Archives for January 26, 2016

Chicago’s Court Theatre announced yesterday that its critically acclaimed production of Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, will extend its run through February 14 “due to overwhelming demand.”

Just in case you’re wondering, I’m delighted. Astonished. Flabbergasted. Discombobulated. All these things—and many, many more.

To order tickets or for more information about the play and production, go here.

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Barry Shabaka Henley, the star of the Court Theatre’s production of Satchmo at the Waldorf, appears in two excerpts from the show.

As Louis Armstrong:

As Joe Glaser, Armstrong’s manager:

From 2006:

The age of mechanical reproduction, alas, has sharply diminished the value of the eyewitness account: I saw Count Basie in concert a half-dozen times when I lived in Kansas City, for instance, but I also saw him on film and TV so many times that it’s hard for me to distinguish between my first- and second-hand memories. Still, I’ve seen plenty of amazing things at which no cameramen were present….

Read the whole thing here.

“A man who waits to believe in action before acting is anything you like, but he’s not a man of action. It is as if a tennis player before returning a ball stopped to think about his views of the physical and mental advantages of tennis. You must act as you breathe.”

Georges Clemenceau, Clemenceau, The Events of His Life as Told by Himself to His Former Secretary, Jean Martet (trans. Milton Waldman)