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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for October 17, 2018

Life begins at forty-seven

October 17, 2018 by Terry Teachout

Life, I’m told, is supposed to slow down as you grow older, but the opposite has happened to me. Instead, it’s become more hectic—and more fulfilling. I spent a few minutes the other day scribbling down some notes about what’s happened to me in the past decade and a half. Here are some of the high points:

• In 2003, I became the Journal’s drama critic and launched this blog.

• In 2005, I fell in love at first sight with the future Mrs. T and, a month later, nearly died of congestive heart failure.

• In 2006, I turned fifty.

• In 2007, Mrs. T and I got married.

• In 2009, The Letter, my first operatic collaboration with Paul Moravec, was premiered in Santa Fe. A few weeks after that, Pops, my Louis Armstrong biography, was published.

• In 2010, I started writing my first play, Satchmo at the Waldorf.

• In 2011, Satchmo was premiered in Florida.

• In 2012, I received a Guggenheim Fellowship. A month later, my mother died. I then spent six weeks working on Satchmo and Duke, my Duke Ellington biography, at the MacDowell Colony, after which Satchmo received its first major productions in Massachusetts and Philadelphia.

• In 2013, Duke was published.

• In 2014, Satchmo was produced off Broadway.

• In 2016, I turned sixty and made my professional debut as a stage director.

• In 2017, Billy and Me, my second play, was premiered.

I’m sixty-two years old. I wonder what will happen to me between now and 2033?

* * *

Jimmy Durante sings “September Song,” by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson, on TV in 1955, the year before I was born:

Snapshot: The first episode of My World…and Welcome to It

October 17, 2018 by Terry Teachout

TV CAMERA“Man Against the World,” the first episode of My World…and Welcome to It, a sitcom in which William Windom played John Monroe, a writer modeled after James Thurber. The designers of the show made use of animated drawings based on Thurber’s New Yorker cartoons, and the scripts were inspired by Thurber’s stories. This episode, written and directed by Melville Shavelson, was originally telecast by NBC on September 15, 1969:

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

Almanac: Lord Byron on the relative merits of men and women

October 17, 2018 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“I think the worst woman that ever existed would have made a man of very passable reputation—they are all better than us—& their faults such as they are must originate with ourselves.”

Lord Byron, letter to Annabella Milbanke, September 6, 1813

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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