Archives for July 2012

I changed my travel plans early this afternoon after looking at the forecast for New York and its environs. Instead of trying to fly back on schedule, I opted to hole up in a Minneapolis airport hotel and spend the evening working on an essay for Commentary about Neil Simon, with frequent breaks to visit the whirlpool.
So far, so good–and I’m soooo glad that I’m not sitting on that plane right now. Or in that departure lounge. Now all I have to do is get back to New York in time to catch a Friday-afternoon train to Cold Spring, there to meet Mrs. T and see Romeo and Juliet at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival that night.
So what if it’s a horrifically long day? Better that than flying through the even more horrific alternative….

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 Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.

BROADWAY:

• The Best Man (drama, PG-13, closes Sept. 9, reviewed here)

• Evita (musical, PG-13, reviewed here)

• Once (musical, G/PG-13, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

• Avenue Q (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)

• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)

• Tribes (drama, PG-13, closes Jan. 6, reviewed here)

IN CHICAGO:

• Freud’s Last Session (drama, PG-13, restaging of off-Broadway production, closes Sept. 2, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN CHICAGO:

• A Little Night Music (musical, PG-13, closes Aug. 12, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK ON BROADWAY:

• Anything Goes (musical, G/PG-13, mildly adult subject matter that will be unintelligible to children, closes Aug. 5, reviewed here)

“Martyrdom by pinpricks can be very painful.”
Rumer Godden, In This House of Brede

I blew through New York last night, staying just long enough to pick up my mail, get caught in a traffic jam, sweat profusely, eat sushi, and update the right-hand column with fresh “Top Five” and “Out of the Past” picks.
Today I fly to Minneapolis for a Guthrie Theatre revival of Neil Simon’s The Sunshine Boys. From there I head to the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival in New York, followed by a quick trip to Connecticut to see Goodspeed Musicals’ Carousel. Come Tuesday I report to Shakespeare & Company, where I’ll be spending the next three weeks rehearsing Satchmo at the Waldorf with John Douglas Thompson and Gordon Edelstein.
Whew!
In lieu of anything more elaborate, allow me to pass on two interesting links:
• The mills of academe grind slowly, but the Journal of Jazz Studies has finally gotten around to reviewing Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong. The reviewer is Michael Cogswell, director of the Louis Armstrong House Museum, and what he says about Pops is…well, see for yourself:

Terry Teachout’s Pops is the definitive, one-volume, narrative biography of Louis Armstrong….Teachout’s ability to place a whirlwind of events in context is masterful and is easy to overlook because it does not draw attention to itself.

I’ve never been so proud of a review.
Read the whole thing here.
• After you’ve finally gotten around to seeing Margaret, you might enjoy knowing what music Kenneth Lonergan listened to while making the film.

Leopold Stokowski conducts the second movement of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony in the 1947 film Carnegie Hall, directed by Edgar G. Ulmer:

(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday and Wednesday.)

“Mind on mind kindles warmth.”
Rumer Godden, In This House of Brede