I love teaching, and one of the few things I dislike about my professional life is that it keeps me too busy for part-time classroom stints. Once a year, though, I work off some of my frustration by leading a hands-on seminar in journalistic criticism at the NEA’s Arts Journalism Institute in Classical Music and Opera, which is where I was yesterday morning. I spent three very intense hours working with six very smart critics, and enjoyed myself enormously. The only problem was that I had to get up early to write the first half of my Wall Street Journal drama column, then rush home after the seminar to finish it up and send it off to my editor.
Now I’m in Minneapolis, where I’ll be seeing Brian Friel’s new play this afternoon, then flying down to St. Louis immediately after the show and driving from there to Smalltown, U.S.A., to spend a couple of days telling my mother all about the Big Event. On Saturday I return to New York, and the next day I’ll be seeing Kevin Kline in the Broadway revival of Cyrano de Bergerac.
I could stand a day off, or even two. More important, though, I haven’t seen Mrs. T for a week and a half, and I miss her sorely. She was supposed to be accompanying me on my latest sprint through the hinterlands, but illness intervened, so I’ll be seeing The Home Place by myself, and listening to the car radio as I make my way from St. Louis to Smalltown instead of chatting happily about nothing in particular. It’s funny how fast you get used to not being alone.
Of course I still have the best job in the world–I can’t believe I’m getting paid to see two Brian Friel plays and a Stephen Sondheim musical in one week–but as Joni Mitchell once put it, The bed’s too big/The frying pan’s too wide. I’ll be glad when both are full again.
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
