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Tag: acting
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Sixty Seconds on RETROSPECTIVE
Here’s something that I learned over the years that used to be called ‘the elevator pitch’, the spiel for a product or in this case new 90 minute comedy, RETROSPECTIVE, delivered in under 1 minute. Did this one work? I’ll find out by how many tickets we sell. Oh BTW, the link for tix is below; message me for the discount code, or if you need a complimentary ticket. These 3 performances — August 13th (8PM), August 15th (5PM) and August 16th (2PM) are prelude to what we hope will be a longer run and we’re looking for backers or co-producing theaters. Feel free to apply https://broadwayboundtheatrefestival.ludus.com/index.php?show_id=200484720
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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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Z in RETROSPECTIVE Is Jasmine Dorothy Haefner; So Special, No One Else Would Do
Jasmine Dorothy Haefner Brings So Much To All She Does
What forces form a fine actor? Experience. Intelligence. Discipline. Feeling. All of these but also the skill and courage to make their own path through not just each work but through ‘the business’, and a capacity for reflecting on each moment in the career (which sometimes careens) and constantly learning. John Gielgud in his 1963 book Stage Directions captures the way this needs to play out:
“I think an actor has to find his own especial way of working, selecting his effects from what he has found out for himself in all kinds of different experiments at rehearsals and—experiments of movement, experiments of give and take with the other players—in order to gain the necessary flexibility to contribute to and fit in with the director’s intentions as far as possible.”
Jasmine Dorothy Haefner possesses all of these qualities, a judgment I can make with authority having cast her in three plays and directed her twice.
She was Candy, the MAGA Cuban-American in Grudges,
and Micky in The Oracle
She was a unique Hollywood force in Joe Queenan’s TOP HATE
And many different people in 2-Faces at Edinburgh Fringe
How did her ‘especial way of working’ emerge? As one observer put it, “After ten years in the entertainment industry, she’s done almost every job except light fire to the hoop the lion jumps through.” And I can add that neither the lion nor the fire would give her pause with the commitment she applies to everything she does. All that she’s learned, all the experimenting and discovery that she undertakes excitedly and assiduously combines with an innate sensitivity and creativity to make her so valuable especially in the creation of a new work particularly a comedy that dares to imagine an afterlife where a menage a trois — with a ‘plus one’ — tries to sort out who is still attached to whom so they can all get to next, whatever next is
In writing RETROSPECTIVE and imagining the character of Z, critic of…everything, having the voice of Jasmine in my head was a joyous inspiration. And now that our director, Gifford Elliott, is getting this play up on its feet her embodiment of this wickedly funny character has blossomed into even more than even I envisioned. That’s why you’ll regret it if you miss her performance as part of the Broadway Bound Theater Festival this August 13th (8PM), 15th (5PM with talkback) and 16th (2PM)
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Make Somebody See Something The Way You See It: Characters & Targets
This is a truth for me, but only ONE truth. HT https://substack.com/@juliavendrell for the image Talking to one of our actors during a rehearsal for RETROSPECTIVE (opening August 13th for just three performances at AMT Theatre 354 W. 45th St. in NYC, get Tix here), the topic of persuasion arose. My characters are ALWAYS persuading someone to ‘see something the way you see it’, to feel or act in a different way. This tendency in my characters may stem from my growing up around a table filled with meat, potatoes, and debate. As the youngest of five boys with a clever younger sister, contention and dissension over ‘what was what’ proved a daily part of the agenda. You protested your preferences about art (such as we experienced it), sports, books, school, politics, TV shows…everything. Entering the outside world, arguments not only failed to daunt me; they enlivened my spirit, a cause for both my marvelous wife’s forbearance and chagrin.
But theater is also a natural place for persuasion. Declan Donellan in his book The Actor and The Target makes the point that, “For the actor, all ‘doing’ has to be done to something. The actor can do nothing without the target.” Therefore, the playwright also has to understand what target he has given to the actor and how these various targets interact. Donellan makes the important point that, “the actor cannot act a verb without an object.… All an actor can play are verbs, but even more significantly, each of these verbs has to depend on a target. This target is a kind of object, either direct or indirect, a specific thing seen or sensed, and, to some degree, needed. What the target actually is will change from moment to moment. There is plenty of choice. But without the target the actor can do absolutely nothing at all, for the target is the source of all the actor’s life.” Didion’s verbs above include make, wrench, and trick, a nifty trio.
