"inventive - an unconditional delight" - Ben Brantley (Critic’s Pick)

"ingenious - winning impishness - saucy, spunky - " Terry Teachout, WSJ (3X Critic's Pick)

“dauntless” - The New Yorker

Playwright of the Year, 2017 - The Wall Street Journal

*** This is one of two pages of reviews. To see reviews for EMMA, MS. HOLMES & MS. WATSON - APT# 2B, LITTLE WOMEN, or MANSFIELD PARK, please click here***

The Scarlet Letter

“A masterful adaptation… In recent years, playwright Kate Hamill has found success in a historically difficult endeavor: effectively adapting well-known and respected texts for the stage… Hewing closely to Hawthorne’s plot but winnowing the excess enough to achieve a coherent 90-minute telling, the play is tense and urgent. Hamill impressively captures the complex humanity that Hawthorne develops over the space of a much larger canvas. Throughout this tense and gripping story, Hamill and her cast also manage to have a little fun. … a fresh and perhaps revealing take on the novel. Hamill and company have escorted Hawthorne’s old story to the stage in a production deftly attuned to its lasting value and contemporary relevance.” - Star Ledger

“A powerful exploration of humanity… a theatrical tour de force is taking center stage. Kate Hamill's masterful adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic, 'The Scarlet Letter', has premiered at the Two River Theater, and it's a production that's as poignant as it is spellbinding. A 90-minute whirlwind that stays true to Hawthorne's original plot while breathing new life into its complex characters. At its heart, Hamill's adaptation is a story of love and revenge, exploring themes of morality, redemption, and the complexities of the human condition… more than just a successful theatrical production. It's a a testament to the enduring power of storytelling, and a reminder of the resilience of the human spirit.” - BNN

“Two River Theater is presenting the stunning world premiere of The Scarlet Letter skillfully reimagined by Kate Hamill, the renowned contemporary American playwright… see this meaningful jewel of a production… a testament to the enduring strength of women. The cast’s performances capture the rich story and the essence of their characters as they master Kate Hamill’s finely written dialogue. This is a captivating show that is bound to go far.” - BroadwayWorld

The Little Fellow (Or, The Queen of Tarts Tells All)

“fascinating, funny and fierce... In Kate Hamill’s new play The Little Fellow (or — The Queen of Tarts Tells All), the infamous courtesan Harriette Wilson becomes her own worst enemy. But the 100-minute dramedy also explores how the inhuman commodification of women has carved psychological scars into her soul that can never heal… wild, playful and anachronistic… bright, funny and often wacky in its time- and genre-bending style… while there are many moments of humor in the play, Hamill does not shy away from digging into the violent and seamy side of the world’s oldest profession. Nor does it cover up the cruel and self-destructive side of Wilson’s personality…. Fascinating… lively… entertaining.” - San Diego Tribune

“One of my favorite things about Kate Hamill’s very smart — and very blue — script is the way everyone keeps punching, scoring palpable hits without ever quite managing a final KO… “ - San Diego Reader

“Wonderfully compelling… Hamill plays with tone throughout her script. The first two thirds of the plot are heavy with humor… disturbing subject matter is addressed in the latter part of the show, including underage sex, violence, and social status issues. She keeps Harriet’s journey riveting, even as levity decreases towards the climax… Broadly hilarious, emotional, and at times darkly intense.” - San Diego Story

“Much of this captivating drama feeds off the theme of fairness in society or, rather, the great lack thereof. Hamill’s script has us changing our mind frequently about whom we are rooting for; it’s both hard to actually like Harriette and hard not to admire her sometimes.… If you are squeamish, timid or easily offended (I was surprised we didn’t lose a few patrons in the opening’s highly seҳual scene), go anyway. This clever historical fiction is gripping.” - Stage and Cinema

Dracula (a feminist revenge fantasy):

“Delicious… a feminist romp… a powerful argument for the full humanity of women in our culture…  The world women inhabit in this loose, rollicking adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel is frightening precisely because it’s not so different from our own… It scares us not with monsters, though it certainly has those, but with the sinister prospect of women’s dehumanization at the hands of men empowered by law and intractable custom. A tale of domestic horrors — and perhaps an egalitarian manifesto, too..— Hamill’s “Dracula” is about the expectation that women will bend themselves to the rigid frame of ladylike behavior, no matter how it deforms them.” - NY Times

