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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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CONSTANT LAMBERT: A POLYMATH’S PRODIGAL GIFTS FORGOTTEN

April 2, 2014 by Terry Teachout

“He was a powerfully individual composer, an amazingly talented conductor and one of the most quotable critics ever to put pen to paper. So why haven’t you heard of him?…”

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

March 15, 2014 by Terry Teachout

“Four months after ‘Virginia Woolf’ opened, the original cast made a studio recording of the play. Columbia Records released it as a pricey four-LP set that went out of print a few years later and was never reissued–until now. Masterworks Broadway has finally released ‘Virginia Woolf,’ both as a digital download and as a two-CD set. What’s more, it’s even more of a rarity than you might suppose. The ‘Virginia Woolf’ album is still, so far as I know, the only uncut commercial sound recording of a major 20th-century English-language play to have been made by the entire original cast…”

THE NARCISSISM OF BOOMER NOSTALGIA

January 6, 2014 by Terry Teachout

“Not surprisingly, my parents’ generation did everything they could to make life easier for their own children. Was that good for us? I wonder. It certainly didn’t do us any good from a cultural point of view. I’m struck by how few boomers have embraced adult culture in middle age. My impression is that they’d much rather watch sitcoms than read novels, go to the opera or listen to jazz. In large part they’re a cohort of Peter Pans, determined not to grow up any more than they can help…”

THE BEST THEATRE I SAW THIS YEAR

December 27, 2013 by Terry Teachout

“Theater companies everywhere have felt the economic chill and reacted anxiously. On Broadway, big-name revivals and commodity musicals are increasingly all there is; elsewhere, small-cast plays and stock comedies abound. But you can always see good acting, and if you keep an eye out, you’ll find no shortage of challenging fare…”

LIVE THEATER VERSUS OUR ON-DEMAND CULTURE

December 26, 2013 by Terry Teachout

“What’s gone wrong with theater? It isn’t a matter of quality control. I’ve been reviewing performances from coast to coast since 2004, and I continue to be impressed by what I see. Instead, what I’m hearing from regional artistic directors is that they’re being slammed by the on-demand mentality…”

WHAT BILL GATES IS BLIND TO

November 22, 2013 by Terry Teachout

“Mr. Gates thinks it immoral for rich people to give money to museums instead of medical projects, presumably those that have received the official Bill Gates Seal of Moral Approval. To be sure, he deserves full credit for putting his own money where his mouth is: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gives away some $4 billion a year, much of which is used to support health-related initiatives in developing countries, including a world-wide initiative to stamp out polio. Good for him–but when it comes to art, he’s got it all wrong, and then some…”

SOME ARTS INSTITUTIONS DESERVE TO FAIL

November 8, 2013 by Terry Teachout

“According to management guru Peter Drucker, hiring an effective successor to a departing CEO is ‘the ultimate test of any top management and the ultimate test of any institution.’ When it comes to arts organizations, I’d say that the ultimate test is knowing when an institution is suffering from a case of creative and administrative sclerosis that is about to become terminal, then doing something about it…”

HOW THE VCR CHANGED THE WAY WE WATCH MOVIES

October 13, 2013 by Terry Teachout

“Today’s youngsters simply can’t imagine the overwhelming power of the cultural transformation that was made possible by the invention of the VCR…”

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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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