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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for November 24, 2011

TT: For which much thanks

November 24, 2011 by Terry Teachout

Snoopy-Woodstock-Thanksgiving.jpg“When we exist without thought or thanksgiving we are not men, but beasts.” So said M.F.K. Fisher in How to Cook a Wolf. I quoted her words in this space six years ago, and they are as true now as they were then, or in 1942, when Fisher wrote them. Today Mrs. T and I are preparing to go to her sister’s house in Connecticut, there to sit at a groaning table and eat to our hearts’ content. We are lucky and we are grateful–for the meal, for those with whom we’ll share it, for one another. Spouses who come together in middle age don’t take their good fortune for granted.

I’ve been favored by fortune my whole life long, which isn’t to say that I haven’t stepped in my fair share of potholes. Six years ago I ate my Thanksgiving dinner in a restaurant, thinking dark thoughts as I dined, and a few short weeks later I was carried out of my apartment on a stretcher, wondering if I’d ever see it again. Not only did I make it back home in one piece, but I found my true love along the way. And even on the darkest of days I wasn’t alone: I’ve always been surrounded by friends, and they’ve never failed to come when I called.

Unlike many, perhaps most folk, I earn my living doing something that gives me pleasure, and I don’t take that for granted, either. I get paid to write about the plays of Shakespeare and Chekhov and Brian Friel and the music of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. How lucky can you get? That I also have to write about significantly less worthy things from time to time is surely the smallest of prices to pay for such a privilege (though sometimes it doesn’t seem like it!).

303021_10150389947507868_665917867_10323350_1208784340_n.jpgAs if all that bounty weren’t enough, I wrote my first play and saw it performed in the year just past, an experience so unforeseen that I still have trouble believing that it really happened. I hope to see Satchmo at the Waldorf performed again before too much time goes by, and I also hope that other plays of mine (I’ve written two more since finishing Satchmo at the Waldorf) will someday make it to the stage. But even if that doesn’t happen, I’ll still be farther ahead of the game than I ever dreamed.

Nobody’s luck holds forever, but when hard times come again–as they surely will–I hope I’ll be warmed by the memory of how I feel today.

* * *

The finale of Stephen Sondheim’s Company, as performed in 2008 by Raul Esparza and the members of the original Broadway cast of John Doyle’s production:

TT: So you want to see a show?

November 24, 2011 by Terry Teachout

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.


BROADWAY:

• Anything Goes (musical, G/PG-13, mildly adult subject matter that will be unintelligible to children, closes Apr. 29, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

• Chinglish (comedy, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes Apr. 29, reviewed here)

• Follies (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes Jan. 22, reviewed here)

• Godspell (musical, G, suitable for children, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

• How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (musical, G/PG-13, perfectly fine for children whose parents aren’t actively prudish, reviewed here)

• Other Desert Cities (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

• Private Lives (comedy, PG-13, closes Feb. 5, reviewed here)

• Venus in Fur (serious comedy, R, adult subject matter, closes Dec. 18, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

• Dancing at Lughnasa (drama, G/PG-13, extended through Jan. 15, 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)

• Million Dollar Quartet (jukebox musical, G, off-Broadway remounting of Broadway production, original run reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK OFF BROADWAY:

• The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs (monologue, PG-13, closes Dec. 4, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN GLENCOE, ILLINOIS:

• The Real Thing (serious comedy, PG-13, closes Dec. 4, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY ON BROADWAY:

• Man and Boy (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

TT: Almanac

November 24, 2011 by Terry Teachout

“Let the man who would be grateful think of repaying a kindness even while receiving it.”
Seneca, De Beneficiis

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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