Target — ‘something aimed at’ — can show up many ways in a play, As Didion suggests, the target hostilely might be the site of a planned attack, that mind to be wrenched in a different direction, but it might also be lovingly the locus of an attempt at salvation or seduction, an entirely different sort of wrenching. Statements like Joan Didion’s have the shock of recognition for me: my characters frequently are trying to ‘wrench around someone’s mind’, but because of my Bronx/Jersey Irish Catholic influences they do so talking fast, smart-ass, but only sometimes hostile. The other times, they come off canny or cunning, articulate to the point of exasperation, which, of course, can make people laugh when they see themselves or their intimates/enemies in what transpires on stage. The fun flows from other characters also ‘targeting’ but in the opposite direction. Then we get what Peter Brook called “a duo creating a world together“, a world like our own with winds blowing every which way and no knowing whose cause (if any) will win.
Who is persuading whom? Pippa (Adara Totino) and Rory (Mark Thomas McKenna) gently wrenching each other’s mind Share this:
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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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Adara Totino astonishes as PIPPA in RETROSPECTIVE — 08/13,15, 16
Adara Totino is PIPPA in RETROSPECTIVE
Photo Credits — Bill Wadman“Fine acting always hits an audience with the force and oneness of the well made bomb — one is only aware of the blast or series of blasts at the time–afterwards you can study the devastation or think about how a bomb is made.“
Alan RickmanAdara Totino detonates delightfully as PIPPA in the new play RETROSPECTIVE in the leading comedy performance of the summer. (Don’t miss the glorious burst of energy that is her performance; buy your tix now for 08/13-08/16 for BBTF at AMT Theatre 354 West 54th St. )
Adara (PIPPA) and Jasmine Dorothy Haefner (Z) take in the action in the afterlife Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, Adara attended the Actor’s Studio MFA Program, studying under luminaries such as Elizabeth Kemp, Susan Aston and Louis Colaianni. You may have been fortunate enough to see Adara in Edward Allan Baker’s DOLORES (ASDS Repertory) or Cyn Cooper’s I WAS A STRANGER TOO produced by Remember the Women Institute. To see Adara on stage is to cherish and never forget her ability to create a character so real and engaging that her story draws you willingly, bewitchingly into another world.
Air hugs for everyone: Jeremiah Alexander (CLINT), Adara (PIPPA) and Jasmine (Z) are into it “The theatre is the place where extraordinary things happen, where you see people behaving, not as they do on the street, but as they might do in your dreams. Or your nightmares.”
Simon CallowWho is Pippa the character that Adara embodies in RETROSPECTIVE?
- Dead poet, deep-rooted rapturous rhymer
- Tour guide to the afterlife
- Feltering (look it up) ex-wife of Rory McGrory, acclaimed painter
- Putative, but disputed, muse of Rory, now warily encountering her
- Unclogger of earthly attachments and schmutz
Rory thinks (and hopes) he’s dreaming; Pippa says he’s dead. To find out who’s right and see Adara Totino in her captivating turn on the Off-Broadway stage come see RETROSPECTIVE
Clockwise from bottom left” Jasmine Dorothy Haefner, Jeremiah Alexander, Mark Thomas McKenna, Adara Totino, our fab cast for RETROSPECTIVE at Broadway Bound Theatre Festival Share this:
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August 13th Is Opening Night of Retrospective: Do You Have Your Tickets?
Clockwise From Top Left: Adara Totino, Jeremiah Alexander, Jasmine Dorothy Haefner,
Mark Thomas McKenna
In mid-July, our cast gathered for their “etudes,” a time for the actors to dig into their characters. Edward Albee, one of the greatest English language playwrights once said that “Every good actor does two things: He does exactly what the author intended and he does it his own way.” Etudes are a way of actors figuring out what that way is. The actors with our director, Gifford Elliott, are shaping now during our last week of rehearsals what the world of this play will be with the text as a foundation. Here’s a look at their adventures:
The words of the play describe how famous painter, Rory McGrory, finding himself in a gallery with empty canvases puzzles over whether he is asleep or… in the afterlife? There, Rory encounters his first wife and two other frenemies from his past. This mischievous menage a trois claims they just want to help him get to next while he just wants to wake up. These fine actors create a world out of these words with work that start this week, which we will be documenting here.
Come enter that world August 13th (8PM), August 13th (5PM), August 13th (2PM). Tickets for our performances at AMT theater 354 West 45th Street in Manhattan as part of the Broadway Bound Theatre Festival are available at this link.
