About The Glass Menagerie:
"At the Colony Theatre, it's a poignant and stunning revival...Credit Michelle Ney for both the costumes and set, a metal frame cage enclosure that houses the three struggling Wingfields... Bottom line: An artful blend of poetry and reality, this revival is touching and haunting..." (The Hollywood Reporter review by Ed Kaufman)
"As Williams surrogate Tom Wingfield...warns us before the fire escape of Michelle Ney's metal-frame set, "Menagerie" is unrealistic. Here, dropcloths cover the Wingfields' St. Louis apartment and Kubzansky goes for Williams-as-Pirandello. Tom exposes the aging furnishings, including the title crystal zoo, absent Dad's grinning photo--and, magically, Tom's Southern belle mother Amanda...and crippledsister, Laura. This masterful gambit...proves thematic...Under Pivnick's ilumination, Ney's set and period costumes are imposing. (Los Angeles Times review by David C. Nichols)
"...The walls (by designer Michelle Ney) are made of chain link befitting a prison--which was how Tom, more than the others, viewed his home...For her scene with the gentleman caller, she (Amanda) dresses in an outlandish antebellum hoop skirt. Are we to assume this was what she actually wore that fateful night? Not any more than we assume that the walls were actually made of chain link. Amanda's outfit is Tom's memory--embellished for his own amusement--of how this ex-belle looked." (LA City Beat review by Don Shirley)
About Two Gentlemen of Verona:
"...With a contempo-flavored aesthetic pallet somewhere between Federico Fellini and Austin Powers and a set from Michelle Ney that might have been painted by cartoonist Gerald Scarfe, this play gets every trick and bit of shtick possible...This is summer theatre with an emphasis on seasonal whimsy...It's an entertaining, youngster-friendly show full of rich directorial ideas and visual complexity..." (The Chicago Tribune review)
About Tribes:
"...Michelle Ney's set is a major contribution. The walls of all locations are constructed from waves of corrugated metal...for the sterile feeling that surrounds the family home. The walls also serve as screens for subtitles during some sign language exchanges ...It's a set that impressively serves many functions. ( The Austin Chronicle review by Elizabeth Cobbe)
"The play is a mostly realist drama, but in a departure from previous productions of "Tribes"...Michelle Ney designed an eye-catching, metallic, undulating set that looms over the family. The set doesn't include a single straight line...the effect is that it adds an air of coldness and alienation to the production and emphasizes the idea that in this play, home is never really a place of warmth. Instead it's a strange place, a foreign land." (Austin American Statesman Austin 360 review by Claire Canavan)
"Michelle Ney has designed a technological marvel of a multi-leveled, rotating set that is like a modern art installation piece and becomes a character in and of itself. This is one of the finest sets I've seen anywhere and it is absolutely broadway quality...The set shimmers, glows and has projections on it throughout the evening. Translations of sign language are projected on the set...this is some impressive work that adds to the emotional charge of the performance." (Broadwayworld.com review by Frank Benge)
About Gulls:
"...Director Jessica Kubzansky can be relied on to make everything flow as elegantly as possible (Michelle Ney's sets and Jeremy Pivnick's lighting lend aesthetic grace)..." (Los Angeles Times review by Charles McNulty)
"...Michelle Ney’s set, Jeremy Pivnik’s lighting, ..., are all to be commended as well, among every other exceptional design element and work assignment brought to this production. (Entertainment Today review by Travis Michael Holder)
About Richard III:
"...Scenic and costume design by Michelle delivers that visual world with great clarity. The play is too specific to be contained permanently in airport world, but the very neutrality of the setting lends itself to dream-like transformation. With the lighting design of Sarah EC Maines, center stage transforms into the Tower of London with little more than a shift of furniture and a stark, isolating lighting effect emphasizing prison bars as we witness the assassination of Clarence. A glassed-off room at stage left becomes a multipurpose chamber where King Edward dies -- after an unsuccessful attempt at defibrillation -- and later the two young princes are shot to death by an assassin, leaving the window streaked with blood. The text retains all of its references to English and French place names, but by the time the armies pitch their tents and prepare for battle, we've been carried wholesale into the world without boundaries director Ney and his fellow artists have prepared for these characters..." Austin Live Theatre review by Michael Meigs
"...the design of it is fantastic. Michelle Ney's set is exactly what you'd expect of a third world airport. It's bleak, cold, and looks as if it was built 40 or 50 years ago and is in dire need of renovation..." (BroadwayWorld.com review by Jeff Davis)
"..The airport setting by Michelle Ney works beautifully and sets up some stunning visual moments, especially the death of Edward and murder of the princes..." (Robert Faires, Senior Arts Editor, The Austin Chronicle)
About Macbeth:
"...The production values make this show. Costume and set designer Michelle Ney has smartly blended silhouettes that read both classic and contemporary — the crowning image comes in the shape of the three witches who are nightmarish birds swathed in strips of white plastic, ammunition-filled bandoliers strapped to their chests. (Austin American Statesman review by Jeanne Claire van Ryzin)
"...The visual design of this show is superb, including both the minimalist setting and the lighting. Costumes for the weird sisters were hallucinatory, suggesting materials scavaged from a dump, patched and worn as deteriorating shrouds." (Austin Live Theatre review)
About An Ideal Husband:
..."From the moment I entered the Rollins Studio Theatre at the Long Center, I was inundated with warmth and wealth, with sumptuous, flowery parlors and rich, polished studies. Set designer Michelle Ney and lighting designer Jason Amato also cleverly combine huge swaths of fabric and multicolored light above the stage to completely transform the look and feel of the space..." (Austin Chronicle review by Barry Pineo)