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October 8, 2012
TT: Almanac
"The topical is poison."
Flannery O'Connor, letter to Betty Hester, Sept. 1, 1963
Posted October 8, 2012 12:00 AM
About...
ABOUT "ABOUT LAST NIGHT" AND ITS AUTHORS ABOUT TERRY'S BOOKS ABOUT TERRY'S PLAY AND OPERA LIBRETTI The production will then transfer directly to Philadelphia's Wilma Theater, where it will run Nov. 16-Dec. 2. For more information, go here. To read Terry's program note, go here. To read a Hartford Courant feature about the play, go here. To read a New Haven Register feature story about the play, go here. To listen to an interview with Terry and John Douglas Thompson, go here. To see a video of excerpts from the 2011 Orlando production of Satchmo at the Waldorf, starring Dennis Neal, go here. • 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. Dicapo Opera Theatre will give The Letter its New York premiere on February 7, 2013. For more details, go here. To read Terry's reports on the writing, staging, premiere, and reception of the original production of The Letter, click on the link.
THE LONG GOODBYE MORE ABOUT "POPS"
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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 critic-at-large 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.
Terry's first play, Satchmo at the Waldorf, has transferred to Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Conn., where it will run through Nov. 4. The production is directed by Gordon Edelstein, with John Douglas Thompson appearing in the triple role of Louis Armstrong, Joe Glaser, and Miles Davis. To order tickets, go here.
To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here.
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.
tteachout@artsjournal.com
ogic@artsjournal.com
caaf@artsjournal.com Search
TOP FIVE
The Richard Burton Diaries (Yale, $35). Most of the entries were made between 1965 and 1972, and they reveal Burton to have been an acerbic, formidably well-read man with strong opinions about literature--and everything else. Yes, there's plenty of gossip, especially about Elizabeth Taylor, but eggheads will also find much to like and ponder (TT).
Marry Me a Little (Keen Company, Clurman, 410 W. 42, closes Oct. 27). A 70-minute jukebox musical--one set, two actors and a pianist--about two young apartment dwellers who live on adjacent floors of the same building and dream of finding romantic partners. The score consists of little-known songs by Stephen Sondheim, most of which were cut from his shows prior to their New York openings. Short, smart, and sweet, and Lauren Molina, who plays "Her," is extraordinarily good (TT).
Damsels in Distress (Sony). Now out on DVD, Whit Stillman's poignant little low-budget romcom about college life whose protagonists, a band of invincibly innocent young women led by Greta Gerwig, endeavor to socialize and redeem the young men they love by starting an international dance craze. (Well, sort of.) Fey, whimsical, talky, and quintessentially Stillmanesque (TT).
Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club (Storyville, two CDs). This hugely important release contains cleaned-up transfers of all surviving radio broadcasts made by Ellington between 1937 and 1939. Most of them have circulated for years, but this is the first time that they've ever been made available in a single package. Listening to these performances is like spending a blissful evening in the Wayback Machine. First-class liner notes by Andrew Homzy (TT).
Nell Blaine: A Glowing Order (Tibor de Nagy, 724 Fifth Ave., up through Oct. 13). A gorgeous little show of paintings and watercolors by a Hans Hofmann pupil who broke decisively with abstract expressionism, then spent the rest of her life turning out boldly colored still lifes and landscapes that portray the visible world imaginatively but never literally. Not to be missed (TT).
Out of the Past
The Little House Books: The Library of America Collection. The Library of America has just reissued Laura Ingalls Wilder's autobiographical novels of frontier life on the American prairie, originally published between 1932 and 1943, in a two-volume slipcovered set edited and annotated by Caroline Fraser. These "children's novels" are permanent classics of American literature. If, like me, you first encountered them when young but didn't read them again until middle age, you'll be astonished by how good they are--and how poetic. I miss Garth Williams' lovely illustrations, but you don't need them to appreciate Wilder's gifts (TT).
Children of Paradise. Marcel Carné's exquisite 1945 backstage romance about the world of nineteenth-century French theater, one of the few movies that aspires to the richness of a great novel, is now available from the Criterion Collection in a two-disc set larded with bonus features. The film itself, which is presented in a freshly struck, meticulously restored print, has never looked better. Says David Thomson: "It is the simple truth that Renoir or Ophüls would have been proud to sign this film." See it now (TT).
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