“Marvelous… A timely spin on Stoker for the #MeToo era… crisply wrought….Here as in her previous plays, Ms. Hamill’s explicitly feminist perspective helps to put a fresh, theatrically potent spin on the novel. Among other things, she herself plays Renfield, Dracula’s creepy, blood-lusty acolyte… While the show’s dead-serious premise is that all men are capable under the right circumstances of succumbing to the ever-present temptation to mistreat women, Ms. Hamill has plenty of fun proving her point, and the comic bits, directed with cleverness and flair by Sarna Lapine, keep her from slipping into preachiness…. Ms. Hamill has given us a tremendously entertaining “Dracula” that has GREAT BIG HIT stamped all over it… and is doubtless destined to be taken up by regional theaters from coast to coast, as well it should be… One last thing: Ms. Hamill’s adaptations of the classics are endlessly ingenious, but she has unlimited talent, and surely the time has now come for her to try her hand at an original play. Perhaps a door-slamming farce? Whatever she decides to do, it will be worth seeing.” - The Wall Street Journal

“Hamill’s spirited Dracula has gone full Buffy the Vampire Slayer, womanhandling the plot so that it becomes a fierce parable about warrior-femme liberation. Stoker’s original stoked 120 years of fantasies about anemic virgins and smoky-eyed guys who exerted hypnotic sexual control — even for us ladies, the anti-feminism (cf. Twilight) has been part of its allure. But Hamill pumps blood right back into those women, changing some characters’ genders and beefing up women’s roles. And the result is: Men get checked. Vampires get stomped. Hamill herself sets the show’s jolly-dark tone by playing Renfield as the cheeriest bug-eating thrall ever shut up in a Victorian asylum… this is the kind of horror I could watch all day.” - Vulture, NY Mag

“An unabashed crowd-pleaser, it plays like a buddy adventure,… the production bounces between humor and horror, boosted by clever low-tech effects. (Strings of red beads unspool against Robert Perdziola's all-white costumes whenever blood needs to flow). All of the actors gamely sink their teeth into their parts, but this is the Van Helsing and Mina show, with Seward as their comic foil. Every time he shushes them or calls them hysterical or refuses to address Van Helsing as a doctor, their exasperation incites knowing laughs, especially from women in the audience…. it is satisfying to see these ladies kick ass while rebelling against the subservient roles that so many stories want to cast them in.” - TimeOut

Pride and Prejudice:

"the stuff hits are made of... the ever-ingenious Ms. Hamill has given us something completely and delightfully different, a smallish-cast period-dress Pride and Prejudice that she’s done over in the revved-up manner of a Hollywood screwball comedy. The language is traditional but the approach is thoroughly modern, with six of the eight actors playing multiple roles, several of them in drag. Cleverly compressed... and adapted with fizzy, festive freedom, Ms. Hamill’s 'P&P' is full of 'Bringing Up Baby'-style slapstick and the kind of barely controlled chaos that you’d expect to see in a five-door Feydeau farce...  In addition to having written the script, Ms. Hamill plays Lizzy Bennet with winning impishness...  If you can’t make it to Hudson Valley, Ms. Dehnert’s production will be transferring to New York’s Primary Stages in November. I can’t imagine that it will stop there: Like Vanity Fair before it, Ms. Hamill’s Pride and Prejudice is the kind of show that would flourish in a small Broadway house. Should P&P fail to receive the commercial production it deserves, you can bet that it’ll be the toast of the regional-theater circuit. " - Terry Teachout, Wall Street Journal

"Kate Hamill's screwball “Pride and Prejudice,” directed by Amanda Dehnert, is as frolicsome as her earlier efforts. It hasn’t met a rib it can’t tickle... Ms. Hamill’s distinctive spin is to read “Pride and Prejudice” through the lorgnette of game theory... The strategy: beauty, wit and wiles. The payoff: marriage to a wealthy bachelor. Win and live in luxury. Lose and starve in some cat-infested garret... I’ll go to the mat for Ms. Hamill’s un-Georgian mischief. " - New York Times

