Directing Reviews

AGNES OF GOD by John Pielmeier

Factory 449

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2020 HELEN HAYES AWARD NOMINATION - OUTSTANDING DIRECTION OF A PLAY

“As directed by Rick Hammerly, the Factory 449 production is visionary. Staged in the tiny Anacostia Arts Center black box, it could not get more intimate.” - DCMTA

“…this slam-bang production, under Hammerly’s steady hand…” - DC Theatre Scene

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“…three exceptional performances, tight direction, and innovative staging and design.” - MD Theatre Guide

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“Director Rick Hammerly expertly lays a simple, straightforward production that is both open and intimate enough to carry the heavy themes of this character drama.” - BroadwayWorld

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“Rick Hammerly directs the 40-year-old-play with assured precision.” - The Washington Post 

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“It’s one of the 1979 play’s many virtues, rendered well by Rick Hammerly’s taut Factory 449 production.” - MetroWeekly

REYKJAVIK by Steve Yockey

Rorschach Theatre

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“Hammerly skillfully pulls dynamic performances from all of his actors, creating a magical fever dream for the audience. The culmination is not an explosion but an implosion of emotion, a quiet surrender of awe and love.” - BroadwayWorld

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“Throughout REYKJAVIK, there is a dark undercurrent about sex and danger, but there is an equally strong current of longing for love and trust. Director Rick Hammerly has so beautifully modulated the two that one feels swept away—as if by magic—just as Yockey’s script would have it.” - DCMTA

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“Director Rick Hammerly pulls some fine moments out of this cast...in this magic-filled and darkly comic romp through Iceland’s capital...” - DC Theatre Scene

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“While some ghastly, bloody occurrences play out onstage and characters share some equally upsetting personal origin stories, Hammerly mines the moments of magic as much as those of violence.” - Culture Spot MC

EMILIE: LA MARQUISE DU CHATELET DEFENDS HER LIFE TONIGHT by Lauren Gunderson

WSC Avant Bard

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“Director Rick Hammerly’s production displays a bold agility that underscores the dynamism of Emilie’s mind,

even as sequences of stylized movement hint at elaborate 18th-century manners.” - The Washington Post 

“Director Rick Hammerly follows up the magnificent LELA & CO. with another winning production featuring an

unconventional heroine.” - DCMTA

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“Director Rick Hammerly keeps the staging quite like the universe - constantly in motion - giving liveliness and court dance - like elegance in this story of Emilie’s examination of her life and her constant struggle between love and pursuing advanced scientific theories. The play is even staged like a match between the head & the heart - two movable full-length mirrors etched with “Love” & “Philosophy” twirl around as Emilie keeps score on each surface as her life events unfold.” - DC Theatre Scene

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“Under Rick Hammerly’s direction, the show is a kinetic mix of modern and classic. This stylish production is a wonderful mix of energy and entertainment that captivates the mind and heart.” - MD Theatre Guide

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“Director Rick Hammerly has chosen Gunderson's portrait of perhaps the most intriguing figure of the Enlight- enment era in France. As effervescent and fun as it is filled with the world of ideas, EMILIE: LA MARQUISE DU CHATELET DEFENDS HER LIFE TONIGHT is a heady evening, bringing a great women back to brilliant life both onstage and in our collective memory.” - BroadwayWorld

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“Directed by Rick Hammerly, this hot romantic comedy gives a conflagration of meaning to the smart woman who predates Einstein. Hammerly ensures that the audience will be sufficiently captivated and well cared for over the course of the two hours’ stage traffic.” - TheatreBloom

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“Director Rick Hammerly makes great use of the black box theater with in-the-round staging.” - DCMTA

LELA & CO. by Cordelia Lynn

Factory 449

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2018 HELEN HAYES AWARD - OUTSTANDING DIRECTION OF A PLAY

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“Hammerly is a director with great range. He just did a children’s show at Adventure Theatre, and for Avant Bard he is currently directing Barker again in a comedy by Lauren Gunderson. But there’s something about the specific care, empathy, and deep respect for female experience in extremis in evidence in Hammerly’s direction of (Felicia) Curry in LELA & CO. that feels to me really admirable and rare.” - DCMTA

“Hammerly’s decision to produce Lela & Co. in the tiny Anacostia Arts Center ratchets up the intensity of this already fierce play to an almost unbearable level, which is the level at which it should be played.” - DC Theatre Scene 

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“Director Rick Hammerly’s intense production at Anacostia Arts Center...” - The Washington Post 

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"The tone in Rick Hammerly’s strong production is...relentless and, as they promised at the ticket counter,

intense. - BroadwayWorld

“Director Rick Hammerly’s stark, emotionally raw staging of the play, in a new production at Factory 449 Theatre, artfully suggests more violence and suffering than it depicts.” - MetroWeekly

“Hammerly’s direction is superb, and he is blessed with exceptionally fine actors.” - DCMTA

“Rick Hammerly shows that as a director he gets all of this brilliant exposition of human misery.” - DC Theatre Scene

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“What impresses is how precise and lucid is Hammerly’s direction, and how faithful it is to the female charac- ter’s physical and emotional state—literally breath to breath and heartbeat to heartbeat—without ever seeming exploitative or prurient.” - DCMTA

JUNIE B. JONES IS NOT A CROOK by Allison Gregory

Adventure Theatre MTC

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“It is hard to believe that JUNIE B. JONES IS NOT A CROOK represents Rick Hammerly’s first time directing a children’s production. He has a natural feel for every characteristic that makes a children’s production entertaining, and he delivers with the help of a large and talented artistic team. Most importantly, this production...ranks among the most pleasing that this reviewer has seen in children’s theatre.” - DC Theatre Scene

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“Director Rick Hammerly has created an immersive, multi-sensory experience that begins the moment you enter the theater. Stage and performers are drenched in bright, primary colors. Dialogue is delivered at a crisp, en- ergetic, child-friendly pace and the entire experience is a sensorial feast.” - DCMTA

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“Helmed by master director Rick Hammerly, JUNIE B. JONES IS NOT A CROOK proves that you can enjoy a Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) show at any age.” - BroadwayWorld

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“Director Rick Hammerly has given us a hugely fun and educational experience. I always say theatre is meant

to educate as well as entertain and JUNIE B. JONES IS NOT A CROOK definitely does both.” - BroadwayWorld