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Testimonials

Tony Shalhoub, Actor, Monk and Wings:

"I've Never seen an actor combine everything in one play. He does it all, sings, tap dances, acts, boxes at the same time telling us this emotional story. I've never seen a performer do it all from the inside out. Orrach is amazing..."

 

Pete Escevedo, Latin Jazz Percussionist:

"Joe Orrach is an amazing talent. I love the Latin rhythms he weaves effortlessly through the play. Orrach does it all and leaves it all on the stage. I saw the play 3 times. What a powerful story. In my next life I want to be a tap dancer. "

Larry Merchant, Famed Boxing Announcer:

"In My Corner is championship storytelling through the sweet science of boxing and the sweet art of dance. How can one extraordinary Joe, Joe Orrach, do all that? Go see."

Ron Shelton, Director, White Men Can't Jump, Bull Durham:

"Everything Orrach does is from the inside out. Every word of the play is truthful because he's lived it. Go see Orrach in In My Corner. Incredible storytelling."

Lawrence O'Donnell, MSNBC:

"If you love the Bronx or boxing or ballet or tap dancing or rice and beans, you will love Joe Orrach's In My Corner at Odyssey Theatre"

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Press

"Perhaps the biggest applause of the evening went to the Second Act’s opening minutes.   One boxer with hooded robe covering most of his head and face begins practicing his footwork.  With a stage that becomes his drum, he commences a jazz solo that is packed with complicated rhythms,  sudden shifts in tempo, and beats that electrify – all suddenly accompanied by his jump rope with magical powers all its own. Choreographer Joe Orrach not only has choreographed the movements and dances that illustrate the opera’s action so magnificently all evening, he solos both here and in the opening speed bag sequence with show-stopping performances."

-Eddie Reynolds - Theatre Eddys

"A special note needs to be made of Joe Orrach, Champion’s choreographer, who happens to be a U.S. Air Force Welterweight Champion. He opens the show with an extended solo at the speed bag, which he uses expertly as a percussion instrument. Opening the second act, Orrach thrills again, this time with a kind of tap dance for agile boxer’s feet, becoming a virtuoso turn at skipping rope, varying rhythms and a range of sound effects from those tools like a trained orchestra player."

-Eric A. Gordon - People's World

"Like any dancer, Orrach knows that the body can speak eloquently, revealing much about the individual and “about humanity, about the human condition.” But by providing tools to translate unarticulated desires, hopes, needs—and sometimes rage—into language as well, he helps silenced voices become heard and legitimized in the larger world."

-Lisa Okuhn - Dance Studio Life

“This is one of the most creative productions I have seen this year and certainly the best one-man show I have experienced in quite a while."

"An electrifying bundle of pure, smoking energy… one of the most creative productions I have seen this year… powerful… This is a “GO SEE.””

-Rosa Desena - Los Angeles Post

“It’s a play where you have actors interacting with three spectacular musicians in telling the story, in which he is playing multiple characters, in and out of those characters, both physically in song and dance and action. So it’s a very kinetic experience that goes way beyond a single-person monologue.”

-Jordan Riefe - Blouin Media

"The brilliant minimalist set adds to the focus on his story with Orrach simply changing his shirt from choices on an onstage hat rack, using a chair to suggest many different places, or using what appeared to be a chain as a jump rope or his father's punishing belt. The most striking set element is the tiny embedded lights which create a boxing ring when illuminated and disappear just as quickly... get tickets to see this amazing one-man magical theatrical event."

-Shari Barrett - Broadway World

"In My Corner is Orrach’s tale of growing up under the heavy hand of a Puerto Rican father. It’s a story filled with violence, from his tumultuous childhood to his years as a welterweight boxing champion to the discovery of dance and an autobiographical performance that has set him free."

-Lou Fancher - San Jose Mercury News

"Constantly changing tempo, breaking up the rhythm, telling us one thing as he does something else in counterpoint, Joe puts it across by bringing us into his activity, even as he’s describing it. Not illustrating one by the other, but setting a whole series of acts in motion by a recited fact or image. An image itself has been defined as a complex, and In My Corner. compounds those complexities into what would be merely a tour-de-force if it weren’t so close to the bone, yet higher than a kite. It’s truly a show, continuous entertainment, its infectious spirit telegraphed by the rapture of the performer. "

-Ken Bullock - Berkeley Daily Planet

"I didn't know what I was writing at first," says Orrach, who has a stronger relationship with his family now. "I cried over it. I had to smoke during breaks. Looking back, it was about me and my dad. There are poignant moments. Beautiful moments. And some not-so-pretty moments. But all I can say is that it's reality. It's my truth."

-Delfin Vigil - San Francisco Gate

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