Windowmen  by Steven Barkhimer

Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding New Script 2014
Kennedy Center’s David Mark Cohen Award for Best New Play 2014
Independent Reviewers of New England Award for Best New Script 2014
Massachusetts Cultural Council Playwriting Fellowship

“ … hilarious  … ingenious … Like Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross with its ruthless real estate salesmen, Barkhimer gives us a glimpse into the shady fish business. Unlike Mamet, Barkhimer’s characters have heart.”

– Boston Arts Review, Beverly Creasey

“… a proletariat parable worthy of Clifford Odets or John Millington Synge… what a play should be … a raw, potent, personal experience that unifies writer, performer and audience together in an experience that illuminates their mutual humanity. A play like this one.”
– EDGE Boston, Michael Cox

“Barkhimer’s script slowly turns into a meditation on how much honor can really exist among thieves, and how the more-innocent can be saved while the less-innocent get theirs.”
– The HUB, Thomas Garvey

“ …has to be one of the most exciting new plays, productions, and ensembles of the year … What transpires is a tale of ordinary corruption and universal greed. But there are distinctions to be made amongst men, sorting the shallow and the merely weak, “the lies and half truths,” the good men and the pond scum– and that’s what makes this play explode with power and humanity.  These are really pungent, believable characters.”

– Joyce’s Choices, Joyce Kulhawik

“If you’re like me, you often find yourself shouting at the television… you’ll have a hard time stifling that impulse while enjoying …“Windowmen”  … I had a hard time keeping myself from cheering … Barkhimer, long one of the city’s more engaging actors, shows … that he’s also a force to be reckoned with as a writer.”

– Boston ARTery, Robin LaPlante

In the title role of Richard III by Wm Shakespeare

Steven Barkhimer a magnetic and murderous monarch in ‘Richard III’

By Don Aucoin Globe Staff February 13, 2018

CAMBRIDGE A year ago the intrepid Boston actor-playwright Steven Barkhimer tackled one of the most daunting challenges of his eclectic career, starring as the alternately beleaguered and vengeful George in Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’’ at Lyric Stage.

Now Barkhimer is climbing another steep performative mountain: the villainous title figure in “Richard III,’’ which is one of the longest roles in all of Shakespeare.

Even in the streamlined version of “Richard III’’ that is directed by Robert Walsh for Actors’ Shakespeare Project, it’s an immensely demanding part, and Barkhimer acquits himself admirably. Key to his success is that Barkhimer whose own pleasure in performance has always been a quality to savor embraces the all-encompassing theatricality of the scheming, bloody-minded monarch he’s playing. He gives us a Richard who is acting at virtually every moment of his dealings with others. For all the avidity of Barkhimer’s portrayal, Richard’s disability is handled in a wisely understated manner. Although his left arm is held tight against his chest by a black sling, Barkhimer wears no hump and does not over-emphasize Richard’s limp…

Don Aucoin can be reached at aucoin@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter@GlobeAucoin

A RIVETING RICHARD III AT ACTORS’ SHAKESPEARE PROJECT
February 14, 2018 By CHRISTOPHER EHLERS  digboston.com

Richard III is the third production of Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s current season, themed “The Downfall of Despots.” It follows Exit the King, an absurdist comedy about an incompetent king who has run his country into the ground, and Julius Caesar, a look at the perils of rhetoric-loving, narcissistic politicians.

The parallels to the current political hellhole that we’re all dealing with right now are not hard to draw, and if there is anything at all to be grateful for in all of this, it’s that we’ve gotten some damn good theater as a result.

“Damn good,” though, doesn’t even come halfway close to describing how excellent Robert Walsh’s production of Richard III is, now playing at the Swedenborg Chapel in Harvard Square through March 11.

This is a no-frills production with the only bells and whistles being Shakespeare’s delectable dialogue and an arsenal of incredible performances, led by the excellent Steven Barkhimer as Richard, one of theater’s most engrossing villains.