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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

Almanac: Richard Sennett on craftsmanship vs. creativity

March 9, 2016 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“Good craftsmen are not expressing themselves. They’re expressing something outside themselves. In that sense, craft is not about selfhood. When somebody declares to you, ‘I feel I have a novel in me, but of course at the moment I’m working in advertising,’ you know that person is never going to be an artist. ‘I have this novel hidden inside myself, I’m an artist without an art.’ I don’t believe that sort of thing. And I don’t believe in the ethos of personal creativity. You either do it or you don’t.”

Richard Sennett, interviewed by Tim Black (“The Intimate Lives of Others,” Spiked, January 2016)

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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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