If the quick changes in anybody’s solo show were ever going to involve the swapping out of a series of increasingly fabulous eyeglasses, it was always going to be a show about Carla Hall, right?
At Olney Theatre Center, the pert and pleasing one-hander Please Underestimate Me showcases not just an array of spectacular spectacles — and a bright carousel of robes and gowns and other gear to complement them — but the famously eyewear-obsessed chef and restaurateur herself, talking audiences entertainingly and interactively through the ups and downs of her curious career. But as you’d hope, it’s substantially more than a Wikipedia entry performed live. It’s about a strong woman and a singular personality explaining … well, basically explaining how, and against which odds, she became the engaging oddball the world met and fell for during her breakout appearance across the fifth season of Top Chef.
Which, as Hall is quick to remind us, she did not ultimately win. Indeed, one central lesson of that cooking-competition experience, and of Please Underestimate Me, is that people — especially the more creative sorts of people — have really got to figure out how to trust their guts when others are punching them in it.
It’s a leitmotif that surfaces in her accounts of the Top Chef flameout, of toxic on-set dynamics at ABC’s The Chew, the daytime chat-and-cook show she co-hosted for years, even of her relationship with her formidably accomplished mother, who steered Hall firmly away from early theater-camp dreams of performing and into an accounting degree at Howard University — followed by what sounds like a thoroughly grim two years at what was then called Price Waterhouse.
Between that and Top Chef, which came literally decades later, Hall’s adventures included a stint as a Paris fashion model, which sounds glamorous — and makes room for a bit of goofy, not-quite-serious runway-strutting — but apparently involved a lot of crashing on other models’ sofas. (The elaborate gown, like the other design-forward ensembles, comes courtesy of costumier Paris Francesca.) Any good solo stage memoir needs to poke around at least a little among the narrator’s unhappier moments, and Hall proves brave and sensible enough to plate up this light-note appetizer before serving up darker, heavier courses.
Despite childhood memories of a grandmother’s glorious way with a kitchen, though, this woman who’d eventually write best-selling cookbooks and help define a new generation of celebrity chefs adamantly resisted the idea of anything resembling homemaking. It’s a dynamic rooted in real psychological struggle, but it’s framed here fairly whimsically by Hall and her co-writers, Lori Kaye and Leslie Thomas — and staged cheerfully by director Lili-Anne Brown, on a genuinely dazzling puzzle-box of a set by Lauren M. Nichols — as a kind of reluctant courtship dance with a gas range that develops a personality and bops about the kitchen like an unusually amorous Roomba. Props to whoever’s driving that thing from backstage, for sure.
But then the whole show carries most of its messages lightly, aside from one inescapably serious moment that calls for a seat and a narrowing spotlight. (The lighting design, executed a little unsteadily at the performance I saw, is by Harold F. Burgess II.) It’s the story of an unspeakably grim childhood trauma that Hall speaks of quietly and without fuss, concluding when she’s done that it’s probably shaped every one of her human interactions since that night. Terror, horror, violence, survivor’s guilt, and more — it’s all in play. To everyone’s credit, it’s acknowledged, reflected on, and allowed to pass into the shadows without sensationalism.
On press night, Hall appeared to be still settling into the physical mechanics of a sustained performance arc — a 90-minute solo performance is no joke, and it’s not at all the same thing as recording a 5-minute segment for a TV show that’ll get edited and packaged and polished until it’s smooth — and though it’s probably churlish to point it out, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a teleprompter used in a live theater performance before.
But the jokes landed nicely enough, and the memories felt mostly warm and fair in the end. (Hi, comedy legend Carol Burnett!) And Hall certainly proved plenty deft about handling the curve balls that emerged in a scattering of interactive segments — notably one involving an especially enthusiastic volunteer who seemed eager to expand the bit part Hall invited her onstage to play. If you’ve ever seen a mother pin a boisterous child down with a quelling gaze, you’ll have a clear mental image of how the show’s actual star eventually had to intervene. Happily, Carla Hall has more than enough power, presence, and pure charisma to handle her business without anybody’s help.
Running Time: 90 minutes, no intermission.
Carla Hall in Please Underestimate Me plays through July 12, 2026, in the Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab at Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Rd, Olney, MD. Tickets are $52–$121 and are available online, by calling the box office at 301.924.3400, or on TodayTix. Discounts are available for groups, seniors, teachers, active military, first responders, and students. Visit olneytheatre.org/discounts for details.
Carla Hall in Please Underestimate Me
By Carla Hall, Lori Kaye & Leslie Thomas
Directed by Lili-Anne Brown
SEE ALSO:
Celebrity chef Carla Hall launches solo show ‘Please Underestimate Me’ at Olney Theatre Center (news story, May 6, 2026)
