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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

On America’s stages in 2017, vitality in every way—but one

December 14, 2017 by Terry Teachout

Today’s Wall Street Journal contains my best-theater-of-2017 list. Some highlights:

• Best performance in a play. Nehassaiu deGannes was fiercely impassioned in Shakespeare & Company’s production of “Intimate Apparel,” Lynn Nottage’s 2003 play about a turn-of-the-century black seamstress who falls for the wrong man.

• Best performance in a musical. In Pittsfield, Mass., Aaron Tveit gave the best sung, most moving performance I’ve ever seen on stage as the ambivalent Bobby in Julianne Boyd’s Barrington Stage Company production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Company.”

• Best ensemble. The Transport Group’s off-Broadway revivals of William Inge’s “Come Back, Little Sheba” and “Picnic,” directed by Jack Cummings III and presented in rotating repertory, featured a cast whose members—14 actors, six of whom appeared in both shows—made a powerful case for Inge’s sad tales of Midwestern loneliness….

To find out (among other things) my picks for best classical production, best revival of a modern play, best revival of a musical, best new play and musical, and playwright of the year, read the whole thing here.

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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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