The Pillowman

"Director Rich Remedios and his competent cast keep this production unpredictable every step of the way, lending it palpable intimacy. Katurian may be labeled the writer, with 400 grisly little fairy tales to his credit, but everyone in this play is a storyteller."
- Lisa Brock, Star Tribune

“Rich Remedios directs the strong five-person cast (including a brief but memorable appearance by Meghan Gobler) and keeps the tension high throughout the show, but not without moments of humor. [...] With a fantastic cast, inventive design, and an intimate performance space, Theatre Coup d'Etat brings this creepy story to life almost too viscerally. ...if you do go, you'll see a smartly written, darkly disturbing, well performed play.”
- Jill Shafer, Cherry and Spoon

“Director Rich Remedios has staged The Pillowman in very intimate quarters in the lower level of Springhouse Ministry Center...We are near enough to hear Katurian's quickened breath as he administers an act of mercy, the yearning in Ariel's eyes as he pleads for Tupolski to, for once, allow feelings to enter his judgment, and see calm descend over Michal's face as he lies his head in his brother's lap to be told a favorite story once again. It is a production that sends chills down the spine from the first moment to the last... Theatre Coup d'Etat gives the play a staging that is thrilling both in theatrical and intellectual terms.”
- Arthur Dorman, Talkin’ Broadway

“Rich Remedios has directed a disturbing production for Theatre Coup d’Etat at SpringHouse Ministry Center that searingly penetrates the unconscious of the characters, made all the more fascinating because the land where it happens circumscribes how citizens are expected and programmed to think.[...] Remedios’ actors have really dug deeply to convey a numinous sense of how violent imagery can be encoded in our psyches as children through religious and other iconography and mutate into fixations and compulsions that we carry with us into the rest of our lives. It’s the sort of insight that Carl Jung and Erich Neumann apprehended. Again, these actors grasp human nature.”
- John Townsend, Lavender Magazine

“I encourage anyone who enjoys a bit of dark, Irish comedy to see The Pillowman, the performances alone are enough to keep you at the edge of your seats.”
 - Erika Sasseville, Aisle Say

"Director Rich Remedios embraces the humor in the interrogation room trope, as two jaded detectives Tupolski (Tyler Stamm) and Ariel (James Napoleon Stone) inject comedy and cleverness into their task of pulling the truth from Katurian...This is not a play for the squeamish or weak at heart; I’ll spare you the spoilers but be prepared for an uncomfortable evening. And yet, I found myself laughing through the tension more often than I imagine was appropriate. Though I question what the play itself adds to the greater theatrical conversation of 2019, I enjoyed this production. I flinched, I gasped, I recoiled, and I greatly appreciated the focus of the actors and the commitment of the creative team to presenting this play truthfully."
- Melissa Miller, Minnesota Playlist

“When shadow puppets first appear on the dismal wall of Theatre Coup d’Etat’s set for The Pillowman (through July 20), they pull you into the brutal fairy tales that the play’s main character has written. In those minutes, instead of being witnesses to his interrogation for murder, you become the final audience to his disturbing, macabre storytelling legacy.”
- MN Monthly