Friday, December 25, 2020
In today’s Wall Street Journal I review webcast versions of Meet Me in St. Louis and An Iliad, plus a video concert by Melissa Errico. Here’s an excerpt.
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New York’s Irish R…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:03AMFrancis Grier and the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, perform Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols on TV in 1942. The harpist is Frances Kelly:
(This is the latest in a ser…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AMSweet hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o’er my head.
John Keats, “To Hope”
Continue reading Almanac: Keats on hope at About Last Night.
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, December 24, 2020
Satchmo at the Waldorf, my one-man play about Louis Armstrong, has been produced numerous times from coast to coast since its Florida premiere in 2011. I’ve seen eight stagings, two of whi…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 03:37PMI loved the family Christmases of my youth and awaited them eagerly each year. In adulthood, alas, the holiday season became for me a time of increasingly fraught memories. The first of thes…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“It is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded; for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction.”
Samuel J…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, December 23, 2020
In my latest Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column, I talk about how good plays get turned into bad movies—and who’s to blame. Here’s an excerpt.
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The universal criti…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMLouis Armstrong recites Clement Moore’s “The Night Before Christmas.” This was Armstrong’s last commercial recording. He made it at his home in Queens on February 26, 1971, five mon…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Continue reading Almanac: Dickens on the Christmas spirit at About Last Night.
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMTuesday, December 22, 2020
From 2011:
Yesterday’s reminiscence of the first movie I ever saw in a theater has put me in a nostalgic mood, so with the help of Wikipedia, I’ve compiled a list of interesting things…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“To perceive Christmas through its wrapping becomes more difficult with every year.”
E.B. White, “The Distant Music of the Hounds”
Continue reading Almanac: E.B. White on Christmas a…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, December 21, 2020
Charles Bruffy and the Kansas City Chorale perform “Nova, Nova,” the second movement from Jean Belmont’s Nativitas:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Now Christmas is built upon a beautiful and intentional paradox; that the birth of the homeless should be celebrated in every home.”
G.K. Chesterton, The Thing
Continue reading Almanac…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, December 18, 2020
In today’s Wall Street Journal I review three webcast productions of A Christmas Carol and a webcast of The Steadfast Tin Soldier. Here’s an excerpt.
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Stage versions of “…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMMel Tormé sings “Moonlight in Vermont” on TV in 1967. The pianist is Stan Kenton:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Mon…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“This is a pleasant surprise, Archie. I would not have beieved it. That of course is the advantage of being a pessimist; a pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothin…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, December 17, 2020
In today’s Wall Street Journal I chronicle the best theater of 2020—all of it in the form of streaming webcasts. Here’s an excerpt.
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The last time I went to a theater was …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“To assert dignity is to lose it.”
Rex Stout, The League of Frightened Men
Continue reading Almanac: Nero Wolfe on dignity at About Last Night.
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, December 16, 2020
“We’re Despicable,” written by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill for the soundtrack of Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, originally telecast by NBC in 1962:
(This is the latest in a series of …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“There is nothing like infantilism for keeping the eyes bright and the skin smooth.”
Rebecca West, The New Meaning of Treason
Continue reading Almanac: Rebecca West on immature adults a…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMTuesday, December 15, 2020
From 2007:
I’m writing these words at nine a.m. on Christmas Eve. Not a creature is stirring, not even Mrs. T, who isn’t a morning person, or my mother, who went to bed gratefully last n…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Those who foresee the future and recognize it as tragic are often seized by a madness which forces them to commit the very acts which make it certain that what they dread shall happen.”…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, December 14, 2020
Nancy LaMott died a quarter-century ago this past weekend. While she isn’t as well remembered now as she deserves to be, Nancy was a rising star in 1995, having made her Carnegie Hall debu…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMMarin Mazzie sings Stephen Sondheim’s “Not a Day Goes By,” from Merrily We Roll Along:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space e…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.”
Cicero, Philippicæ
Continue reading Almanac: Cicero on memory at About Last Night.
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, December 11, 2020
In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the Wilma Theater’s webcast of Will Arbery’s Heroes of the Fourth Turning. Here’s an excerpt.
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Philadelphia’s Wilma Theater, one …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:03AMGreer Garson presents the 1952 Best Actor Oscar to Humphrey Bogart for his performance in John Huston’s The African Queen. It was Bogart’s first Oscar:
(This is the latest in a series…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“I don’t claim to know that God exists. I only claim that he does without my knowing it.”
Tom Stoppard, Jumpers
Continue reading Almanac: Tom Stoppard on God at About Last Night.
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, December 10, 2020
My “Sightings” column in this week’s Wall Street Journal is about large-scale virtual presentations of famous works of art. Here’s an excerpt.
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The bad news is “Immers…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“To die is poignantly bitter, but the idea of having to die without having lived is unbearable.”
Erich Fromm, Man for Himself
Continue reading Almanac: Erich Fromm on death at About Las…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, December 9, 2020
The Paul Taylor Dance Company performs an excerpt from Taylor’s Musical Offering, set to the music of Bach and accompanied by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. This performance was filmed on…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM 
