2,374 stories by "Terry Teachout"
"My Friends," a video directed by Lindsey Copeland for the song of the same name by MaryLeigh Roohan. The song is from Roohan's EP Living Alone: (This is the latest in a series of arts-relat…
"Despair is the price one pays for setting oneself an impossible aim. It is, one is told, the unforgivable sin, but it is a sin the corrupt or evil man never practises. He always has hope." …
In today's Wall Street Journal I review two Broadway shows, the New York transfer of Ivo van Hove's London revival of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge and the New York premiere of Alle…
Alicia de Larrocha plays Manuel de Falla's arrangement for solo piano of "Ritual Fire Dance," a movement from El amor brujo: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appea…
"I approach my 79th birthday this month with growing awareness. I celebrate it by building a garden in my place of reuge in Shikoku. It is a gift to the future, and to the people who harbore…
I'm flying to Beverly Hills on Friday to make an onstage appearance at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, which presented Satchmo at the Waldorf earlier this year and is ce…
John Douglas Thompson can do just about anything, but so far as I know, he can't be in two places at once. If you follow my calendar, then you know that Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play…
Here's my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Stre…
"I guess I've accepted that theatre is never going to be edgy in the way I want it to be. It's too expensive for a start. And, the audience seems to be complicit in the dullness. It's like g…
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli plays the "Funeral March" movement from Chopin's Second Piano Sonata: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Mond…
"Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities, because, as has been said, 'it is the quality which guarantees all others.'" Winston Churchill, "Alfonso XIII" (in Great Contempora…
From 2005, a month before I nearly died of congestive heart failure: I was thinking about the haircut I’d gotten in New York earlier in the week. The barber tied a dark blue apron arou…
"The milk of the sacred cows has a way of turning sour." Henry Mancini, Sounds and Scores: A Practical Guide to Professional Orchestration
I'm back from Lubbock, Texas, where I gave a speech at Texas Tech that by all accounts went over well, ate really excellent Mexican food, and paid an afternoon visit to the Buddy Holly Cente…
Mike Nichols and Elaine May perform on the 1959 Emmy Awards telecast. They are introduced by Richard Nixon: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space e…
"You always aim high in something low." Mike Nichols, in conversation with Steve Martin (quoted in Vanity Fair, October 2015)
In today's Wall Street Journal I review the Boston premiere of Katori Hall's Saturday Night/Sunday Morning and two New York premieres, On Your Feet! and King Charles III. Here's an excerpt. …
In today's Wall Street Journal "Sightings" column I write about a historically important home-video release. Here's an excerpt. * * * Peter Pan is everywhere these days, and I, for one, am g…
Birgit Nilsson sings "In questa reggia" (from Puccini's Turandot on a 1967 episode of The Bell Telephone Hour. The conductor is Donald Voorhees: (This is the latest in a series of arts-relat…
"There was no protection, no quota system when it came to luck. It was like that moment in math when a child learns that the odds of heads or tails is always one-in-two, no matter how many t…
Here's my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Stre…
"Kay came to realize that she preferred her books to other people's company. Reading was not a fallback position for her but an ideal state of being." Laura Lippman, What the Dead Know
Annie Ross sings "Twisted," accompanied by Count Basie on piano, Freddie Green on guitar, Ed Jones on bass, and Sonny Payne on drums. The song is a transcription of a jazz instrumental by Wa…
"For although she had been, and still was, very much admired, she had got into the way of preferring unsatisfactory love affairs to any others, so that it was becoming almost a bad habit." B…
By the time most of you read these words, I'll be somewhere between New York and Lubbock, Texas, where I'm lecturing on "The Future of Theater" at Texas Tech University and paying a visit to…
