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Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for January 25, 2016

Nomad’s return

January 25, 2016 by Terry Teachout

12549089_10153302612921024_4098539939781951104_nSatchmo at the Waldorf opened in San Francisco last Wednesday. I flew back to Florida’s Sanibel Island and my beloved Mrs. T early the next morning, having spent the preceding eleven days bouncing ceaselessly (if not altogether tirelessly) from coast to coast, opening Satchmo in Chicago and reviewing plays on Broadway.

I’m not quite done with Satchmo. Mrs. T and I drove to Sarasota on Saturday to review two shows and spend two weeks on Longboat Key. Today, though, I’m flying up to Chicago for a one-nighter, an appearance at a symposium that is part of the Court Theatre’s ongoing Louis Armstrong Festival. But I’ll return to Sarasota first thing Tuesday, and once I’m there, I’m there: no rehearsals, no opening nights, no receptions. For now, I’m done with Satchmo.

John Patrick Shanley, the author of Doubt, is currently rehearsing a new play in New York. He tweeted something about it the other day that caught my eye: “Prodigal Son is taking off, leaving me in the dust. Soon it won’t need me anymore. For a playwright, this kind of abandonment is a victory.” I’m starting to know what he means. A third production of Satchmo at the Waldorf opened in New Hampshire last Friday, but I wasn’t there, just as I won’t be there when the San Francisco production transfers to Colorado Springs in February. Satchmo now belongs to Lawrence E. Street, Barry Shabaka Henley, John Douglas Thompson, and the theater companies that are currently producing it. For better or worse, my first play now has a life of its own. It doesn’t need me anymore.

1556_10153198408887587_2264227981132588836_nIt feels strange to leave Satchmo behind, but it’s also something of a relief. Even when it goes well—perhaps especially when it goes well—opening a show out of town can be a lonely business. To be sure, I have old friends in Chicago and San Francisco who were kind enough to keep me company there, and I also love the wonderful new friends that I’ve made at American Conservatory Theater and the Court. Yet I missed Mrs. T fiercely during my long trek through the time zones, and by the time it was over, I was bone-tired of living out of a carry-on bag and never being quite sure when to go to bed.

I guess I’m too old—and too happily married—to fully embrace the way of life about which Bruce Cockburn sings in “Life Short Call Now,” one of the saddest songs I know:

Billboards promise paradise
And tattoos “done while you wait”
Possible futures all laid out
On the sweeping curve of the interstate

Got no city, got no land
Got no lover, got no wife
How many ways to say goodbye
Can one man fit in a nomad life?

CURTAIN CALLAm I going to miss Satchmo at the Waldorf? I already do. How could I not? A playwright friend of mine accompanied me to opening night in San Francisco, and as I stood next to her at the party after the show, sipping champagne and thanking everybody in sight, I whispered in her ear, “I’m feeling a bit of post-partum depression.” She squeezed my hand sympathetically. I knew she knew how I felt. You become habituated to a steady flow of adrenalin when you’re rehearsing a play. Once it stops, the blues often set in—but they usually go away before long.

Satchmo and I will be getting together again when I direct it for Palm Beach Dramaworks in May. Until then, I’ll be busy living my real life. It’s about time.

* * *

Bruce Cockburn sings “Life Short Call Now”:

Just because: Baby Laurence dances on The Hollywood Palace

January 25, 2016 by Terry Teachout

TV CAMERABaby Laurence does a tap-dance solo on an episode of The Hollywood Palace, originally telecast on ABC on September 26, 1967. This is one of the few surviving telecasts of Laurence’s dancing:

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

Almanac: Heinrich Heine on men of action

January 25, 2016 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“Mark this well, you proud men of action: You are nothing but the unwitting agents of the men of thought who often, in quiet self-effacement, mark out most exactly all your doings in advance.”

Heinrich Heine, History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany

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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