2,374 stories by "Terry Teachout"
In today's Wall Street Journal I review the new Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof. Here's an excerpt. * * * How often should a classic musical be revived on Broadway? In the case of "F…
Dame Myra Hess plays her arrangement of Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring": (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Fri…
"Happiness is a mystery, like religion, and should never be rationalised." G.K. Chesterton, Heretics
Mrs. T and I put up Christmas trees last year and the year before that, and both of them meant the world to me. Things have been more than a little bit hectic for both of us in recent months…
The so-called Proust Questionnaire circulates in a number of variably authentic versions. I filled out one of them earlier this year, having forgotten that I filled out a different version a…
From 2005, ten years ago today: All changed, changed utterly, I told myself, knowing too well that it won’t be so easy as that. Every day I’ll get out of bed and do battle with t…
"Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment." George Santayana, The Life of Reason
I attended my final rehearsal for the Court Theatre's upcoming production of Satchmo at the Waldorf on Saturday. On Sunday morning I flew back to New York for the opening night of the new Br…
Diana Adams and Nicholas Magallanes dance the grand pas de deux from George Balanchine's 1954 version of The Nutcracker. The music is by Tchaikovsky. This studio performance was originally t…
"It takes patience to appreciate domestic bliss; volatile spirits prefer unhappiness." George Santayana, The Life of Reason
Today's Wall Street Journal contains my best-theater-of-2015 column. Among those present: Best ensemble. I've yet to see a more consistently fine group of actors than the five women who appe…
In today's Wall Street Journal I review A Wilder Christmas, an important off-Broadway revival of two rarely seen one-act plays by Thornton Wilder. Here's an excerpt. * * * For most of us, Th…
Richard Burton and Julie Andrews sing "What Do the Simple Folk Do?" on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1961. The song is from Camelot, by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, and the staging, by Mos…
"If being a kid is about learning how to live, then being a grown-up is about learning how to die." Stephen King, Christine
Blessings on the Peccadillo Theater Company for giving us "A Wilder Christmas," a flawlessly staged double bill of rarely seen one-act plays by Wilder, "The Long Christmas Dinner" and "Pullm…
The weather in Chicago, which has been unseasonably warmish since my arrival last week, is finally starting to get disagreeable, and it rained yesterday morning. So what? Well, it happens th…
O Death, all eloquent! you only prove What dust we dote on, when 'tis man we love. Alexander Pope, "Eloisa to Abelard"
Eleanor Roosevelt appears as a guest on The Frank Sinatra Timex Show. This program was originally telecast on February 15, 1960: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that a…
"Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough." William Saroyan, The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze
Ten years and one week ago I was stricken with congestive heart failure during a Broadway preview that took place as a blizzard was getting underway. I managed to sit through the performance…
From 2005, ten years ago today: My friend Nancy LaMott, the cabaret singer about whom I've written in this space and elsewhere, died ten years ago Tuesday. It wasn't an anniversary I'd inten…
"There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions, as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one's life." Viktor Fra…
The Court Theatre's Chicago premiere of Satchmo at the Waldorf continues to take shape. On Thursday Barry Shabaka Henley and I got our first look at John Culbert's set, which is currently un…
Daniel Harding and the London Symphony perform Sir Michael Tippett's Concerto for Double String Orchestra: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space ea…
"The effect of music is so very much more powerful and penetrating than is that of the other arts, for these others speak only of the shadow, but music of the essence." Arthur Schopenhauer, …
