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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for September 2010

TT: So you want to see a show?

September 30, 2010 by ldemanski

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.


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


BROADWAY:

• La Cage aux Folles (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

• Fela! (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes Jan. 2, reviewed here)

• Million Dollar Quartet (jukebox musical, G, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

• Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (comedy, G, suitable for bright children, original Broadway production reviewed here)

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

• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)

• The Little Foxes (drama, G, unsuitable for children, brilliantly acted but tritely staged, closes Oct. 31, reviewed here)

IN ASHLAND, OREGON:

• Hamlet (Shakespeare, PG-13, closes Oct. 30, reviewed here)

• Ruined (drama, PG-13/R, violence and adult subject matter, closes Oct. 31, reviewed here)

• She Loves Me (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, closes Oct. 30, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN LOS ANGELES:

• The Glass Menagerie (drama, G, West Coast remounting of original New Haven/off-Broadway production, too dark for children, closes Oct. 17, off-Broadway run reviewed here)

• Ruined (drama, PG-13/R, West Coast remounting of original Chicago/off-Broadway production, violence and adult subject matter, closes Oct. 17, off-Broadway run reviewed here)

CLOSING SATURDAY IN SPRING GREEN, WISCONSIN:

• Major Barbara (serious comedy, G, too complicated for children, reviewed here)

TT: Almanac

September 30, 2010 by ldemanski

“The newspaper is the natural enemy of the book, as the whore is of the decent woman.”
Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, journal entry, July 1858

PLENTY OF NOTHING

September 29, 2010 by ldemanski

“Who deserves to be considered America’s most significant classical composer? Concertgoers of a certain age will doubtless choose Aaron Copland or George Gershwin, the creators of the first distinctively American-sounding styles of classical composition, while more contemporary listeners are more likely to cite Philip Glass or John Adams, who made minimalism the dominant classical-music idiom of the postwar era. But if ‘significant’ is taken to mean ‘influential,’ then a strong, if seemingly paradoxical, case can be made for a composer who, for all the undeniable influence he has exerted on American music, failed to write even one work that has made its way into the repertoires of any well-known orchestra, opera company, chamber group, singer, or instrumentalist…”

TT: Snapshot

September 29, 2010 by ldemanski

Ginette Neveu plays the coda of Ernest Chausson’s Poème:

(This is the latest in a weekly series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Wednesday.)

TT: Almanac

September 29, 2010 by ldemanski

“It is uplifting to lose one’s faith in a reality which looks the way it is described in a newspaper.”
Karl Kraus, “In Praise of a Topsy-Turvy Lifestyle”

TT: Well spent

September 28, 2010 by ldemanski

images.DC.jpegI’ve had some sharp things to say in the past about the MacArthur Foundation’s “genius grants,” so I am entirely delighted to report that David Cromer, the greatest American stage director of his generation, and David Simon, the creator of Homicide, The Wire, and Treme, have both received MacArthur fellowships.
I’m especially pleased about Cromer because of the role that my Wall Street Journal drama columns, in particular this 2008 piece, have played in bringing his work to the attention of a national audience. So far as I know, I’m the first person ever to have described him as a “genius” in print, in my review of his extraordinary production of Our Town. Of all the useful things that a critic can hope to do in the course of his career, few are more gratifying than ringing the bell of acclaim for an artist deserving of much wider recognition, then looking on from the sidelines as he receives it.
I am enormously proud of having written with enthusiasm in The Wall Street Journal about Diana Krall and Maria Schneider long before they became widely known. Now it is my privilege to add David Cromer to that list. I hope his name won’t be the last one on it.

TT: Almanac

September 28, 2010 by ldemanski

“News reports stand up as people, and people wither into editorials. Clichés walk around on two legs while men are having theirs shot off.”
Karl Kraus, The Last Days of Mankind

TT: On the move

September 27, 2010 by ldemanski

I’ll be traveling for the next couple of weeks. Watch this space for occasional reports, plus the usual almanac entries, videos, and theater-related postings. CAAF and Our Girl have also promised to show their faces.
Next stop, LaGuardia Airport!

Next Page »

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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