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"Habit is necessary; it is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive."
Edith Wharton, A Backward Glance
Posted March 15, 2013 12:00 AM
ABOUT "ABOUT LAST NIGHT" AND ITS AUTHORS ABOUT TERRY'S BOOKS ABOUT TERRY'S PLAY AND OPERA LIBRETTI To see John Douglas Thompson on stage in Satchmo at the Waldorf, go here. To watch a Wall Street Journal-produced video interview with Terry, go here. To read Terry's program note, go here. To read the Boston Globe review, go here. To read the New York Times review, go here. To read a New York Times feature about the play, go here. To listen to a radio interview with Terry and John, go here. To see a video of excerpts from the 2011 Orlando production of Satchmo at the Waldorf, starring Dennis Neal, go here. • Terry and Paul Moravec, his operatic collaborator, are currently at work on The King's Man, a one-act drama about Benjamin and William Franklin that will be premiered by Kentucky Opera in the fall of 2013. For more information, go here and here. The King's Man is a companion piece to their second opera, Danse Russe, a one-act backstage comedy about the making of The Rite of Spring that was commissioned by Philadelphia's Center City Opera Theater and premiered there 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 and Paul began their collaboration with The Letter, a full-evening 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, 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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LITERARY HISTORY FILM
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 is the author of Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, which will be published by Gotham Books in the fall of 2013. His last book was 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 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, was performed in 2012 at Shakespeare & Company of Lenox, Mass., Long Wharf Theatre of New Haven, Conn., and Philadelphia's Wilma Theater. The production was directed by Gordon Edelstein, with John Douglas Thompson appearing in the triple role of Louis Armstrong, Joe Glaser, and Miles Davis.
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
Tribes (Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, closes Apr. 14). The West Coast premiere of Nina Raine's intense, well-wrought drama about a self-consciously arty family of compulsive talkers whose youngest member (Russell Harvard) is deaf. David Cromer's staging is based on his long-running off-Broadway production, which maximized the play's considerable strength--including its biting, often brutal humor (TT).
Paul Moravec, Northern Lights Electric (BMOP/sound). Two large-scale concerti by my Pulitzer-winning operatic collaborator, the 2008 Clarinet Concerto (played by David Krakauer) and Montserrat: Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, composed in 2001 (played by Matt Haimovitz), accompanied by the title track, an impressionistic chamber-music octet that he rescored to brilliant effect for full orchestra in 2000. I suppose I'm biased--I think that Paul is one of this country's very finest composers--so I'll say no more than that if you don't know his music, this exceedingly well-played CD, which also features Gil Rose and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, is an ideal place to start (TT).
All in the Timing (Primary Stages, 59E59 Theatres, 59 E. 59, extended through Apr. 14). A twentieth-anniversary off-Broadway revival of the program of six one-act comedies, by turns surreal and poignant, that first put David Ives on the map of American theater. I didn't see the 1993 production, but I can't imagine how it could have been better than this glittering version, perfectly staged by John Rando, Ives' frequent collaborator, and acted with colossal éclat by five young actors who fit together like the pieces of a platinum-plated jigsaw puzzle (TT).
Maria Bachmann and Adam Neiman, French Fantasy (Bridge). Sensitive yet bracingly incisive performances of sonatas by Franck, Saint-Saëns (the D Minor, familiar to Proustians as the model for the "sonate de Vinteuil"), and Debussy, with a lovely performance of Jascha Heifetz's violin-and-piano arrangement of Debussy's "Beau Soir" thrown in for good measure. Bachmann, who doubles as the violinist of Trio Solisti, is one of the outstanding soloists of her generation, and Neiman is no mere "accompanist" but a sonata partner of impeccable authority. This one's a winner (TT).
Dorothy B. Hughes, The Expendable Man (New York Review Books, $14.95 paper). Back in print for the first time since 1963, this taut exercise in noir fiction tells the terrifying tale of an intern who picks up a hitchhiker in the desert and finds himself plunged into a they-won't-believe-me nightmare. Best known today for writing the novel on which Nicholas Ray's In a Lonely Place was based, Hughes turns out to be a first-class thriller writer who deserves to be far better known. A word to the wise: do not peek at Walter Mosley's afterword until you've finished reading The Expendable Man! You really don't want to spoil the surprise (TT).
Out of the Past
Richard Huggett, The Truth About Pygmalion. Originally published in 1969, this deftly written, admirably concise study of how George Bernard Shaw's most popular play made it to the stage is forgotten today save by Shaw specialists. It shouldn't be. Few such books pack more information into a smaller package, and fewer still do so with such engaging wit (TT).
Local Hero. If, like me, you have a weakness for whimsical portraits of small-town life, you'll love Bill Forsyth's 1983 comedy about a slightly cracked oil-comedy boss (Burt Lancaster) who dispatches a no-nonsense junior executive (Peter Riegert) to a tiny Scottish seaside village in order to buy it out and send the locals packing. No, the outcome isn't in any way surprising, but Local Hero is delicately fey and completely charming (TT).
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