Friday, April 30, 2021
Mint is webcasting “A Picture of Autumn” as part of a series of broadcast-quality archival videos taped at live performances, and the strong impression the play made on me when I first s…
SOURCE: The Wall Street Journal at 10:43AMWednesday, March 24, 2021
A case in point is New York’s Mint Theatre Company, a small but distinguished troupe that performs in an 88-seat off-Broadway house. During the past year, the Mint has webcast free broadca…
SOURCE: The Wall Street Journal at 09:35AMFriday, March 5, 2021
“Bad Dates” never fails to give great pleasure in the hands of an appealing actor and a solid production team, and Andréa Burns and her George Street colleagues are all that and much, m…
SOURCE: The Wall Street Journal at 12:05PMMonday, February 22, 2021
Graham Greene is interviewed by Jack Mangan in an outtake from a 1950 episode of Ship’s Reporter in which he talks about The Third Man:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and his…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“People don’t like reality. They don’t like common sense. Until age forces it on them.”
Graham Greene, Loser Takes All
Continue reading Almanac: Graham Greene on facing reality at A…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, February 19, 2021
In today’s Wall Street Journal, I review webcasts of Katie Roche and The Book of Magdalene. Here’s an excerpt.
* * *
One of the few happy surprises of 2020 was the Mint Theater Co…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMFats Waller sings and plays “Ain’t Misbehavin’” in Stormy Weather, directed by Andrew L. Stone in 1943. The members of the band include Benny Carter on trumpet, Zutty Singleton on d…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man.”
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 85
Continue reading Almanac: Alexander Hamilton on perfection at About Last Night.
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, February 18, 2021
One of the few happy surprises of 2020 was the Mint Theater Company’s announcement that it had built up a private stockpile of broadcast-quality archival videos of its past productions and…
SOURCE: The Wall Street Journal at 07:02PM“When I was writing three-act plays, a producer told me the curtain should always come down on the beginning of the fourth act. A play should never really come to an end.”
Neil Simon, in…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, February 17, 2021
Bill Evans plays “My Foolish Heart” on British TV in 1965, with Chuck Israels on bass and Larry Bunker on drums:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AMTuesday, February 16, 2021
From 2006:
When I was young, everybody I knew watched The Andy Griffith Show. Today there are no TV shows that “everybody” watches, and no movies that everyone has seen. Indeed, the Ame…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AMFebruary makes a bridge, and
March breaks it.
George Herbert, “Jacula Prudentum”
Continue reading Almanac: George Herbert on February and March at About Last Night.
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, February 15, 2021
The Miles Davis Quintet plays “My Funny Valentine” on Italian TV in 1964:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wedn…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AMAnd did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
Raymond Carver, “Late Fragment”
Contin…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, February 12, 2021
In today’s Wall Street Journal, I review streaming webcasts of Patrick Page’s All the Devils Are Here and the Lantern Theater Company’s production of Molly Sweeney. Here’s an excerpt…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMLaurence Olivier talks about delivering Shakespearian blank verse in an undated TV clip. Also heard from is John Gielgud:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“It seemed to Graham that he had learned nothing in forty years. He had just gotten tired.”
Thomas Harris, Red Dragon
Continue reading Almanac: Thomas Harris on middle age at About Last…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, February 11, 2021
“Never forget that the spoken word is not twice nor three times, but five times as potent as the written word, so that what would occupy a page in a novel should take up only five lines in…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMA new episode of Three on the Aisle, the podcast in which Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I talk about theater in America, is now available on line for listening or downloading.
He…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, February 10, 2021
Randy Newman sings his own “I Think It’s Gonna Rain Today” on the BBC in 1971:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monda…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“In memory everything seems to happen to music.”
Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie
Continue reading Almanac: Tennessee Williams on memory at About Last Night.
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMTuesday, February 9, 2021
From 2020:
I’ll never again take another first date to Mario’s Deli, invite her to tell me all about herself, and wonder as I listen whether she might possibly be the girl of my dreams. …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick.”
John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men
Continue reading Almanac: John Steinbeck on loneliness at About Last Night.
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, February 8, 2021
Mauricio Pollini, Riccardo Muti, and Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala perform the second movement from Mozart’s C Major Piano Concerto, K. 467:
(This is the latest in a series of arts-…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“The secret of a good old age is simply an honorable pact with solitude.”
Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (trans. Gregory Rabassa)
Continue reading Almanac: Gabri…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, February 5, 2021
In today’s Wall Street Journal, I review regional webcasts of Doubt and The Niceties. Here’s an excerpt.
* * *
Some plays are so obviously well-suited to socially distanced webcast…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMMeryl Streep and Viola Davis in a scene from the film version of John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt: A Parable, directed by the author:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-rela…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“I think there is in the heroic courage with which man confronts the irrationality of the world a beauty greater than the beauty of art.”
Somerset Maugham, A Writer’s Notebook
Continu…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, February 4, 2021
In today’s Wall Street Journal I pay tribute to Hal Holbrook. Here’s an excerpt.
* * *
Hal Holbrook, who died on Jan. 23 at age 95—his death was announced this week—spent most…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.”
Mark Twain, notebook entry, January or February 1894,
Continue reading Almanac: Mark Twain on honesty at About Last Night.
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AM 
