Man of La Mancha, Northwestern Wirtz Center, 2025
This production trades fully ambulatory horses for ones astride old Walmart carts and windmills for oversized stockroom ceiling fans. A Inn Doo’s painstaking set overtook me the second I sat down. But what my eyes returned to again and again was the haunting bygone Walmart slogan on the back wall: “Save Money. Live Better.” The “live better” was a popcorn kernel stuck in my teeth as actors depicting detained immigrants tried to cope with life beneath it, with “living better” feeling like the impossible dream.
- Newcity Stage review by Amanda Finn
A Inn Doo is the scenic designer; the set grabs one’s attention as soon as you enter the theater. The devastating final scene is a sensory surprise and still lingers in this viewer’s memory.
- Evanston Round Table review by Wendi Kromash
The set (A Inn Doo) is powerful, with bunk beds lining the walls, a garage door ( that will open to a loading dock/with truck filled with Mexicans late in the play), and countless back room items one would find in a vacant store. These become the props as well
February House, Northwestern Wirtz Center, 2025
The set creates February House
The set (A Inn Doo) is fantastic. All the action takes place on one set, a collection of Victorian furniture and castaways, odd lights and bric-a-brac. Together it creates a world unto itself.
- Evanston Round Table review by Wendi Kromash

The set is almost distractingly well done and deserves a moment in which the audience can just take it in. Made to resemble a brownstone, there are stacks of wood furniture that almost reach the high ceilings of the theater and countless lamps all timed to change based on the scene. 
There’s a sense of irony to the breathtaking set. To the audience, it looks like a perfectly curated antique store window, but to the characters, “February House” is a dilapidated, run-down place often without heat and frequently with bed bugs. 
I especially loved the integration of the lights with the props and the multipurpose set, due to the incredible work of scenic designer A Inn Doo and lighting designer Chelsea Strebe. In the daytime hours and during get-togethers in the evenings, we see all manner of wooden furniture piled up high against the back wall. There are several desks, dressers, and chifforobes and even an old card catalog stacked way up high, with wardrobe doors leading to the house’s exit. But at night when the occupants are reading or are alone, the lights grow dim and the tall wooden furniture suddenly turns into skyscraper silhouettes. Small bulbs embedded within the wood give us the impression of windows and a cityscape. Colored lights work well in telling the story, and strands of lights hanging from the ceiling throughout the theatre give the set a festive mode. I liked the kitchen area with an old-fashioned stove and icebox, plus various beds demarcate different rooms with unseen walls. The boarding table provides us with a central focus when all of the guests have the opportunity to converse all at once with each other.
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