2,374 stories by "Terry Teachout"
"Death ends all things and so is the comprehensive conclusion of a story, but marriage finishes it very properly too and the sophisticated are ill-advised to sneer at what is by convention t…
In the second of my two Wall Street Journal drama columns for this week, I report on another pair of Broadway openings, The King and I and Finding Neverland. Here's an excerpt. * * * Point f…
"There was not much need for retribution in the life hereafter. You usually paid for the party while you were still on earth." John P. Marquand, Melville Goodwin, USA
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 Wal…
"Dottie was always saying that she loved to entertain graciously, and by this she meant that she liked to do things with a sort of weight-throwing ostentation attributable to her simple begi…
The Wall Street Journal has given me an extra drama column today to report on two Broadway openings, An American in Paris and It Shoulda Been You. One's a triumph, the other a clunker. Here'…
Václav Talich leads the Czech Philharmonic in a 1955 performance of Dvořák's E Minor Slavonic Dance: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this spac…
"There always came a time when you wearied of listening to the fallacies of self-justification because you learned finally the basic truth that no one in a jam was in a position to give you …
I mentioned the other day that Mrs. T and I were thinking about adding a new piece to the Teachout Museum. After long and careful consideration, we decided to take the plunge and place a bid…
From 2005: I like Antonio's, mostly because it reminds me of all the other barber shops I've visited regularly. Not the mall-type franchise stores that I patronized in college"I never liked …
"It was no one's fault that it was hard to keep memories of wives perpetually green in that extreme and changing environment, even with the aid of the photographs and love-gauges that one ca…
Mrs. T and I missed the worst of the horrific winter just past, but we were intensely aware at all times of its viciousness. No sooner did we return from Florida at the beginning of March th…
I'm pleased to announce yet another staging of Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, in the upcoming 2015-16 season. Immediately after the show concludes its run at San Francisco's American…
Willis Conover, the Voice of America's legendary jazz disc jockey, attempts to stump the panel on an episode of To Tell the Truth originally cast on CBS on April 8, 1963. The Voice of Americ…
Edward R. Murrow interviews Harpo Marx on Person to Person in 1958: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday and Wednesday.)
"I was just thinking that life makes almost everyone into something that he never exactly wanted to be, and then the time comes when he can't very well be anything else." John P. Marquand, M…
In today's Wall Street Journal drama column I devote extra space to three newly opened Broadway transfers, Hand to God, Wolf Hall, and Gigi. Here's an excerpt. * * * Nothing is more exciting…
In today's Wall Street Journal "Sightings" column I try to calculate the odds against a straight play's succeeding on Broadway. Here's an excerpt. * * * The conventional wisdom about Broadwa…
"A friend in power is a friend lost." The Education of Henry Adams
Kathy Teachout, my sister-in-law, has just retired from the city council of Smalltown, U.S.A., after two consecutive terms. She succeeded David, my brother, who had previously held the same …
"He was gifted with the sly, sharp instinct for self-preservation that passes for wisdom among the rich." Evelyn Waugh, Scoop
Rare are the dreams of childhood that come true at last, but one of mine, much to my surprise and delight, has actually realized itself, more or less, now that I'm on the brink of late middl…
From a 1964 performance of Beyond the Fringe, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore perform their "One Leg Too Few" sketch: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this s…
"Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with anything." Evelyn Waugh (quoted in the London Observer, Apr. 15, 1962)
I watched both parts of Sinatra: All or Nothing at All, Alex Gibney's four-hour-long documentary about the life and art of Frank Sinatra, last night. Entirely aside from the fact that I figu…
