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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

You are here: Home / 2006 / July / Archives for 20th

Archives for July 20, 2006

TT: Curiosity shop

July 20, 2006 by Terry Teachout

Except for a noontime visit to Antonio Prieto Salon, which is far from my beaten path, my niece and I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary today. We brunched at Good Enough to Eat, visited the Metropolitan Museum, dined at Bright Food Shop, and saw Pilobolus at the Joyce Theater. Just another Wednesday in New York, in other words–except that this time around I saw Pilobolus and Times Square and Central Park and John Twachtman’s Arques-la-Bataille through Lauren’s eyes.
which made them as new to me as they were to her.


I was especially pleased by Pilobolus. Not only has it been a couple of years since I last saw them, but outside of a single performance
by the Mark Morris Dance Group in March, I haven’t seen any dance since my unexpected trip to the hospital seven months ago. It was a nice way to slip back into the swing of things, and what made it nicer still was that Lauren and I ran into Jonathan Wolken and Robby Barnett, two of the troupe’s founders, in the lobby. I hadn’t spoken to either one of them since I took part in the filming of Last Dance, Mirra Bank’s 2001 Pilobolus documentary, and we had a lot of catching up to do.


Now I’m sitting at my desk, eavesdropping as Lauren chatters away on her cell phone in the next room. She’s telling a friend in Smalltown, U.S.A., all about Pilobolus’ Day Two, the hot, steamy fertility rite set to the music of David Byrne and Brian Eno that ended tonight’s program with a bang (and a splash). She sounds thoroughly impressed. So was I–not merely with Pilobolus, but also with the miraculous good fortune that makes it possible for me to take days like this for granted, even though I rarely do. May I never forget how lucky I am.

TT: So you want to see a show?

July 20, 2006 by Terry Teachout

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway and off-Broadway shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I either gave these shows strongly favorable reviews in The Wall Street Journal when they opened or saw and liked them some time in the past year (or both). For more information, click on the title.


Warning: Broadway shows marked with an asterisk were sold out, or nearly so, last week.


BROADWAY:

– Avenue Q* (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)

– Bridge & Tunnel (solo show, PG-13, some adult subject matter, reviewed here, closes Aug. 6)

– Chicago (musical, R, adult subject matter and sexual content)

– The Drowsy Chaperone (musical, G/PG-13, mild sexual content and a profusion of double entendres, reviewed here)

– The Lieutenant of Inishmore (black comedy, R, adult subject matter and extremely graphic violence, reviewed here)

– Sweeney Todd (musical, R, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

– The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee* (musical, PG-13, mostly family-friendly but contains a smattering of strong language and a production number about an unwanted erection, reviewed here)

– The Wedding Singer (musical, PG-13, some sexual content, reviewed here)


OFF BROADWAY:

– Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living In Paris (musical revue, R, adult subject matter and sexual content, reviewed here)

– Pig Farm (comedy, PG-13, some sexual content, reviewed here, closes Sept. 3)

– Slava’s Snowshow (performance art, G, child-friendly, reviewed here)


CLOSING SOON:

– Susan and God (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here, closes July 30)


CLOSING NEXT SUNDAY:

– Susan and God (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here, closes July 30)

TT: Almanac

July 20, 2006 by Terry Teachout

“It was hot. A few lost, cotton-ball bunches of cloud drifted in a brassy sky, leaving rare islands of shadow upon the desert’s face.


“Nothing moved. It was a far, lost land, a land of beige-gray silences and distance where the eye reached out farther and farther to lose itself finally against the sky, and where the only movement was the lazy swing of a remote buzzard.”


Louis L’Amour, Hondo

TT: Unsolicited endorsement

July 20, 2006 by Terry Teachout

The only thing I don’t like about my beautiful white iPod is the crappy little set of earbuds that came with it. Now that I’m spending so much time in the air, I decided the time had finally come to spring for a better set of headphones. After much research and careful consideration, I ordered a set of Ultimate Ears super.fi 3 in-ear monitors. They arrived in today’s mail, and so far I’m blissfully happy with them. To be sure, I may feel differently once I’ve subjected them to the acid test of listening to Morph the Cat at 30,000 feet, but I have a feeling that they’re keepers.

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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