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Category: featured
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London Test: Parts #1-4
Tracking the myriad but rewarding tasks & challenges of mounting our play, RETROSPECTIVE, in London
“If you can provide a keyhole into some world that nobody has ever seen, that’s the play that will get you the notice you finally deserve.”
Marsha NormanAs previously noted in our other blog, Testing: A Personal History, everything can be thought of as a test; “That by which the existence, quality, or genuineness of anything is or may be determined” as the Oxford English Dictionary definition runs certainly fits our UK premiere of this existential comedy. Dr. Samuel Johnson, however, may have described more closely the reality of production when his dictionary set a test as a ‘means of trial’.
Post # 1: Taking RETROSPECTIVE to the Pub
Post # 2: Getting Technical
Post #3: This IS a Dress Rehearsal
Post #4: What happens on Opening Day?
We’ll keep you ‘posted’ on the ‘test’ results. Tune in daily at our Substack or periodically here at KWT.
And we’ve just been added to London Pub Theatre’s Top Picks for May!!!
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RETROSPECTIVE by T.J. Elliott: Bringing the text to life
The actors’ art and the director’s craft combine in the rehearsal rooms to make theatre live
[Read London Pub Theatre magazine’s interviews here with Playwright T.J. Elliott and Director Liviu Monsted on the making of the play and more]
The question puzzling famous painter, Rory McGrory, in Retrospective is ‘Asleep or Afterlife? Rory, who may or may not be dreaming, encounters his first wife and two other frenemies from his past amidst what they claim is a show of his work, a retrospective, but all Rory can see are blank canvases. This mischievous menage claim they just want to help him get to next while he just wants to wake up. Which will it be In this rollicking reunion — a wild dream to recount or going down for the count?
That’s the world our company is busy creating in London at Barons Court Theatre. The photos offer a glimpse into their work but only attending live May-14th – 23 will convey the magic being mixed by Noah Huntley, Sarah Pearcy, Jasmine Dorothy Haefner, and Benjamin Parsons directed by Liviu Monsted
Select the performance to attend here
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We also asked these fine actors why they care & commit to #maketheaterlive
Part II
Lucky to have this pair making theater live in the UK premiere of RETROSPECTIVE Here’s what our Jasmine Dorothy Haefner(Z) & Benjamin Parsons(Clint Belinsky) said
How lucky are we to have in the cast for our upcoming UK production of RETROSPECTIVE, friends and colleagues, old and new, who want to make theatre live. Jasmine Dorothy Haefner who plays Z, an acerbic critic, in this magical mystery tour of a comedy first worked with KWT in 2020. Here’s why Jasmine makes theatre:
Why make theatre? Because it’s fun! We only met Benjamin Parsons at casting for this production, and yet already feel we have gained a stalwart companion and kindred spirit as he becomes Clint Belinsky, the rogue painter and laid-back lover in RETROSPECTIVE’s ‘menage a quatre‘. Here’s his thoughtful take on why making theatre matters to him:
Benji like many of us in theatre is there for the storytelling In our previous post featuring the other half of this quirky quartet, Noah Huntley and Sarah Pearcy, we shared how the pandemic’s shuttering of theaters stirred our commitment at Knowledge Workings Theater company to #maketheatrelive. We needed that rush of creation and power of performance even if the work went into pixels before it got to people. Felicitously, many theatre artists joined that cause first in our Zoom productions Grudges in that crazy Spring of 2020 followed that autumn by Within The Context Of No Context by George W S Trow, and the Swedish screwball comedy, Keeping Right.
Happily and gratefully, thanks to a co-production with the pioneering and innovative Broom Street Theater in Madison WI in November 2021, we got back to making theater on an actual stage with our third play, Genealogy before a live, laughing, sighing, and physically present right before us audience . This ‘making’ then continued through our Off-Broadway productions of The Oracle (2022) at THEATRE FOR THE NEW CITY, The Jester’s Wife (2023) at The Chain Theatre, HONOR (2024) at Gene Frankel Theatre, and now Retrospective, which debuted at the Broadway Bound Theatre festival at the AMT Theatre on West 45th St. in Manhattan August 2025.
Now UK theater lovers can enjoy Jasmine and Benji along with Sarah and Noah in the shadowy bantering world of RETROSPECTIVE at Barons Court Theatre May 14-23 by clicking on the button below
Want to know more about the comedy that New York critics called “ more complicated and more multidirectional than one first assumes“?
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Community Enables Creation; I’m Still Grateful for Being a Part of This One
Nine years ago, this community embraced me for the last time as their colleague and so-called leader. (Anyone who knows this group realizes that they often did the leading) For 17 years, the energy, intelligence, and compassion of these people — and many not pictured — not only made positive differences in that organization but formed the most satisfying experience of my ‘straight job’ years. I was so darn lucky.
Sadly, some of these folks are gone. Happily, many are making a difference in new communities. Blessedly, more than a few in their ‘post straight job’ days now can follow paths to creativity and satisfaction in other ways. Here’s wishing good times, good luck, and good health to those of us still making things happen each in our own way.Share this:
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Our War Correspondent (Bravely) Covers Portland Hellhole
Luck is the residue of design as Branch Rickey wisely opined. And our co-founder, T.J. Elliott, had the good luck to plan his visit to Portland to be at the opening of Claire Elliott’s show at One Grand gallery of her paintings AND his grandson’s magnificent Paw Patrol themed fifth birthday party just as POTUS designated that city to be a ‘hellhole’ in need of military intervention. His journalistic work ended up on the Jimmy Kimmel show — go to 7:07 at this link — and garnered 54,000 views on YouTube. Knowledge Workings is proud of this daring reporting by such an old man.
Not really, but maybe next year?
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The Dead Speak Up for RETROSPECTIVE
Click on Mr. Williams or even do The Rose Tattoo on the cake to buy your tix
Take a plunge: click on Monroe and Miller for your tickets
Click on Anton and buy Tix for you and your Three Sisters
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Jeremiah Alexander in RETROSPECTIVE Triumphs As Clint Belinsky, Accidental Artist
Jeremiah Alexander smiling because he knows how much audiences will love his portrayal of Clint Photo Bill Wadman For playwright, T.J. Elliott, and actor, Jeremiah Alexander, this collaboration stems from September of 1978. Alan Brody as the male leads in a regional production of George Bernard Shaw’s The Devil’s Disciple. First, they were fellow actors, then for a time roommates, and later, and always, friends as both moved to NYC to pursue careers in theater. They both studied with acting teacher legend Terry Schreiber and appeared on stages that happened to be in cellars, barrooms, lofts, and even occasionally a real theatre.
A pledge was made by T.J. once he turned to playwrighting in the early 1980s that one day he would work with Jeremiah and benefit from his chum’s comedic talent, irrepressible energy, and unique intuition. Necessarily working straight jobs and happily raising a family with wife and now Executive Producer, Marjorie Phillips, however, kept that rendezvous from happening until now, but the result is worth the wait. Jere enchants and entertains with the antics of Clint Belinsky, described in the script of RETROSPECTIVE as “late 60s, looks even younger, artist & enjoyer of life.” The last part is an understatement; Clint is a painter who admits, “Art was cool but some days I just heaved the paint up there and hoped for the best.” This so-called ‘seminal figure in the Soho crowd‘ concedes his “talent lay in a different direction” than his fellow painter and our protagonist, Rory McGrory (Mark Thomas McKenna), and apparently that direction took him into the arms of both Rory’s wife, Pippa LeFebvre (Adara Totino) and her best friend/his worst enemy, the ferocious critic, Z (Jasmine Dorothy Haefner). Rehearsals run long because we can’t stop laughing at Jere’s sparkling, loopy creation of this one of a kind character.
Jeremiah’s return to the stage comes after a long career in film, television, & commercials. Television credits include Mozart in the Jungle, Howl, All My Children, One Life to Live, & The Guiding Light. On film, Jere can be seen in Unfaithful, Inside Man, Goosed, & Half Baked. But where you really must see him to enjoy up close the laughter and charm he brings to his work is in RETROSPECTIVE. Get your tix today at this link or on TDF
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Mark Thomas McKenna: The RORY in RETROSPECTIVE
“The play does not exist in the theater as a written text until it has been absorbed in the process of production. Drama is ‘translated’ or transformed into the person of the actor — “the body of the art of the theater”, as Stark Young put it.“
Harold Clurman, On Directing‘The body of the art of the theater‘: Watching Mark Thomas McKenna* in rehearsal for RETROSPECTIVE, this quote came to mind. These words suggest one of the most important truths for any playwright or director: it’s mostly about the actor in theater that matters, theatre that moves us. Actors may not be everything in theatre but they form the essence of what we want to see on stage. Alan Ayckbourn, one of our greatest living playwrights and the clearest explainer of playwrighting, agrees; “Theatre is not about the writing, it’s not about the directing. It is about that, but in the end it’s really about the actors and the audience and most audiences – aside from the cognoscenti who sit there being experts – come to watch a bit of acting.”
Mark as RORY with Adara Totino as PIPPA Mark brings to this work (with our three other stellar actors featured on this page) more than 35 years of experience acting, devising, teaching, producing, and presenting ensemble created work for the stage. He blends the mimodynamics of two years at Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris with improv training from Second City. He incorporates insights gained at HB Studios with the great Herbert Berghof right alongside the clowning technique gained from studying with the great vaudevillean Avner Eisenberg better known as Avner the Eccentric. The latter skill showed up big time in his portrayal of Don Quixote.
But fundamentally Mark brings himself to the play, a grand artist who never stops learning while sharing his talent. Clarity of utterance, agility of movement, depth of feeling, generosity of spirit, and quickness of thought characterize his work. Make sure you see him as RORY in one of our three performances in RETROSPECTIVE
Clockwise from Bottom Left: Jasmine Dorothy Haefner, Jeremiah Alexander, Mark Thomas McKenna, Adara Totino [Cast photos by Bill Wadman] 
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The Short & Sweet on our new play, RETROSPECTIVE
Sweet Spot: We — Knowledge Workings Theatre —would love to see you at one of the 3 performances of our new comedy by T.J. Elliott, RETROSPECTIVE, as part of the Broadway Bound Theatre Festival—Wednesday, August 13th at 8:00 PM, Friday, August 15th at 5:00 PM, and Saturday, August 16th at 2:00 PM. The August 15th performance features a talkback with director Gifford Elliott and cast members Mark Thomas McKenna, Adara Totino, Jasmine Dorothy Haefner, and Jeremiah Alexander.
Short Part #1: If you — like famous painter Rory McGrory — suddenly found yourself in a curious art gallery with nothing but empty frames only to be greeted by your dead ex-wife and two other old ‘frenemies’, would you think you were dreaming or were… you know.
That’s the quandary at the heart of RETROSPECTIVE where these past lives form a manic menage a trois plus one in this new comedy about art, attachments, and eternity.
Even Shorter Part #2: Buy tix here and feel free to forward, repost, and otherwise spread the word. Theater is nothing without an audience. Thank you!
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