May 14-23, 2026
at Barons Court Theatre; click for map
Dreaming or Dead?
“Retrospective”, the latest work of T.J. Elliott, is an existential comedy inspired by the works of British philosopher Iris Murdoch and American painter Mark Rothko.
The play follows an artist who wakes up in a surreal gallery of empty canvasses unsure if he is dreaming or defunct. With the help of his decidedly dead ex-wife, the celebrated artist must now confront the unfinished canvas of his life, and the haunting question of what remains when the art disappears.
Retrospective makes its UK premiere after the critically acclaimed run at the Broadway Bound Theatre Festival in New York in 2025. Produced by Knowledge Workings Theatre and Mon Sans Productions
The UK season will be showing at the Barons Court Theatre from the 14th– 23rd MAY; 7:30pm
Tickets: £20 General £17 Concession
Bookings at: https://www.baronscourttheatre.com/retrospective
Venue: Barons Court Theatre – 28a Comeragh Rd, London W14
Click here to see and hear Playwright T.J. Elliott summarizing (in under a minute) RETROSPECTIVE during its 2025 run in the Broadway Bound Festival
celebrate in-person rehearsing
Synopsis
Renowned artist Rory McGrory wakes up trapped in a mysterious art gallery surrounded by empty canvas’s. No art. No answers. And no way out—until he’s greeted by his ex-wife Pippa, who also happens to be dead. She’s determined to convince him that he is, too—and that the artless frames are, in fact, his life’s retrospective. But why can’t he see his own work? As Rory ricochets between denial and acceptance, he’s forced to confront his unresolved past and the emotional toll of a life half-seen. Is this strange afterlife gallery a purgatory—or his final chance to see his life clearly?
Review
Thinking Theater NYC wrote:
“…more complicated and more multidirectional than one first assumes. Rory, (the central character) along with the audience, is pushed to contemplate how little of what causes the grievances, misunderstandings, and regrets that littler human lives really matters, particularly when seen from a position where even forgiveness, a matter for the living according to the play, no longer applies.”
The Companies and Players
Mon Sans Productions
Mon Sans Productions is run by its artistic director Liviu Monsted. Mon Sans is dedicated to producing original works with compelling themes and unique narratives. The company is an incubator for creatives looking to make their first or returning steps to theatre.
Knowledge Workings Theater
Knowledge Workings Theatre Company is a family-run, independent production company dedicated to creating provocative, thoughtful new works that question how we learn, grow, and remember. With a commitment to intimate storytelling and collaborative development, the company champions work that challenges assumptions and ignites conversation.
Director Liviu Monsted
Liviu Monsted is the artistic director of “Mon Sans Productions”. He has directed hit shows for Mon Sans Productions, including, “Not a Word”, “Hiding Jekyll”, “In Waiting” and “STREET”. In 2023 he produced and directed the sold out premiere season of “The Various Methods of Escape” in Sydney and then remounted the show in London at the “Bread and Roses Theatre”. In 2025 he produced STREET in London at the Barons Court Theatre as a charity performance for “The Barons Court Project”
As of 2020, Liviu has written and directed the true crime immersive theatre show “Deadhouse: Tales Of Sydney Morgue”, works he has created for “Deadhouse” include “The Razor Gang Wars”, “Simmonds and Newcombe: The Deadly Run” and Juanita Nielson: The Final Days. Most recently he directed “The Shark Arm Case” at the Justice and Police Museum as part of a recent collaboration between “Museums of History NSW” and “Deadhouse Productions”
In June 2024 Liviu was commissioned by the NSW Parliament to write and direct an immersive short play based on the first year of the Legislative Council which was performed on August 25th for the bicentennial celebration.
Playwright T.J. Elliott
A produced Off-Broadway playwright in the 1980s (Lazy Eye, Captive Audience), T.J. spent the next three decades away from theater focusing on his children having 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 at TheaterLab. (Those kids? Grown up and doing just fine) 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 playwriting re-emergence, T.J. and Queenan have penned three other problem comedies produced by Knowledge Workings Theater: Grudges (Zoom 2020), Genealogy (Broom Street Theater, Madison Wisconsin 2021), and The Oracle (Theater For The New City). T.J.’s recent solo works include the mostly fake Swedish screwball comedy Keeping Right ( Zoom 2020), The Jester’s Wife (The Chain Theatre 2023) HONOR (Gene Frankel Theatre 2024), and Retrospective (Broadway Bound Theatre Festival 2025). This production of Retrospective at the Barons Court marks the premiere of T.J.’s work in the UK.
Executive Producer Marjorie Phillips Elliott
KWT Co-Founder Marjorie Phillips Elliott comes to those roles from deep roots in the arts. Having studied theater at Skidmore College and photography at the Fashion Institute of Technology, Marjorie brings to her roles at Knowledge Workings a wide array of talents and experiences including her work in the film industry for New Line Cinema in the 1980s. Her support of KWT’s productions ranges from strategy to prop design to photo retouching to publicity consultation and beyond. Marjorie is also a member and former Chair of the Board of Chamiza Foundation, a non-profit helping to ensure the continuity & living preservation of Pueblo Indian culture and traditions, and serves on the Members Committee of the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC.
