• Home
  • About
    • About Last Night
    • Terry Teachout
    • Contact
  • AJBlogCentral
  • ArtsJournal

About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

You are here: Home / 2018 / February / Archives for 20th

Archives for February 20, 2018

Lookback: on the death of Paul Scofield

February 20, 2018 by Terry Teachout

LOOKBACKFrom 2008:

I never saw Paul Scofield on stage. Few Americans did: he performed in this country only once, in the 1961 Broadway production of Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons. So his death last week failed to make much of an impression on me. On the other hand, I never saw John Gielgud, either, yet I felt a real sense of loss when he died. What accounts for the difference?…

Read the whole thing here.

Almanac: Wolcott Gibbs on how writers mature

February 20, 2018 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“It occurs to me that writers don’t change much from the time they are thirty or thereabouts until they are laid away—permanently, I trust. As they grow older, they are apt to perform at somewhat greater length, age being garrulous, and their prose is perhaps a little more ornate, conceivably because they have so much time for the superfluous decoration on their hands; but the essence remains the same. An author is either competent or horrible in the beginning, and he stays that way to the end of his days, unless certain pressures force him into other and shadier occupations, like alcoholism or television.”

Wolcott Gibbs, More in Sorrow (courtesy of Thomas Vinciguerra)

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...]

Follow Us on TwitterFollow Us on RSSFollow Us on E-mail

@Terryteachout1

Tweets by TerryTeachout1

Archives

February 2018
M T W T F S S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728  
« Jan   Mar »

An ArtsJournal Blog

Recent Posts

  • Snapshot: Vladimir Horowitz plays Schubert
  • Almanac: Jacques Barzun on the piano
  • Lookback: on joining the National Council on the Arts
  • Almanac: Thornton Wilder on hope
  • Just because: Gore Vidal talks about The Best Man

Copyright © 2021 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in