KUOW Radio: Hedwig!
”The pacing of the play was near perfect. I remember a specific moment, when Hedwig is slumped on stage around a pile of disheveled garments and trash. The lights are turned down so the theater is dimly lit. There is an old-school television with black-and-white fuzz faintly illuminating the stage. And she sits there. And we, the audience, sit there. In a moment that feels like forever, we feel what she feels, and the pause is agonizing… This is a musical, and the songs are great. There are certainly times when we all had fun. But this production has a lot to say. About our society, about people like Hedwig who live among us with pain that many of us can’t imagine. But these people exist. And through Hedwig, they are not only seen, but felt. This production made me feel. That’s a hallmark of great theater.”
Seattle Times: How Seattle’s ArtsWest is bringing ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch’ into 2023
“Eddie has really developed this way of building a room that centers love and chaos. Eddie’s very good about knowing exactly what they want to do, but understanding that it’s not just about what they want to do. [The] company is all Black artists, from the music director to the cast. This is specifically a Black show that we’re making. Eddie always says that they’re here just to facilitate. They are not dumbing down the fact that they are a master of their craft. They just decided that being a master of that craft is to lend their help wherever they can, by putting us as Black people in the room in the driver’s seat.”
Washington Blade: Folger Theater’s A Room in the Castle’ by Lauren Gunderson highlights the women of ‘Hamlet’
”DeHais, who specializes in staging new works and reimagining classics, brings a lot to the collaboration: In addition to boatloads of energy and curiosity, they have a sharp ear and keen sense of humor.”
Three Winning Ideas to Bring Opera Up to Date
”METROPOLIS 3.0 is an innovative new opera that reignites the revolutionary story at the heart of Fritz Lang’s 1927 classic film Metropolis, colliding the cutting-edge technology of 2022 with the visceral immediacy of live performance for a modern audience”
Portland Phoenix: Reclaiming Hope in "Age of Bees"
"Human connection is of supreme importance in this new world, and under the direction of DeHais, the characters’ interactions are alive with collaborative physicality. Characters often form striking tableaux of care-taking and bodily vulnerability: Mel hovers over Jonathan, wrapping his hurt ankle even as she holds a knife in her teeth. On either side of Sarah, who’s moaning with pregnancy pains, Debra and Mel form a kind of pieta, holding her and encouraging her to join them in a hymn.”
Seattle Times: Humor and horror bubble up together in Annex’s ‘Scary Mary’
"Scary Mary” is propelled along by the singular directorial vision of Eddie DeHais, who excels at creating striking tableaux and evoking remarkably tactile worlds with a combination of ordinary objects and intricate puppets (designed by Ben Burris and Zane Exactly)... Design elements are not an afterthought here. DeHais also masterminded the set, an eye-catching arrangement of menacingly canted bookshelves full of little surprises. "
Seattle Times: In ‘Silhouette,’ Ambitious Desires Clash with Moral Dilemmas
”Also a big plus: the visual chops of DeHais, who co-directs with Moore and brings the alien worlds to life. The scenic design by DeHais and Lenny Urbanowski uses modular white triangles to great effect, creating everything from a cramped cockpit to domestic spaces to a ship’s airlock. The limits of the Annex space never matter much when DeHais is at the helm.”
Broadway World: BIG BAD is Brechtian, Bloody, and Breathtaking
"An empowering, hypothetical thought experiment where the women in Little Red Riding Hood (and the generations of women before them) get to tell their side of the story. But it does so in a way that's poetic, poignant, and macabre. Ebbing and flowing from one form of expression to the next, it's impossible to tell where the artifice ends and reality begins. It's abstract but powerful, delicate but foreboding. It's performance art without an iota of self-congratulation... I want to keep this brief for two reasons: because I was too enthralled to take proper notes, and it's creativity is ineffable. This is the kind of theatre we all need right now."
Seattle Times: ‘Into the Deeps’ Runs Silent as it Explores Careless Treatment of the Environment
”Act one is all about the laughs, culminating in a centerpiece sequence that begins like Beckett’s “Act Without Words I” but trades in one kind of futility for another, where abundance is just as damaging as scarcity. Want an escalating comedy sketch where hundreds of water bottles are the vehicle for a critique of capitalism’s unbalanced power structures? “Into the Deeps” is for you.”
City Arts: Devised Theatre Company DangerSwitch Goes Deep
“For multidisciplinary theatre company DangerSwitch, the guiding light is their story and the honest engagement of everyone telling it… Artistic Director DeHais, a director and performer, actor and clown, craves creation in communion with all kinds of artists, the sharing of knowledge central to their own artistic growth.”
Broadway World: Café Nordo's Sundown at the Devil’s House is Anything But Hellish
”While they may not summon up THE Devil they do summon up some delicious food, hilarious and touching antics and rockin' music making for a devilishly good time…Nordo shows consistently bring in a fun evening but sometimes it's the food that really shines and sometimes the story or the talent. This time is was all three working in perfect and delicious harmony that made this one of my favorites.”
Drama in the Hood: ‘Silhouette’ Has Substance and Style to Spare
”From curtain up to down, Silhouette looks and sounds alien, strange, and consistently awe-inspiring.”
Seattle Times 2017 Footlight Awards: Eddie DeHais and Alyza DelPan-Monley:
”Proving that small budgets don’t have to preclude wild fits of imagination, director DeHais and choreographer DelPan-Monley livened fringe stages all over, making nightmares menacingly tactile in Annex’s “Scary Mary” and undersea movement elegant and frenetic in dance/performance hybrid “Into the Deeps.” Book-It Repertory Theatre tapped DeHais and Delpan-Monley along with Ryan Higgins, to inject their new musical “Howl’s Moving Castle” with a touch of magic.”
City Arts: Scary Mary and the Nightmares Nine
"A marvelously quirky, sometimes intense adventure that pulls you into a shadowy and fantastical realm of unlikely characters and visual spectacles, trials, allies and mortal foes."
City Arts: Scotto Moore and Eddie DeHais craft an a cappella sci-fi musical
“I rarely see shows that deal with such complex ambiguity, and as an artist that’s what I’m interested in,” DeHais says. “What is right or wrong? How do you make those decisions? How do you fight fascism without falling into those same tactics?”
Miryam Gordon: Wacky and ominous, "Scary Mary's" vigorous production is well worth visiting
A vigorous, inventive and visually stimulating show has just opened at Annex Theatre. Director Eddie DeHais and their team of enthusiastic actors and technicians are pulling out all the stops they can for Scary Mary and the Nightmares Nine, a new play by Amy Escobar.
Seattle Times: ‘Mad Scientist Cabaret’ is a Lovable Freak Show
"Director DeHais and the cast have created a fully formed piece of theater that’s as thoughtful as it is funny. Initially, it seems like aggressive mischief is all these characters have to offer, but some segments smuggle in an unexpected dose of poignancy, like Alyza Delpan-Monley’s longing ballet routine, accompanied by transparent heart, lungs and arms puppets — just some of the meticulously designed props from Zane Exactly... the show approaches the anarchic comic genius of Monty Python"