Cast:
Noah Huntley as Rory McGrory
Sarah Pearcey as Pippa Lefebvre
Jasmine Dorothy Haefner as Z
Website: www.JasmineDorothy.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejasminedorothy/
on Facebook as Jasmine Dorothy Haefner (pretty sure I’m the only one)
Also, here’s some links to the last short I was in that’s public.
The Counterfeit Moron by Joe Queenan: https://vimeo.com/1088257203/1ec54945c4?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci
Benjamin Parsons as Clint Belinsky
Psyched to be at Barons Court Theatre
Barons Court Theatre, winner of the COMMENDATION FOR SERVICES TO NEW WRITING 2024, employing the creativity, curiosity, and energy of Artistic Director Sharon Willems and Company Manager Leo Bacica, KIBO helps make theatre live in a grand and generous way. As Sharon has noted their approach is “more about inviting audiences into the stories whether hyper-theatrical or hyper-real.” Their push to host works in translation and international artists has connected those audiences to works from Australia, USA, and continental Europe.
The theatre has seen everything from a nonverbal bubble show (“which was incredibly theatrical”), to revivals. “What I’ve learnt” says Willems, “is that the space is much more of a flexible platform than I thought it was: it can be the fells of Cumbria, a Tudor palace, it’s just as epic as your imagination.” She continues: “It is more about inviting audiences into the stories whether hyper-theatrical or hyper-real. As for the four pillars which surround the playing area, visiting companies now see so much more scope, sometimes needing less lighting and using it as an architectural space.”
Some References
Retrospective-Timeline-for-characters-revised-BaronsCourt
Quotes that guided this play
There is one thing and only one thing that causes unhappiness. The name of that thing is attachment.”
Anthony de Mello, S.J.
“[The artist] says to himself, thinking of life around him: this world at one time looked different and, in the future, will look different again.”
Paul Klee, On Modern Art (1924)
“Rational explanation destroys the faith that art requires of us.”
Jorge Luis Borges
The story behind writing RETROSPECTIVE
by T.J. Elliott
A seventy-three year old white male playwright walks into the room. As Joe Biden used to say, “No joke.” After thirty years scrambling in a straight job, T.J. returned playwrighting full-time in 2018. RETROSPECTIVE is his eighth play completed since then — four of those works co-authored with Joe Queenan.
My plays attempt truth telling via ‘problem comedies’. The problem part involves a text that provokes discussion and understanding of issues and ideas such as race, religion, ideological polarization, and the enigma of human attachments. The comedies part means exploring such difficult issues in a humanistic and entertaining fashion. I heed the aphorism attributed to George Bernard Shaw that “If you want to tell people the truth, you’d better make them laugh …” On that score, so far, so good.
In RETROSPECTIVE, the problem focus is more personal and was inspired by two events
1) This statement from the now departed mystic and Jesuit (a paradox, I know) Father Anthony de Mello: “There is one thing and only one thing that causes unhappiness. The name of that thing is attachment.” What power do our attachments in the form of resentments and grudges have especially if we cannot release them even in an afterlife — if there is one?
2) In early 2024, I had the good luck to visit in Paris and Washington D.C. a pair of Mark Rothko retrospectives. At both of them, but especially at the second one presented at the National Gallery the curatorial comments alongside many of the drawings in that case disturbed me. I knew that Rothko, like many other painters, disliked having anything — words, biography, other painters’ work — presented as Intermediary or accompaniment to his paintings and drawings. With a friend at that exhibition, I wondered out loud what it would be like for that great artist or another to visit such a retrospective and find interpretations and staging of his paintings that were inimical to his desires. My friend said, you should write that play.
That’s where and how the character of Rory McGrory emerged even though in the play he describes himself as the anti- Rothko because he goes even further and refuses any interpretation of his paintings other than the direct experience of color. Additionally, the experience of seeing these shows and knowing about the private lives of many artists made me wonder how that intense attachment, a passion above all to the work above all others, would affect the most intimate of their other relationships?
When I wonder like that, writing in order to explain things to myself inevitably follows. And that’s how RETROSPECTIVE emerged onto paper. In mid January 2025, we held a reading of the play with two rehearsals beforehand. I got a sense of how its shape should be and, therefore, was able to cut over 15 pages from it as a result. I then submitted the revised version to the probably bound theatre festival and working with the dramaturg Lenore Skomal made further changes that showed up in a wonderful set of three Performances as part of the festival in August 2025. And now Liviu Monsted and our fine cast are bringing new ideas and energies to this play for our UK premiere at Barons Court Theatre in London
May 14-23
UNSELFING EXPLAINED — SOMEWHAT
Iris Murdoch on Unselfing as presented by Maria Popova
