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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for December 2015

Swingin’ in the new year

December 31, 2015 by Terry Teachout

TV CAMERADuke Ellington plays “Auld Lang Syne” in 1962:

So you want to see a show?

December 31, 2015 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:
• An American in Paris (musical, G, too complex for small children, reviewed here)
• China Doll (drama, PG-13, reviewed here)
• The Color Purple (musical, PG-13, virtually all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Fun Home (serious musical, PG-13, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Hamilton (musical, PG-13, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• The King and I (musical, G, perfect for children with well-developed attention spans, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Matilda (musical, G, virtually all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Les Misérables (musical, G, too long and complicated for young children, closes Sept. 4, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• On Your Feet! (jukebox musical, G, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)
flick051rsc-e1363121744127• The Flick (serious comedy, PG-13, too long for young people with limited attention spans, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON ON BROADWAY:
• A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder (musical, PG-13, closes Jan. 17, some performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Spring Awakening (musical, PG-13/R, closes Jan. 24, reviewed here)
• Sylvia (comedy, PG-13, closes Jan. 24, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK OFF BROADWAY:
• A Wilder Christmas (drama, G, too complicated for children, closes Jan. 10, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY OFF BROADWAY:
• Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (comedy, G, ideal for bright children, remounting of Broadway production, original production reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY ON BROADWAY:
• Hand to God (black comedy, X, absolutely not for children or prudish adults, reviewed here)

Almanac: Emlyn Williams on happiness

December 31, 2015 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“The details of happiness do not stay in the memory, and the rest of the day is a tapestry of sunlight and summer sounds.”

Emlyn Williams, George: An Early Autobiography

Snapshot: the original 1952 London production of South Pacific

December 30, 2015 by Terry Teachout

TV CAMERAA complete archival multi-camera sound film of the original London production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific, starring Mary Martin. The production, directed by Joshua Logan, was a reproduction of the original Broadway staging. This extremely rare film was shot in the theater at a special performance given without an audience on May 6, 1952:

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

Almanac: Emlyn Williams on deceptive simplicity

December 30, 2015 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“Racine is the most adult of authors, with a classic simplicity bound to deceive the most precocious student by his look of poverty: to the immature eye, the exquisitely right can look like the pedantically trite.”

Emlyn Williams, George: An Early Autobiography

Lookback: recovering from a life-threatening illness

December 29, 2015 by Terry Teachout

LOOKBACKFrom 2005:

I’m full of good intentions–how could I not be? But this is the most important one of all: I promise not to fall back into my old ways the first time I slip up. Because I will, repeatedly. Learning to live differently is no small task, least of all for a middle-aged workaholic accustomed to doing as he pleases, and New York is full of temptations.

No sooner will I step off the plane Friday afternoon than I’ll feel the overwhelming urge to rev up my own engines, to rush back to my apartment and empty all those mailbags and start calling up everyone I know. Only I won’t. I’ll sit down, look happily at the art hanging on my living-room walls, and wait for the knot of tension inside my head to start unwinding….

Read the whole thing here.

Almanac: Emlyn Williams on boredom

December 29, 2015 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“Nothing can ever irk again as badly as the boredoms of childhood.”

Emlyn Williams, George: An Early Autobiography

Tick, tick…

December 28, 2015 by Terry Teachout

sanibel-panoA year ago this week, Mrs. T and I were headed south to Florida via Amtrak, an experience that we found…well, interesting. Come Wednesday we’ll be flying there, and if all goes well, we should be ensconced in our comfy little Sanibel Island bungalow (which is “ours,” of course, only in the sense that this will be the fifth year in a row that we’ve rented it for the first part of January) right around the time the sun is setting over the Gulf of Mexico.

Our plan is to spend the next week and a half together, after which I board the first of a series of flights that will take me to Chicago, New York, and San Francisco, there to open two different productions of Satchmo at the Waldorf and see a pair of sharply contrasting shows on and off Broadway. Once we get Satchmo open in San Francisco, I’ll head straight back to Sanibel and Mrs. T.

tumblr_mxypv3IGab1s6vo7to1_400Because our time together is so much shorter than usual, I’ve decided not to do any blogging (other than the regular daily postings) between today and my arrival in Chicago on January 10. I have no shows to see or deadlines to hit this week, and I want very much to be completely present throughout that time. So I’ll jump the gun by four days and post, as is my custom, the Ogden Nash poem that I like to share with you each New Year’s Eve, followed by my customary end-of-the-year good wishes:

Come, children, gather round my knee;
Something is about to be.

Tonight’s December Thirty-First,
Something is about to burst.

The clock is crouching, dark and small,
Like a time bomb in the hall.

Hark! It’s midnight, children dear.
Duck! Here comes another year.

To all of you who, like me, suspect that chance is in the saddle and rides mankind, I hope that the year to come treats you not unkindly, and that your lives, like mine, will be warmed by hope and filled with love.

See you next year!

* * *

Big Joe Turner sings “Feelin’ Happy” in Shake, Rattle & Rock! The film was directed by Edward L. Cahn and released in 1956:

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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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