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Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for April 19, 2016

Annals of postmodern journalism (cont’d)

April 19, 2016 by Terry Teachout

Like everyone else who pays the slightest attention to theater in America, I was neither surprised nor displeased that this year’s Pulitzer Prize for drama went to Hamilton, about whose overwhelming excellence I have long been on record. I do, however, want to offer a cultural footnote to yesterday’s announcement, one that says something revealing about how journalism works in the age of the social media.

CBS_microphone,_1930s,_used_by_Franklin_Roosevelt_for_his_Fireside_Chat_radio_programs_-_National_Museum_of_American_History_-_DSC06235I flew up from Orlando to New York on Monday morning after a lousy night’s sleep, and I fell into bed as soon as I got home for a much-needed nap. I checked Twitter as soon as I woke up to see what was going on, and found my feed full of Pulitzer-related tweets. One of them was a public message from CBS Radio News that read as follows: “Hi Terry. We would love to speak with you, if you have a moment. Please give us a call. Thank you!‬” A phone number followed, which surprised me. (I wonder how many people called it while I was still napping.)

For an instant I suspected you-have-won-one-million-dollars phishery, but the tweet didn’t look phony, and it occurred to me that since my Wall Street Journal reviews of Hamilton had been cited in the show’s publicity, a network producer might be calling to get a quote about the Pulitzer. So I called CBS and was immediately connected to someone who asked if I’d agree to be interviewed about the show for two minutes. “I can say what I have to say in ten seconds,” I replied.

Within a minute I heard a click on the line, and an unseen correspondent to whom I was never introduced asked, “What do you think of the Pulitzer going to Hamilton?” Sleepy though I still was, I opened my mouth and started talking, and for once in my life, the right words came out unhesitatingly: “Sometimes the obvious choice is also the right choice.” And that was that.

You will note that:

• I reflexively went to Twitter, not to any news-related site, to find out what was going on in the world.

• In order to get in touch with me, CBS Radio posted a public message on Twitter instead of trying to reach me by phone (a good thing, too, since I pulled the plug on my landline a decade ago and became a cellphone-only user).

• All this worked perfectly.

I’ve been tweeting since January of 2009. Strange to think that a technology that was close to brand-new seven years ago is now so much a part of my personal and professional existence that I take its existence for granted. Such, I guess, is life under the aspect of postmodernity.

Lookback: Our Girl in Chicago on learning to skate as an adult

April 19, 2016 by Terry Teachout

LOOKBACKFrom 2006:

“I didn’t realize how long it has been since I set out to acquire a brand new skill—hell, in graduate school I think I unlearned a fair number of them—and at this point, anyway, the learning curve is nice and steep. Every week I learn to do something new and get demonstrably better at everything I learned previously. Progress is better than steady, and skating just keeps getting more fun as I test and stretch my limits….”

Read the whole thing here.

Almanac: Lillian Hellman on the need for new playwrights

April 19, 2016 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“When the major talents are directors, actors, and scene designers—that’s dead-end theater. Fine to see, but it ain’t going nowhere. You have to turn out good new writers.”

Lillian Hellman, “The Art of Theater No. 1” (Paris Review, Winter-Spring 1965)

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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