Seriously, we want everyone to know that Internet Archive has uploaded a dozen Mickey Mouse shorts that are now public domain.
Enjoy!!!
Category: Uncategorized
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First Reading of Retrospective, A New Play
First Zoom Meeting of Our Players
Top (l-r) Gifford Elliott [Director], T.J. Elliott [Playwright], Jeremiah Alexander [Clint]
Bottom (l-r) Kat Reeve [Pippa], Jasmine Dorothy Haefner [Z], Daniel Thompson [Rory]
And so it begins: fine actors working with an astute director starting the transformation of text to performance, figuring out how to make theater live. The Hilton Als quote about theater seems both instructive and inspiring:
We have a new play, Retrospective, but at this moment it’s still that primary text and even that continues to shift. After our first rehearsal yesterday, January 12th for its first public reading that will take place on January 16th 2025 at 7PM in Manhattan, our playwright, T. J. Elliott spent several hours in his hotel room in midtown Manhattan trimming and altering that text. The after effect of the reading will likely be even more editing and tightening. Past happy experiences have taught us that the quality of the audience at a first reading provides significant and actionable insights into the further development of a play. If you’d like to be part of that audience, just ping us at knowledgeworkings@elliotttj
Retrospective concerns a famous painter who may or may not be dreaming of an encounter with his first wife amidst a retrospective of his work and the appearances of others from his past. We are lucky and gratified to have Gifford Elliott directing our cast of Daniel Thompson, Kat Reeve, Jasmine Dorothy Haefner, and Jeremiah Alexander. (Jerry and I first worked together as actors in 1978; Dan and I met in theatre in 1979!)
If you would like to attend what will be about a ninety minute reading, then just email knowledgeworkings@gmail.com and we will send you a Google calendar invite. If you attend, you will part of the process of production as noted in another essential quote below:
“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 DirectingShare this:
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Our Site Had A Makeover, But Our Motto Remains ‘MakeTheaterLive’
Captive Audiences 1982: (L-R) Beth Rake, Phil Ruskin, Brendan Elliott, John McCarthy, & Georgia Harrell. Rem tene; verba sequentur.
Grasp the subject, the words will follow.
Cato the ElderCato the Elder, whose other notable quote is ‘Delenda est Carthago ‘or ‘Carthage must be destroyed!’, gives good advice for playwrights here: nail the story from spine to skeleton to full body and the dialogue will flow.
It’s appropriate guidance for a website makeover as well. The subject for us there is making theater live. And we promote that purpose through this website with its blog and other features. The new look to our website courtesy of the effort and skills of Gifford Elliott reminded us not only of all the KWT productions since 2018, but also of the story from over forty years ago that coursed through two of the KWT founders — Marjorie Phillips and T.J. Elliott — a passion to make theater live. We were lucky then to have such able collaborators and we are similarly fortunate now.
Our new design celebrates the work of our collaborators, and highlights some of our more recent moments of live theater via our YouTube channel. We hope you check out those videos and other stories as well as 13 Ways of Looking at Self-Producing, which will soon be available as an e-book on Amazon. Coming up in January: a staged reading of RETROSPECTIVE, a new play.
We seek producers for that play and other planned works, collaborators who wish to join us on this journey of theatre making. Interested? We’ll buy the beverage for an in-person discussion. Just email KWTto start the connection.
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Wonder if Reviews Recommending HONOR Are Accurate? Come Judge for Yourself!
Ed Altman, Alinca Hamilton, and John Blaylock make the story sizzle Okay, one more plea to see HONOR at The Gene Frankel Theatre before it closes on October 6th, but this time the recommendation comes from reviews for which we are SOOOO grateful
1) “Written and superbly directed by T.J. Elliott…All of these actors are first-rate in their performances.”
2) “The play masterfully takes what appears to be an apparent disagreement over a value interpretation of an issue to a place that reveals the complexity of not only the interpretation of the issue but also each of the participant’s values. The ending provides an excellent explication of the complexity of human character in the interpretation of what constitutes personal honor, leaving one with intriguing ideas to contemplate.”from Scotty Bennett, TheaterScene.Net
Did that work?No? Then read this one…
3) “Eloquently and dramatically skewers the current business culture… provocative entertainment.” “Elliott also directed and his physical staging is crisp, well-paced and contains momentum. The personable and talented cast of Ed Altman as Don, and Alinca Hamilton and John Blaylock,as the lawyers, all deliver energetic and authentic performances. This trio shines in the concluding sequence… “
4) “Technical and artistic director Gifford Elliott contributes smoothness to the production with balanced lighting and sound. The realistic,simple scenic design consists of a long table, wheelie chairs, a white board on an easel, and a large running wall clock which add a cool real-time dimension to the stated 45-minute proceeding.”from Darryl Reilly, Encore!
