2,374 stories by "Terry Teachout"
"The unpredictable and the predetermined unfold together to make everything the way it is." Tom Stoppard, Arcadia
Over the weekend I spent two consecutive twelve-hour working days in technical rehearsals for my Palm Beach Dramaworks production of Satchmo at the Waldorf. I say "my" because I wrote the pl…
From 2006: On Monday morning I pulled on my sweats, hailed a cab, and made my way across town to the office of my cardiologist, unfed and insufficiently slept but on the whole optimistic. A …
"We shed as we pick up, like travellers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. W…
Leonard Bernstein plays and conducts Beethoven's First Piano Concerto with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1970: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space e…
"It is a defect of God's humor that he directs our hearts everywhere but to those who have a right to them." Tom Stoppard, Arcadia
In today's Wall Street Journal I file the first of two reports from Baltimore's Everyman Theatre, which is currently presenting Death of a Salesman and A Streetcar Named Desire in rotating r…
Gwen Verdon and Chita Rivera perform "Nowadays" and "Hot Honey Rag" on The Mike Douglas Show and are interviewed by Douglas. The songs were written by Fred Kander and John Ebb for the score …
"When a question is still undecided, a politician can have any opinion at all on the subject, but once the matter is settled, there’s only one place for a politician to be: with the ma…
In today's Wall Street Journal "Sightings" column I talk about the decline of the play-based film. Here's an excerpt. * * * Fifty years ago, "A Man for All Seasons" and "Who's Afraid of Virg…
"I love Latin quotations. I suspect that nobody ever said anything in Latin which was above the level of barber shop philosophy, but it has a wondrous sonority." Robertson Davies, The Papers…
Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra perform Sy Oliver's "Well, Git It!" in Du Barry Was a Lady, directed by Roy Del Ruth and released in 1943. Buddy Rich is the drummer and the trumpet solos are …
"'How do men get to be dictators, that's what I want to know?' Aunt Flora looked round disgruntledly but with an air as if soliciting approbation for her dissatisfaction. 'Oh, the formula is…
' Taken a selfie ' Worn flip-flops ' Seen the Grand Canyon ' Successfully learned a foreign language (though I tried three times) ' Changed a diaper ' Cooked a full-scale meal without assist…
From 2006: One of the travails of writing a biography of a great artist is that you find yourself returning repeatedly to certain words and phrases–especially superlatives. The nice th…
"The enjoyment of a work of art, the acceptance of an irresistible illusion, constituting, to my sense, our highest experience of 'luxury,' the luxury is not greatest, by my consequent measu…
As of today, Palm Beach Dramaworks' production of Satchmo at the Waldorf has seven rehearsals to go before our first public preview on May 11. I don't want to tempt the dark gods of the thea…
Nicanor Zabaleta plays his own arrangement for solo harp of Albéniz's "Malagueña" on a 1964 telecast: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space eac…
"The truth is that any retraced story of bourgeois lives (lives other than great lives of 'action'"et encore!) throws a chill upon the scene, the time, the subject, the small mapped-out fact…
In today's Wall Street Journal, I review the last two Broadway openings of the 2015-16 season, Shuffle Along and Tuck Everlasting. Here's an excerpt. * * * The first half of George C. Wolfe'…
Carol Lawrence and Larry Kert sing "Tonight" on The Ed Sullivan Show. The song, by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, is from the score of West Side Story. This performance, which docum…
"We're all insecure. We're all neurotic. We're all trying so hard to figure our process out. And kindness behooves you, because you've got to come back the next day and do it again." Gavin C…
“Don’t you read anything but novels, I hear you say. I wish I could say that I really read novels. There are libraries full of novelists who are thought great whose work I have n…
I flew down to Florida last Friday morning and started rehearsing my Palm Beach Dramaworks production of Satchmo at the Waldorf that same afternoon. We put in two more full days of work on S…
Frank Zappa plays music on a pair of bicycles on The Steve Allen Show. This episode was originally telecast on March 4, 1963: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appe…