"Hamill’s writing and acting have never been better.... There is no doubt that she is one of the creative geniuses of her time and I so look forward to her next adventure.... a hysterical and imaginative production... [an] insanely original adaptation." - Times Square Chronicle

"This PRIDE & PREJUDICE is unlike any adaption of the Jane Austen classic one has seen before.  Playwright Kate Hamill, who inventively adapted Austen’s SENSE & SENSIBILITY for Bedlam and most recently Thackeray’s VANITY FAIR at the Pearl, is at it again more riotously, more ingeniously than before.  With a rollicking, witty, smart, thoroughly entertaining PRIDE & PREJUDICE  in its premier production at  the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival,  Ms Hamill serves her best work yet, and provides the best summer theater fare anywhere,  Upstate, Berkshires - Manhattan, too, for that matter.  Ms. Hamill... doesn’t “cut and paste” novel to script: her adaptations, as with P&P, are about three-quarters her own, a bubbling, contemporized mix of period dialogue and modern idiom. ... But beneath P&P’s laughs, there’s a core, more delicate sensibility - a wry, keen awareness that regards, with squinted eye, people warts and all.  This P&P is blissful mirth- a special potion of affectionate, bemused cynicism and realistic optimism about human nature,  the kind articulated by perhaps the best screenwriter (and director) of  all, Billy Wilder. Miss Austen meet Mr. Wilder.  Correction: Mr. Wilder meet Ms. Hamill." - The Berkshire Edge

"Kate Hamill has done it again. The ‘it’ in question, is her remarkable ability to adapt Jane Austen’s iconic novels for the stage. Her adaptation of “Sense and Sensibility” had a successful Off-Broadway run of over two-hundred and sixty-five performances. Her current adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice” which is playing at Primary Stages at Cherry Lane Theatre should enjoy the same acclimation and longevity. “Pride and Prejudice,” like “Sense and Sensibility,” is more than a mere adaptation.. a delightfully comedic farce, this adaptation rehearses all the novel’s important characters, conflicts, and plots with both a sense of the zany and an awareness of the rich and enduring questions raised by Austen.  If, perchance, an audience member had never read nor heard of “Pride and Prejudice, she or he would easily understand the story and identify every character without confusion or difficulty...  The assumed seriousness of the novel is replaced with the unexpected playfulness of Ms. Hamill’s script, the precision of Ms. Dehnert’s direction, and the brilliant cast assembled for this production. Kate Hamill’s Lizzie bristles with defiance and vulnerability. This is a “Pride and Prejudice” for this time and every time." - Onstage

"Hamill scores again... Hamill has cranked out winner after winner. Her joyous, lovingly painted adaptations of cherished romances are everything fans of these novels could possibly hope for.  Hamill’s new play has turned the original story into a farcical, hilarious romp, while earnestly maintaining the integrity and desperate exigences of Austen’s original... . She has proven herself a master of this craft." - TheaterPizazz

"It's not your mother’s Pride and Prejudice... Kate Hamill’s utterly delightful new adaptation of the Jane Austen classic about finding a mate in an age before social media is anything but: it is strong on humor and even stronger on farce. Who knew that the trials and tribulations of getting half a dozen couples married could be so much fun?" - TheaterScene

“I went with arms crossed, ready to see either a too-precious or a too-irreverent production…but what Kate Hamill and director Amanda Dehnert achieve is nothing less than a bold, open-heart exploration of Jane Austen's text, more true to the spirit of the original than any adaptation I've witnessed thus far, and yet wholly original to Hamill's madcap approach to the classics.  The cast is uniformly excellent, beginning with Hamill's turn as Lizzy Bennet.  In a far cry from the elegant wit of her artistic predecessors, Hamill's Lizzy is too brazen in company, too outspoken, too vivacious, too biting - in other words, too human.  This is my favorite turn by Hamill (she played Marianne in Sense and Sensibility and Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair), because she has written herself, without mask, without beauty - raw, real, vulnerable and smart… I rarely give a standing ovation for a show anymore.  Call it jadedness.  Call it a desire for art to be truly great.  Call it sheer peevishness - what you will.  But I'll tell you this: I was up and out of my chair before the lights went out. ” -  ClassicalNYC

