​Lorene Chesley

Crescent City Stage staple Lorene Chesley commands the stage as Sherlock Holmes with a performance that’s equal parts manic genius and vulnerable human being. Chesley masterfully navigates Holmes’ trademark deductive brilliance while grounding the character by letting the lonely heart peek through the cracks. Her physical comedy is impeccable; every gesture and facial expression lands with precise timing that would make the original Holmes proud. But it’s Chesley’s ability to find the emotional truth beneath Holmes’ intellectual armor that elevates this from mere pastiche to genuine character study. She creates a Holmes who feels both iconic and entirely contemporary, someone you’d actually want as a roommate (chaos and all).--Tara Bennett, Broadway World.com

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Lorene Chesley’s Sherlock offers a vivacious rendition of the eagle-eyed and unrelenting consulting detective. Her Sherlock is high-energy, bounding about the stage with a saber rather than pensively sawing a violin. She avoids the frigidity sometimes draping the character and replaces it with nigh-manic energy. The deerstalker hat makes its inevitable appearance, but she’s less to blame than Rathbone and a general confusion over early 20th century English countryside garb. --David S. Lewis, Out All Day: New Orleans