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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for August 9, 2011

TT: A trip to the country

August 9, 2011 by ldemanski

Here’s where I took my mother this afternoon:
COVERED%20BRIDGE

TT: Inch by inch

August 9, 2011 by ldemanski

Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, opens in Orlando on September 15. Dennis Neal and Rus Blackwell, the star and director, are preparing for the premiere as I write these words. Meanwhile, I’m spending the week in Smalltown, U.S.A., wondering what they’re up to.
DENNIS%20AS%20SATCHMO%20%28KRISTEN%20WHEELER%29.jpgYesterday Dennis sent me this wonderfully vivid publicity photo by Kristen Wheeler that shows him in costume as Louis Armstrong, one of the two roles that he’ll be playing in Satchmo at the Waldorf (the other is Joe Glaser, Armstrong’s manager). No sooner did I open his e-mail than I felt a surge of jealousy sweep through me. How come Dennis and Rus get to have all the fun down there in sunny Florida while I sit around twiddling my thumbs?
Of course, I’m not exactly taking it easy. I’ll be flying to the West Coast next Monday to spend a week at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, after which I head to Wisconsin for a week at Spring Green’s American Players Theatre. But as much as I’m looking forward to both trips, what I’d really like to be doing right now is sitting in the Orlando rehearsal room where my colleagues are starting to bring my play to life.
Alas, I can’t make it to Florida until a week before opening night, and I expect that the time between now and then will pass with increasingly agonizing slowness. But at least I have this picture to remind me that exciting things are happening, with or without me.

TT: Almanac

August 9, 2011 by ldemanski

“All men are hungry. They always have been. They must eat, and when they deny themselves the pleasures of carrying out that need, they are cutting off part of their possible fullness, their natural realization of life, whether they are rich or poor.”
M.F.K. Fisher, How to Cook a Wolf

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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