The Harriet Holland Social Club Presents the 84th Annual Star-Burst Cotillion in the Grand Ballroom of the Renaissance Hotel
“The music-infused drama follows 6 young women who have been primped and prepped for a year under the watchful eye of Madame President, who will allow for nothing less than perfection on their coming out day. But we quickly learn that this glittery world masks a host of personal demons and trauma. The play becomes an interrogation of social hierarchy, racism and sexuality issues.” -Team EBONY, Ebony.com
“The full title of “The Cotillion,” Colette Robert’s new play with music, is “The Harriet Holland Social Club Presents the 84th Annual Star-Burst Cotillion in the Grand Ballroom of the Renaissance Hotel,” and that exaggerated, super-elegant, ultrarefined sensibility—the centerpieces are tasteful, the gowns are divine—conveys the aesthetic for the playwright’s blistering, all-caps discussion of Black élite debutante culture.” -Helen Shaw, The New Yorker
“The classy veneer of the event falls by the wayside as the play progresses, but Robert gives depth to Madam President and allows that one or two of the girls might get the appeal of her perspective. There’s something irresistible in being, you know, seen.” -Jackson McHenry, Vulture
Crumbs from the Table of Joy
“The ensemble acts with a keening simplicity: beneath each sweet performance runs a lasting ache.” -Vinson Cunningham, New Yorker
Under Colette Robert’s sensitive direction, the actors deliver memorable three-dimensional performances, bringing vibrant color to an era too often cast in black-and-white. -Zachary Stewart, TheaterMania
38th Marathon of One-Acts at Ensemble Studio Theatre
“The playwright Mike Lew (“Teenage Dick”) and the writer-director Colette Robert (“Behind the Sheet”) curated the project…At their best, the works…introduce distinctive writers who make me crave more.” -Elisabeth Vincentelli, New York Times
Weathering
“Rivers and director Colette Robert make space for…grief but also know emotions are unruly. Soon, what is sad about Lena's life gets mixed up with what is funny, and that feels like a road to healing.” -Chris Hewitt, Star Tribune
“Rivers has employed a sharp ear to create seven very convincing characters, and director Colette Robert has helped Penumbra’s excellent cast make “Weathering” an enriching collection of conversations in Lena’s kitchen.” -Rob Hubbard, TwinCities Pioneer Press
“Every moment is full and meaningful, with a nice balance between humor and heaviness under Colette Robert's direction.” -Cherry and Spoon
Egress
“Director Colette Robert’s fully staged production breathes new life into a script that forces us to look at how safe we really are.” -Hannah Keating, The Daily Utah Chronicle
“Colette Robert (Director) is skillful in creating a fluid story that flows from breaking the fourth wall to “in the moment” storytelling to hallucinatory experience…Robert gives us a phenomenological encounter as both participant and observer, a unique and intimate theatrical affair.” -Jason and Alisha Hagey, Front Row Reviewers
“Directed by Colette Robert, who also helmed the play’s virtual New Play Sounding Series Festival production at SLAC last year, the play slowly and surely builds tension as it reaches its climax.” -Josh Petersen, Salt Lake Magazine
AUDELCO Award Nominations
STEW was nominated for nine 2020 AUDELCO Awards: Best Play, Playwright, Director, Lighting Design, Set Design, Costume Design, Lead Actress in a Play (for Portia), and Featured Actress in a Play (for Nikkole Salter and Toni Lachelle Pollitt)!
Antonyo Award Nominations
STEW was nominated for five 2020 Antonyo Awards: Best Play, Best Actor in an Off-Broadway Play, Best Director, Best Scenic Design, and Best Hair & Wig Design!
Drama League Award Nominations
STEW was nominated for two 2020 Drama League Awards: Outstanding Production of a Play and Distinguished Performance (for Portia)!