RETROSPECTIVE is our tenth production since slip-sliding back into theatre again in 2018, and with Gifford Elliott directing this marvelous cast we think it’s going to be our best yet. So, get your tickets today by clicking this link
Adara Totino 
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Sooooo lucky to have these artists make our new comedy, RETROSPECTIVE, come alive
Cast of RETROSPECTIVE, clockwise from Center: Adara Totino (PIPPA), Mark Thomas McKenna (RORY), Jasmine Dorothy Haefner (Z), Jeremiah Alexander (Clint) ‘Luck is the residue of design’
Branch RickeyRETROSPECTIVE’s production as part of the Broadway Bound Theatre Festival is reaping a bumper harvest of luck. Was it our design that did it? Consider these stories of how we met cast members Mark Thomas McKenna, Adara Totino, Jasmine Dorothy Haefner, and Jeremiah Alexander and you decide.
Scroll down to know better our RETROSPECTIVE team
Mark Thomas McKenna (Rory)
Mark, actor/teaching artist, was an ensemble member at Touchstone Theater (PA) for over 23 years, specializing in devised and community-based work. He also served as producing/artistic director for half of his tenure. Most recently, he played Jim in the NY premier of A House Divided by Joshua Crone at The NuBox/Night Cook Studios. Select highlights: Steelbound dir., Bill Rauch; Los Locos del Pueblo (the Fools) dir., Chris Bayes; Candide, adapted from Voltaire, with Bill Pope L. and dir., Jim Calder; Frankenstein, in collaboration with The Independent Eye (Philadelphia), adapted/directed by Conrad Bishop. Other roles: Charlie, Stones in his Pockets; Estragon, Waiting for Godot; Sir Toby Belch, Twelfth Night; Weston, Curse of the Starving Class. Film includes: The Forest Hills (Dreznick/Goldberg Productions), AWAKE! (FusionBox Films). As a teaching artist, Mark recently worked two years in residence at Penn State Hershey Medical Center helping healthcare workers build community and listening skills. Training: Graduate, L’École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq, Paris; TA Certification, UARTS Philadelphia; HB Studios, Second City (NYC). AEA/SAG-AFTRA
PLAYWRIGHT’S NOTE: Evidence of our luck shows up in the way our director Gifford Elliott (with the help of Jasmine and Adara ) read six superb actors for the lead role of Rory McGrory. That array of talented NYC artists made for a tough choice, but there was no doubt in our minds that Mark Thomas McKenna would be the force needed for that performance as the famous painter who has to deal with a weird reunion with an ex-wife and two frenemies. Call it a ménage à trois with a plus-one
Adara Totino (Pippa)
Adara Totino Adara Totino is so excited to be a part of the Broadway Bound Theatre Festival and working with Knowledge Workings Theater! Adara attended the Actor’s Studio MFA program, studying under luminaries such as Elizabeth Kemp, Susan Aston and Louis Colaianni. Career highlights include: working with playwright Edward Allan Baker on his DOLORES (ASDS Repertory) and Cyn Cooper’s I WAS A STRANGER TOO (finalist: The Jewish Plays Project 2022, produced by Remember the Women Institute). She can be seen in the upcoming short SLEEPING MOTHER which will screen at LCT in the fall of 2025. For my Mama, Carol, my grandma, Sophie, and also- for Elizabeth. @adaratotino http://www.adaratotino.com
PLAYWRIGHT’S NOTE: Jasmine introduced us to Adara Totino who will be playing Pippa in this production’s Festival performances on August 13th, August 15th, and August 16th (Yes, tickets are available at this link. Go buy a few!) That feeling when you are wowed by the way someone makes your text come alive and your character more real than you even dreamed? That’s what Adara did when we first met with her. Her scintillating creativity and deep skill astonished us.
