Archives for 2016

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.

BROADWAY:
• An American in Paris (musical, G, too complex for small children, closes Jan. 1, reviewed here)
• The Color Purple (musical, PG-13, many performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Hamilton (musical, PG-13, Broadway transfer of off-Broadway production, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Matilda (musical, G, closes Jan. 1, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• On Your Feet! (jukebox musical, G, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• A Day by the Sea (drama, G, not suitable for children, closes Sept. 24, reviewed here)
• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)
• Sense & Sensibility (serious romantic comedy, G, remounting of 2014 off-Broadway production, closes Nov. 20, original production reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK ON BROADWAY:
• Fun Home (serious musical, PG-13, closes Sept. 10, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN EAST HADDAM, CONN.:
• Bye Bye Birdie (musical, G, closes Sept. 8, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY ON BROADWAY:
• Les Misérables (musical, G, too long and complicated for young children, virtually all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

“He had enjoyed his time at Cambridge; he had even liked the English. Their hypocrisy hadn’t troubled him, only their ignorance that they were hypocrites.”

William Haggard, The Antagonists

Benny Goodman appears as the mystery guest on What’s My Line? This episode was telecast by CBS on July 22, 1962. The host is John Charles Daly and the panelists are Bennett Cerf, Arlene Francis, Buddy Hackett, and Dorothy Kilgallen:

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

“Cynicism is intellectual dandyism.”

George Meredith, The Egoist

From 2006:

Do I wish I lived in a simpler time? Occasionally–but I grew up in a much simpler time, and though I recall with nostalgia my days of slow-moving innocence, I can’t begin to imagine doing without cellphones, laptops, and iPods. I spent the first ten years of my career as a professional writer clicking away at a manual typewriter, and I don’t miss that old black monster in the slightest, any more than I regret the invention of the pills I take twice a day in order to defer for as long as possible the appointment with the Distinguished Thing about which I dreamed the other night….

Read the whole thing here.

“The cynic, a parasite of civilisation, lives by denying it, for the very reason that he is convinced that it will not fail. What would become of the cynic among a savage people where everyone, naturally and quite seriously, fulfils what the cynic farcically considers to be his personal role?”

José Ortega y Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses

Forgive my recent semi-absence from this space, but I’ve been inordinately busy of late, quite a bit more than I expected to be. Among other things, the Mosaic Theater Company’s production of Satchmo at the Waldorf, which began previews last Thursday, opens tonight in Washington, D.C.

This is, unlikely as it may sound, Satchmo’s twelfth staging to date. It’s already been produced in Orlando, Lenox, New Haven, Philadelphia, Beverly Hills, Chicago, San Francisco, Portsmouth, Colorado Springs, West Palm Beach, and Sacramento, with the Baton Rouge premiere set for next month. Craig Wallace, Mosaic’s star, will be the fifth person to play the triple role of Louis Armstrong, Joe Glaser, and Miles Davis, and Eleanor Holdridge is the sixth person to direct the show.

Washington is one of the cities in which I’ve most wanted to see Satchmo staged, and the Mosaic’s production is everything I’d hoped for. I attended the third rehearsal a few weeks ago, but I couldn’t stay for more than a day (I had other shows to see). So I flew from Connecticut to Washington yesterday morning for the last preview, and I’ll be in the house again for the invitation-only opening-night performance. I’m very pleased by how the production has taken shape. Eleanor’s staging and Andrew Cohen’s set are more naturalistic than their predecessors, but I’m good with that: I like seeing sharply contrasting approaches to Satchmo, and the up-close intimacy of this new version speaks very strongly to me. As for Craig, he’s flat-out fabulous.

I wasn’t able to make it to Sacramento for B Street Theatre’s production, which opened last week, nor will I be able to go to Baton Rouge to see New Venture Theatre’s two-night run of Satchmo in September. It never occurred to me when I wrote it six years ago that Satchmo would eventually become so popular that I’d find it impossible to keep up with all of its various productions. Yet that’s what’s happened, and I don’t quite know what to make of it. More and more I find myself feeling like a father whose no-longer-young child has flown the coop at last. I can’t do much for him anymore: he’s on his own now, making his way in the world for better or worse as I look on from afar with a mixture of bemusement and paternal pride.

In honor of all three productions, I’m posting, as I always do whenever a show of mine opens, my good-luck video:

Break a leg, everybody!

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The Mosaic Theater Company’s production of Satchmo at the Waldorf runs in Washington, D.C., through September 25. To order tickets or for more information, go here.

B Street Theatre’s production of Satchmo runs in Sacramento, California, through September 17. To order tickets or for more information, go here.

New Venture Theatre will perform Satchmo in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on September 10 and 11. To order tickets or for more information, go here.

Louis Armstrong and the All Stars perform “Mack the Knife” in concert in 1956:

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