STEW
“Colette Robert’s energetic direction captures the chaos of a home, full of overlapping voices and gusts of movement, all leading up to the moment when the play’s façade snaps, delicately and definitively, like a bean into a bowl.” -Maya Phillips, The New Yorker
“Colette Robert’s sensitive and energetic direction successfully pairs polish with warmth.” -Alison Walls, Exeunt
“[Zora Howard’s] intimate 90-minute drama, tautly directed by Colette Robert for page 73, invites a comfortable familiarity, as though we too were in our pajamas at Mama’s kitchen table. When a wake-up call finally arrives, it’s all the more bracing to bolt upright and face the truth." -Naveen Kumar, Time Out New York
Top 10 Theater List (On the Exhale)
“Gun violence is the starting point for this exquisitely acted play, by Tara Franklin, about a single mother's response to the shooting death of her young son at his school. Franklin gave a finely tuned performance; so carefully measured and sensitive to the nuances of Martin Zimmerman's thoughtful, probing, skillfully written play.” -Jeffrey Borak, The Berkshire Eagle
2019 Berkshire Theater Awards
“Tara Franklin took home the award for Outstanding Solo Performance for On the Exhale, directed by Colette Robert and presented at the Chester Theatre Company.” -BWW News Desk
Native Son (PlayMakers Repertory Company)
“PlayMakers Repertory Company has opened its new season with a beautiful and thought-provoking production of Nambi E. Kelley’s Native Son, based on the novel by Richard Wright and intricately directed by Colette Robert.” -Susie Potter, Triangle Arts Review
“Although the story was dark, grim, and heavy, Native Son’s creative production (directed by Colette Robert) made it captivating from beginning to end.” -Erim Akpan, Chatham Life & Style
On the Exhale (Chester Theatre Company)
“Under Colette Robert's insightful direction, Franklin's oh, so smart performance here is cannily calibrated; a portrait of an in-drawn woman who presents as strong and resourceful; who is determined to be no one's victim, even in the face of formidable obstacles.” -Jeffrey Borak, The Berkshire Eagle
“Ably directed by Colette Robert, her collaborator in this (no doubt) arduous production, Franklin is an extraordinary presence who commands every inch of the stage. Her performance is a tour de force as she moved through this wild, angry, grief-filled, unpredictable, surreal, yet ultimately plausible script. The accomplished director and her design team…create a haunting exterior and interior world in this production, and it leaves an indelible imprint.” -Helen Epstein, The Arts Fuse
“On The Exhale, Martin Zimmerman’s play about gun violence in America, is another example of great theatre…Zimmerman’s taut script, and Colette Robert’s tense direction propel Franklin’s performance, and the physical production heightens Franklin’s work.” -Mark G. Auerbach, The Westfield News
“Director Colette Robert has paced the production in gradual, well-conceived increments, avoiding the temptation to indulge in over-acting, giving the Woman’s actions credibility while building the play’s tension moment by moment.” -Macey Levin, Berkshire on Stage
Tempo (Ensemble Studio Theatre)
“The chemistry between Mr. Jones and Mr. Blutcher is sizzling, and Colette Robert’s delicate direction turns what might have felt like molecular cuisine into theatrical comfort food.” -Jose Solís, New York Times
The Interval’s Directing Roundtable with Arpita Mukherjee, Christa Scott Reed, and Colette Robert
“Out of the 21 plays currently on Broadway or are upcoming this season, only three (a dismal 14%) are directed by women. However, Off-Broadway, there is a vibrant group of emerging new directors, many of whom are women staging exciting new work. I recently sat down for a roundtable discussion with Colette Robert (director of Behind the Sheet by Charly Evon Simpson at Ensemble Studio Theatre), Arpita Mukherjee (director of Eh Dah? Questions For My Father by Aya Aziz at Next Door at NYTW) and Christa Scott Reed (director of A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt at the Acorn Theatre).” -The Interval
New York City Awards $1.5 Million in Grants to Women-Led Projects
“The City of New York Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment today announced the recipients of its inaugural grants from the Women’s Film, TV and Theatre Fund…Colette Robert for The Harriet Holland Social Club Presents the 84th Annual Star-Burst Cotillion in the Grand Ballroom of the Renaissance Hotel, to be produced by New Georges and the Movement Theatre Company” -American Theatre
Behind the Sheet (Ensemble Studio Theatre)
“Directed with Olympian calm by Colette Robert, the production takes on cumulative power in its steady, clear-eyed depiction of a time when it was a given that pain would be borne uncomplainingly by human beings regarded as chattel...“Behind the Sheet” may be a quiet play. But its echoes are thunderous.” -Ben Brantley, New York Times*
*NYT Critic's Pick
