so, given how well they’ve proven to continuously resonate with audiences. ... However, it’s not every day you come across a script that seamlessly weaves each of them together as well as Moral Support, which recently enjoyed a successful two-week run at the well-renowned Medicine Show Theatre. … [E]qual parts poetic and personal, …[what] stands out about this production [is] the dialogue. … [A]s innovative as the script itself sounds… I’d certainly be fascinated to see this play find a new lease on life someday.”
- Anthony J. Piccione, On Stage
Women’s Mysteries
“The poetry of the play is by turns beautiful, stark, and evocative…. The ending is oracular and devastating. I would love to see a full scale production of this play – the verse flowed well from scene to scene, alternating smoothly between lyricism, discourse, and action and the subject matter is well-handled and inherently fascinating.” – S. A. Holland, in Arts Independent. Read the full review here.
(A Scene from Women’s Mysteries at La Mama Theatre in 1990)
The Furies
“Just when I was wondering whatever happened to poets’ theater, along comes William Considine’s thrilling collection of four verse plays, The Furies, … miraculous both onstage and on the ear. Not only that, he is learned, funny, big-hearted and timely. ‘Lincoln in Queens’ is as human as anything by Woody Guthrie. After small productions around New York City over many years, it’s great to have these plays in one place to be read and reread, and, one hopes, performed again.” – Elinor Nauen
“At long last! [a] a considered, rollicking, breezy, deep, avant-post take on what Poetry is, what Theater is, and what happens when these arts tumble dance through history together only to land simultaneously on page and stage. Equal parts Sophocles and Ashbery, whose lineage from “Electra” right through to “The Heroes” he invokes, Considine riffles the classics to fan a new breath of Pure Future.” – Bob Holman
The Furies is a terrific intervention, a unique contemporary dramatic verse collection. Considine has a poet’s lyric ease, wit and calling, and a sensibility that travels through the complicated dynamics of history and war. This is a refreshing “oral” book, generously available here for actors and poet-performers on the stage, as well as readers, in the hand. Bravo!” – Anne Waldman