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Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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He went down to the crossroads

December 3, 2021 by Terry Teachout

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the Lantern Theater Company’s hybrid-theater streaming production of Me and the Devil. Here’s an excerpt.

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Robert Johnson’s celebrity was wholly posthumous, the result of the 29 records that he cut in 1936 and 1937. An itinerant regional blues singer and guitarist born in Mississippi in 1911, he performed mainly in small towns in the Mississippi Delta, and his death at age 27 prevented him from attaining wider renown. Very little is known of his life, and it was not until 1961 that Columbia released “King of the Delta Blues Singers,” an LP containing 16 of his 78 rpm sides that found its way into the hands of Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. Their enthusiastic response (Mr. Clapton called Johnson “the greatest blues singer who ever lived”) secured his well-deserved fame at long last.

Enter Steve H. Broadnax III, a prominent regional stage director who made the big leap to New York with impressive productions of “The Hot Wing King” and “Thoughts of a Colored Man.” It turns out that Mr. Broadnax is also a playwright, and he has now collaborated with Charles Dumas on “Me and the Devil,” a one-man musical bioplay about Johnson whose premiere production, directed by Mr. Broadnax, was taped in June by Philadelphia’s Lantern Theater Company for later streaming. It is first-class in every way….

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Read the whole thing here.

Robert Johnson performs “Me and the Devil Blues”:

Replay: Cream plays “Crossroads”

December 3, 2021 by Terry Teachout

Cream plays Robert Johnson’s “Crossroads” live at Fillmore West in 1968:

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

Almanac: Pascal on admiration as a human trait

December 3, 2021 by Terry Teachout

“Animals do not admire each other. A horse does not admire its companion.”

Blaise Pascal, Pensées

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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