Come on, you like theater and this is a well-reviewed relevant piece.Click here for tickets to a show that is rollicking and relevant
Not good enough? How about what…TimeOut says
“In this dark corporate comedy by writer-director T.J. Elliott, three executives chew over—and perhaps spit out—the results of an investigation into a case of harassment that has been brought against by one of them. Alinca Hamilton, John Blaylock and Ed Altman play the compromised trio.”You need a night out so go to this link for those tickets
70 minutes of fast-paced fun that surfaces realities all too familiar for many of us in a grand historic theatre in the lively NoHo neighborhood at 7 PM (Sunday at 1 PM)BONUS: Tell us this post persuaded you and we’ll give you a FREE wine or beer in the lobby of the Gene Frankel Theatre
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HONOR Gets Honored in Our Very First Review
We’ve been fortunate enough to have the pleasure of Darryl Reilly reviewing 3 of our Knowledge Workings Theater productions and we are grateful for his considerate criticism of HONOR that you can read in full at this link
And then this morning we discovered that Time Out magazine has a featured listing for our play. The good news for us is that more people will learn about the opportunity to see 3 excellent actors — Alinca Hamilton, Ed Altman, and John Blaylock — lavish their talents on storytelling that is funny, sharp, and timely. We are only running until October 6: get your tickets now at our.show/honor
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Broadway World interviews Playwright & Director of HONOR, T.J. Elliott
We are grateful to Broadway World for its interview of T.J. Elliott, Playwright & Director of HONOR, which opens September 19 at the Gene Frankel Theatre and runs until October 6. You can read the full interview here as Joshua Wright talks to T.J. about his journey from theater to the corporate world and back again to theater in 2018. T.J. also speaks about the importance of Joe Queenan, his collaborator on the plays alms, grudges, genealogy, and the Oracle, in his return to playwrighting as well as the circumstances that prompted him to write this latest play, HONOR. Tickets to honor are available at our.show/honor
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09/25 Playwrights on Self-Producing Discussion: It’s Free and It Will Be FUN!
Thank you to all of those who have already responded to our invitation to participate in an open and free discussion about playwrights so producing. Our convening (after that night’s performance of HONOR at the Gene Frankel Theatre, 24 Bond Street in Manhattan) is a follow-up to the T.J. Elliott’s online series of brief essays, 13 Ways of Looking at Self-Producing, published in March 2024.
If you haven’t signaled your attendance yet, you can so by clicking here for this discussion on Playwright Self-Producing taking place 8:30 PM Wednesday September 25 th after the 7PM performance of HONOR at the Gene Frankel Theatre in Manhattan.
(There is NO fee for attending this playwright community gathering. If you wish to attend HONOR at 7PM that evening, go to our tickets site here and enter the discount code ‘playwright’ for $10 off the ticket price.)
We feel extraordinarily fortunate to have the folks below on our panel. The whole point of the session is to share knowledge and offer encouragement to playwrights who either are already self producing or contemplating taking that journey. The experiences of others putting up their work and the conversations arising from these thoughtful exchanges should prove fruitful to all playwrights.
Our Panel
Alinca Hamilton
Alinca Hamilton is a New York born and bred actor, writer, and creator. Select acting credits include To All the Black Girls Who’ve Waited (Ars Nova AntFest); Clyde’s (Alabama Shakespeare Festival); Mud Row (Premiere Stages); Audelco Award-nominated Gong Lum’s Legacy (New Federal Theater); Julius Cesar (Classic Stage Company). After obtaining her MFA in Acting from Columbia University, Alinca doubled down on making her Jamaican immigrant parents happy, and added writing to her artistic pursuits. Under the guidance of the Sundance Collab Program, her first pilot “Rinse. Repeat.” was a semi-finalist for the 2021-2022 NYSCA/NYSFA Artist Fellowship Program and 2021-2022 Fresh Voices Competition. alincahamilton.com
John Mark Lucas
John has an undergraduate degree in painting from Guilford College in Greensboro, NC, and a Masters in painting from New York University, in NYC and Venice, Italy. He lives and works in New York City. Diva Therapy is his first play. For tickets to this fun and affecting play running in November at to Theater for the New City, click here
Claude Solnik
A playwright in residence at Theater for the New City, Claude Solnik has written plays seen by thousands, earned favorable reviews and brought memorable characters and stories to life. His work also has been performed Off Broadway, in Paris, Philadelphia and on regional stages.
