About Last Night

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:
• A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder (musical, PG-13, reviewed here)
• It’s Only a Play (comedy, PG-13/R, closes June 7, reviewed here)
• Matilda (musical, G, reviewed here)
• Les Misérables (musical, G, too long and complicated for young children, reviewed here)
• On the Town (musical, G, contains double entendres that will not be intelligible to children, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)
• Hamilton (historical musical, PG-13, closes May 3, moves to Broadway Aug. 6, reviewed here)

IN SARASOTA, FLA.:
• Both Your Houses (political satire, G/PG-13, closes Apr. 12, reviewed here)
• The Matchmaker (romantic farce, G, closes Apr. 11, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:
• Between Riverside and Crazy (drama, PG-13, remounting of off-Broadway production, closes Mar. 22, original production reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON ON BROADWAY:
• Cabaret (musical, PG-13/R, some performances sold out last week, closes Mar. 29, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:
• Lives of the Saints (six one-act comedies, PG-13/R, closes Mar. 27, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN ORLANDO, FLA.:
• Henry V (Shakespeare, PG-13, closes Mar. 22, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN VERO BEACH, FLA.:
• West Side Story (musical, PG-13, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY OFF BROADWAY:
• The Iceman Cometh (drama, PG-13, remounting of Chicago production, original production reviewed here)

“You so quickly get used to peace. It is like being well–you take it for granted, and forget that when you were ill to be well again had seemed everything.”

V.S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River

Evgeny Kissin plays Samuel Barber’s Piano Sonata in concert:

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

“It is wrong to have an ideal view of the world. That’s where the mischief starts.”

V.S. Naipaul, Magic Seeds

As some of you may recall, I spent several hours last year being interviewed for a two-part TV documentary about Frank Sinatra. I was much impressed at the time by the seriousness and industry of the producers, who had not only done their homework but had very clearly profited from it. It’s easy to be superficial about Sinatra, but they assured me that their interest was not in retailing gossip but in exploring his artistry, and I took them at their word.

The fruits of their labors are about to be harvested. Sinatra: All or Nothing at All will air on HBO on April 5 and 6. A minute-long trailer has just been posted on YouTube, and it seems that I figure prominently in it.

If you’re curious, take a look:

UPDATE: An old college friend writes: “I just heard your voice on an advertisement for a documentary about Frank Sinatra on HBO! I haven’t heard your voice in decades!”

From 2005:

Of all my peculiar claims to singularity, this one may be the most revealing: I’ve never met another person whose head was crammed full of so much miscellaneous information about people like Fred Allen, most of it utterly useless. To put it another way, I can be boring about more subjects than anyone I know. Fortunately, I’m painfully aware that I suffer from this chronic disability, and sometimes even manage to guard against inflicting it on my friends….

Read the whole thing here.

“One always writes comedy at the moment of deepest hysteria.”

V.S. Naipaul (interviewed in the New York Times, Apr. 24, 1994)

The Court Theatre, the resident professional theater company of the University of Chicago, has just announced its 2015-16 season. It includes productions of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean, Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Richard Bean’s One Man, Two Guvnors, and—yes—my own Satchmo at the Waldorf, which will receive its Chicago premiere at the Court in January of 2016. The production, which will open on January 7 and run through February 7, will be directed by Charles Newell, the company’s artistic director.

According to the press release:

After one of his final performances, Louis Armstrong retires backstage and begins to reminisce about his incredibly successful career. As the evening unfolds, he reveals an intimate, unknown portrait of the man behind the trumpet and the ever-evolving struggle to live with dignity as a black musician in a white world. Written with theatrical ingenuity by Terry Teachout, who has entrusted Artistic Director Charlie Newell with the play’s Midwest premiere, Armstrong’s story is told through the voice of a single actor playing both Armstrong and his Jewish manager Joe Glaser, bringing to life an emotional journey of deep friendship and its tragic destruction. Satchmo at the Waldorf is an intimate exploration of Armstrong’s life, legacy, and above all, jazz.

It’s a matter of long-standing record that I consider the Court to be one of America’s great regional theaters. I called it “the most consistently excellent theater company in America…a shining example of what American theater can and should hope to be” in my best-of-2006 theater column for The Wall Street Journal. I am honored beyond words to learn that my first play will be performed there, and that it will be directed by an artist whom I admire without limit.

For the record, Satchmo is now set to receive four regional productions in the next fourteen months: it will be staged in Beverly Hills this May, in Chicago and San Francisco next January, and in West Palm Beach in May of 2016.

How lucky am I? Boundlessly so.

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To read the Court’s season announcement, go here.

To read the Chicago Tribune’s story about the Court’s season announcement, go here.

Jimmy Rushing sings “Goin’ to Chicago Blues” on The Subject Is Jazz in 1958: