Skip to main content
My Shows
News on your favorite shows, specials & more!

Brooks Appelbaum

Brooks Appelbaum

Brooks has been writing theater reviews since her undergraduate days, and her critical writings have appeared in The New Yorker, the New Haven Magazine, and elsewhere. She currently writes about theater for BWW and is on the board of the Connecticut Critics Circle.

Brooks’ theater criticism is informed by a lifetime of acting and directing experience. She and her husband, Dennis Bell, co-founded their own theater company, AppleBell Productions, and their 70-seat house sold out almost every performance. The business ran in the black for three years, until they left for the East Coast.

Brooks studied directing with Arno Selco, then head of the theatre department at Ithaca College, and with Resident Director Evan Yionoulis in Yale’s Summer Directing Program, among others. In academic, amateur, and professional settings, Brooks has directed over twenty plays by such writers as Sam Shepard, Horton Foote, Steven Dietz, A.R. Gurney, Lanford Wilson, and Thornton Wilder.

An actress for many years, Brooks’ favorite roles include Laura in The Glass Menagerie, Carol in Oleanna, Portia in The Merchant of Venice, and Nan/Lina in Richard Greenberg’s Three Days of Rain.

Brooks has taught acting in a wide range of settings, including adult classes, high school theater departments, and AppleBell Productions’ acting program. At Quinnipiac University, Brooks teaches in the English Department, Women and Gender Studies, First Year Seminar, and her own course, "From Script to Stage" in the Theatre Department. 

Brooks graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University and earned her Ph.D. in English Literature from Cornell.


 

Get an Alert Each Time Brooks Appelbaum Writes

Contact Brooks Appelbaum



Most Popular Articles

Review: THE WINTER'S TALE at Hartford Stage

Review: THE WINTER'S TALE at Hartford Stage

May 3, 2023

What did our critic think of THE WINTER'S TALE at Hartford Stage? The Winter's Tale, currently at Hartford Stage through May 7 and directed by Artistic Director Melia Bensussen, confronts an audience with a story difficult to believe from the start, whether or not one is a Shakespeare fan.

Review: THE ART OF BURNING at Hartford Stage

Review: THE ART OF BURNING at Hartford Stage

March 16, 2023

What did our critic think of THE ART OF BURNING at Hartford Stage? Kate Snodgrass' world premiere play, The Art of Burning, presented by Hartford Stage in association with Huntington Theater Company, is a disappointingly thin work, though the producing theaters are to be congratulated for supporting

Review: Paula Vogel's INDECENT At Playhouse On Park

Review: Paula Vogel's INDECENT At Playhouse On Park

February 17, 2023

Paula Vogel's Indecent, now running at Hartford's Playhouse on Park through February 26, dramatizes the production history of a much older play, The God of Vengeance, written in 1907 by Sholem Asch.

Review: WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? at Yale Repertory Theatre

Review: WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? at Yale Repertory Theatre

October 25, 2022

What did our critic think of WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? at Yale Repertory Theatre? James Bundy, Artistic Director of Yale Repertory Theatre and Dean of Yale School of Drama, often helms the first production of a season, and that production is often a classic play: Tennessee Williams' A STREETCA

Review: FUN HOME at TheaterWorks Hartford

Review: FUN HOME at TheaterWorks Hartford

October 19, 2022

What did our critic think of FUN HOME at TheaterWorks Hartford? The musical FUN HOME, based on Alison Bechdel's graphic memoir ('a family tragicomic') won five Tony Awards in 2015, including Best Musical.

Review: SUNSET BOULEVARD at Music Theatre of Connecticut

Review: SUNSET BOULEVARD at Music Theatre of Connecticut

September 25, 2022

Director Kevin Connors (also the Artistic Director of MTC) has worked wonders adapting big Broadway shows to fit, literally and artistically, into his intimate theatre space, which has the audience on three sides of a postage stamp stage.

BWW Review: QUEEN at Long Wharf Theatre

BWW Review: QUEEN at Long Wharf Theatre

May 31, 2022

QUEEN, by Madhuri Shekar and playing at Long Wharf Theatre through June 5th, is a timely investigation of ideas that centers on women in STEM (who are underrepresented onstage as in life).




BroadwayWorld TV


Ticket Central
Hot Show
Tickets From $73
Hot Show
Tickets From $89
Hot Show
Tickets From $89
Hot Show
Tickets From $65