• Home
  • About
    • About Last Night
    • Terry Teachout
    • Contact
  • AJBlogCentral
  • ArtsJournal

About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

You are here: Home / 2013 / May / Archives for 9th

Archives for May 9, 2013

TT: Long distance, please

May 9, 2013 by Terry Teachout

Paul Moravec, my operatic collaborator, is currently in residence at the American Academy in Rome. He’s writing the score of The King’s Man, our third opera, which opens in Louisville in October.
558070_334873983236914_114448523_n.jpgAs for me, I’ve been tearing around America ever since the Broadway season ended–but not this week. Mrs. T, spotting four dark days on my calendar, suggested that we might want to spend them taking a work-free mini-vacation at Ecce Bed and Breakfast, our beloved and indispensable Delaware River retreat. That sounded good to me, so we drove to Ecce on Monday and proceeded to do…nothing. Lots of nothing. We slept late, ate tasty breakfasts, sat in the sun, read in the afternoons, and watched movies at night (among them The Ladykillers, The Man in the White Suit, and Citizen Kane).
All that relaxation notwithstanding, Paul and I did manage to cross paths–in cyberspace. I spent most of yesterday afternoon revising the libretto of The King’s Man, then e-mailing new text to Rome for him to set. He e-mailed the music back to me as soon as he finished composing it. At one point we were working in something not far removed from real time.
Was I breaking my solemn promise not to work during our mini-vacation? I think not, and Mrs. T agrees. Revision is pleasurable puttering. Drafting is work–sometimes hard, sometimes less so, but ever and always work. Revising, by contrast, is mostly pure fun, like solving a wonderfully complex puzzle. Writing a first draft sometimes feels like putting together a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces are blank.
So I enjoyed myself yesterday, very much so, not least because I was thoroughly bemused by the fact that I was spending the day in close harness with someone who was halfway around the world from me. (Somehow I doubt that Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal did it that way.) Yet I was glad to wrap up my puttering, shoot a new draft of The King’s Man off to Rome, and resume the no less satisfying “job” of listening to the peaceful sound of rain falling on Ecce’s sturdy roof.
We’re still at Ecce, by the way, and utterly happy to be. You can never spend enough time doing nothing.
* * *
Waylon Jennings sings “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way” at the Grand Ole Opry in 1978:

TT: So you want to see a show?

May 9, 2013 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:

• Annie (musical, G, reviewed here)

• Matilda (musical, G, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

• The Nance (play with music, PG-13, extended through Aug. 11, reviewed here)

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

• The Trip to Bountiful (drama, G, extended through Sept. 1, 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)

CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:

• Women of Will (Shakespearean lecture-recital, G/PG-13, closes May 26, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN CHICAGO:

• Pal Joey (musical, PG-13, closing May 26, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN CHICAGO:

• Woman in Mind (serious comedy, PG-13, closing May 19, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK OFF BROADWAY:

• Orphans (drama, PG-13, closing May 19, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY OFF BROADWAY:

• Talley’s Folly (drama, PG-13, reviewed here)

TT: Almanac

May 9, 2013 by Terry Teachout

“Cap, who sometimes had a problem working out when Dalziel’s political incorrectness was post-modern ironical and when it was prehistoric offensive, turned the sound back on.”
Reginald Hill, Death’s Jest-Book (courtesy of Mrs. T)

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...]

Follow Us on TwitterFollow Us on RSSFollow Us on E-mail

@Terryteachout1

Tweets by TerryTeachout1

Archives

May 2013
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  
« Apr   Jun »

An ArtsJournal Blog

Recent Posts

  • Terry Teachout, 65
  • Gripping musical melodrama
  • Replay: Somerset Maugham in 1965
  • Almanac: Somerset Maugham on sentimentality
  • Snapshot: Richard Strauss conducts Till Eulenspiegel

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in