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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

The one best book about Broadway

July 4, 2019 by Terry Teachout

In today’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column, I commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of William Goldman’s The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway. Here’s an excerpt.

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What’s it like to put on a show, and what kinds of people do so? I can think of any number of theatrical memoirs and biographies that are as readable as good novels, starting with Moss Hart’s “Act One.” But if what you want to know is how Broadway works, and why it usually doesn’t, the best book to read was written 50 years ago by a man who never managed to write a successful play. It’s William Goldman’s “The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway,” still in print and as relevant as ever. Smart, catty and comprehensively well-informed, “The Season” tells truths that have withstood the cruel test of time, which is another way of saying that when it comes down to basics, nothing much changes on Broadway….

A half-century after the fact, it’s startling how contemporary “The Season” sounds….

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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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