“Directed with subtle force by Colette Robert, Behind the Sheet shows these women trying to heal by sharing their suffering.” -Diane Snyder, Time Out New York
“Colette Robert subtly directs a production characterized by earth tones and bathed in warm light…Eschewing visual shocks and focusing on human connection, Robert does justice to Simpson’s play and leaves a lot of room for the actors to shine.” -Asya Gorovits, Theatre is Easy
“In telling this story, Charly Evon Simpson has crafted a drama without sensationalism. Given the unbelievable reality on which it is based, the restraint of both the writing and the intelligent, inventive direction by Colette Robert is near miraculous.” -Sarah Downs, Front Row Center
Mary's Wedding (Chester Theatre Company)
"Set against the background of World War I, Canadian playwright Stephen Massicotte's "Mary's Wedding" is a love story that could go wrong in so many ways. That it doesn't says a great deal about the strength of the production this two-actor-three-character play is receiving at Chester Theatre Company under the direction of Colette Robert." -Jeffrey Borak, The Berkshire Eagle
"The creativity of director Colette Robert is in everything throughout Mary’s Wedding, making the transitions between all the different times and locales easy for the audience to follow: no small feat. The dreamlike quality of each scene, natural pace of the dialogue and the lovely chemistry between all the characters show a master’s hand." -Mary Fernandez-Sierra, In The Spotlight
"The acting and production are so seamless that the ride through time is enchanting though it tells a wistful tale of separation and loss...Colette Robert's subtle direction and pacing create a space where everything is possible in a dream state where Mary revisits the past on the night before her wedding in 1920." -Gloria Miller, Curtain Up
"The direction by Colette Robert is subtle allowing the story to unfold simply. Her staging is clean with imaginative stage pictures while the pacing enhances the dream-like elements of the plot." -Macey Levin, Berkshire on Stage
“Robert deserves credit for imaginatively mounting this tale in a way that is understandable and striking.”-Jonathan Levine, The Pittsfield Gazette
Colette is the 2018 Beatrice Terry Director in Residence
"The Drama League (Gabriel Stelian-Shanks, Executive Artistic Director) has announced the theater directors and ensembles chosen to develop new plays and musicals as part of the 2018 Drama League Artist Residency Program...An all-star advisory panel, including director Michael Mayer (Head Over Heels), playwright Gretchen Michelfeld (Nellie Bly), New Georges Artistic Director Susan Bernfield, Women's Project Artistic Director Lisa McNulty, and Mr. Stelian-Shanks made the selection."
How My Grandparents Fell in Love (Ensemble Studio Theatre)
"Mr. Gitter’s “How My Grandparents Fell in Love” is a gorgeous high note to end on: a Jewish screwball romance set in Poland in 1933. Unlikely, yes, but also uproarious and beautifully cast, with tone-perfect direction by Colette Robert." -Laura Collins-Hughes, New York Times*
*NYT Critic's Pick
The Interval
The Interval’s Women to Watch features “16 female writers, directors, designers, and producers who the theatre community should be watching."
The Mountaintop (Chester Theatre Company)
“Colette Robert has done a beautiful job with a difficult set of problems in this play...It's a very good play in the hands of very talented people. Chester is closing its season with a play people should rush to see. -J. Peter Bergman, Berkshire Bright Focus
“This is a strong finale for Chester’s season, bringing a quality play and talented actors to local audiences.” -Jonathan Levine, The Pittsfield Gazette
“Director Colette Robert achieves a dreadful, tightening sense of inevitability on the stage, in a claustrophobic interpretation, designed by Travis George, of the room where King spent his final night on earth.” -Dan Dwyer, Dan Dwyer Off Script
when last we flew (Diversionary)
“A soaring production, with high-powered acting and direction.” -Pat Launer, jazz88.org
“Diversionary Theatre made the savvy decision to bring out west its very talented original director, Los Angeles-to-New York transplant Colette Robert...a production that looks every bit as good as a West Coast Premiere deserves to be.” -Steven Stanley, stagescenela.com
when last we flew (FringeNYC)
“Colette Robert directs a phenomenal cast who dive into the world of the play so deep that the audience has no choice but to follow. Her staging is simple and elegant.” -Michael Roderick, broadwayworld.com
“The seven-person cast, under Colette Robert’s superb direction, could not be bettered...This was the last of the 14 shows I’ve reviewed in the Fringe this year. It couldn’t have possibly ended on a higher, more thrilling note.” -Erik Haagensen, Backstage
“Colette Robert’s production and Rivers’ script are by far some of the most polished I’ve ever seen at FringeNYC.” -David Gordon, nytheatre.com