Jasmine Dorothy Haefner (Z)
Jasmine Dorothy Haefner Jasmine Dorothy Haefner is an internationally performing comedic actress, writer, and producer for stage and screen based in NYC — and frankly, you should be ashamed you haven’t heard of her. She even has a credit on SNL! That’s right, WHAT a comedy credit… as Kim Kardashian’s photo double. (You have got to stop telling people that part, DAMMIT!) Her work is fast-paced, madcap, heightened, and usually funny on purpose. She’s currently developing the TV series NOT DEAD, a genre-bending mockumentary loosely based on her life with Crohn’s Disease. Her one-act play 2-Faces premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe after a London preview, and earned great reviews (“If you fancy a dose of what the Fringe is really about, get really drunk and go see this show…”) and crowds six times larger than the festival average. Her film 28 is Great — a meta-mockumentary short about a film crew rife with chaos, which she wrote, directed, produced, and starred in, playing all five roles — won or received nominations for multiple film festival awards, including Best Solo Performance, Best Actress, Best Comedy, and Overall Audience Awards. After working in the entertainment industry for 10 years, she’s done just about every job except lighting fire to the hoop the lion jumps through, and if you come see her work you’re guaranteed “…eccentric and arguably refreshing new writing,” “…multiple characters with wit and physical energy,” and stories that are “…thrilling and provocative.” Her last short film The Counterfeit Moron (co-director, producer, actress) is a 19 minute true one-shot, for which they shot a standard-version and mockumentary version, and just screened at Lighthouse International Film Festival. Next performing: Retrospective (actor) at Broadway Bound Theatre Festival (August.)
PLAYWRIGHT’S NOTE: Some people are lucky charms because they introduce you to other good people. Meeting Jasmine Dorothy Haefner happened because she knew Aaron Long, one of the actors in Alms, the very first play that Joe Queenan and T.J. wrote in in 2018. Jasmine not only came to see the play but told us she wanted to be in one of our plays. Well, Jasmine has now been in three Knowledge Workings Theater productions: GRUDGES, THE ORACLE, and now dazzling as Z in RETROSPECTIVE. Again we’re lucky.
Jasmine appropriately shooting a skeptic stare at Patrick Smith in The Oracle in 2022 at TNC Jeremiah Alexander (Clint)
Jeremiah Alexander Jeremiah is delighted to return to the stage after a long career in film, television, and commercials. Select television credits include Mozart in the Jungle, Howl, All My Children, One Life to Live, and The Guiding Light. Film appearances include Inside Man, Goosed, Half Baked, and Unfaithful. A few favorite New York stage credits are Enter a Free Man, Lone Star, and Gentile of the Top Percentile. Jeremiah is thrilled to be working with such a “heavenly” gang! Many thanks to T.J. and Knowledge Workings Theater.
PLAYWRIGHT’S NOTE: T.J. created the character of Clint Belinsky in RETROSPECTIVE with Jeremiah in mind because “his timing and verve make the laughs flow and the truths resound.” They first worked together in 1978 as the leads in a regional production of The Devil’s Disciple in Saratoga Springs, New York. Talk about ‘luck as the residue of design’: how about this reunion 47 years later from a feeling that T.J. had back then about wanting to see Jere work in one of his plays. Their connection is one of the very special aspects of this production
PLAYWRIGHT’S NOTE: Of course, the evidence for luck being in our corner is best exemplified by Gifford Elliott as director who got to make these casting decisions along with Marjorie Phillips Elliott who is both producer AND production designer on this show.
Gifford Elliott (Director)
Photo by Bill Wadman Besides serving as Director, Co-Producer, and/or Technical Manager for many of Knowledge Workings Theater’s plays since 2018, Gifford has played many other parts in their eight productions: maker of publicity Instagram reels, mover of massive sets, magician with sound design, and mender of props. This stack of work led to his co-authoring with T.J. Elliott 13 Ways of Looking at Self-Producing
Besides this wide and wizardly work, Giff served in recent years as a post-production coordinator on such hit series as Bupkis (the Pete Davidson comedy), The Best Man — The Final Chapters, Queens Gambit, and Divorce (Season 3). Prior to those assignments, he was a manager at LightIron, one of the premier firms in the movie and television industry specializing in post-production workflows. A graduate of the Cal Arts acting program, Gifford is also a director of a variety of theatrical events including Srivia, the weekly fun trivia extravaganza at Singers in Brooklyn.
Marjorie Phillips Elliott (Production Design)
Marjorie’s work as Executive Producer & Co-founder of Knowledge Workings Theater arises from deep roots in the arts. Having studied theater at Skidmore College and photography at the Fashion Institute of Technology, Marjorie brings to her role 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 our productions ranges from strategy to prop design to photo retouching to publicity consultation and beyond. Marjorie is also the former Chair of the Board of Chamiza Foundation, a nonprofit helping to ensure the continuity & living preservation of Pueblo Indian culture and traditions, and on the Members Committee of the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC.
