selected reviews (excerpted)

Parallel Lives, The Kathy and Mo Show

Actresses Kim Crow (Mo) and Mardie Schaefer (Kathy), both from Florida, create the worlds of about 15 people in the nearly three-hour-long show.

One minute they are a dating collegiate couple -- a ditzy blonde and frat boy -- who eat dinner at a restaurant frequented by cross-dressers and homosexuals. The next minute they become gossiping socialites. One whispers to the other to ask for a tampon; the other giggles and says, "Oh you mean 'A lipstick?'" to hide the meaning of a "taboo" object. That's followed by a piece on what it would be like if women were to talk about their periods as if they were men -- slapping each other on the back and bragging about who has the worst cramps.

If it's appropriate during the course of the play, Mo or Kathy may yell at or toss a comment toward an audience member or even swipe a drink from someone's table.

Crow and Schaefer each had moments when they owned the stage and commanded the audience's attention. Their ability to quickly transform into myriad personas was impressive and kept the audience guessing.

They both stole the show with their take on an over-the-top lesbian performance duo. Even those audience members who appeared more conservative than others got a chuckle out of Crow and Schaefer's obvious glee at representing the feminist worship of women and their reproductive organs. HANNAH MARIA HAYES, Press & Sun-Bulletin, April, 2003

Ghosts

The glue of the Alving household and the magic of the production is Helen Alving, as played by Kim Crow. Crow embodies Ibsen's tragic heroine so completely that often with a mere glance, a nod of her head, even an intake of breath, she draws the audience out of its twenty-first century reality and into her stifling Norwegian sitting room. And despite the tragedy inherent in Ibsen's writing, Crow never ventures into melodrama or plays Helen as a victim or a martyr. When Crow is onstage, no one shifts in a seat, fumbles with a program, fidgets with a candy wrapper or even stops to scratch an itch. June 2002 - Mary Jo Caruso

Kim Crow, a Sarasota-area actress brought in to play Mrs. Alving, makes a matron with intelligence and crust, a woman with enough fortitude to do what needs to be done and enough self-knowledge to be bemused by doing it.

... There's no question that modern sensibilities may find Ghosts a strange brew, with its society frozen by convention and tied down by its sense of what it ought to do. Still, Mrs. Alving remains singular among Ibsen's extraordinary women. Maybe it's hard to imagine yourself facing long-forgotten crises in the damp Norwegian cold. But strip away the 19th-century trappings, and Helene Alving stands tall. Elizabeth Maupin Sentinel Theater Critic
June 11, 2002

Wit

W;t' Not to Be Missed 'This skillful ... stunning production has elevated the theatre to the highest level of artistic excellence ... not to be missed ... world-class... first-rate ... with an astonishing cast of fine actors. BRAVO!

Kim Crow as Dr. Bearing is a transcendent artist and consummate performer. She gives a performance of such power and depth, it takes your breath away. This is a role that demands 100-percent-plus from any actress who tackles it -- from the red baseball cap that covers her hairless head to the hospital gowns that cover her naked body. And anyone playing this role is laid emotionally bare as well.

The incomparable Crow brings this kind of commitment to the part, revealing the very essence of her being as she shares her inner self with the audience. She plays the audience's emotions like an instrument. taking us exactly where she wants us, making us feel precisely what she wants us to feel. We believe her, we share her wit, her pain, her courage and, eventually her death. This is a gut-wrenching performance for both the actor and the audience -- an evening you will never forget.' Center Stage, Marsha Wagner, The Islander, Week of March 23-29, 2001
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'Wow.'

That was all this reviewer could say after picking her mouth up off the floor following the stunning conclusion of 'Wit' Friday by the Florida Repertory Theatre at the historic Arcade Theatre in downtown Fort Myers But 'wow' is far too simple a word to convey the layers and depths of meaning in this vocabulary-rich play, so I'll have to do better. Here it goes:

Hats off to Kim Crow, who portrays college professor Vivian Bearing, an intimidatingly intelligent and quick-witted woman who is in the final stages of ovarian cancer. Crow is remarkable as she lives out Bearing's last two hours of life after being admitted to a hospital in the 1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, which is being presented for the first time on a Southwest Florida stage.

Crow and the rest of the cast, under the direction of Pamela Hunt, do justice to a remarkable script by Margaret Edson a fabric woven with the symbolic, sophisticated poetry of John Donne. By show's end on opening night, Crow was so emotionally spent, she appeared on the edge of tears as she took her final bow to a standing ovation.

To simply recite the eloquent, rhythmical dialogue full of huge words would be a feat. To commit volumes of that dialogue to mind and memory so one can pour oneself into acting takes incredible skill and talent, and Crow does it with flourish. Her transitions are smooth and effective as she shifts easily between narrating events to the audience and interacting with other actors during every scene of the nearly two-hour play, which runs without intermission.

Crow's powerful performance ...as Bearing uses Donne's 17th century Holy Sonnets to parallel her experience and to spit in the face of death itself. As she lays on an examining table with her feet in stirrups, her soul naked, death knocking on her door, she battles back by reciting angrily to the ceiling: 'Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not soe . . .