Janani Sreenivasan is a writer, director, actor, composer, and musician originally from Corvallis, Oregon. She has prioritized art since her early training as a classical violinist (both solo and orchestral repertoire) and pianist. In 2006, while earning an M.F.A. in nonfiction at the University of Iowa, she wrote and directed nearly 40 comedy sketches for the late-night showcase No Shame Theatre. In NYC, she has directed for the Tank’s Rule of 7×7 and the Chain Theatre’s One-Act Festival, as well as acting with Rule of 7×7, Manhattan Repertory, WOW Café Theatre, and Living Room Theater. Short films have screened in the L.A. Comedy Festival and the Iron Mule Short Film Festival (Audience Award w/Lee Jutton) and her jokes have appeared in Reductress and The New Yorker. Her short play “Get Leo” depicted her hunger for Leonardo DiCaprio to portray her onstage and was staged and published by the Bechdel Group. At Under St. Marks Theatre, Janani’s recently directed and produced The Importance of Being Earnest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream infused with Indian classical dance and music and featuring Odissi dancer Jeevika Bhat.
T.J. Elliott (moderator)
An actor and produced playwright in the 1980s (Lazy Eye, Captive Audiences), T.J. spent the next three decades away from theater making sure his children always had food and clothes – well, most of the time — before returning to Off-Broadway as co-writer with Joe Queenan of the SRO hit play Alms in 2019. In those lost years, he produced, directed, and performed among casts of thousands in a mélange of corporate telenovelas and tragic, comic, melodramatic, and absurd organizational performance art. Since his playwrighting re-emergence, T.J. and Queenan have penned three other problem comedies produced by Knowledge Workings Theater: Grudges, Genealogy (at Broom Street Theater in Madison Wisconsin), and The Oracle. His recent solo works include the mostly fake Swedish screwball comedy Keeping Right, the September 2023 premiere in New York City of The Jester’s Wife and most recently HONOR presented in 2024. Born in the Bronx, T.J. now lives in Princeton, NJ with his wife, Marjorie Phillips Elliott.
Sign up by clicking here for this discussion on Playwright Self-Producing taking place 8:30 PM Wednesday September 25 th after the 7PM performance of HONOR at the Gene Frankel Theatre in Manhattan.
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Notes To Read When Playwrighting # 4
An Occasional Series
Lucas Hnath from Playbill Given that I’ve been in rewriting mode around my latest play, I found this piece about Lucas Hnath, which originally appeared in the New Yorker, very helpful. I don’t know if I’m mystical about rewriting but at times the process does seem to require a metaphysical approach; i.e., is this thing being created acquiring a coherent existence?
🙂
“He can sound mystical about his creative process. At workshops, I’ve heard him say many times, “This line hasn’t figured out yet what it wants to become.” But he can also be stringently analytical. Playwright’s Input A should result in Audience Output B. That side was in evidence at the Golden, as the seats began to fill. (The preview was sold out.) I asked him what he’d be looking out for that evening, and he said that it was important that he not look for anything. He wanted to experience the play as if he’d never seen it. This, he emphasized, would be just the start of his process. “You have to watch several performances,” he went on. “Then take a step back and try to understand, on average, how the play works. It’s what remains consistent across many performances that tells me something useful. Tonight is one single data point.”
He hoped to next time find “a better spot” in the theatre. Another night found him in the stage manager’s office, listening to the actors on a monitor. He was rewriting their parts as they spoke.”
DT Max on Lucas Hnath
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Notes for Playwrighting # 3
An Occasional Series
“The tragedy of a poet writing drama is that when he writes well – – from the dramaturgical technical pt. of view he is often writing badly”
Tennessee WilliamShare this:
