Birgit Nilsson sings “In questa reggia” (from Puccini’s Turandot on a 1967 episode of The Bell Telephone Hour. The conductor is Donald Voorhees:

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

“There was no protection, no quota system when it came to luck. It was like that moment in math when a child learns that the odds of heads or tails is always one-in-two, no matter how many times one has flipped the coin and gotten heads. Every flip, the odds are the same. Every day, you could be unlucky all over again.”

Laura Lippman, I’d Know You Anywhere

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.

BROADWAY:
• An American in Paris (musical, G, too complex for small children, reviewed here)
• Fool for Love (drama, R, some performances sold out last week, closes Dec. 13, reviewed here)
• Fun Home (serious musical, PG-13, nearly all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder (musical, PG-13, closes Jan. 17, reviewed here)
• Hamilton (musical, PG-13, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Hand to God (black comedy, X, absolutely not for children or prudish adults, closes Jan. 3, reviewed here)
• The King and I (musical, G, perfect for children with well-developed attention spans, reviewed here)
• Matilda (musical, G, reviewed here)
• Les Misérables (musical, G, too long and complicated for young children, reviewed here)
• Spring Awakening (musical, PG-13/R, closes Jan. 24, reviewed here)
• Sylvia (comedy, PG-13, closes Jan. 24, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (comedy, G, ideal for bright children, remounting of Broadway production, closing Jan. 3, original production reviewed here)
• Eclipsed (drama, PG-13, closes Nov. 29, reviewed here)
• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)
• The Flick (serious comedy, PG-13, too long for young people with limited attention spans, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN CHICAGO:
• The Price (drama, PG-13, closes Nov. 22, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:
• First Daughter Suite (serious musical, PG-13, extended through Nov. 22, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN CHICAGO:
• The Tempest (Shakespeare, PG-13, closes Nov. 8, reviewed here)

“Kay came to realize that she preferred her books to other people’s company. Reading was not a fallback position for her but an ideal state of being.”

Laura Lippman, What the Dead Know

Annie Ross sings “Twisted,” accompanied by Count Basie on piano, Freddie Green on guitar, Ed Jones on bass, and Sonny Payne on drums. The song is a transcription of a jazz instrumental by Wardell Gray, with lyrics by Ross. This performance was originally telecast on a 1959 episode of Playboy’s Penthouse, hosted by Hugh Hefner:

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

“For although she had been, and still was, very much admired, she had got into the way of preferring unsatisfactory love affairs to any others, so that it was becoming almost a bad habit.”

Barbara Pym, Jane and Prudence

By the time most of you read these words, I’ll be somewhere between New York and Lubbock, Texas, where I’m lecturing on “The Future of Theater” at Texas Tech University and paying a visit to the Buddy Holly Center, which is located on—get this—Crickets Avenue.

Getting to Lubbock from New York requires that you go somewhere else first, so I’ll be spending two and a half hours en route cooling my heels in the Dallas airport. I’m bringing with me a copy of George, the first volume of Emlyn Williams’ biography, which I trust will keep me happily occupied.

I’m speaking under the auspices of Texas Tech’s Institute for the Study of Western Civilization, and should you happen to be in or near Lubbock, the public is invited to attend. The show starts at 5:30 on Wednesday and admission is free.

For more information, go here.

* * *

Buddy Holly and the Crickets perform “That’ll Be the Day” on The Ed Sullivan Show on December 1, 1957:

From 2005:

I’ve become Mr. Bernstein in Citizen Kane, a middle-aged man with a head full of fireflies, perfectly remembered pinpoints of laughter and sorrow, ecstasy and humiliation, that crowd my consciousness without warning. Would that I also had a few flashes of life-changing insight tucked into my album of mental snapshots, but I guess that’s not how memory works….

Read the whole thing here.