• 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 / March / Archives for 8th

Archives for March 8, 2018

Back home again

March 8, 2018 by Terry Teachout

I was beat to the socks after I got back to New York from Houston, and I’m only just starting to pull myself together a week later. Nevertheless, I’m feeling good about the Alley Theatre’s production of Satchmo at the Waldorf, which I stepped in to direct at the last possible minute. It was a fearfully hard row to hoe—I said yes to the Alley seven days before the first rehearsal, with next to no time to prepare—but everything came together wonderfully well, and I ended up having a ball.

Needless to say, it made a huge difference that I was working with Jerome Preston Bates, who’s giving the performance of a lifetime in the triple role of Louis Armstrong, Joe Glaser, and Miles Davis. I couldn’t have asked for a finer colleague, or for a more splendid team of collaborators than Kevin Adams, John Gromada, Lee Savage, and Ilona Somogyi, the design team for the off-Broadway production, with whom I had the privilege of working again in Houston. As for the Alley’s own staff, they welcomed me into their professional home so graciously that I felt it to be my own.

I wish I could say that I enjoyed the rest of my stay, but I was so busy working on Satchmo that I didn’t see much more of Houston than the theater, my hotel, a couple of restaurants, my newborn niece, and the University of Houston, where I spent a happy evening speaking to an enthusiastic group of theater majors. All I can tell you is that I liked everybody I met, and that I look forward to returning at the earliest possible opportunity.

What I can definitely say is that directing Satchmo again was the thrill of a lifetime. The response to my production was overwhelmingly favorable, enough so to make me think, as I did after my previous staging of Satchmo opened two years ago in West Palm Beach, that I might just have a knack for stage directing. True or not, I know that I want to do it again as soon as possible, and that I want to direct a play by someone else next time—and yes, I have one or two in mind!

We’ll see what, if anything, happens. For now, though, I’m more than content to read the nightly stage management reports from the Alley Theatre and revel in my still-fresh memories of my unexpected adventure in Houston. I’m a lucky guy.

* * *

The Alley Theatre’s promotional video for Satchmo at the Waldorf:

So you want to see a show?

March 8, 2018 by Terry Teachout

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:
• The Band’s Visit (musical, PG-13, nearly all shows sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Dear Evan Hansen (musical, PG-13, all shows sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Hamilton (musical, PG-13, Broadway transfer of off-Broadway production, all shows sold out last week, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:
• At Home at the Zoo (drama, PG-13/R, newly extended through March 25, reviewed here)
• Hangmen (black comedy, PG-13/R, newly extended through March 25, reviewed here)

Almanac: Allan Bloom on utopianism

March 8, 2018 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“Utopianism is, as Plato taught us at the outset, the fire with which we must play because it is the only way we can find out what we are. We need to criticize false understandings of Utopia, but the easy way out provided by realism is deadly.”

Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind

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

March 2018
M T W T F S S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031  
« Feb   Apr »

An ArtsJournal Blog

Recent Posts

  • The pandemic process
  • Classics for free
  • Replay: Laurence Olivier in Uncle Vanya
  • Almanac: Chekhov on friendship between men and women
  • Almanac: Will and Ariel Durant on revolution

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