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December 20, 2011
TT: They don't make Christmas specials like they used to (I)
".22 Rifle for Christmas," an episode of Dragnet originally telecast on Dec. 18, 1952:
Posted December 20, 2011 12:00 AM
About...
ABOUT "ABOUT LAST NIGHT" AND ITS AUTHORS ABOUT TERRY'S BOOKS MORE ABOUT "POPS" ABOUT TERRY'S PLAY AND OPERA LIBRETTI Terry collaborated with Paul Moravec on Danse Russe, a backstage comedy about the making of The Rite of Spring that was premiered by Philadelphia's Center City Opera Theater on April 28, 2011. To read more about Danse Russe, go here and here. To view excerpts from the opera and see Paul and Terry talk about its creation, go here. Terry previously collaborated with Paul on The Letter, an operatic version of Somerset Maugham's 1927 play that was commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera in 2006 and opened there on July 25, 2009. To see excerpts from the opera, go here. To read Terry's reports on the writing, production, premiere, and reception of The Letter, click on the link.
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A list of new things we've liked (subject to unexpected and wildly capricious updating). CD PLAY BOOK CD PLAY
Not new, but still worth a look or listen (and no less subject to change without notice).
CD SCRIPT
This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout, Laura Demanski (otherwise known as Our Girl in Chicago, or "OGIC" for short), and Carrie Frye (who signs her postings "CAAF"). Terry, who lives in New York, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the chief culture critic of Commentary. His Wikipedia entry is here.
Terry's latest book is Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in the U.S., JR Books in England, Larousse in Brazil, and United Press/Alpina in Russia. He is currently at work on Mood Indigo: A Life of Duke Ellington. He wrote the introductions to William Bailey on Canvas and the paperback editions of Richard Stark's Flashfire and Firebreak and Elaine Dundy's The Dud Avocado. One of his essays is included in Robert Gottlieb's Reading Dance, and he contributed notes on recordings by Louis Armstrong, Gene Krupa, and Oscar Peterson to Jazz: The Smithsonian Anthology.
To read reviews of Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong, watch TV interviews and listen to radio interviews and podcasts about the book, and find out the answers to frequently asked questions about Armstrong and Pops, click on the link.
Terry's first play, Satchmo at the Waldorf, was premiered on September 15, 2011, at Orlando Shakespeare's Mandell Theatre in Orlando, Florida. It will be produced
in August of 2012 by Shakespeare & Company of Lenox, Mass., with John Douglas Thompson playing the dual role of Louis Armstrong and Joe Glaser. To read more about Satchmo at the Waldorf, go here. To read an excerpt, go here.
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TOP FIVE
Follies (P.S. Classics, two CDs). The original-cast album of Eric Schaeffer's standard-setting Kennedy Center revival of Stephen Sondheim's great 1971 musical, which transferred to Broadway in the fall of 2011 and is now approaching the end of its run there (it will move to Los Angeles in May). More fully representative of the show than any previous recorded version, it preserves the magnificent performances of Danny Burstein and Jan Maxwell, and is essential listening for anyone who believes, as I do, that Follies is one of the permanent landmarks of postwar musical comedy (TT).
Our Town (Broad Stage, Santa Monica College Performing Arts center, 1310 11th St., Santa Monica, Ca., closes Feb. 12). David Cromer's celebrated staging of Thornton Wilder's masterpiece, remounted in Los Angeles with Helen Hunt as the stage manager. Arrestingly and incisively unsentimental, Cromer's Our Town cuts to the heart of Wilder's familiar tale of a small New England town and makes it as fresh as a news flash. I'm not normally fond of surprise endings, but Cromer has tucked one into this production, and it packs the punch of a bolt of lightning. Do not miss this show for any reason whatsoever (TT).
Sabine Feisst, Schoenberg's New World: The American Years (Oxford, $35). A satisfyingly thorough and probing study of Arnold Schoenberg's life in America, to which he emigrated in 1933. Even if, like me, you don't care much for his music, you'll find it absorbing to read about how this most European of composers came to grips with the strange new world of southern California, which he liked far more than is generally realized. Though Feisst's prose style is decidedly academic, Schoenberg's New World tells a story so interesting that--for once--the quality of the writing doesn't matter (TT).
Pat Metheny, What's It All About (Nonesuch). A lovely sequel to One Quiet Night, Metheny's 2009 album of acoustic-guitar solos. This time around the fare consists of pop standards, some likely ("Alfie"), others joltingly unexpected ("Betcha by Golly, Wow"), and all played with luminescent sensitivity. Ideal for wee-small-hours listening (TT).
Dancing at Lughnasa (Irish Repertory Theatre, 132 W. 22, extended through Jan. 29). Brian Friel's 1990 masterpiece, a tragicomic memory play about the coming of modernity to Ireland, has been revived to piercingly enthralling effect by my favorite off-Broadway company. Absolutely not to be missed under any circumstances whatsoever (TT).
Out of the Past
Louis Jordan 1938-1950 (Fremeaux & Associés, two CDs). Imported from France, a near-perfect selection of thirty-six 78 sides by the singer-saxophonist and his Tympany Five, the jumping combo whose hard-swinging brand of populist jazz helped to set the musical agenda for rhythm and blues and early rock and roll. Not to worry--most of the big hits are here ("Choo-Choo Ch'Boogie," "Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby," "Saturday Night Fish Fry"). If Jordan's joyous music doesn't make you smile and/or pat your foot, you need an intervention, or maybe a lobotomy (TT).
Horton Foote, Horton Foote's Three Trips to Bountiful: Teleplay, Stageplay, and Screenplay. Originally written for live TV in 1953, The Trip to Bountiful, the poignant story of an old woman trapped in Houston who longs to visit her rural home one last time, was adapted by Foote for the stage and, in 1983, the screen. This invaluable 1993 volume, published by Southern Methodist University Press, contains all three scripts, accompanied by interviews with Foote and his various collaborators. I can't think of a better way to study the differences between the three media--or to deepen your familiarity with a once-obscure play that is now rightly regarded as an American classic (TT).
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