Director

“Extreme Acts takes you on one hell of an adventure in one hour. Through Kaufman’s masterful prose, Sophia and Jasper take us on a whirlwind adventure from art spaces, to intimate moments, and into the sky and open wilderness all in our imagination.” –Stage & Cinema

College of Marin could not have a more expert director for this show than faculty member Molly Noble, motive force behind Porchlight Theatre Company, which for years performed 19th-century plays in the Redwood Amphitheatre in the Marin Art and Garden Center in Ross. Noble gets the utmost from her talented cast.

The brilliant opening equals anything done by a well-endowed modern dance troupe, with several white-clad occupants of the doomed ship acting out the disaster that launches the plot. The opening scene is stark and arresting, and so well done that it establishes aspirational energy sustaining the entire production — a rare and difficult theatrical phenomenon. Noble gets a rousing performance from her large cast, a mix of COM students and veteran actors, all of whom turn in performances ranging from good to exemplary.

Hilarious, lovely, elegant…North Bay residents are privileged to have such sterling performances so close to home.

Cry It Out delivers pitch perfect performances.

Directed by Molly Noble, “Maple and Vine” is a fascinating, funny and at moments horrific look into the workings of any cult — the fundamental premise, the attraction, and the failing.

Director Molly Noble has assembled a stellar cast of actresses. Softly drenched in sweet nostalgia, Lughnasa is a beautiful play, beautifully executed.

It’s a terrific looking and sounding production, with the small studio theatre transformed into a riverside village with an eye-popping set design by Ron Krempetz.  The theatre resonates with the sounds of the river, the nearby jungle, and the music of the village courtesy the design work of Billie Cox.

Who knew [Molly Noble] had a penchant for wild absurdist comedy and such talent for bringing it to life?

Molly is an outstanding theatre director and collaborator and particularly deft in the development of new plays. I highly recommend her to any theatre in need of a guest director.

Big Love takes on all kinds of love but it is the murderous kind that gets our attention. But it is all in fun, and director Molly Noble ends the evening harmoniously even as dead bodies still litter the stage floor.

…five unmarried sisters spontaneously join hands and explode into a spontaneous rite of exultation and release. It is an amazing scene, and, in the hands of award-winning director Molly Noble, it is a harrowing one. For in Noble’s riveting and stark interpretation, it begins with a strangled cry and erupts into a white cloud as the sisters slap and rub their faces with flour. For one brief moment, they give in to their desires, laughing, screaming and shrieking like a pack of wild banshees in a fierce, primitive, nearly tribal danse macabre.

[One] of my favorites [is] historically based, Richard Weingart’s Isle of Dogs, Part II directed by Molly Noble, a witty two-hander in which Shakespeare and Jonson meet over a pint at the local tavern.

The tension carries over, in a naturalistic vein, to a midnight argument over guns and safety in Malachy Walsh’s The Safety of Pools. Molly Noble’s gentle staging evokes the underlying bonds between a concerned Liam Vincent and fearful Rinabeth Apostol as exhausted new parents.

Near-perfect director Molly Noble makes even the newest actors play well together. It is a credit to Noble that the only stars onstage are the ones painted on the set. Surreal and poignant, fast and funny, this ensemble delivers charming entertainment in a season when we can let go and believe in love.

COM’s director, Molly Noble, keeps the audience entranced as her ensemble rolls, falls, dances and performs exotic—and erotic—tales of ancient Baghdad.

Ecce Homo is a charming, bittersweet vignette of a married couple preparing to give their final performance in the dying age of vaudeville that is put to pasture by the advent of talking pictures. Brian Herndon and Holli Hornlien interact beautifully in Jonathan Luskin’s perfect 10 minute play under Molly Noble’s sensitive direction.

It’s exhilarating.

Based on a true story, and adroitly directed by Molly Noble… [“Pack of Lies”] is a universal story about the mutual affection of two women, despite external realities that have thrown them together.

The characters in “Five Women in the Same Dress” aren’t caricatures but complexly real people. The cast gets it all unassailably right — especially the finely honed Southern sense of absurdity, something that seems to elude many more experienced actors. How they do so is the wonder and magic of theater.

The focus is on the power or the practice of art. Kenn Rabin’s Gymnopédie #1 (directed by Molly Noble) plays unexpected variations on Erik Satie in the key of sex between a flattered professor (Brian Herndon) and a student (Lisa Morse) with an agenda.