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DIRECTING  Mimesophobia
"Margot Bordelon's production for Theatre Seven of Chicago is
a zesty and ambitious affair."
- Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune "Margot Bordelon’s direction moves the production at a quick pace that
doesn’t sacrifice emotion, and the actors have a firm handle on Carlos Murillo’s
stylized dialogue and the relationships, especially Cassy’s with her dead
sister. Funny, provocative, and poignant, Theatre Seven’s Mimesophobia
is a huge success for the young company, and one of the more refreshing plays
to land this season. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED."
- Scotty Zacher, Chicago Theatre Blog
"The cast on stage is perfectly balanced in talent and wit, and director Margot Bordelon keeps them all bouncing and colliding off one-another for nearly two hours… The whole production is lovingly thought out"
-Richard Green, Talkin' Broadway
"Theatre Seven of Chicago is on the road to being one of the
next "IT" Off-Loop theatre companies. The two productions I
have seen of theirs (" - Chris Arnold, Steadstyle Chicago "DePaul prof Murillo’s ambitious play is engrossing in spite of its own best efforts. An exploration of the artifice of mass-marketed storytelling, it employs two pointedly false and flashy narrators to guide the audience through an evening of deconstructed theatrics. Viewers aren’t asked to suspend disbelief; instead, the narrators repeatedly call attention to the artificial nature of the performance—interrupting, explaining, even entering the action. They introduce us to two jacked-up screenwriters in an artists’ colony outside of L.A., who are spinning a woman’s real-life murder into an erotic thriller with highbrow aspirations (art dictates that the hot female lead be frequently naked). Meanwhile, the dead woman’s seemingly guileless sister pieces together the deceased’s destroyed diary, and a colony resident attempting to kick-start her pretentiously titled academic opus provides the screenwriters with unexpected direction. Both the work of the colony hacks and the scenes unfolding onstage are steeped in well-observed cinematic cliché, presented for our viewing pleasure by the evening’s ever-present MCs. The narrative stacks whole-cloth fictions atop slippery reenactments in a juggling act that, thumbing its nose at agreed-upon reality, could easily tip into too-clever territory. But Bordelon and her strong, funny cast keep the play on track in its Chicago premiere. Cyd Blakewell is excellent as the stalled scholar, playing the part with an arresting, nearly autistic flatness, and Michael Salinas is hilarious as the alpha half of the screenwriting team. The show’s destabilizing end is a sharp indictment of our culture’s commodification of grief, all in the name of “telling your story.” HIGHLY RECOMMENDED." - Melissa Albert, TimeOut Chicago  Lies & Liars"Theatre Seven of Chicago's world premiere of Lies & Liars
stylistically dazzles on just about every level... Stylishly directing
the whole production are co-writers Margot Bordelon and Cassy
Sanders... (who) position their characters and props with plenty of
panache onstage."
"Bordelon and Sanders's direction is handsomely choreographed."
"Crisp staging by Margot Bordelon and Cassy Sanders."
"The average adult tells three lies a day, which makes over 90,000 lies in a lifetime. In the aptly titled "Lies and Liars," the mischievous Theatre Seven confronts one of our most basic and crucial modes of existence – dishonesty – using a futuristic style (strangely reminiscent of a 1950s sitcom) with fantastic results. What begins as an employee orientation for ALCOR, an international lie protection agency, then turns into a trivia lecture on lies and how they function in society, which then turns us to the story of Benny (Brad Smith), a recently dumped new hire on the ALCOR janitorial team. ALCOR's task is to house a file for every person on earth, with every lie that has ever been told to them. From the Tooth Fairy to faked orgasms to lies we tell ourselves, ALCOR has them all stored and arranged according to severity (white lies are harmless, bald-faced lies the worst). The cast members all do a stellar job of portraying the mainly stock characters, particularly Vicki (Marjorie Armstrong) the surly, Honeymooners-esque receptionist, and Marcel (Joe Zarrow), the corporate-but-cares-about-your-feelings manager. At first, "Lies and Liars" has a chummy, slapstick tone, but once Benny begins to read his own file, which is expressly forbidden for his protection, the play shifts to a darker and more swiftly paced dance, a kind of Matrix meets Inspector Gadget on quaaludes. The intensity rises and bubbles until Benny learns the real reason why his girlfriend left him and his life fell apart. While the play addresses the necessary yet problematic pitfalls of human nature, it does so in such remarkably clever ways as to make us forget that we are constantly being deceived, and mostly by ones we love. Beauty may be truth and truth, beauty, but it surely doesn't make for very interesting theater. And I'd be lying if I said I wasn't completely smitten by "Lies and Liars." "A MUST-SEE SHOW" -Anna Pulley, Centerstage  Yes, This Really Happened to MeTheatre Seven of Chicago's hour-long one-act is a first-rate piece of story theater--crisp, funny, moving, and utterly devoid of self-indulgence. A nine-person cast, all in their 20s, perform autobiographical texts by five writers who also appear on video to provide reflective commentary. Familiar themes--childhood friendships, family relationships, sexual experimentation, drug experiences--get fresh, idiosyncratic spins. Playing multiple characters (this is an ensemble work, not an evening of monologues), the actors are precise, detailed, confident, and emotionally authentic, while directors Margot Bordelon and Cassandra Sanders maintain a pace that's brisk but never rushed. If these young artists represent the future of off-Loop theater, we're in very good hands indeed. CRITIC'S CHOICE.
