What Off-Broadway Should Be & What Many of Us Need
TORA NOGAMI ALEXANDER, MORGAN MORSE, and DAVID M. LUTKEN picking up our spirits in this theatre
Blessings upon Charles Isherwood and the Wall Street Journal for recognizing a paragon of compelling and entertaining theater over on 30th Street at Urban Stages: The Porch on Windy Hill. I missed the first run of this production last year, but determined to catch it this time around even before that glowing review in the WSJ appeared. Commendations to Frances Hill for bringing it back to New York and recommendations to all the powers that be including those of us who make up OOB audiences to keep TPOWH up on stage by going and getting others to go to the show.
MORGAN MORSE and TORA NOGAMI ALEXANDER unleashing talents that blew me away
Why? Because this is a work that refreshes the age-old tale of reconciliation between generations with superb acting and astonishing musical virtuosity. Everything about this production sparkled from the direction by Sherry Stregack Lutken to the writing by a quartet that includes her, two of the current performers, Morgan Morse and David M Lutken, and Lisa Helmi Johansson. I was particularly impressed with the technical aspects of the show overseen on a daily basis by production stage manager Leigh Selting and superbly conceived by Andrew Robinson, Grace Geo, Sun Hee Kil, and John Salutz for respectively scenic, costume, sound and lighting design.
Terrence Rattigan, a damn fine playwright once cautioned that, “A novelist may lose his readers for a few pages; a playwright never dares lose his audience for a minute.” Well, that commandment doesn’t just apply to the writer; everyone involved in the production must muster and then maintain the magic. That’s part of what stoked my enthusiasm for this piece: the rollicking rhythms of the Bluegrass music weave with actors showing us the complications of family stories in such a way that we cannot help but stay fixed to what unfolds before us. The astonishing artistry of actors and musicians TORA NOGAMI ALEXANDER, DAVID M. LUTKEN, and MORGAN MORSE takes us there.
But I now see a paradox in that good advice: the most compelling theater IS that in which there is the ’keyhole into a world that we have never seen’, but that play can simultaneously provide entry into a dynamic that we recognize — such as how families fudge it up with words said and unsaid, realities denied and diverted. That’s true with The Porch On Windy Hill. Go see and listen and laugh and learn for yourself. Let’s get so many people in there that it can’t close on February 22nd. New York needs a good long run of such fine work.
RETROSPECTIVE: The question puzzling famous painter, Rory McGrory, in this new comedy is ‘Asleep or Afterlife? Rory, who may or may not be dreaming, encounters his first wife and two other frenemies from his past amidst a show of his work. This mischievous menage claim they just want to help him get to next while he just wants to wake up. Which will it be?
Make theatre live means making opportunities for creation, contemplation, and yes, comedy. Doing this work across national boundaries proves that there is a constituency that wants to bring people together for enlightenment and entertainment, to as playwright Marsha Norman once wrote, “provide a keyhole into some world that nobody has ever seen.” We want to produce what critic Hilton Als called “…a refraction of reality, containing feelings and thoughts that are put forth, first, in a primary text, which the actor interprets—an interpretation that the director supports or edits, in an attempt to help build, in a made-up world, an atmosphere of verisimilitude.” And while we do that we think people should laugh because we heed the aphorism attributed to George Bernard Shaw that“If you want to tell people the truth, you’d better make them laugh …
That’s why Retrospective at the Barons Court Theatre marks the UK premiere of the play that had its world premiere at the 2025 Broadway Bound Theatre Festival in New York. How did this happen? It’s an international collaboration:
Mon Sans Productions is run by its artistic director Liviu Monsted. Since Mon Sans is dedicated to producing original works with compelling themes and unique narratives, they decided to celebrate their 2026 London residency with an American play that asks the universal question of what happens…next? Mon Sans, an incubator for creatives looking to make their first or returning steps to theatre, will be bringing the work of playwright, T.J. Elliott, to UK audiences for the first time.
Knowledge Workings Theatre Company is a family-run, Off-Broadway, 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. But the person who brouight together Liviu and T.J. with their respective conmanies for this venture is…
Leo Bacica of Barons Court Theatre true to the spirit that brought his group the COMMENDATION FOR SERVICES TO NEW WRITING 2024 connected director and playwright. Zoom calls that run respectively at 8AM, 1PM, and Midnight allowed the trio to find common cause resulting in this project and continuing Barons Court Theatre’s focus on supporting artists who have come to the industry in non-traditional ways and who have limited networks in the UK.
Get your tickets now at this link for one of eight performances only starting May 14th
Our excellent artwork above by Sarah Lewis Smith heralds our upcoming London run
Yep, it’s happening: get thee to Merrie Old England during the lusty month of May to see this new production. Mon Sans Productions in collaboration with Knowledge Workings Theater will produce the UK premiere of Retrospective by T.J. Elliott at Barons Court Theater in London opening May 14th and running for eight performances. Liviu Monsted of Mon Sans will direct this comedy about a famous painter — who may or may not be dreaming — encountering his first wife and other haunting figures from his past amidst what they claim is a retrospective of his work. This mischievous ménage swear they just want to help him ’get to next’ but he just wants to wake up. Further information and tickets available at the Barons Court website
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
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
“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 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]
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 Rickman
Adara 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 nowfor 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 Callow
Who 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
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
Cast of RETROSPECTIVE, clockwise from Center: Adara Totino (PIPPA), Mark Thomas McKenna (RORY), Jasmine Dorothy Haefner (Z), Jeremiah Alexander (Clint)
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 Disciplein 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.
