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Christopher Rawson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Stage review: 'SAINTS TOUR' draws visitors into a communion with Braddock
"Nothing is more eye-opening than the view back over the Mon Valley from the top of the Monongahela Cemetery, the distant sky painted golden red as evening falls. Has new-mown grass ever smelled sweeter? Have the shimmering towers of Pittsburgh far to the west ever seemed more magical? Later, in another direction, the fairy lights of Kennywood come into view.”
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Jennifer Baron, NEXTpittsburgh
Top 10 Pittsburgh Events Not to Miss in May
"Pittsburgh’s dramatic topography—with juxtapositions of winding city steps, urban hollers, skeletons of industry and nestled row houses—seems to engender an intersection of past, present and future. In Bricolage‘s newest immersive experience, audiences will eschew the passive seats of conventional theater and traverse the storied terrain of Pittsburgh’s Mon Valley. Teaming up with Pittsburgh’s newest theatre makers, Real/Time Interventions, SAINTS TOUR takes the fluid form of a bus and walking trip designed to reveal “mystical things” along its route. As active participants, tour-goers will move through the “nooks and crannies of Braddock, North Braddock and Braddock Hills, led by the Tour Guide whose family has been rooted to the land for centuries.”
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Tom Scanlon, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Bricolage's 'SAINTS TOUR' is creepy, on-the-move theater
“[A] whimsical work of art that is not afraid to have fun and be a bit silly. “SAINTS TOUR” is filled with artistic, unpredictable moments, such as the circus-like performer swinging from the tree in the cemetery, then dashing across the graves, trailing a red silk cape."
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Bill O’Driscoll, Pittsburgh City Paper
SAINTS TOUR digs deep into Braddock
"SAINTS TOUR is playwright Molly Rice's work about finding the extraordinary in the everyday: saints in the front yard. The episodic, non-narrative show is produced by Bricolage Productions with Rice and partner Rusty Thelins' Real/Time Interventions. It is structured as a 90-minute bus-and-walking tour in and near Braddock — where, audiences are told by the Tour Guide, "Saints emerge in disproportionate numbers at this very latitude and longitude." A gardening theme runs through the script, and the play's tagline is "There's something in the dirt."
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Sharon Eberson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A tour of Braddock will discover compassionate and talented performers
“There are saints among us. That is the simplest of explanations for an incredibly complex event that has begun to wend its way through the streets of Braddock. SAINTS TOUR is a co-project of Bricolage Productions and Real/Time Interventions. In this Braddock-centric piece, one thing you won’t hear much of are mill stories, for those are tales that mostly have been told. You may, however, encounter Braddock in Civil War times or in the 1940s, when Roma Gypsies settled there. The tagline “There’s something in the dirt” may suggest a grounded experience, but (Bricolage Production Company) Jeffrey Carpenter’s allusions to “visual enchantments” and “emergences” suggest reality with a few twists — and a few saints, too.”
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Bob Studebaker, WESA Art from the Ground Up
'Saints Tour’ Journeys Through A Braddock Both Real And Re-Imagined
"The SAINTS TOUR is a fiction inspired by, and then layered on to real places, and sometimes real people. The theme is that “saints” are all around us, doing good deeds even if we don’t notice them. This is a theatrical presentation which takes the shape of a bus and walking tour. A “tour guide” allows all parts … characters, visual art, performance art … to work together. The audience is encouraged to participate at several points, and by the tour’s end they will have seen Braddock in ways they never could have imagined."
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Henry Lipput, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Community Voices
There's Something About Braddock, Part 2
"In developing the project, Bricolage worked with local visual artists, a performing-arts education organization based in Braddock, and a youth group that works with Americorps volunteers. Members of the community also performed in the show. “The project has just been an incredible testament to the community,” Carpenter emphasized.”
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Anna Rasshiykina, The Sprout Fund
Saints Tour: There’s Something in the Dirt
“The Tour Guide was witty, serenely commanding, almost queen-like. “We will travel together. You will travel alone,” she says. The Tour begins. By weaving fiction with local history, SAINTS TOUR begot a folkloric sense of place. As the audience members wandered through Braddock, they periodically participated in small rituals. The acts symbolized appreciation for and revitalization of this overlooked neighborhood."
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Sean Collier, Pittsburgh Magazine
Bricolage's Sweeping 'SAINTS TOUR' Turns Braddock Into One Big Stage
“As much as we think of live performance as “some people on a stage in a big room talking to each other for two hours,” the ascension of immersive theater — a charge led locally by Bricolage Production Company — proves there’s much more that can, and should, be done to create affecting live performances. [I]n “SAINTS TOUR,” created by Bricolage with Real/Time Interventions, it means briefly stepping from the humdrum into an alternate, magical reality where good deeds transform neighbors into saints. As audiences walk, ramble and ride through Braddock, myths are woven and presented as historic fact; here, meaningful miracles are to be expected.”
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Mike Buzzelli, Burgh Vivant
Saints Preserved!: Bricolage SAINTS TOUR is a tour de force
“The Saints have marched in, staked their claim in Braddock, and are ready to show you a mystical, magical world that takes place right here, right now, around us, among us, in [SAINTS TOUR], an immersive theatrical journey through deserted industrial spaces, burgeoning gardens and decaying cemeteries.”
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Michelle Pilecki, Pittsburgh City Paper
SAINTS TOUR: It’s children's theater for grown-ups, but kids like it, too
“[This] site-specific play, conceived and written by playwright Molly Rice, has all the earmarks of classic children's theater: immersion into a land of wonderment, frequent calls for participation, exuberance and joy. And, oh yes, a treat at the end."
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Wendy Arons, The Pittsburgh Tatler
Braddock SAINTS TOUR – a Bricolage and Real/Time Interventions Co-Production
"The potency of such immersive theater experiences stems from the very personal and subjective experience they provide – more than conventional theater, the immersive theatrical journey is one from which you emerge changed in molecular ways.”