"Hamill is a guerrilla Austenista, with an approach to the canon more audaciously irreverent than most of us have encountered before...she goes for full-blown farce that tears the social conventions of the landed gentry to hysterical shreds. Amazingly, deliciously, it all works... The audience on Opening Night ate it all up with a big spoon and a lengthy standing ovation at the finale.... It’s loads of fun, put on with both great professionalism and refreshing, zany zest." - Hudson Valley One

Vanity Fair

"a masterpiece of creative compression... I’m suspicious as a rule of stage versions of classic novels, which are in most cases pointless attempts to “repurpose” a beloved book for purposes of profit. But Ms. Hamill’s “Vanity Fair,” which is being performed to coruscatingly brilliant effect by the Pearl Theatre Company, is something else again, a masterpiece of creative compression that is at once arrestingly original and faithful to its source material, and I’ll be flummoxed if it isn’t at least as big a hit as “Sense and Sensibility... [it's] a dead-serious romp whose implicit feminism has been given a sharper point by Ms. Hamill Ms. Hamill’s Becky is a saucy, spunky schemer who, as the Victorians liked to say, is no better than she has to be.... It’s a cinch that “Vanity Fair” will soon be taken up by regional theaters across the U.S. I think, however, that it merits a more ambitious fate. This production really ought to transfer to Broadway, where it would appeal to the same audience that kept “The 39 Steps” running for 771 profitable performances. Should any commercial producers read this review, take it from me: “Vanity Fair” is another cash cow waiting to be milked." - Terry Teachout, Wall Street Journal

"I love Becky Sharp. She is cunning, devious and almost entirely unprincipled. She manipulates her friends and mistreats her child. Get to know her in Vanity Fair, Kate Hamill’s adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray’s 1848 novel... this show, like Sense and Sensibility, is a gift to actors and a goody bag for its audience. An elfin brunette, Ms. Hamill pursues Becky’s wickedness with delight and without apology, which is to say she’s good at being bad... This play provides a rare thing — a female character who behaves just as badly as the male ones without being reformed or punished... “Vanity Fair” is a nasty tale and Becky is a nasty woman. Good for her." - New York Times

"Kate Hamill had a remarkable and deserved success adapting Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility for Bedlam and she’s done it again here. Hamill stars as Becky and positively relishes the role of a woman who refuses to be judged. The seven member cast brings alive a dozen or so characters... All are excellent, though special mention must be made of Hamill. The direction, the acting, the tech elements all work in concert but above all it’s the canny script of Hamill that shines. She captures the sweep of the novel and its many ideas with spot-on choices. That begins with setting this vanity-fair of life’s temptations at an actual seaside fair full of sideshows and freaks and people ready to pick your pocket or laugh at your despair. Even better, Hamill makes great use of the stage to parallel the story of Becky and Amelia again and again, making Thackeray’s point of not judging even better than he did... why play it safe? At the very least you’ll be assured of having fun. Playwright and star Hamill hasn’t and the result here is another success. Her upcoming adaptation of Pride & Prejudice in November can’t come soon enough." - Huffington Post

"Hamill’s massive editing and adaptation of Thackeray work, ultimately, becomes two hours and fifteen minutes of stage time. By comparison Nicholas Nickleby, in 1980, involved two 4.5 hour performances to portray Dickens.  Both are exemplars of cutting-edge theatre of their times... the leading character, Becky Sharp, doesn’t “blush” (Hamill plays her unabashedly, with brio)... " - Stage Voices

"scandalous, relentless and heartbreaking... bound to impress even the most loyal of Thackeray fans... a production that is bound to capture your attention. Adapted for the stage by Kate Hamill (who also plays our heroine Becky Sharp), Vanity Fair has a little bit of everything to make it one of the most intriguing adaptations of a novel I have ever seen... Becky is a fascinating character, and watching Kate Hamill in this role was such a pleasure... her dedication to it is phenomenal ...  this adaption brings the essence of the novel in all its glory to the stage.. a great production." - BroadwayWorld

