With Liz Hayes in Collected Stories
Collected Stories New Repertory Theatre 2011
Steinbach is a perfect match with this kind of featured character. She’s gold in rich supporting roles such as Juliet’s nurse, but, one of the truly accomplished actors of our local stages, Steinbach deserves these opportunities to step into the spotlight. And she seizes it, reveling in Ruth’s ability to throw words like daggers. Patriot Ledger, Tab
If you want plenty to think and argue about, you MUST see the compelling COLLECTED STORIES at the NEW REP in Watertown! Bobbie Steinbach and Liz Hayes take Pulitzer Prize- winning playwright Donald Margulies’ play about a famous author and her protegee, and wrap it around their little fingers. Joyce Kulhawick
The performance of IRNE and Elliot Norton Awards recipient and veteran trouper Steinbach is not to be missed. Although it is still quite early in the theatre season, I expect to look back upon her star turn as one of the major highlights of the year. She conducts a master class, inhabiting the role of Ruth Steiner, who just happens to be teaching a master class herself to her young protégé. In every moment, Steinbach is totally natural and seamless, as if she is simply being herself. Her capable portrayal of Ruth as irascible and sometimes painfully direct in early scenes segues into a deeper, more maternal vibe when she experiences pride in her student’s accomplishments. As their bond develops into friendship, Steinbach shows girlish excitement, her eyes flashing while she shares reminiscences about her youth and a secret romance. Ultimately, Ruth comes full circle to a place of heartbreaking loss and vulnerability, and Steinbach seems to physically shrink into a shadow of the woman she was at the start of the play. Talkin’ Broadway
The Importance of being Ernest Lyric Stage Company 2009
“Lady Bracknell, meanwhile, is a hilarious force of nature in the condensed but formidable person of Bobbie Steinbach.” Boston Globe
“Bobbie Steinbach gives a ferociously delicious performance as the formidable Lady B.” Theatre Mirror
A Little Night Music Michigan Opera Theatre
“As Armfeldt, Steinbach gave a touching performance in which the character’s confinement to a wheelchair did not inhibit a crisp, nuanced interpretation.” Operaticus
A Little Night Music Tanglewood 2008
“Bobbie Steinbach was as about as perfect as anybody could be in the role – she nailed it, in both line delivery and vocal performance.” Berkshire Eagle
A Little Night Music Lyric Stage Company 2004
“Bobbie Steinbach, who plays the reluctant hostess Madame Armfeldt, is wonderfully droll as the sage but slightly cynical matriarch…” Broadway World
“…the family matriarch (the always delightful Bobbie Steinbach) dispenses the acerbic wisdom of “the old who know too much.” Talkin’ Broadway
Othello Actors’ Shakespeare Project 2010
“Bobbie Steinbach, tremulous with rage and concern, shines as Desdemona’s parent, here “Signora Brabantia”…’’
Coriolanus Actors’ Shakespeare Project 2009
“Best of all, though, is Bobbie Steinbach as Coriolanus’s fearsome mother, Volumnia. (She) generally dominates everyone she meets. Yet somehow the others all love her for it – and, watching Steinbach invest her every move with feisty energy and cunning wit, we love her too. She’s a force to be reckoned with, a tiny tornado in a wide field.” Boston Globe
“… Bobbie Steinbach imbues her striding female bantam rooster of a Volumnia with just enough warmth, particularly when interacting with her grandson, that you sense the carrot this controlling matriarch alternated with her stick…
Urging her son to make it up with the people Steinbach masterfully incorporates her character’s own advice into her appeal to Coriolanus to spare the life of Rome. Uttered with impeccable diction and stoic dignity, its choreography one of ceremonial abjection, its subtext a contest of wills, this magnificent speech deserves both the pin-drop hush it incurs and the buckling baby-boy soldier’s reaction. Boston Phoenix
“…the remarkable actress, Bobbie Steinbach, as his mother, Volumnia, a woman as blood-thirsty and power-hungry as Lady Macbeth. Steinbach turns Volumnia into a Roman version of Mama Rose in “Gypsy,” minus the songs. She would be the warrior; she would be the victor and hailed by the populace, except for the accident of gender.” Patriot Ledger
“…the brilliant Bobbie Steinbach as his mother Volumnia. …was the…great revelation—and the show-stealer in this Coriolanus—was Volumnia. This is in large part due to the way the transcendent Steinbach brings to life Shakespeare’s captivating portrait of the great she-wolf of Rome who often can’t distinguish between her son’s valor and her own martial urges… Steinbach had merely to walk on stage in order to take command. The only figure more frightening than Coriolanus is Volumnia, and the only thing more frightening than Volumnia cursing and shaming (the people of Rome or her own son) was Volumnia kneeling and begging. Culturevulture.net
Much Ado About Nothing Actors’ Shakespeare Project 2009
“Bobbie Steinbach, who plays an array of roles (from Leonato’s brother Antonio to one of the fork-wielding watchmen) balances out the comic tag-team of Plum and Snee with her own comic energy: her watchman is a colorful Vaudevillian, while Antonio is a tongue-in-cheek riff on the female view of masculinity that hearkens back to the troupe’s all-female production of MacBeth.” Edge Boston
Macbeth Actors’ Shakespeare Project 2009
“Bobbie Steinbach, clad in a white suit and shakily maneuvering a cane, is an avuncular Big Daddy of a Duncan and makes fine comic relief of the Porter,as well as holding up her third of those sexual and shimmering rag-bag witches.” Boston Phoenix
The Winter’s Tale Actors’ Shakespeare Project 2007
“…some fine work… especially, Bobbie Steinbach’s spitfire Paulina.” Boston Globe
All’s Well That Ends Well Actors’ Shakespeare Project 2006
“Bobbie Steinbach, in the dual roles of no-moss-on-me elderly lord Lafew and Diana’s mother, proves again that she has the best comic timing in Boston.”
Boston Phoenix
Twelfth Night Actors’ Shakespeare Project 2005
“…a definitively feisty Maria from Bobbie Steinbach, who imbues this crafty maid with every imaginable shading of good humor and mischief…” Boston Globe
Christmas Revels 2009
“Bobbie Steinbach, one of the most versatile of the Boston-based actors, was chief story-teller, adding a dramatic flair to the retelling of “Wicked John and the Devil,” later becoming a cigar-waving, baggy-pants interlocutor for the Mummers’ play.” Patriot Ledger
Spitfire Grille Lyric Stage company 2006
“Bobbie Steinbach is delightful as usual as a crusty old lady with a heart of marshmallow.” Talkin’ Broadway
Romeo and Juliet Commonwealth Shakespeare Company 1999
“The two stars of the show are Jeremiah Kissel as Capulet and Bobbie Steinbach as Nurse. Every line and gesture is so assured that they command attention whenever they take the stage.” Boston Globe
