Your Queen is in danger, Spock! All Nine London Test Posts About RETROSPECTIVE’s UK Premiere Obsessed with tests? Yes, but this post offers advice for all performing and presenting artists The words test and toast qualify as etymological cousins. Language experts think that the former word meaning originally “a piece of burned brick, clay, or tile” derived from the Latin “tosta, from torreō (‘to burn, […]
Author: testingapersonalhistory
London Test # 9: “Time’s up; Pencils down”
The London Test comes to a close. How did we do? Well, WordPress says it will take you a four minutes read to find out
London Test # 8: “You’re going to love London audiences”
In 1978, fresh off the dissolution of a relationship – Pippa in Retrospective likes the old English word, Eaubruche for the breaking of a marriage – a good friend of mine, Reverend Tom Davis, suggested that a return to acting would restore my spirits. Tom suggested a meeting with Alan Brody, then the Chair of the Skidmore College Theatre Department. The college’s works functioned as a […]
London Test # 7: Claps and Clunks
The inevitable ‘balancing out’ of theatrical experience OR If you can’t stand the heat, why are you wearing that chef’s hat? Louis Catliff, a superb videographer/director/writer filmed our May 15th performance of Retrospective. Take a few secs to watch this clip of something else Louis did for us — the solicitation and recording of comments about the performance from audience members, which everybody now calls Vox Pop, […]
London Test # 5: Collaboration, Inspiration, Admiration
I wrote about the criticality of collaboration in the SubStack version of this stream of semi-consciousness. No need to repeat all that here, but this will keep the chain of posts about the London Test of bringing our play RETROSPECTIVE to the UK at Barons Court Theatre
London Test: 74 year-old Bronx Irish Catholic Guy Takes His Play to London
I’m tracking the test of opening our play RETROSPECTIVE — Tix here — in London after it’s fine short run at Broadway Bound Theatre Festival August 2025. Here’s the series up to opening night, May 14th. Here’s a reel to consider its charms: London Test #1: Taking RETROSPECTIVE to the Pub Finally in Barons Court […]
In Praise of Terry Schreiber
A celebration in five quotations Sometimes the words of others frame our sentiments of appreciation. Here are five quotations that came to mind when thinking of a great teacher, Terry Schreiber. There is more understanding required in the teaching of’ others than in being taught Montaigne I joined the Terry Schreiber Studio in 1980 and […]
Our Problems With Authority III: The Helluva Lot of Hail Marys Project
The final installment in our trilogy about Our Problems With Authority takes on the hard part: what do we do about them? No easy answers, but lots of references read and considered during this exercise that should be important to all of us. We need both freedom and authority, we need to regain a commonality among citizens
TESTING ASSUMPTIONS: Our Problems With Authority Part II
Authority itself is inherently an act of imagination Richard Sennett By definition, an assumption is a belief or concept taken for granted. Testing assumptions generally only happens when circumstances contradict that which we have presupposed as rules and realities of life. Or we want to make sure that our current plans under those assumptions won’t […]
TESTING ASSUMPTIONS: Our Problems With Authority
Part I of III Part IA: AUTHORITY — Missing Person or Murder Case? The end of the world as we know it bleeds endlessly through my screens and newspapers. The ‘times’ in end times is plural, so fixing one particular day as the finale is tricky and there might yet be a rescue, but some cliffhangers do result in the heroes […]