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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for March 10, 2014

Still cooking

March 10, 2014 by Terry Teachout

satchopen1.jpgSatchmo at the Waldorf continues to run off Broadway at the Westside Theatre. John Douglas Thompson’s performance–incredibly–grows deeper and deeper. If you haven’t seen it, do, and if you have, tell your friends (or see it again!).
I have a compliment to report: a playwright of note who came to last Tuesday’s opening-night performance told me afterward that he thought I’d created “a remarkable cubist portrait” of Louis Armstrong. That’s actually a very subtle way of describing the play’s multiple perspectives on Armstrong and his career.
Some other pieces of news:
• The New Yorker caught up with us over the weekend, and the results were highly gratifying:

The last strains of the set die out, the door to the dressing room opens, and in walks Louis Armstrong (John Douglas Thompson), carrying his trumpet and making his way, stiffly but urgently, to the oxygen tank next to the sofa. It’s 1971, and the giant of twentieth-century American music is in a reflective mood….Teachout, Thompson, and the director, Gordon Edelstein, together create an extraordinarily rich and complex characterization. The show centers on the trumpeter’s relationship with his Mob-connected Jewish manager of more than thirty-five years, Joe Glaser. Thompson forcefully inhabits both men–and throws in a chilling Miles Davis–delivering an altogether riveting performance.

Read the whole thing here.
• I rejoice to announce that the script of Satchmo at the Waldorf will be published by Dramatists Play Service, Inc., whose other authors include Edward Albee, Christopher Durang, Horton Foote, Brian Friel, Athol Fugard, John Guare, A.R. Gurney, Amy Herzog, David Ives, Warren Leight, Tracy Letts, David Mamet, Martin McDonagh, Conor McPherson, Lynn Nottage, and John Patrick Shanley. I am honored beyond words to join their ranks.
satchopen8.jpgThe announcement is here.
• John and I took last Thursday afternoon off and drove out to Newark to to do an hour-long interview about Satchmo at the Waldorf on WBGO, the New York area’s top jazz radio station. Not only did we talk at length about the show and how it came to be, but Rhonda Hamilton, the host, also played several of our favorite Armstrong records in the course of the broadcast.
Not at all surprisingly, we had a lot of fun, and you can listen to us having it by going here.
• Finally, the TV ad for Satchmo rolled out late last week. Here it is. I’m biased, of course, but I think it’s way cool:

Just because: Wes Montgomery plays Horace Silver

March 10, 2014 by Terry Teachout

Wes Montgomery rehearses and plays Horace Silver’s “Nica’s Dream” in 1965:

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

Almanac: Eric Hoffer on political leaders

March 10, 2014 by Terry Teachout

“The leader personifies the certitude of the creed and the defiance and grandeur of power. He articulates and justifies the resentment dammed up in the souls of the frustrated. He kindles the vision of a breath-taking future so as to justify the sacrifice of a transitory present. He stages a world of make-believe so indispensable for the realization of self-sacrifice and united action.”
Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

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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