Myles Platt (Stage Manager)
Myles Platt is an artist from Rockford, Michigan. He is thrilled to be welcomed back to stage management after his retirement in 2017. Myles has a bachelor’s in arts from Wayne State University where he studied literature. He has appeared in and produced various independent films and productions over the last 12 years. And he is honored to join in sharing the sacred winds of “Retrospective” with its audiences.
Kaye Loggins (Lighting Design)
Kaye Loggins is a New York multi-instrumentalist, producer, filmmaker & actress. Her compositions as Time Wharp cover the range of ambient jazz, kosmische, dance music, and minimalist composition. She produces the internet broadcast project New York Television and hosts the bizarro multimedia talk show KAYE NITE LIVE. . More info is at her LinkTree
Jonathan Leonard (Choreographer/Movement Coach)
Jonathan’s background in professional theatre spans over a decade in repertory dance. He is a classically trained dancer who started in the Joffrey Ballet School Trainee Program, a scholarship awardee. Upon graduating, he immediately thrusted himself into the professional sphere, starting small in the studio companies of both The Sarasota Ballet (FL) and Ballet Hispanico (New York City). His breakthrough was at New York Theatre Ballet, where the marriage of dance and theatre was paramount. Under the esteemed direction of Diana Byer, Jonathan worked meticulously in a rare syllabus form of the Cecchetti Method which highlights gesture, musicality, and theatricality. With careful guidance, he rose to principal dancer, dancing some of the finest works of 20th century masters including Jerome Robbins, Antony Tudor, Jose Limon, Merce Cunningham and Agnes de Mille. His focus shifted to coaching later on, leading to his promotion to rehearsal master of NYTB. He helped stage some of the major ballets in the company’s repertoire including The Firebird and The Nutcracker. Now retired from performing, Jonathan is excited to devote more of his time to expanding his reach as a dance instructor, movement coach, and repetiteur.
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Post-Grad Life Through a Self-Producing Lens
Our artistic director Gifford Elliott looks at recent writing that rang true to us about the state of theater making and the rewards of self-producing.
Recently, keeping in mind our interest in independent theater making, an article from American Theatre, Unfinished Business: What Theatre Schools Should Also Be Teaching by Rosie Brownlow-Calkin, caught our eye as well as a letter to the editor in response. We thought we’d share them with you, dear readers, since we know many of you take an interest in self-producing and the state of theater making at hand.
Brownlow-Calkin’s article takes a look at the corner that academic institutions has backed themselves into when preparing students for a ‘constantly changing industry.’ She asks what would be most helpful for students making the jump from school to career. As a holder of a BFA in acting, I particularly enjoyed the beginning allusion of a ‘professional preparedness’ talk to actors resembling a high school Sex-Ed talk. It took me back to my last year of school where some talks of the outside world felt more like, lovingly, a waiving of liability. There was much emphasis in the curriculum on a bottom line that your career “is what YOU make of it.
That was in 2015 and it saddened me a bit reading that not much has changed in the past decade. (Give the article a read to hear from recent grads and teachers who bring hope to the discussion but also harsh realities.) One suggestion in the article, strength in community, was an impetus to making this post as it overlaps with our writing about self-producing: Network to net resources: The Strength Of Weak Connections which is also Way #5 in our new book 13 Ways of Looking at Self-Producing.
A letter response from Scott Walters, Emeritus Professor of Drama at University of North Carolina Asheville expands on the article in a way that rang true to our collective experience as a theater company in the contemporary world of theater. His words are what my fellow grads and I have been shouting since we graduated:
The prescription—that students ought to be taught things like “how to shoot a self-tape or build a website” and how much rents are in NYC—fails to acknowledge that the system itself is dysfunctional and exploitative. Anyone who spends even a few minutes with the employment numbers published by Actors Equity should be deeply disturbed that more than half of Equity members don’t make a dime from working in theatre. And of those that do make any money, the average annual income is less than six months of rent. Saying “life in the business will be tough” isn’t just an understatement, it is malpractice.“
You can teach a theater artist as many tools as possible to operate within the current boundaries of the industry but teaching them the foundation blocks of self-producing and encouraging them to find their audience and community, wherever that may be, is imperative. Today, many of fellow graduates still working in the performing arts have relocated or found troupes outside of the bicoastal trappings of NY and LA.
If interested more in words and reflections on Self-Producing then we’d love for you to check out 13 Ways of Looking at Self-Producing. As a company that has put on our own shows, we’d love for anyone interested to learn from our successes (and mistakes).
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