Man and Superman (Shaw Festival)

“Each time I see Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster, either as an actor or director, I am more impressed. Violet is the sister of the dreamy, idealistic poet/novelist Octavius Robinson (Kyle Blair), and is his polar opposite. Without ever raising her voice, Lancaster smoothly delivers Violet’s steel magnolia persona. She’s got her man Hector Malone (Jeff Irving) as well as his father (Tom McCamus) well under control.” -Paula Citron, Ludwig Van Toronto

“…his sister Violet (a formidable Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster) is a blazingly confident, straight-backed woman without a sense of humour. Perhaps she is funny because she doesn’t have a sense of humour. Violet sees the world, knows what she wants of it and goes after it… Ch’ng Lancaster carries off the ‘look’ and stature of Violet with great style.” -Lynn Slotkin, The Slotkin Letter

Cyrano de Bergerac (Shaw Festival)

“Standouts in the ensemble include Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster’s Valvert and Tanja Jacobs’s Le Bret, performances that show us weak, toxic and strong, compassionate shades of masculinity, respectively.” -J Kelly Nestruck, The Globe and Mail

“fine portraits include David Adams as the pompous actor Montfleury; Sharry Flett as Roxane’s diligent duenna; Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster as the proud, swashbuckling Valvert; ” -Christopher Hoile, The Stage-Door

Innocence Lost (Soulpepper)

“…Cooper’s significant fictionalization is the creation of a central character, Sarah (Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster) to be the audience’s guide. A classmate of Truscott’s with a crush on him, Sarah is thrown in all directions as the events unfold. At first flabbergasted that anything like this could happen, she is swayed by her parents’ conviction that Truscott is guilty but, as Lancaster’s affecting performance communicates, this doesn’t stop her from feeling conflicted. This could be played as adult anger, but Lancaster opts for adolescent incredulity and sadness: a very smart choice…” -Karen Fricker, The Toronto Star

“Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster does an exemplary job as the central link between us and the narrative. She clearly distinguishes Sarah as an adult from Sarah as a child and a teenager. Sarah is hits especially hard by Steven’s conviction because she has had a crush on him all through school, and Lancaster shows us just how agonizing it is for Sarah to accept that a boy she liked could have done so terrible a deed. Yet, it is particularly chilling when Lancaster shows us how the older Sarah has suppressed her former feelings and has angrily conformed to the negative assessment of Steven in the town.” -Christopher Hoile, stage-door.com

“As Sarah, the play’s impressionable narrator, Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster is believably terrific. Ms. Lancaster delivers a confident and self-assured performance in trying to understand the horrific events that have unfolded before Sarah.” -Joe Szekeres, onstageblog.com

“Sharply detailed, respectful work from the ensemble; the women in this story feature prominently, with some particular stand-outs in the cast. Ch’ng Lancaster does a brilliant job with the conflicted Sarah; torn between her admiration of Steven, and the myriad voices supporting and damning him, Sarah finds her own faith shaken” -Cate McKim, lifewithmorecowbell.com

Blood Wedding (Soulpepper)

"Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster is outstanding as Leonardo’s Wife and communicates right from the start both that she knows her husband is visiting the Bride again and that she prays her suspicion is not true."
-Christopher Hoile, stage-door.com 

"...there were certainly some MVPs in the cast — namely the scene-stealing Diane D’Aquila as Mother and Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster’s raw, heart-wrenching portrayal of the betrayed Wife"
-Angela Sun, mooneyontheatre.com

"Also giving a strong, passionate performance is Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster as the Wife. The emotional upheaval, loneliness and despair are so clear in this performance. The Wife is in love with her husband. Leonardo, but knows he is still in love with his previous girlfriend (the Bride). The Wife can demand he be with her, and momentarily it’s fine, but the Wife knows she doesn’t have a chance against Leoanardo’s true love."
-Lynn Slotkin, The Slotkin Letter

The Dining Room (Soulpepper)

"Joseph Ziegler’s Soulpepper production is beautifully tuned...Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster drives deep as a divorced daughter, seeking succour in the family nest."
-Robert Cushman, The National Post

"Lancaster is the other standout in this fine cast, revealing a hilarious aptitude for impersonating a small child whose moods are writ large on her rubbery face."
-Martin Morrow, The Globe and Mail

Of Human Bondage (Soulpepper)

"I am so grateful for Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster as Sally, the woman who saves Philip by loving him unconditionally. Lancaster brings out the gentle grace of Sally; her sweet innocence but also her quiet feistiness. These are lovely performances."
-Lynn Slotkin, CIUT 89.5 FM, The Slotkin Letter

"Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster is delightful as Athelny’s bright daughter Sally, whose new ideas and new feelings roil under the surface until she has someone like Philip to share them with." 
-Christopher Hoile, stage-door.com

Idiot's Delight (Soulpepper)

"...it doesn’t hurt to be surrounded by Harry’s charming fivesome of singing dames, which features pipes like Steffi Didomenicantonio’s and Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster’s"      
-Carly Maga, Torontoist.com                                                                          

"Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster makes a fine impression as the savviest member of Les Blondes."        
-Christopher Hoile, stage-door.com

NOW Magazine Year End Top Ten

“Lancaster initially made an impression as a member of the Soulpepper Academy. This year, cast as a yodelling, plucky Rosina in the company’s production of The Barber Of Seville, she won viewers’ hearts. Her musical charms were also evident in her portrayal of the inspiring ingenue in The Ballad Of Weedy Peetstraw. But she’s a strong serious actor, too, as she proved playing a young stripper in The Flood Thereafter and recently, in The Tin Drum, a pair of wives, one unaware that she’s the rejected fourth side of a love triangle and the other involved both with her husband and her stepson.”
-Jon Kaplan, NOW Magazine’s “Jon Kaplan’s Top 10 Theatre Artists” 2013

“No theatre artist did as varied and consistent work this year as Lancaster, whose layered characters resonate in theatregoers’ minds long after a show is over. She was an essential part of the moving chorus in Idomeneus played the conflicted/complicit narrator in Innocence Lost (convincing as both a child and adult) got us to bite our nails as a businesswoman caught in a sticky Airbnb situation in Anywhere made a footnote in musical history come vividly alive (complete with charming singing) as an opera composer in I Call Myself Princess and played both Marshall McLuhan’s devoted secretary and a scantily clad cigarette seller with a firm grasp of the philosopher’s oeuvre in The Message. In addition, as co-artistic director of the Howland Company, she directed an ass-kicking and deeply empathetic production of The Wolves.
-Glenn Sumi, NOW Magazine’s Top 10 Theatre Artists” 2018

My Entertainment World MyTheatreAwards Toronto Emerging Artist Award, 2013

"The beautiful and talented Soulpepper Academy alum we knew was about to win this un-nominated award was live-tweeting the ceremony on Monday. Just before we announced Emerging Artist, she came out with this soon-to-be-ironic gem: “Five!! I lost FIVE awards tonight!!! #lickingmywounds #morebeer”. Yes, she’s clearly funny and down to earth and all that great stuff, but mostly we would like to point out that she was nominated for FIVE awards in the first place. She’s counting The Tin Drum‘s Best Production nomination and two Ensemble nods, but even with just her solo nominations (Best Supporting Actress for The Ballad of Weedy Peetstraw and Best Actress in a Musical for The Barber of Seville) she was the most nominated artist in Toronto’s My Theatre Awards this year. After catching our attention in Soulpepper’s Crucible with her Academy brethren in 2012, Courtney has delivered solid performance after solid performance in wildly differing roles. Laugh-out-loud funny as the outrageous ingenue in The Barber of Seville, angry and broken as contemporary siren June in The Flood Thereafter at CanStage, charming and feisty as the titular Weedy’s pattering love interest in John Millard’s SummerWorks bluegrass opera, she even managed to be somewhat interesting as a manipulative showgirl in Soulpepper’s bizarrely cast winter offering Idiot’s Delight. Already high on Soulpepper’s list of dependable talents, our only hesitation in giving the Emerging Artist Award to the wonderful Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster is that, in a lot of ways, she’s already emerged and well on her way to bigdeal-dom."
-Kelly Bedard, myentertainmentworld.ca

The Tin Drum

"The other cast members—including Cyrus Lane and Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster, who both deliver standout performances—are able to inject more heart into this odd, multi-faceted story."
-Carly Maga, Torontoist.com

"Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster is good in all her guises, especially the shy ones"
-Robert Cushman, The National Post

