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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for January 4, 2019

Back on the aisle again

January 4, 2019 by Terry Teachout

Two episodes of Three on the Aisle, the twice-monthly podcast in which Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I talk about theater in America, became available on line for listening or downloading during my semi-hiatus from this blog.

In the first episode, which dropped on December 14, we took various questions from our listeners, discussed political theater, and talked about To Kill a Mockingbird, the Washington production of Indecent, and From Broadway to Main Street, Laurence Maslon’s new book about how America discovered the Broadway musical.

To listen to or download this episode, read more about it, or subscribe to Three on the Aisle, go here.

On December 27, we dropped our best-and-worst-of-the-year episode, in which we talked about a variety of specific shows and also discussed such trends as the rise of women playwrights and the growing number of straight plays that opened on Broadway in 2018.

To listen to or download this episode, read more about it, or subscribe to Three on the Aisle, go here.

In case you’ve missed any previous episodes, you’ll find them all here.

Replay: Mike Wallace interviews Tony Perkins in 1958

January 4, 2019 by Terry Teachout

TV CAMERATony Perkins appears as the guest on a 1958 episode of The Mike Wallace Interview:

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

Almanac: William Goldman on drama critics

January 4, 2019 by Terry Teachout

“There is one thing that 99 percent of all critics share with one another: they are failures. I don’t mean failures as critics—my God, that’s understood. I don’t even mean they are failures as people; I mean something more painful by far: These people are failures in life. 

“It’s a second-rate job, folks. Being a drama critic on Broadway wouldn’t keep a decent mind occupied 10% of the time. So you don’t even get second-raters. You get the dregs, the stage-struck but untalented neurotic who eventually drifts into criticism as a means of clinging peripherally to the arts. And most of your cruel critics come this way: they are getting their own back.”

William Goldman, <I>The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway</I> (courtesy of Jason Zinoman)

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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