Nina O'Keefe | Actress

August 2015
"O'Keefe's earnest, balanced performance reflects both the character's guilelessness and her powers of seduction. Better still is her compelling, utterly convincing transformation into a woman humbled but determined to persevere."
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August 2015
"While it is great fun to watch Nate Whelden whimper and whine, to witness an actress as full of proverbial piss and vinegar as Nina O’Keefe decrying her inability to offer even one second of truth is more significantly transcendent than any number of self-reflexive fourth-wall breaks."
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March 2014
Adding to his deal with the devil is Joe’s involvement with Lorna Moon (the terrific Nina O’Keefe,), who for years has been mistress to Joe’s manager, Tom Moody (Mark Pracht).
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March 2014
Santana's intense, marvelously authentic performance as a man who sacrifices his art (and soul) for security and fame, suggests a champion in the making. The actor, whose Chicago-area credits include First Folio Theatre in Oak Brook, heads up director Jonathan Berry's large cast made up of first-rate character actors. Among them is Nina O'Keefe, who delivers a knockout performance as a quintessential tough cookie.
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March 2014
Away from his family, Joe drifts into the claws of the overly sensitive Moody (played by Mark Pracht with enough heart to be sympathetic) and the loudmouth, coarse Roxy (a very convincing John Connolly). Moody’s longtime girl Lorna (an exceptionally well-cast Nina O’Keefe) takes an interest in Joe which quickly turns up Moody’s jealousy dial.
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March 2014
To convince Joe to choose the ring over the strings, Moody assigns his good-hearted, long-suffering mistress Lorna (Nina O’Keefe, earning our sympathy with sad eyes and a Joisey squawk) to make his case. But Lorna falls for the kid, and it starts to look like there’ll be no winners in this fight.

July 2013
The uniting factor is the one pair whose home is noticeably absent, insufferable lout Trevor (Joe McCauley) and his basket case of a wife Susannah (a delightfully unhinged Nina O’Keefe)—two caricatures who invade the lives of their friends and family after an especially turbulent evening.
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July 2013
Delia also tries to deal with the volatile, profoundly strained marriage of their wholly self-involved son, Trevor (Joe McCauley), and his somewhat damaged and unstable wife, Susannah (an ideally high-wired Nina O’Keefe).

February 10, 2011
An hour before the start of Tuesday night’s penultimate dress rehearsal, half the cast of Sideshow Theatre Company’s “Heddatron” was making a lot of noise — lunging and stretching, their voices swooping through a range of warm-up exercises. Downstage, the cast members Billy-bot and Hans stood apart, occasionally flexing an arm or a neck joint, winking at curious onlookers and, when provoked, beeping loudly.
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June 2010
"Eustace Allen is excellent as Lou, the academic terrified of being blacklisted, whose wife (the teasing Nina O'Keefe) boldly comes on to Quentin. And there are fine turns by Margaret Grace as another worshipful admirer, and by Eric Leonard and others."

2010

"No review could possibly do all the performances justice. Let's just say Nina O'Keefe as Jeanine, the wheelchair-bound, disillusioned Marxist, starts everyone off with an incredible warm-up. "I failed as a revolutionary and as a dope addict," she says. She also fails at suicide -- although that actually turns out to be a good thing. If fact, maybe even her attempt at suicide wasn't such a bad thing either -- especially since, after leaping from her window, Jeanine starts living each passing moment with passionate intensity.

"Attempted suicide as religious experience - that's only the beginning of Miller's tasty treats. O'Keefe knows very well the poetic power of Miller's dialogue. Her concentration never relents."