The Flood Thereafter

“The scene builds and builds, with performer Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster spinning compelling webs of desire out of Berthiaume’s dense imagery...Lancaster is a persuasive mermaid and can be stark naked and totally compelling without ever seeming lewd. MacDonald as her ill-starred mate has the physical magnetism and emotional guardedness that the role requires, and this duo sees to it that the heart of the play beats as it ought to.”                                      
-Richard Ouzounian, The Toronto Star 

“An emotionally multihued scene between June and Denis is full of sparks fanned by Lancaster and MacDonald’s performances.”
-Jon Kaplan, NOW Magazine

The Barber of Seville

“Lancaster...really kills it in the style-shifting score. In an aria that flirts with opera, then goes pop diva, she brings her feisty, proto-feminist Rosina to full life.”
-J. Kelly Nestruck, The Globe and Mail

“One of the tuneful highlights is Rosina’s first song...Millard’s cleverly given the tricky coloratura of Rossini a country twang and a near-yodel, and the witty, charming Lancaster does a fine job with both elements. A graduate of the Soulpepper Academy, she’s been on the Young Centre stage before, but this is her first chance to shine.”
-Jon Kaplan, NOW Magazine

“Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster brings a fantastic, cartoonish glee to her work as the fiery Rosina...Her signature song careens from the operatic (with surprising bursts of bluesy angst) to full-on contemporary (with surprising bursts of operatic power), much like her character overall. She’s as comfortable belting out some impromptu Carly Rae Jepsen as she is going from helpless to aggressive to swooning all in the same breath, easily the comic equal of her sly savior, Count Almaviva.”
-Michael Spiar, INSPIARED blog

The Crucible

“Of all the young women, our sympathy goes to Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster’s pitiable Mary Warren, the Proctors’ serving girl, who embodies both the boldness of empowerment and the weakness of a teenager succumbing to the most heinous form of peer pressure.”
-Martin Morrow, The Globe and Mail

“We do see Mary Warren, the one among them who was about to tell the truth, being partly terrified, partly hypnotized into compliance; Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster, a standout among the younger generation, here makes our hearts break, both for Mary and for those who will now be her victims.”
-Robert Cushman, National Post

“Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster is also a standout in the difficult role of Mary Warren, who wavers between choosing the prestige and attention granted by her lies and the condemnation that follows when she attempts to speak the truth. Lancaster’s understated performance is an absolute delight.”
-Kate Fane, Plaid Magazine

“...the play begins to focus on three of the stronger actors on the stage: Joseph Ziegler as Deputy Governor Danforth, Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster as Mary Warren, and Stuart Hughes as John Proctor. All three successfully tread the line between detached and passionate without ever falling too deeply onto either side and, as a result, managed to highlight the internal conflict both of their characters and the levels of society they each represent.”
-Stuart Munro, The Charlebois Post

Macbeth: Nach Shakespeare

“Bloody brilliant...the actors deliver it with unfailing clarity...Dressed in military garb, the trio of Evelyn Chew, Sarah Afful, and Courtney Lancaster seamlessly work the rhythms of the Weird Sisters.”
- Kathleen Oliver, Georgia Straight

Wild Party

“Not yet a household name but definitely on the road to stardom is Courtney Lancaster who, as Queenie's best friend Kate...Kate is black: black stockings, shiny black hair and a black heart to match.”
- Jo Ledingham, Vancouver Courier

Twelfth Night

“Courtney Lancaster was incredible. She is the type of actress I want to be. Versatile. Arresting. And completely present. It wasn’t until intermission that I realized she had also been in The Wild Party, wherein after seeing that show I sang her praises to director Christopher Shyer for as long as he could listen.”
-Meeshelle Neal, meeshelleneal.com

“Lancaster and Triolo are delightfully expressive in their reactions to each other.”
- reviewfromthehouse.com

“Young Lancaster, as Viola/Caesario, takes on this big role with confidence, grace and youthful charm.
- Jo Ledingham, Vancouver Courier”

As You Like It

“...a treat to watch, with clear standout being Hindle and Lancaster’s romantic Jousting...” 
- John Threfall, mondaymag.com

Hamlet

“Julie McIsaac as Ophelia and Courtney Lancaster in a variety of roles -- offer ample evidence they're up-and-comers worth watching.”
- Peter Birnie, Vancouver Sun

Mother Courage and her Children

“Courtney Lancaster’s Kattrin, Mother Courage’s mute daughter, is heartbreaking in her expressive, impeccable, speechless miming.”
- Jane Penistan, Review Vancouver