Her diction is clear; her sentiments strong and distinct throughout the play as she fluctuates from anger, to humor, to intellectual snobbery, to submission, to disgust, to fear, and back again. At play's open, Crow's Bearing tells the audience how the show will end. We know she will die. We just don't know how incredible and revealing the end will be.' Beth Francis, Naples Daily News, March 21, 2001
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'Play seeks 'Wit' in cancer, finds beauty, insight ... evolves into breathtaking journey ... achingly human, deeply felt'

Bearing (played by an intense Kim Crow) narrates the play with caustic humor and a growing warmth. 'It's not my intent to give away the plot,' she says to her constant confidante, the audience, at the beginning o the play, 'but I think I die at the end. They've given me less than two hours. ... Then, curtain.'

Crow is lightning in a bottle from start to finish ... She speaks in grand sweeps of sentences with a sly smile and an arrogant, almost aristocratic lilt to her voice. Crow's tour de force performance as a waning cancer patient from initial denial to wracking dry heaves to cowering moans of fear are all too believable. By the end of the show, I felt myself deeply attached to this flawed yet human character ... When the curtain drops, both Bearing and the audience are left permanently changed.' Charles Runnells, gulfcoasting.com The News-Press, Fort Myers, Florida
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'A gem such as this has not hit Southeast Florida stages in recent memory ... toeing lines where few dare to tread. In other words, 'W;t' is brilliant ... a sophisticated masterpiece with impeccable performances, Kim Crow and cast accomplish a mesmerizing performance where audience members must occasionally remind themselves to breathe.' Vivian Mc Mahon, Fort Myers Beach Observer, March 21, 2001

Travels With My Aunt

"... as sweetly bizarre an entertainment as you will run into, featuring as delightful a gang of human Muppets as you'll find anywhere.

It is rare to run into characters you so much want to be. Kim Crow plays Aunt Augusta with a sheer joy in life. For Aunt Augusta, dreams are as real as brushing your teeth. There are spies and questions and music and grand romantic gestures everywhere for those awake enough to notice, and she is determined to waken her nephew Henry." Peter Smith St. Petersburg Times, Reviewed May 13, 2000

Invasion of Privacy, World Premiere

'Kim Crow as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings is charmingly complicated, combining a loving, sentimental manner with a dangerous complacency that's always bordering on the edge of smugness.' Eclipse: Performance: May 1999
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'Crow plays Marjorie from the heart, employing a great reservoir of feeling along with some light touches of humor (also demonstrating an impressive ability to split wood!)' Bradenton Herald; Sunday May 9, 1999: Barbara Molloy
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'Kim Crow's portrayal of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings is rich in subtle shadings, as well as brightly colored with wit and warmth.' Pelican Press, Feb. 4, 1999: Jean Reed

Playing for Time

''Playing for Time.' The actors mime the playing. Time passes on the Theater Works stage without definition - the next day? The next week? Its lasting spell can be attributed to the bravura performance by Kim Crow.

'Crow seems an open wound, a pulsating victim of her emotions. They flicker across her face - eating a small bit of food brings joy, ecstasy, then tears. Her rich, deep voice is connected to heart, not lungs. She breathes through her nose as if she were on fire. She walks like a petulant schoolboy. She stands in the frozen gaping idiocy of an imbecile. Her hands flicker over her shaven head in spastic waves. She leans, both accusing and pleading, into the face of another. She grimaces. She sings Puccini arias like the French cabaret singer she portrays - skilled, yes, but not a polished voice, possessing instead a raw emotional connection. She has so many emotions she seems to be feeling for the other person in the scene, channeling the entire experience of the Holocaust. Is it too much? It starts unwarranted by her surroundings and far outweighs the performances of the others, but it remains a commanding performance, one that rivets your attention and commands your respect ... The success of 'Playing for Time' rests on Kim Crow's shoulders ... the emotional impact is great.'' The Longboat Observer' Arts & Entertainment, April 30, 1998 : Jeffrey Smart
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'Playing for Time' is the story of the human spirit and celebration of life. (It's) based on the autobiography of Fania Fenelon, a popular Parisian singer and member of the Resistance, who was arrested and sent to Auschwitz. She was ordered to become part of an orchestra made up of prisoners forced to play for German officers. On occasion they were made to play for new prisoners' arrival to enhance the vicious and evil deception that civilized treatment, not gas chambers, was to be their fate.
Kim Crow's Fania dominates the stage (with) ... Remarkable vocal expressiveness, intensely shiny, expressive eyes and silent gestures all (which) combine to produce a memorable characterization. 'Playing for Time' will leave you limp - but you won't forget. Pelican Press, May 7, 1998 : Jean Reed

Arthur Miller has always been known as bold and unafraid of tackling real-life problems in his plays. That's certainly the case in 'Playing for Time,' which opened Friday at Theater Works in Sarasota. Director Jay Strauss does have a leading actress in Kim Crow, who is as daring and brave as the playwright. Crow, who shaved her head for the production, plays Fania as determined, headstrong and proud, constantly questioning the motivation that keeps them all alive ... (she) dominates the production, and gives a full portrait of her character's constantly shifting emotions. Playing for Time: Reviewed April 24, 1998: Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Jay Handelman