I don't expect you to believe any of this, but the hero of [Cryer and Ford's] "Shelter," an unnerving bit of musical whimsy …, is a happily married fellow who lives apart from his wife and their seven adopted children of as many races. He lives in a set—kitchen, bedroom and bath—in a television studio. And he is regularly visited by a young woman named Wednesday November….

From these sorry materials, which would be looked down upon as childish by the Sesame Street audience, a gratingly mannered and senseless book has been devised by Gretchen Cryer, who is also responsible for the foolish lyrics….

I didn't see ["The Last Sweet Days of Isaac"] but seem to recall that the entire thing took place in an elevator. There's an elevator in "Shelter," too, and the ladies use it to depart, one by one. I wish I'd thought of it first.

Douglas Watt, "A Whimsy-with-Music Called 'Shelter' Opens," in Daily News (© 1973, New York News Inc.; reprinted by permission), February 7, 1973 (and reprinted in New York Theatre Critics' Reviews, Vol. XXXIV, No. 3, February 3-10, 1973, p. 370).