"William Thackeray’s 19th-century satire about female empowerment and high society manners gets a hilarious 21st-century makeover.... Hamill is pitch-perfect as the feisty and flinty heroine, a woman who’s often unlikable as she strives for a better hand than the one she was dealt. Hamill makes her relatable, playing Becky as someone mostly worthy of our sympathies and our encouragement. She’s funny, a master strategist, and determined. And she never asks for pity as she seeks to achieve what others were born into and what a man would be able to do without question or condemnation...  If the idea of reading Thackeray's 600+-page novel sounds impossibly daunting, you will be well served catching Hamill’s fresh, fast-paced, and wildly entertaining take." - Theatre is Easy 

"Imaginative, smart, with feminist edge... enjoyable, imaginative, thoroughly dramatic... Written by Kate Hamill, whose earlier adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility made me a fan, Vanity Fair, also starring Hamill, is a show of great charm, with a sharpened feminist edge and a lively sense of contemporary relevance... It is a play that warns against judging others—a particularly apt cautionary tale in our age of shaming." - Philadelphia Inquirer

"If you missed playwright Kate Hamill’s joyous SENSE & SENSIBILITY at Bedlam, you can atone – and deliriously – with… VANITY FAIR at The Pearl Theatre. Ms. Hamill, among Off-Broadway’s most intelligent young playwrights... and Mr. Tucker, among its most inventive directors, team up again... Remarkably Thackeray’s words are seldom heard: Ms. Hamill reckons 70-80% of the dialogue is hers.  The (in)famous Becky Sharp (played with pitch-perfect piss-and vinegar by Ms. Hamill herself), lowborn of no legacy portfolio, leaves finishing school with her best friend Amelia... Hamill perceives the ups and downs of the women’s fortunes as a dual story: Becky’s tale can’t be told without Amelia’s and vice versa - Madonna and the whore. Hamill plumbs incisively the multiple themes in Thackeray’s satire: social class, ambition, hypocrisy, gender, ethics, unifying them with the central premise, “there are no morals here.”  Cleverly, Hamill eschews the puppet show motif through which Thackeray frames his tale. Instead she creates a manager (think Our Town, or even the emcee in Cabaret), solidly played by Zachary Fine. VANITY FAIR is an exemplar of making the literary theatrical. I’ll go even further and declare that VANITY FAIR is what theatre is all about..." - WHDD

Mansfield Park:

“Highly recommended. Finds the radicalism in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park… Hamill (who also plays three roles in the production) keeps Austen's characters, and her basic plot, more or less intact—Fanny remains steadfast and true, despite all distractions and temptations to do otherwise. But Hamill heightens the drama. Fanny's aunt Lady Bertram, for instance, is revealed to be an opium addict, and the story's sexual undercurrents are much more obvious onstage than in the book. As is the most controversial element of the novel, the fact that the magnificent Mansfield Park was paid for with profits from the slave trade in the Caribbean. There is a passing reference to this in Austen's novel, but Hamill makes it a major focus of her adaptation. Hamill's changes may shock purists, but they provide a welcome respite for those of us who get a little irritated by the bubble of privilege Austen's characters frolic in. Stuart Carden's energetic production unfolds gracefully, thanks in no small part to his excellent cast.” - Chicago Reader

“A sparkling reminder of why Jane Austen endures. Watching Northlight Theatre’s luminous world premiere stage version of Mansfield Park, it was impossible not to wonder what the writer might make of her enduring cult status among 21st century audiences…. So much has changed in terms of the status of women since she penned the novel. But human nature has remained the same. And Austen’s acute observations on social class, romantic attraction, marriage, family, ethical versus pragmatic choices, self-destructive behavior, hypocrisy and the importance of self-knowledge continue to ring true. So does her wit and sarcasm, and the pre-Dickensian quality of her brilliantly limned characters. In addition, and unique to this particular work, there is Austen’s understanding of the pernicious wealth built on slavery. The new production now at Northlight is the fleet work of actress and playwright/adapter Kate Hamill, who previously devised plays based on Austen’s other great novels – “Pride and Prejudice” and “Sense and Sensibility” – and who here plays several roles. And under the razor-sharp, fast-paced direction of Stuart Carden, a superb cast and design team do the rest to set it all in motion… you must see the show and enjoy the uniformly superb cast. Highly Recommended.” - WTTW

