"A terrific production brimming with insightful wisdom."

SF CHRONICLE

 

 

"With skill and heart, Sign My Name to Freedom brings (Soskin's story) to a new audience that should leave the theater like I did: inspired."

 

"The play itself is nearly flawless."

 

"It’s an achievement by playwright Michael Gene Sullivan and director Elizabeth Carter that this approach doesn’t get too crowded, or confuse the audience. By the end of the play, when these four Bettys have told Soskin’s remarkable story, their group conversation arrives at a mutual understanding of a life and what it’s lived for. Sullivan’s dialogue is smart but not showy, thoughtfully considered and frequently very funny."

KQED

 

"Michael Gene Sullivan Thrills with Betty Reid Soskin at 102."

 

"Richly conceived, cleverly staged, deftly written, and beautifully performed...Sullivan’s musical conjures four Betty Reid Soskins: Little Betty, Married Betty, Revolutionary Betty, and Betty, today. As decades fly by, each responds to overt racism and sexism in her own way…Sullivan gives Betty brilliant speeches that reveal her special talents—to speak Truth to Power, to use reason to fight entrenched racism."

 

"Don’t miss SFBATCO’s first rate ensemble production—a true labor of love."

THEATRIUS

 

Rating: 5 E, MUST-SEE

"There are times when seeing a live, theatre production is nothing short of a blessed event in one’s life – a time when a story and its telling is so profound that one knows that the moments in that arena with those actors will never be forgotten."

 

"Such was my feeling after witnessing the near one hundred years of Betty Reid Soskin’s life pass before us in SFBATCO’s captivating, uplifting, and energizing world premiere of Sign My Name to Freedom by Michael Gene Sullivan (book).  Peppered with songs written by Soskin during her lifetime, Sign My Name to Freedom is a joyful and eye-opening testament not only to the incredible, wide-range personal and political accomplishments of one woman of mixed Creole and Black heritage but also to a history too long untold of the struggles, the injustices against, and the sheer courage and determination to survive and succeed of so many others like her…. San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company’s must-see gift to the same Bay Area where the songwriter, author, activist, entrepreneur, and finally nation’s oldest park ranger has spent the bulk of her now 102 years."

THEATRE EDDYS