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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for December 21, 2015

Long-distance relationship

December 21, 2015 by Terry Teachout

1219151459I attended my final rehearsal for the Court Theatre’s upcoming production of Satchmo at the Waldorf on Saturday. On Sunday morning I flew back to New York for the opening night of the new Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof, which I’ll be reviewing in The Wall Street Journal later this week. Now I’m en route to rural Connecticut and my beloved Mrs. T via Amtrak, and I can’t wait to reach them both.

For the past two weeks, though, I’ve been up to my ears in Satchmo, working hand in hand with Barry Shabaka Henley, Charles Newell, and the staff of the Court. Shabaka (as we call him) is a spectacularly gifted actor who has flung himself with breathtaking abandon into the demanding triple role of Louis Armstrong, Joe Glaser, and Miles Davis. I’ve long thought that Charlie is one of the best directors in America, and having watched him up close, I’m floored by his unflagging creativity and commitment. As for his colleagues, they are without exception both competent and nice, a combination that is gratifying beyond belief. If you suspect that I’m exaggerating…well, I was there, and I hated to go.

d47ae37952048e526b9145772cb1a21cOn the other hand, I also hated being away from Mrs. T for so long, and when I return to Chicago to see the show on January 10, three days after the first preview performance of Satchmo, it will be with eyes refreshed by a three-week-long separation. I’m eager to be home again, and almost as eager to return to Florida’s Sanibel Island, which Mrs. T and I have come in recent years to regard as our home away from home.

All true—and yet Satchmo and my three operatic collaborations with Paul Moravec have taught me that a rehearsal room is the next best thing to paradise, the great good place where you get to spend hours on end doing the kind of work that doesn’t feel like work at all. To be sure, I wrote three pieces and spent many happy hours with Our Girl during my two weeks in Chicago, but for the most part I ate and slept Satchmo at the Waldorf, and along the way I made a couple of dozen new and wonderful friends. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Yes, I’ll be keeping in close touch with the Court throughout the next three weeks. Among other things, I’ll be receiving daily rehearsal reports via e-mail from Amanda Keener-Frederick and Heather Bannon, the production stage manager and assistant stage manager. I’ll also be on call to answer questions from Charlie, Shabaka, or any of the Court’s other staffers. So I won’t be completely cut off from Satchmo. Nor do I expect to feel needlessly nostalgic about Chicago in January when I’m sitting on the porch of our Sanibel Island bungalow, a stone’s throw from the Gulf of Mexico. But I also know that no matter what else I’m doing during my ten days on Sanibel, the Court Theatre will never be very far from my mind.

* * *

Aretha Franklin sings “Come Back to Me,” at a 1968 concert in Stockholm. The song is from the score of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, by Burton Lane and Alan Jay Lerner:

Just because: Diana Adams dances Balanchine’s Nutcracker

December 21, 2015 by Terry Teachout

TV CAMERADiana Adams and Nicholas Magallanes dance the grand pas de deux from George Balanchine’s 1954 version of The Nutcracker. The music is by Tchaikovsky. This studio performance was originally telecast by the CBC on March 7, 1957:

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

Almanac: George Santayana on marriage

December 21, 2015 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“It takes patience to appreciate domestic bliss; volatile spirits prefer unhappiness.”

George Santayana, The Life of Reason

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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