Monday, April 13, 2020
“Plausible reasons have never been lacking for putting off all merely cultural activities until some imminent danger has been averted or some crying injustice put right. But humanity long …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, April 10, 2020
In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the American Shakespeare Center’s webcasts of Much Ado About Nothing and both parts of Henry IV. Here’s an excerpt.
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As America’s t…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMSome of Manie’s Friends, an extremely rare kinescope of a televised tribute to Manie Sacks, the recording-company executive, hosted by Perry Como and originally broadcast by NBC on March 3…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“There’s nothing as safe as ignorance—or as dangerous.”
Rex Stout, “The Squirt and the Monkey”
Continue reading Almanac: Rex Stout on ignorance at About Last Night.
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, April 9, 2020
“Ignorance is a kind of insanity in the human animal. People who delight in torturing defenseless children or tiny creatures are in reality insane. The terrible thing is that people who ar…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 05:00AMWednesday, April 8, 2020
“Nichols and May: Take Two,” an American Masters documentary about Elaine May and Mike Nichols originally telecast on PBS in 1996:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMTuesday, April 7, 2020
From 2010:
Each day is, of course, its own challenge, and I’m sure that I’ll forget to be grateful for all my good fortune at some particularly exasperating point in the week to come. Bu…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Fortune is the least capricious of deities, and arranges things on the just and rigid system that no one shall be very happy for very long.”
Evelyn Waugh, Labels (courtesy of Richard Z…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, April 6, 2020
Many of you have been asking if there are plans for a funeral or memorial service for Hilary Teachout, my beloved wife, who died peacefully on Tuesday night after we spent our last good day …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 04:57PMA few days after my beloved Hilary received her double-lung transplant, I published an open letter in The Wall Street Journal addressed to the family of the anonymous organ donor, now decea…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:02AMGeorge Balanchine and Suzanne Farrell dance the “vision scene” from Balanchine’s Don Quixote, choreographed in 1965. The score is by Nicolas Nabokov:
(This is the latest in a series …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:01AM“Such is the life of man. A few joys, quickly obliterated by unforgettable sorrows.
“There is no need to tell the children so.”
Marcel Pagnol, In My Mother’s Castle (courtesy of Bru…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:00AMFriday, April 3, 2020
In today’s Wall Street Journal I review a pay-per-view webcast performance by Houston’s Alley Theatre of a stage version of 1984. (This review was written before the death of my wife Hil…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 01:04AMThis is, first of all, an expression of profound gratitude. I knew that many people were following the unfolding story of my beloved Hilary, but I had no idea how many until I posted this tr…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 01:03AMThe New England Conservatory Contemporary Ensemble plays the original chamber-orchestra version of Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring in concert in 2014:
(This is the latest in a series o…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 01:01AM“‘I used to think I couldn’t let you go, but I’m learning to feel that I don’t lose you, that you’ll be more to me than ever, and death can’t part us, though it seems to.’
�…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 01:00AMThursday, April 2, 2020
“Michael has a clean burial in the far north, by the grace of the Almighty God. Bartley will have a fine coffin out of the white boards, and a deep grave surely. What more can we want t…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, April 1, 2020
Aretha Franklin sings “Skylark,” by Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer, on The New Steve Allen Show. This episode was originally taped on May 19, 1964, for syndicated telecast:
(This …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Of course I knew I could rely on your sympathy. I am reconciled by the certainty that a continuance of life would have meant only a continuance of pain and suffering of which my wife had …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMTuesday, March 31, 2020
Hilary Dyson Teachout, the “Mrs. T” of this blog, suffered throughout the decade and a half of our life together from pulmonary hypertension, a rare and devastating illness that gnawed i…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 08:00PMFrom 2017:
The same friend asked me the other day to sum up my life. “I had a mother who believed I could do anything I wanted,” I replied. “Now I have a wife who believes the same thi…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“If you evade suffering you also evade the chance of joy. Pleasure you may get, or pleasures, but you will not be fulfilled.”
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia
Co…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, March 30, 2020
If you haven’t seen my Facebook posting about Mrs. T, here it is:
Dear Friends: I can’t believe I’m posting this message, but…after looking at this morning’s stats, Mrs. T’s doct…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 05:58PMTon Koopman plays Bach’s Chorale Prelude ”Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele,” BWV 654:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 09:50AM“Either life entails courage, or it ceases to be life.”
E.M. Forster, “The Poetry of C.P. Cavafy”
Continue reading Almanac: E.M. Forster on courage at About Last Night.
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMSunday, March 29, 2020
I just spoke on the phone to Mrs. T’s nurse, who passed on a report from her doctors about her condition at midday Sunday. It now appears that she is holding her own—her blood pressure i…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 01:31PMFriday, March 27, 2020
To everyone who’s written to me here and in the social media with kind and encouraging words of all sorts, both for me and for Mrs. T, I want to thank you very much for being in touch. It …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:04AMIn today’s Wall Street Journal I review a webcast of Syracuse Stage’s revival of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus. Here’s an excerpt.
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Syracuse Stage’s revival of Peter Shaffer�…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:03AMI’ve written an essay for the weekend Wall Street Journal that minces no words: the coronavirus pandemic is already a disaster for the performing arts in America, and things will get wors…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:02AMLotte Lenya sings “Pirate Jenny” (from The Three-Penny Opera) on “The World of Kurt Weill,” an episode of NET Playhouse originally telecast in 1967. Bertolt Brecht’s lyrics are s…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:01AM 
