Bess Wallerstein Huff
Bess at work
I am a director, producer, actor and improviser who continues to nurture a career that finds the sweet spot between business and art. My right brain is fueled by unchartered artistic possibilities and utilizing the resources at hand. My left brain strives to validate theatre as a financially successful medium that requires skilled communication, budgetary management and audience development.
The performing arts is storytelling which can be powerful in its most simplistic form. I seek new creative opportunities and collaborations that require improvisation and grassroots innovation.
Check back for updates on current projects!
CounterClockwise Comedy
“CounterClockwise Comedy’s live roast of Jurassic Park - before a packed house, the movie screened: Dinosaurs romped, and Sam Neill gaped upward in empty Spielbergian wonder. In row one, the CounterClockwise Comedy crew picked cruelly at the film’s bones. They unleashed a wild stream of jokes, from dumb puns to feminist film criticism…hilarious”
- Alan Scherstuhl, The Pitch Weekly
“While people might expect a revamped “Mystery ScienceTheater 3000
CounterClockwise Comedy differs because it works with a live audience and well-known movies…”
- Charles Gooch, Ink Magazine
White Nose Christmas: A Tabloid Nativity of Rehab and Rebirth
Winner: Best of KC 2011
Arts & Entertainment
"Last winter, Kansas Citians got an unexpected present with White Nose Christmas: A Tabloid Nativity of Rehab and Rebirth. Writer-performers Heidi Van, Bess Wallerstein and David Wayne Reed deserve year-round kudos for this tragiccomic hot mess."
- The Pitch Weekly
One Time Productions
"The novel setting is a big part of the entertainment value, but this production would be worth seeing anywhere. Director Bess Wallerstein successfully taps into the manic absurdity and dark psychology of Shepard..."
- Robert Trussell, The Kansas City Star
"In a leafy yard with crickets sawing, cans of soda floating in coolers, and shadows thickening as the play grows darker, this True West feels like an event... The show pulses with conflict (in scenes sharply paced by Wallerstein)..."
- Alan Scherstuhl, The Pitch Weekly
"Arts or Crafts by Rob Roznowski with producer/director Bess Wallerstein offers 23 vignettes by beautiful and talented cast members that deliver humorous, poignant, and provocative points of view about what is art and what is craft. Perfectly staged in theH&R Block Art Space, the actors lead the audience through collective snapshots."
- Maria Boyd, Present Magazine
"The show's chief virtues are Roznowski's wit and egalitarianism. Katie Holmes shows up, as does New York Times critic Ben Brantley,and the world's most passionate fan of community theater...Wallerstein stages this busy show with forceful clarity, and her actors are mostly up to their many, many roles..."
- Alan Sherstuhl, The Pitch Weekly