- Albert Williams, The Chicago Reader  Never Swim Alone"Directed with impeccable timing by Margot Bordelon." "Directed with head turning precision by Bordelon. #1 of the Top Five shows not to miss in Chicago."
"Dynamically orchestrated by Margot Bordelon"
 Scarrie! The Musical“It’s the spirited but disciplined direction of Margot Bordelon that really carries “Scarrie.” The sense of wicked but good-natured fun that dominates the production is to her credit. Working with very little, she and scenic designer Matthew Kollar pull off some great bits of staging. Bordelon’s cartoonish vision, complete with pratfalls and asides, demands a lot of the young ensemble. And it delivers.”
–Louis Weisberg, Chicago Free Press “Director Margot Bordelon adroitly never lets the pace flag and the ensemble she has to work with is a dream come true.”
–Rick Reed, Windy City Times “Margot Bordelon's decisions about what to heighten and what to play straight are balanced with David Cerda's gay sensibility.”
-Web Behrens, Chicago Tribune  Psycho Beach Party“The kind of brave and unabashedly theatrical work that theater will need to maintain its relevance for younger generations… Director Margot Bordelon's take on it, mounted at the Northwest Actors' Studio, transcends the tepid "spoof" value of Busch's script…The success of the show, lies in the wild comic abandon that Bordelon cultivates in her talented cast…Bordelon imbues a rare sense of detail and craftsmanship into this airtight, focused production”
-Leah B. Green, The Seattle Times “Director Margot Bordelon has whipped this fluff into a towering, frivolous meringue, driving her enthusiastic, high-energy cast at top speed through dance numbers, schizophrenic freakouts, half a dozen preposterous plot twists, and homoerotic fumblings”
-Bret Fetzer, the Stranger PERFORMING  Killing Women“Superbly played by the classy, wound-tight Margot Bordelon... Bordelon is an actress who totally gets Wegrzyn's style. Mostly thanks to her rich and vulnerable performance, the killer Abby's final, humbling,ennobling, self-defining debacle had me hooked”
-Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune “The near perfect cast is grounded by Margot Bordelon’s exemplary performance as Abby. Bordelon is both caustically determined and exasperatingly lost, a true human being in extraordinary circumstances”
-Brian Kirst, Chicago Free Press "Margot Bordelon is terrific"
-Kerry Reid, Chicago Reader  In So Many WordsNamed "Top 5 Solo Shows of 2007"
-NewCity Chicago “Bordelon, 27, is in total command of her airtight material. She also
is pretty, funny, observant, fast-talking and knowingly sexy -- with a
1950s girl-next-door allure that disguises a mischievous, naughty-girl
persona. Highly recommended”
-Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun Times "Love, Valor, and Technology, her winningly observed one-woman show
analyzes the ways in which cell phones and MySpace have invaded the
early flirt stages of a relationship. Blending cute with an intelligent
quirkiness… the show has an appealing self-assured polish… Tip of the
Week”
-Nina Metz, NewCity Chicago |