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
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
We appreciate the generous and enthusiastic responses of these two audience members from our run at The Chain Winter One-Act Festival this past February, but you should come and see for yourself.
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.”
David Hare influenced me greatly not only by his plays but through his superb little book, Acting Up, about his experience performing his one man show. One of the passages there turned into part of my own practice: telling the story again and again. Maintaining that grip on the storytelling aspect of a play can get slippery as we move through the writing. Consequently, following Hare’s (and Louis Malle’s) advice, at some point, I even write down the story because it identifies glitches, inconsistencies, and excesses just as you get the feeling when telling a story to friends or family that it’s too long or complicated.. Here is how Hare explained how he came to do this:
“Louis (Malle) shared my fascination with techniques of storytelling. Once, we were meant to be working together on Damage, the film of Josephine Hart’s novel. But I came into the restaurant for supper usually dissatisfied with that morning’s read-through of the play of mine called Murmuring Judges. ‘It ought to bloody work,’ I said, ‘and it doesn’t.’ At once Louis asked me to tell him the story of the play. Together we sat for three hours, refining the narrative. Louis isolated every component of the story, and then put them all back together again in the right order. It was like watching a great car mechanic lay out the pieces of an engine on a clean white cloth before reassembling them. He did it for the sheer intellectual pleasure.… (After writing the synopsis of Damage) Every morning he would make me sit down under the vines and go back to the beginning of the story. He did it so many times that I thought I was going to go mad.”
KWT is remounting our new play HONOR, which had great success in February at the Chain Winter One-Act Festival. The ever estimable Ed Altman decided to ask ChatGPT what ‘it’ thought of our work and this was the answer.
WE BELIEVE THIS IS A FIRST. We’ve been waiting for the phone call from Guinness Book of World Records. This is the first time anyone used AI to get an endorsement for their Off-Broadway Play. Thank you, ChatGPT; a comp ticket is headed your way, just let us know how many seats you will take up.
But we do want a human audience when Alinca Hamilton, John Blaylock, and Ed Altman start performances on September 19th at the Gene Frankel Theatre and run on an Equity mini contract until October 6th. Tix are available now at this link
Based on the original illustration by Martine MacDonald
Below are all installments of 13 Way of Looking at Self-Producing. The buttons click through to Medium and they’re all relatively quick reads! We’d love your feedback and are always eager to talk more and help answer any questions. Best. – KWT
The character — Don Troy — that Ed Altman plays in HONOR is the first one to utter our play’s title word and the way in which Ed delivers its two syllables is like tossing a match Into a room full of Roman Candles. Explosions ensue yet Ed’s character never flinches. Indeed, this dynamism is just what the play requires: an incendiary presence who flicks and lunges verbally at his two colleagues in this debate about what honor means. The trio proceed to sizzle and sparkle along the way in their storytelling with revelations and accusations, but not apologies.
Ed’s formidable array of acting experiences served him well in preparing for this role. Past work with Knowledge Workings Theater includes: The Oracle, Keeping Right, Grudges (Narrator). Other recent stage appearances had him in Two Swans, Nowhere Man, Victoria Woodhull (both at Theater for the New City). Also of late screens both big and small have benefited from Ed’s stalwart presence and straightforward style: TV/Streaming: The Good Cop (NTD/Epoch TV), The Vow (HBO), Foodthat Built America (History Channel), Dragon Meets Eagle(Amazon). His most recent film: The Dummy Detective is in production right now but earlier efforts include, Biff & Me, Oatmelio’s, Thumbwrestler II, Jazz John, all making the international film festival circuit. Ed was a member of the comedy group Prom Night with whom he wrote and performed at the Westbank Café back in the days of Lewis Black and Rusty McGee. He is also a voiceover artist for commercial and corporate work, and has voiced several audio books. Get your tickets now for one of the three performances upcoming of HONOR at The Chain Theatre Winter One-Act Festival
