2,374 stories by "Terry Teachout"
My beloved Hilary died a month ago tonight. I returned home from the hospital to the enforced solitude of life in latter-day Manhattan"she was the last person whom I have touched"and I've be…
Nat King Cole and His Trio perform "Little Girl." Cole is accompanied by Irving Ashby on guitar, Joe Comfort on bass, and Jack Costanzo on bongo drums. This performance, which dates from 195…
"There are no heroes of action"only heroes of renunciation and suffering. Of these there are plenty. But few of them are known, and even they not to the crowd, but to the few."
Albert Schwei…
"So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side."
John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress
Continue reading Almanac: John Bunyan on death at About Last Night.
Jack Mangan interviews Tennessee Williams on board the S.S. Queen Mary. This clip was originally telecast in 1950 by WJZ-TV as part of Ship's Reporter, a TV series in which Mangan inte…
To live in hearts we leave behind
is not to die.
Thomas Campbell, "Hallowed Ground"
Continue reading Almanac: Thomas Campbell on death and remembrance at About Last Night.
In today's Wall Street Journal "Sightings" column, I consider Robert Benchley's work as a drama critic. Here'a an excerpt.
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Few things are so fleeting as the fame of a pro…
From 2010:
If you need to adjust your attitude"and I did"a repeat viewing of Groundhog Day will likely do the trick. I laughed and laughed, then found myself overcome with gratitude at…
Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break.
William Shakespeare, Macbeth
Continue reading Almanac: Shakespeare on sorrow at About L…
In order to divert those of you who, like me, are staying home these days, I've been posting images of some of the prints and paintings that hang on the walls of the Manhattan apartment that…
Mack Sennett is the guest on This Is Your Life, hosted by Ralph Edwards. This episode was originally telecast live by NBC on March 30, 1955:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and his…
It nearly cancels my fear of death, my dearest said,
When I think of cremation. To rot in the earth
Is a loathsome end, but to roar up in flame"besides, I am used to it.
I have flamed with l…
In today's Wall Street Journal drama column I review a webcast of the Goodman Theatre's Chicago premiere of School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play. (In addition, the column ends with …
A Visit to CBS Color Television, an extremely rare film of a demonstration of early color television that was produced by CBS in 1954 for its affiliates and sponsors prior to the introduc…
Where there is sorrow, there is holy ground.
Oscar Wilde, De Profundis
Continue reading Almanac: Oscar Wilde on sorrow at About Last Night.
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.
Alfred Tennyson, "Locksley Hall"
Continue reading Almanac: Tennyson on sorrow at About Last Night.
Vladimir Horowitz plays Scarlatti's E Major Sonata, K. 380, at Carnegie Hall in 1968. The video is from a concert telecast by CBS. The audio has been synchronized from a high-quality audio r…
"He found that it was easy to make a heroic gesture, but hard to abide by its results."
W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage
Continue reading Almanac: Somerset Maugham on heroism at A…
From 2010:
I expect that David Mamet's Theatre, which was published last week, is going to stir up a stink, and I plan to write about it at length at some point in the future. For now, th…
"Ignorance never settles a question."
Benjamin Disraeli, speech in the House of Commons (May 14, 1866)
Continue reading Almanac: Disraeli on ignorance at About Last Night.
In order to divert those of you who, like me, are staying home these days, I've been posting images of some of the prints and paintings that hang on the walls of the Manhattan apartment that…
Kim Stanley, Geraldine Page, and Sandy Dennis co-star in a 1966 Actors Studio film version of Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters directed by Paul Bogart:
(This is the latest in a series of…
"Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh."
W.H. Auden, "Notes on the Comic"
Continue reading Almana…
In today's Wall Street Journal drama column, I review Florida Repertory Theatre's streaming theatrical webcast of its production of Lucas Hnath's A Doll's House, Part 2. Here's an excerpt.
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Liberace plays excerpts from the first movement of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto. This performance is drawn from Sincerely Yours, a 1955 feature film directed by Gordon Douglas and s…