“What is the price of passivity?… Fanny Price isn't allowed to say no. From childhood, when she's taken from her squalid home and placed with relatives at a massive country estate, she must talk, walk and dress like the rich…. When it comes time for Fanny to make real choices, does she draw on her carefully guarded morality or continue to be a well-dressed doormat? Acclaimed playwright Kate Hamill brings this world premiere adaptation to Northlight Theatre, and also acts in the production as Fanny's foil, gossipy socialite Mary Crawford…. Hamill's script coupled with Stuart Carden's direction eclipses the simple delights and biting social commentary of Austen's writing, updating certain aspects of the story while remaining true… Hamill’s love of Austen is apparent in every hushed lovers' conversation and piece of witty banter. What sets Hamill apart from other Austen adaptors is her ability to go one step further, setting a feminist tone that the author would likely love. Hamill's Mansfield Park further explores every woman's limited ability to say "no" in polite society, as well as the dark secrets behind most every wealthy family. Someone has to pay for those large houses and pretty clothes, after all…. As always, Northlight attracts actors who are the best of the best. Hamill's Mary is a standout…. Northlight's Mansfield Park is well worth the trip to Skokie: lush, gorgeous and surprisingly thought-provoking .” - Windy City Times

“This latest play by Kate Hamill follows her previous successes…. With a sudden shift in posture and the addition of a costume piece, Kate Hamill completely transforms, often onstage before our eyes, from Lady Bertram to Mary Crawford, as well as a minor character, Chapman. This is what makes her new play so exciting and fascinating. With the exception of the two main characters, the other six actors must quickly shift between portraying two or more different roles… Because the Empire English author dared to raise an eyebrow over families who made their fortunes in the slave trade, this story has been called controversial. Fanny Price, especially in Ms. Hamill’s play, is as contemporary a heroine as any of Austen’s characters. She’ll be remembered, long after the final curtain, for her modern outlook, her gumption to speak her mind and her determination to win the heart of a mate who’s her intellectual and emotional equal.” - Chicago Theater Review

“Kate Hamill’s world premiere stage version of “Mansfield Park,” brings Austen’s 1814 novel to life with flair and non-traditional casting… Playwright Kate Hamill, who has successfully adapted  Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility” and “Pride and Prejudice” for the stage, is in top form here, with a fluid and passionate narrative that runs just over two hours. She also appears in two roles and demonstrates she is as fine an actress as she is a playwright…” - Buzz

“first rate… Fanny defies the social code of the time, at least in Austen novels, in which the triumphant female captures the brass ring, a man of wealth and social standing. In Austen’s world, that counts for a happy ending. But Fanny refuses to settle for a soulless life of money and social position. She ultimately achieves love and marriage with a man, poor but compatible with her sense of decency… Henry Crawford and Mary Crawford are played with delicious cynicism by Nate Burger and Kate Hamill (the playwright, but a superb actress). Fine staging and outstanding acting… Austen remains a master worth any theatergoer’s time.” - Chicago Land

“It is a play about love and class divisions. And Hamill, who does take liberties with the plot of the novel, makes the most of both of these elements… The great problem with the great house is that it is built on a foundation of slave trade money, a dark family secret that Fanny discovers. So there are multiple moral conundrums here: can she remain in a house such as this one? Should anyone who has morals?… Mary has enough personal contradictions that she remains fascinating and somewhat unfathomable, thanks to a layered performance by Hamill. Hamill has made far more here of the slaving aspect of the story than Austen did in her novel… As a lifelong Austen fan, I enjoyed it quite a bit. Mansfield Park may not be the most enjoyable place to grow up, but it certainly is a good way to spend a chilly evening.” - Chicago Onstage

“This is a story that goes deep into the hearts and souls of the wealthy versus the poor… As we meet all the characters, and as Fanny learns more about each, she begins to see that wealth and status are not always what they seem to be…. including her aunt, Lady Bertram ( deftly handled by playwright Hamill with two other roles- she is something else!), and Mary (played to perfection by Hamill). This story is about love and conscience. It is about getting one’s “just rewards” and I applaud Ms Hamill for taking on the challenge of bringing Ms Austen’s works to the modern audience.” - Around the Town

Sense and Sensibility: 

"First presented for a short run in repertory in 2014, this enchanting romp of a play has returned on its own... with its buoyant spirits, cunning stagecraft and enlivening insights intact... Marianne (a delightfully volatile Ms. Hamill), [is] the determined romantic... Even more than Ang Lee’s fine 1995 film of “Sense and Sensibility,” this version captures the vertiginous apprehensions that lie within a seemingly quiet novel about the rewards of resignation... irresistible theater." - Ben Brantley, NY Times (2x Critic's Pick.)

