Hank Williams: Lost Highway , CenterREP, 2007
Butler has used Melpomene Katakalos' attractive set to serve as both a practical stage for the Williams character and the band and as place to let the story unfold in a charmingly theatrical manner.
-Pat Graig, Contra Costa Times
Anna Bella Eema , Crowded Fire, 2007
It's stunning to look at, with Melpomene Katakalos' branch-strewn, rough-wood platform of a set and its corrugated metal frames bathed in the sumptuous glows of Jarrod Fischer's lights.
-Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle
Melpomone Katakalos simple vision—a steel strip of blue above the stage and a green one below it—evokes a landscape drawn by a crayon-clutching child, a touching and apropos complement to an exploration of youthful imagination.
-Robert Bergin, Daily Californian
Melpomene Katakalos’ simple set creates a verdant universe out of wooden planks and corrugated steel.
-Karen D’Souza, San Jose Mercury News
The Subject Tonight Is Love , Marin Theatre Co, 2007
Minadakis' dramatic pacing is sure-handed, and he creates fine stage pictures with the play of Kurt
Landisman's season-shifting lights on Melpomene Katakalos' evocative set -- a single bed and chair floating in the open space beneath a spreading tree.
-Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle
Melpomene Katakalos has created a marvelous set with a spreading tree on the left side dominating the stage. Kurt Landisman beautifully lights the tree to change from spring to fall to winter.
-Chloe Veltman, San Francisco Weekly
The set projects a timeless rusticity - emphasized by Kurt Landisman's muted lighting -a welcome departure from the expected interiors of Ruby's apartment, an assisted-care facility and the final stop at Hospice.
-Charles Brousse, Marin Independent Journal
The Good German , Marin Theatre Co, 2007
Karl resents Braun as an intruder on his domestic tranquillity beautifully established by Melpomene Katakalos' comfortably sedate living room set.
-Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle
Woyzeck, Cutting Ball Theatre, 2007
Visually stunning and inventive . . .
Melpomene Katakalos' inspired set is a white-on-white modern cabinet of curiosities.
-Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle
Melpomene Katakalos' set [is] visually potent. The scenic designer's completely white, labyrinthine system of compartmentalized shelves . . . suggests the surreal, monochrome palette of 1920s German films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu.
-Chloe Veltman, San Francisco Weekly
The Forest War , Shotgun Players, 2006
Another Unpopular War, by Lisa Dostrova, East Bay Express , November 2006
Click on the link below to read about The Forest War and Mark Jackson, writer & director.
http://eastbayexpress.com/article
Gibraltar, Thick Description, 2006
Melpomene Katakalos' stripped down, off-center set, floating in a black void, and awash in Rick Martin's
painterly lighting, beautifully evokes the psychology and water imagery of Solis' text.
-Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle
Melpomene Katakalos renders Amy's environment with a serene, dreamlike simplicityas if that futon were a life raft adrift in an endless night.
-Robert Avila, San Francisco Bay Guardian
The Art of Self-Promotion, Article by Karen McKevitt, Theatre Bay Area, August 2006
Click on the link below to read an interview with Melpomene Katakalos:
http://www.theatrebayarea.org/mag/article.jsp?thispage=mag.jsp&id=295
Nero (Another Golden Rome), Magic Theatre, 2006
Nero's production values are excellent as Melpomene Katakalos’ set consist of ladders,rugs, strings of lights overhead and empty doorways on an almost bare stage.
-Richard Connema, Talkin’ Broadway
Much praise goes to set designer Melpomene Katakalos and to Russell Champa for lighting effects. Strings of lights, three chandeliers for the burning of Rome, and lit bulbs framing large square entrance ways resembling Hollywood makeup mirrors, was enough to expose this current Administration at Caesar's Palace.
-Seán Martinfield, San Francisco Sentinel
Outside Man, Interview by Nicole Estvanik, American Theatre, May/June 2006
Click on the link below to read about Nero in an interview with Duncan Sheik, Composer:
http://tcg.org/frames/am_theatre/fs_am_theatre.htm
Top Ten Play of 2005, San Francisco Bay Times
The minimalism is as deceptive as Brecht's seemingly simple tale is complex. Melpomene Katakalos' set makes stunning use of a few movable screens, rippling bands of silk and a large disc that fades from fiery red to moonlight blue in Christopher Studley's lighting.
-Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle
Marat/Sade, UCSD, 2005
The play opens on a cage-full of loonies, designed by the wildly imaginative Melpomene Katakalos. In the excellent, one-sided use of the new Potiker Theatre . . . we are seduced by the spectacle.
-Pat Launer, San Diego Theatre Scene
Winner, Best Set Design, San Diego Playbill Award, 2005
One Big Lie, Crowded Fire, 2005
Terrific work. The set design by Melpomene Katakalos combines color and geometry in fanciful motifs, and lighting by Heather Basarab creates countless different times, locations, and moods . . . Suffused with eccentric humor and abundant creativity, One Big Lie fairly begs the audience to open their eyes, see the truth, and evolve. It’s big, ambitious, challenging, and quite entertaining – what more could theatre strive for?
-Tom W. Kelly, San Francisco Bay Times
Top Ten Play of 2005, Contra Costa Times
Top Ten Play of 2005, San Francisco Bay Times
Visually, the show is spectacular with Melpomene Katakalos’ imaginative set illuminated by gorgeous lighting of Sarah EC Maines . . . The action takes place on a set that’s a sight to behold, beginning with a bleak winter landscape. A layer of snow in the form of a white silk sheet covers the ground with a silhouette of dead branches behind . . . love comes in full bloom in the second act, which sees the stark, wintry landscape transformed into spring with the removal of the white sheet that reveals a beautiful mosaic forest floor of greens and browns.
-Rob Hopper, San Diego Playbill
The set, designed by the ever-inventive Melpomene Katakalos is striking.
-Pat Launer, San Diego Theatre Scene
The striking Crayola-colored set, designed by Melpomene Katakalos, was inspired by the artist Keith Haring, and the bright costumes reflected this influence, with each character dressed in an eye-popping monochromatic shade.
-Pat Launer, San Diego Theatre Scene
Eurydice, UCSD, 2004
It’s a rare moment in theatre when a scene on the stage can give you the tingling, excited thrill in your tummy like you are at the tip of a steep drop on a roller coaster about ready to plummet into possible oblivion. But that’s exactly what UCSD’s phenomenal creative team led by Director Daniel Fish and Scenic Designer Melpomene Katakalos has done.
-Rob Hopper, San Diego Playbill
Some of the most unforgettable theatre I’ve ever seen . . . Eurydice dazzles, verbally and visually . . bold, thought-provoking, wonderful production that includes an astonishing Jericho-effect.
-Jeff Smith, San Diego Reader
Sparkletts Drama, by Jeff Smith, San Diego Reader, March 4, 2004
Click on the link below to read an article on how the bottle wall worked in Eurydice:
http://www.sdreader.com/php/smith_show.php?id=20040304
Winner, Best Set Design, San Diego Playbill Award, 2004
Top Ten Play of 2002, Contra Costa Times
Top Ten Play of 2002, Contra Costa Times
Melpomene Katakalos’ miraculous set roots the first act in a rubble-strewn wreckage of corrugated tin and broken masonry . . . in Act 2, the stage transforms into a light and airy nightclub, with a tinkling gold fountain.
-Joe Mader, San Francisco Examiner
Oliver’s production quietly conveys the working class milieu through the casual litter, blotchy grass, chain-link fence and graffiti-scarred cinderblock wall and picnic table of Melpomene Katakalos’ set – its pitiful playground aspirations summed up in a small concrete tortoise and hare beneath a garish yellow toadstool . . . The design illuminates the limitations of Tina and Jill’s thinking.
-Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle
Winner, Best Set Design, San Francisco Bay Guardian Award
. . . a stage full of ingenious trap doors, a cleverishly cartoonish set by Melpomene Katakalos.
-Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle
Melpomene Katakalos’ black-and-white kitchen set is a delicious doll-house lampoon of the genre.
-Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle
Set designer Melpomene Katakalos deserves a mention. Her vivid New York kitchen . . . is a strong contributor to the evening’s wonderful feel – almost a character in its own right.
-John Angell Grant, Berkeley Daily Planet
