THE EFFECT
The Jungle Theater

"That riff on the nature-vs.-nurture debate plays out on Benjamin Olsen’s half-shell set, with chairs on three sides that is lit almost like...a dream by Shannon Elliott. As “Effect” only has four characters, the empty seats serve as an invitation [to] who the prescription drug industry wants to get as customers."

Rohan Preston, Minnesota Star Tribune

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"Ok first off, the stage design was fantastic. The blue-green lighting and the crisp, clean set-up obviously mimicked a clinical setting but also created this eerie feeling right away. It had such a dystopic, sterile feel to it. It wasn’t until the play started that I realized that the images projected on the screen during pre-show were of brain and nerve sections..."

Melody Hoffmann & Ellie Zimmerman, Southwest Journal

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"Technically the show is very accomplished, from the set design by Benjamin Olsen to the costumes by Sarah Bahr which have an authentic clinical feel. The projections which were designed by Leslie Ritenour...are abstract images that look like chemical reactions in the brain."

Rob Dunkelberger, The Stages of MN

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"The open-space clinical setting designed by Benjamin Olsen provides a blank slate on which the characters present themselves..."

Arthur Dorman, Talkin' Broadway