what critics say about Looking for Louie
Chaiken's beautiful writing strategically proffers up pieces of bone and tooth in a scintillating anthropological dig...
— Steven Leigh Morris, LA WEEKLY
The impression is not of the too-often boring self-obsession that overtakes so many solo pieces; rather it is of a revealing X-ray, in living color, seasoned by laughter and tears, of a young lifetime devoted to an absorbing search for truth.
— Madeleine Shaner, BACK STAGE
Writer/solo performer Stacie Chaiken's Looking for Louie, in its world premiere is shrewd, wry and absorbing. Chaiken is a talented, likable, energetic storyteller with lots of stage savvy and moxie.... Chaiken expertly mixes reality and fantasy, a sort of upbeat poetic realism, as she attempts to uncover the truth about Louie.
— Ed Kaufman, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
... the piece packs an emotional wallop.
— Philip Brandes, LA TIMES
Chaiken's amalgamation of her own ... life and the deeply tragic schism that exorcised [mysterious great-grandfather] Louie from the family makes for fascinating storytelling.
— Julio Martinez, VARIETY
A very attractive performer, ... Ms. Chaiken... attempted to rewrite her family history through herself, employing the stitch of forgiveness. Growing up in Covina, Calif., as the "alien child of alien parents, always in flight," "Chaiken," she explained, means "bird'' in Russian she felt emotionally and culturally cut off from her inheritance, which brought her to her own private Idaho: the Norfolk Street address of her ancestors...
— Stanley Mieses, THE FORWARD
feature press
THE JEWISH JOURNAL, Los Angeles
"A search for identity leads to a monologue about assimilation"
The whole time Stacie Chaiken was growing up, nobody discussed her great-grandfather, Louie. "My Grandpa Irving refused to speak about his father. Ever," says Chaiken, whose monologue, Looking for Louie, is premiering at Pacific Resident Theatre...
— Naomi Pfefferman
THE JEWISH JOURNAL. Los Angeles
"Louie, Louie ... Oh No. A new play discusses secrets and forgiveness."
— Stacie Chaiken
THE JEWISH EXPONENT
Looking for Louie looks to be a winner for Stacie Chaiken, whose one-woman play is an I've Got a Secret with a Jewish accent...
— Michael Elkin
THE VILLAGER
The germ of Looking for Louie, by writer/actor Stacie Chaiken, was an autobiographical piece she wrote in 1997 about her
grandfather's tools...
— Davida Singer
PLAYBILL ONLINE
West Coast actress-writer Stacie Chaiken brings her warm, humorous solo show, Looking for Louie, about "a second-generation Russian Jewish American redhead" who goes in search of the mysterious great-grandfather, to New York City's Tenement Theatre in the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.
— Kenneth Jones
Chaiken's beautiful writing strategically proffers up pieces of bone and tooth in a scintillating anthropological dig...
— Steven Leigh Morris, LA WEEKLY
The impression is not of the too-often boring self-obsession that overtakes so many solo pieces; rather it is of a revealing X-ray, in living color, seasoned by laughter and tears, of a young lifetime devoted to an absorbing search for truth.
— Madeleine Shaner, BACK STAGE
Writer/solo performer Stacie Chaiken's Looking for Louie, in its world premiere is shrewd, wry and absorbing. Chaiken is a talented, likable, energetic storyteller with lots of stage savvy and moxie.... Chaiken expertly mixes reality and fantasy, a sort of upbeat poetic realism, as she attempts to uncover the truth about Louie.
— Ed Kaufman, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
... the piece packs an emotional wallop.
— Philip Brandes, LA TIMES
Chaiken's amalgamation of her own ... life and the deeply tragic schism that exorcised [mysterious great-grandfather] Louie from the family makes for fascinating storytelling.
— Julio Martinez, VARIETY
A very attractive performer, ... Ms. Chaiken... attempted to rewrite her family history through herself, employing the stitch of forgiveness. Growing up in Covina, Calif., as the "alien child of alien parents, always in flight," "Chaiken," she explained, means "bird'' in Russian she felt emotionally and culturally cut off from her inheritance, which brought her to her own private Idaho: the Norfolk Street address of her ancestors...
— Stanley Mieses, THE FORWARD
feature press
THE JEWISH JOURNAL, Los Angeles
"A search for identity leads to a monologue about assimilation"
The whole time Stacie Chaiken was growing up, nobody discussed her great-grandfather, Louie. "My Grandpa Irving refused to speak about his father. Ever," says Chaiken, whose monologue, Looking for Louie, is premiering at Pacific Resident Theatre...
— Naomi Pfefferman
THE JEWISH JOURNAL. Los Angeles
"Louie, Louie ... Oh No. A new play discusses secrets and forgiveness."
— Stacie Chaiken
THE JEWISH EXPONENT
Looking for Louie looks to be a winner for Stacie Chaiken, whose one-woman play is an I've Got a Secret with a Jewish accent...
— Michael Elkin
THE VILLAGER
The germ of Looking for Louie, by writer/actor Stacie Chaiken, was an autobiographical piece she wrote in 1997 about her
grandfather's tools...
— Davida Singer
PLAYBILL ONLINE
West Coast actress-writer Stacie Chaiken brings her warm, humorous solo show, Looking for Louie, about "a second-generation Russian Jewish American redhead" who goes in search of the mysterious great-grandfather, to New York City's Tenement Theatre in the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.
— Kenneth Jones
