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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for December 14, 2015

The middle of the moment

December 14, 2015 by Terry Teachout

12360165_10153847643362193_4283554524081674083_nThe Court Theatre’s Chicago premiere of Satchmo at the Waldorf continues to take shape. On Thursday Barry Shabaka Henley and I got our first look at John Culbert’s set, which is currently under construction on the stage of the Court. Then we went back to the rehearsal room and conferred at length with Keith Parham and Andre Pluess, the lighting and sound designers. Once that was done, Barry, Charles Newell, and I started rehearsing again.

We are now halfway through the script—as we must be, since the first public preview of Satchmo is set for January 7. It’s nerve-racking, but in the best possible way: some kinds of pressure are inhibiting, others stimulating. This is the second kind, so much so that I find myself popping awake every morning between six-thirty and seven, well in advance of the ten a.m. rehearsal call. At Barry’s request, our schedule consists of “straight sixes,” meaning that we rehearse each day from ten to four without a lunch break. Monday is our weekend. Otherwise, we work. “That’s what I’m in town for,” Barry said on the first day. “I’m not doing anything but this play. That’s all there is.”

CWE3ROFWEAA8ls5.jpg-largeI can’t quite say the same: I’ve written two pieces, a Weekly Standard essay about Harold Arlen and a Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column about Cy Walter, since arriving in Chicago on Monday. Otherwise, though, I’m totally focused on Satchmo. It’s a kind of tunnel vision that I find exhilarating precisely because I don’t get to indulge in it very often. I usually have too many balls in the air to concentrate on any one thing for more than a couple of hours at a time. For me, then, these rehearsals are a kind of vacation from the distracting hum and buzz of my everyday life. When you’re working straight sixes in a rehearsal room, even the most complicated of lives is necessarily simplified by sheer force majeure.

It won’t last, of course. On December 20 the spell lifts and I fly back to New York for opening night of Fiddler on the Roof, after which I return to Connecticut, Mrs. T, and Christmas, followed by our annual visit to Sanibel Island, which I never fail to find restorative. I’ll be grateful for those things in due course, but not yet. For now there is nothing but the show: no deadlines, no worries, no future, not even an opening night. This is a time to rejoice—and work. Like the man says, that’s all there is.

Just because: Daniel Harding and the London Symphony perform Michael Tippett

December 14, 2015 by Terry Teachout

TV CAMERADaniel Harding and the London Symphony perform Sir Michael Tippett’s Concerto for Double String Orchestra:

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

Almanac: Schopenhauer on music

December 14, 2015 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“The effect of music is so very much more powerful and penetrating than is that of the other arts, for these others speak only of the shadow, but music of the essence.”

Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation

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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