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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Catch-up time

August 13, 2021 by Terry Teachout

As I wrote in this space on Monday, I was forced to take a three-week hiatus from blogging because of overwork and technical problems. Now that I’m back again, I want to post links to the things I wrote and did elsewhere during my absence:

• I reviewed streaming webcasts of two plays, Quintessence Theatre’s production of Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth and American Players Theater’s production of Tom Stoppard’s Rough Crossing.

• I reviewed three live shows, Shakespeare & Company’s production of Debra Ann Byrd’s Becoming Othello: A Black Girl’s Journey, Barrington Stage’s premiere of Mark St. Germain’s Eleanor, and the Peterborough Players’ site-specific outdoor production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town.

• I published a Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column on James Lapine’s Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created “Sunday in the Park With George”.

• In addition, Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I released a new “Three on the Aisle” podcast about theater in America. Here’s the official summary:

This week, the critics talk about live theatre! They focus on productions outside of New York City, including Shakespeare & Company’s King Lear in the Berkshires, an upcoming Our Town by the Peterborough Players in New Hampshire, a performance of Come From Away on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and Elisabeth’s mysterious trip to Creede, Colo. We also discuss Broadway’s reopening schedule, the state of vaccination and variants, and Peter’s acclaimed college acting career.

Go here to listen or download.

• As I mentioned on “Three on the Aisle,” I’ve fallen in love with a wonderful woman named Cheril. It seemed appropriate to mention her on the podcast because we “met” as a result of her hearing me there last year. Cheril and I became close shortly after the first anniversary of Hilary’s death on March 31, and we now consider ourselves full-fledged romantic partners. Like Hilary, she is a private person, so I won’t say much more than that, but I did want all of you to know that we’re both profoundly happy.

Replay: Tony Bennett sings “It Amazes Me”

August 13, 2021 by Terry Teachout

Tony Bennett sings “It Amazes Me,” by Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh, on a 1994 episode of MTV Unplugged:

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

Almanac: W.H. Auden on attitudes toward the past

August 13, 2021 by Terry Teachout

“Man is a history-making creature who can neither repeat his past nor leave it behind.”

W.H. Auden, “D.H. Lawrence”

Almanac: Thomas Carlyle on uneventfulness

August 12, 2021 by Terry Teachout

“Happy the people whose annals are tiresome.”

Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution

Snapshot: Buddy Rich plays “Love for Sale”

August 11, 2021 by Terry Teachout

Buddy Rich and his big band perform Cole Porter’s “Love for Sale” on British TV in 1979:

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

Almanac: W.H. Auden on children and political history

August 11, 2021 by Terry Teachout

“Political history is far too criminal and pathological to be a fit subject of study for the young. Children should acquire their heroes and villains from fiction.”

W.H. Auden, A Certain World

Lookback: my favorite George Cukor story

August 10, 2021 by Terry Teachout

From 2011:

This is my all-time favorite George Cukor story. It comes from No Minor Chords, André Previn’s autobiography. I hope it’s true!…

Read the whole thing here.

Almanac: John Steinbeck on history

August 10, 2021 by Terry Teachout

“How can we live without our lives? How will we know it’s us without our past?”

John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

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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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