Archives for September 2012

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:

• Bring It On (musical, G, closes Jan. 20, reviewed here)

• Evita (musical, PG-13, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

• Once (musical, G/PG-13, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

• 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)

• Tribes (drama, PG-13, closes Jan. 6, reviewed here)

IN NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, ONTARIO:

• Misalliance (serious comedy, G/PG-13, far too talky for children, closes Oct. 27, reviewed here)

• Present Laughter (comedy, PG-13, closes Oct. 28, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN EAST HADDAM, CONN.:

• Carousel (musical, G, closes Sept. 29, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY OFF BROADWAY:

• The Train Driver (drama, PG-13, reviewed here)

“Those who never quote, in return are seldom quoted.”
Isaac D’Israeli, Curiosities of Literature

Tennessee Williams is interviewed by Bill Boggs:

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

“When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.”
Henry David Thoreau, journal entry, Jan. 13, 1857

Fifty-five years ago yesterday, Louis Armstrong gave an interview in which he spoke out publicly about Orval Faubus’ unsuccessful attempt to block the desegregation of the public schools of Little Rock, Arkansas. An uncensored version of that interview is one of the key scenes in Satchmo at the Waldorf, which opens on October 3 at New Haven’s Long Wharf Theatre.
Long Wharf has just posted a TV ad for Satchmo at the Waldorf on YouTube. I thought you might enjoy seeing it:

From 2003:

Every time I see a Pixar movie, I think of the dead end down which the Disney animators of the Thirties and Forties charged so heedlessly. Artist for artist, the Disney team packed a greater technical punch than any animation shop in history, but its product got duller and duller, while the Warner and MGM cartoons of the same period became more vivid and witty with every passing year. What made the difference? Disney’s creative team was fixated on the chimerical goal of realism, whereas Chuck Jones and Tex Avery knew that no matter how well you drew it, an animated cartoon was going to look like drawings of a talking animal….

Read the whole thing here.

“It does not matter how badly you paint, so long as you don’t paint badly like other people.”
George Moore, Confessions of a Young Man

Yesterday afternoon Satchmo at the Waldorf wrapped up a hugely successful run at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Massachusetts. Next Monday we start rehearsing in New Haven, Connecticut, for what we hope will be an equally successful run at Long Wharf Theatre, where performances start on October 3.
In between…what? Well, I’m determined to spend a few days taking it easy. I’ll be driving into New York later today to tape a Satchmo-related episode of Pia Lindström Presents first thing Tuesday morning. After that, though, I’ll head straight back to Connecticut, and Mrs. T and I will pull the plug for the rest of the week. We’ve found a brand-new retreat not too terribly far from here. We don’t plan to return calls or answer e-mail until Sunday night, nor will we be telling anybody where we went.
Yes, I’ll continue to post the usual daily stuff in this space–but nothing else. If you need anything more than that between now and then, forget it.
After ‘while, crocodile.