• Original review from Ben Brantley (Sense and Sensibility 2014) here: named in his top 10 Plays of 2014.

"As the younger Marianne, Ms. Hamill (yes, our inventive playwright) exists in an entertaining state of feverish animation... invigorating stage version of Jane Austen’s 'Sense and Sensibility,'.... The would-be and might-have-been lovers in this enchantingly athletic take on the perils of Austen-style courtship, adapted by Kate Hamill and directed by Eric Tucker, find themselves pushed and pulled by the forces of speculation run rampant. The classic Austen preoccupations with real estate, income, class, reputation and equilibrium in life are all rendered brightly and legibly here."

"Though a favorite of moviemakers in recent years (starting with Ang Lee’s sleeper hit 'Sense and Sensibility' in 1995), Austen’s novels have never lent themselves naturally to the stage, even as drawing-room comedies. Their introspective heroines and sotto voce tone seem to call for the searching close-ups of cinema. Ms. Hamill and Mr. Tucker have sidestepped the problem by transposing Austen into the key of Dickens. Theirs is a bouncy, jaunty take on Austen, with a 10-member cast taking on an assortment of roles that are always clearly defined, sometimes as graphically as caricatures by the Dickens illustrator Phiz... remains remarkably true to the values and priorities of its source."

"[Hamill] plays Marianne with Carole Lombard-like abandon..." - Huffington Post

"I go to a lot of theatre in New York where I live and this is one of the best things I’ve ever seen here - one of the best things I've ever seen onstage. Save your Hamilton dollars and go see it." Ira Glass in the Guardian and Washington Post: links here and here.

"Bedlam  has remained true to Austen's spirit in Kate Hamill's marvelous adaptation of Sense and Sensibility... this hysterical, endlessly inventive production [is] s one of the funniest, most engaging productions now running off-Broadway... Hamill, who wrote the loose adaptation, gives a delightfully passionate Marianne, a pitch-perfect foil to Nichols' level-headed, silently suffering Elinor. It's hard not to lose one's senses in this kind of theatrical stage magic." - TheaterMania

..  without question one of the best pieces of theatre in Manhattan and assuredly one of the best stage adaptations of Austen’s classic tale...  Kate Hamill’s Marianne Dashwood knows no boundaries or limits to her emotional and spiritual dynamism... transformative theatre, groundbreaking theatre, immersive theatre, theatre not to be missed." - OnStage

"a rip-roaring joyride... lovingly and skillfully adapted by Kate Hamill, who also beautifully plays the impassioned Marianne Dashwood..." - TheaterPizzazz

"Sense and Sensibility', newly and skillfully dramatized by Bedlam’s Kate Hamill, merits far more attention than I can give it here. Suffice it to say that while Ms. Hamill has left the novel’s early-19th-century setting (and diction) intact, she and Mr. Tucker have steered clear of PBS-style costume-shop gentility, instead giving us a version so full of galloping comic vitality as to suggest a bunch of stupendously clever kids playing dress-up in the nursery. It’s by far the smartest Jane Austen adaptation to come along since Amy Heckerling’s 'Clueless,' and at least as much fun." - Wall Street Journal

"Hamill, who’s done a bang-up job with the script, lands on Marianne’s relative immaturity and near petulance without slipping into childishness... The production also manages to capture swells of intense feeling — like heartbreak and betrayal — by doing a lot with very little. That's the mark of a great writer." - Towleroad

"Goofy, joyous, and deeply moving... highly engaging and imaginative... Adapted by Kate Hamill, the show puts a premium on clever and vivid storytelling. But this “Sense & Sensibility” stays faithful to its source through all the cheekiness." - NY Daily News

"Kate Hamill's Marianne is a passionate, literary harpy that breaks through the vessels and into your heart." - NY Theater Guide

"...Kate Hamill’s excellent adaptation of Jane Austen and performance as Marianne fits my sense of the proper sensibility of this troupe as a whole: innovative and entertaining comedy." - LitroNY

Cyrano

Winner, Outstanding Performance by an Actress - DFW Critics Forum

"Cyrano is an ingenious and heart-wringing update of the old story... and the cast (John-Michael Marrs as Cyrano, NYC sensation Kate Hamill as Roxane, with Greg Holt, Anastasia Muñoz and Mitchell Stephens) is simply terrific moving through the demanding script, which asks them to go from serious to funny in a flash—and to create vivid characters of all genders, ages and social status. Hamill is little but fierce as Roxane, reminding us that Rostand’s original character never was the timid 19th-century ingénue. Her Roxane is clever, passionate and willful. She can play impetuous girl and mature woman, and together Hamill and Marrs convey connections their characters don’t entirely understand." - TheaterJones

"... a remarkably adroit cast of five populate the soldiers, nuns, shopkeepers, noblemen, and citizens of 1600s France... Marrs and Hamill seem especially at ease with the play's style and language... her Roxane has more depth than the traditional flighty ingenue." - CultureMap

" She’s delightful. Pluck and irony suit Hamill beautifully... her Roxane reminds us that the character is one of the surprisingly ‘forward-thinking’ aspects of an exuberantly backwards-looking romance... the spirited, resourceful, even exultant Roxane is Hamill at her most winning." - ArtandSeek

Noises Off

"Every member of the cast is in top form...Kate Hamill turns the anguish of the misused Poppy into unexpected humor... Kate Hamill is a rising national star."  - Syracuse New Times

“The incredibly talented ensemble works like a well-oiled machine… . The entire cast is fantastic… including a frazzled, funny Kate Hamill… It is a testament to both casting and directing that each performance is unique, and the performances complement each other. It’s fun. It’s hilarious. It’s a smash.” - WWNY

"Perfectly on point... The veteran cast has great chemistry, and top notch physical comedic acting skills... Kate Hamill plays Poppy Norton-Taylor, 'Nothing On's' emotional, quirky, and jittery Assistant Stage Manager, with perfect consistency….” - BroadwayWorld

Talley’s Folly

“Lovely…. Sally Talley (Hamill)… also a playwright known for her rollicking stage adaptations of classics like Sense and Sensibility, is a tough nut for [Matt] to crack, but her icy surface eventually gives way to a vulnerable interior, striking an authentic balance between the two, which is very tricky to get right. It's hard not to root for Matt and Sally in general, but seeing a real-life married couple play these roles adds another layer of depth, understanding, and mutual respect. Maybe it was the moonlight, but it's been eight months since I saw a play that truly looked and felt like a play, and this enchanting new streaming production from Syracuse Stage made it seem like no time had passed at all. You won't find it to be a folly, either.” - TheaterMania, Best Plays of 2020

“A touching two-actor triumph. Syracuse Stage’s new webcast, a version of “Talley’s Folly” directed by Robert Hupp and taped without an audience on the company’s mainstage, is an entirely satisfying production… Ms. Hamill, though she is now better known for writing stage versions of classic novels like “Pride and Prejudice” and “Sense and Sensibility,” is also a fine stage actor. Not at all surprisingly, they work wonderfully well together: Their love lights up the screen.” - Wall Street Journal (Critic’s Pick)

“Hamill's intelligence, energy, intensity, and consistency take center stage in her role as Sally. Hamill's powerful performance brings the emotional character of Sally beautifully to life. Director Hupp's heart, detail, and vision for this production and the stellar cast makes this a must see.” - BroadwayWorld

The Seagull

One of the best classical productions of 2014. - WSJ

"... the cast's brilliant, sometimes fiery performances give the play an added emotional intensity." (TheaterMania)

“A remarkable bit of stage alchemy... the piece achieves a formidable emotional intensity. While you would expect the artifice of acting to be more visible under such close scrutiny, the cast of ten succeeds in revealing deep, non-artificial truths.” (The New Yorker)

", the acting of the entire troupe is strong, whether pretending to be surrounded by an invisible pack of dogs, playing both sides of a dinner table conversation in sequence or rendered speechless by an unspeakably pretentious dramatization..." (LitroNY)