Archives for 2011

“One of the most time-consuming things is to have an enemy.”
E.B. White, “A Report in January”

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)

• Driving Miss Daisy * (drama, G, possible for smart children, closes Apr. 9, reviewed here)

• The Importance of Being Earnest (high comedy, G, just possible for very smart children, closes July 3, reviewed here)

• Lombardi (drama, G/PG-13, a modest amount of adult subject matter, reviewed here)

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

OFF BROADWAY:

• Angels in America (drama, PG-13/R, adult subject matter, closes Mar. 27, reviewed here)

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

• Black Tie (comedy, PG-13, extended through Mar. 27, reviewed here)

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

• Molly Sweeney (drama, G, too serious for children, closes Mar. 13, reviewed here)

• Play Dead (theatrical spook show, PG-13, utterly unsuitable for easily frightened children or adults, reviewed here)

IN SARASOTA, FLA.:

• Twelve Angry Men (drama, G, closes Mar. 26, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN MINNEAPOLIS:

• Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (drama, PG-13/R, Minneapolis remounting of Phoenix production, adult subject matter and violence, closes Mar. 6, Phoenix run reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN PHILADELPHIA:

• A Moon for the Misbegotten (drama, PG-13, closes Feb. 27, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY ON BROADWAY:

• The Merchant of Venice * (Shakespeare, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

“Once in everyone’s life there is apt to be a period when he is fully awake, instead of half asleep.”
E.B. White, foreword to the revised edition of One Man’s Meat

Arturo Toscanini conducts the NBC Symphony in the prelude and Liebestod from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, originally telecast in 1951:

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

“Life’s meaning has always eluded me and I guess it always will. But I love it just the same.”
E.B. White, letter to Mary Virginia Parrish (Aug. 29, 1969)

William Schuman, the composer of New England Triptych, appears as a mystery guest on What’s My Line? in 1962:

“When I get sick of what men do, I have only to walk a few steps in another direction to see what spiders do. Or what the weather does. This sustains me very well indeed.”
E.B. White, letter to Carrie A. Wilson (May 1, 1951)

George Shearing, who in his day was both an immensely popular and an impeccably tasteful jazz pianist, died this morning at the age of ninety-one. I wrote at length about him for the New York Times in 2002. That piece was quoted in this morning’s Associated Press obituary. Here’s the relevant part:

Bad habits die hard, but now that ”crossover” is no longer a dirty word, the time has come for George Shearing to be acknowledged not as a commercial purveyor of bop-and-water, but as an exceptionally versatile artist who has given pleasure to countless listeners for whom such critical hair-splitting is irrelevant. At 82, he is still active, still witty and still playing piano with the same luminous touch that put him on the map back when 52nd Street was lined with grubby little nightclubs instead of jumbo office towers. May he never stop swinging.

He never did.
* * *
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The George Shearing Quintet plays Denzil Best’s “Move”: