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“Women’s vulnerability to stereotypical images of beauty is illuminated in bracingly harsh light in Sheila Callaghan’s raw and raucous Women Laughing Alone With Salad… exuberantly vulgar… Ms. Callaghan’s dark comedy about the oppressive cultural standards by which women are forced to judge themselves, and one another, makes fierce and funny points.” —The New York Times
“…Callaghan seems to be admonishing in this raw, raunchy, cautionary satire… a fresh spin to a subject that has been chewed on by journalists and anthropologists for ages.” —The Washington Post
“[Women Laughing Alone With Salad] is full of wild and unexpected ingredients that are sometimes delicious, sometimes gross and often a combination of the two. You won’t find iceberg here. This salad might make you laugh harder than any you’ve eaten, but bite carefully… the maniacal abundance of her [Callaghan’s] approach is hard to resist.” —LA Times (Critic’s Choice)
“Callaghan’s a master of edgy dialogue.” —LA Weekly
“Tossed with Callaghan’s signature bite, humor and rambunctious theatricality, the play explores our image-obsessed culture in a world saturated by social media and seductive marketing.” —Broadway World LA
“By dealing forthrightly with advertising, body image, feminism, desire, and shame, the play is sure to stir many lively conversations that will stimulate audiences…” —DC Digest
“What [Callaghan] does do, boldly, hilariously and irreverently, is to pin onto her board the modern woman’s dysfunctional zeitgeist, like some kind of mad, surreal butterfly. And there she examines it, plays with it, takes the dust off its wings and, after a time, lets it go… a riveting tale of topsy turvy modern morals in which wild interludes, spectacularly apt references, and hallucinogenic digressions are as indispensably enthralling as the narrative. Callaghan’s way of seeing — a kind of dream-time in which the characters and issues swirl — is extraordinary… a cultural hand grenade —Metro Weekly
“[Women Laughing Alone With Salad] is a Molotov cocktail in pretty wrapping: underneath the brightly printed paper, it’s deadly serious, but it’s so sparkly and cheery you just can’t resist reaching out and touching it… this fresh, funny play is the poster child for what feminist theatre should be: a great night out on the town watching a slambam comedy which is also a serious conversation about the society we oh-so-currently live in.” —DCTheatreScene.com
“Unlike a simple salad, [Women Laughing Alone With Salad] will take a while to digest (finally, salad pun!) but ultimately, that’s a good thing… a completely mesmerizing, multi-media show. Like a gourmet salad bar, this one has all the good stuff, plus a lot of dressings – and undressings.” —MDTheatreGuide.com
“The impenetrability of human veneers, and the pervasive stereotypes (of both men and women) are highlighted in some hilarious ways in Callaghan’s work… if you enjoy theater that takes you on a wild ride, makes you laugh, and encourages you to always question your first impression, this is a show for you… I can pretty much guarantee you will never view a bell pepper, onion or cherry tomato in the same way again.” —BroadwayWorld.com
“Women Laughing Alone With Salad is simultaneously laugh out loud and painfully poignant in its exploration of the ways women interact with media, advertising, and the many messages we’re sent about the things we’re supposed to want.” —Broadly
“[Women Laughing Alone With Salad] is a modern, somewhat abstract, powerfully-written work of strong feminism. It moves with a fluid vibrancy, using each of its two acts to turn convention on its head and say some things about the world we live in with a tone and voice that’s impossible to ignore.” —The Diamondback
“[Women Laughing Alone With Salad is a] complex recipe of desire and shame.” —CultureCapital.com
“[Women Laughing Alone With Salad] dishes out our image-obsessed culture with abrasive imagery, biting social critique, and devastating humor.” —ArtesMagazine.com
“Women Laughing Alone With Salad is rapid-fire verbally and scenically… The play doesn’t draw conclusions but raises many questions about women’s self-image and self-awareness, women’s (and men’s) needs, desires and dysfunctions.” —Santa Monica Daily Press
“Callaghan’s fantastical send-up of the female body image machine is as canny as it is ribald…the always interesting Callaghan has given her audience plenty to chew on.” —Theater Mania
“Sheila Callaghan’s Women Laughing Alone With Salad is a comedy that takes no prisoners… always unconventional, fantastical and gut-wrenching.” —Total Theater
“Sheila Callaghan has purveyed a consistently inventive theatrical vision, always identifiably hers, yet with a flair for ranging variations across a spectrum of anger to whimsy.” —Stage Raw
“Anyone who appreciates the absurd cannot help but approve the way Women Laughing Alone With Salad takes the bitter concepts of women’s self image in modern America and runs it out to its extremes.” —Stage Stuck Review
“[Women Laughing Alone With Salad] clearly shows what makes this playwright worthy of our attention… genuinely funny and has many important observations about our vacuous, self-involved society.” —Arts in LA
“Callaghan has crafted a dexterous parade of tableaux that illuminate the contradictory impulses at the heart of our anxieties… [Women Laughing Alone With Salad] is provocative, barbed, unsettling, and darkly and brightly funny.” —Culver City Times
“Ribald and raucous, but also incredibly smart about the complexities of desire and self-disgust, and the seeming impossibility of finding a solid middle ground between the extremes of both denial and decadence…. [Callaghan] combines pop-culture savvy with a deeper aching gift at startling revelation… [she] takes a razor dipped in acid to slash through the thickets of the impossible standards of appearance… Callaghan’s deeply original and disturbing funhouse-mirror approach to how women’s bodies are commodified and categorized makes us question what we’re really seeing.” –-Chicago Tribune
“The laughter never stops in Sheila Callaghan’s irreverent satire… raw, ruthless and revolutionary.” —Chicago Theater Review
“The really powerful bond is the ferocious, culture-eating acid of Callaghan’s wit.” –-Chicago Reader
“Women Laughing Alone with Salad is an acerbic, raucous, subversive and really funny riff.” –Around the Town Chicago
“Callaghan’s wit, humor, grace, and supreme rage are on prominent display… Just buy your tickets and go.” –New City Stage
“Delicious.” —Third Coast Review
“The theatrical equivalent of losing your virginity. It’s vulgar. It’s messy. It’s painful. It’s embarrassing. It doesn’t go the way you think it will. But afterwards, you have crossed a threshold. In some small way, you’re a little bit more of an adult.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“Sharp and hilarious… Its message is so right on.” —The Mercury News
“Sheila Callaghan’s fresh and wise dialog is snappy and feisty and right to the point, delving into the deep absurdities of our cultural biases around sex and gender and, even more, how those biases are cultivated and preserved.” —Repeat Performances
“You’ll be talking about the play and asking questions when you leave the theater.” —Berkeleyside
“Playwright Sheila Callaghan and director Susannah Martin throw us into a fabulist underworld.” —THEATRIUS
“A delicious, hilarious romp through contemporary gender roles and sexism as defined by our corporate culture.” —ForAllEvents
“High-energy romp.” —SFWEEKLY
“In-your-face satirical intensity… It’s loud, it hurts, it can sometimes feel like a Judith Butler lecture pumped up on steroids, but oh boy, is it a whole lot more tasty than a lackluster garden salad. [It’s] a bountiful, meaty dish best served flaming hot.” —The Daily Californian
“A twisted combination of farce and drama that’s strangely moving.” —The Free Audience
“A fierce gender farce. Callaghan’s play has plenty of bite, anger, and belly laughs that help make audiences re-think their assumptions about gender roles.” —My Cultural Landscape