Archives for December 2015

Duke Ellington plays “Auld Lang Syne” in 1962:

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:
• An American in Paris (musical, G, too complex for small children, reviewed here)
• China Doll (drama, PG-13, reviewed here)
• The Color Purple (musical, PG-13, virtually all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Fun Home (serious musical, PG-13, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Hamilton (musical, PG-13, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• The King and I (musical, G, perfect for children with well-developed attention spans, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Matilda (musical, G, virtually all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Les Misérables (musical, G, too long and complicated for young children, closes Sept. 4, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• On Your Feet! (jukebox musical, G, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)
• The Flick (serious comedy, PG-13, too long for young people with limited attention spans, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON ON BROADWAY:
• A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder (musical, PG-13, closes Jan. 17, some performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Spring Awakening (musical, PG-13/R, closes Jan. 24, reviewed here)
• Sylvia (comedy, PG-13, closes Jan. 24, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK OFF BROADWAY:
• A Wilder Christmas (drama, G, too complicated for children, closes Jan. 10, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY OFF BROADWAY:
• Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (comedy, G, ideal for bright children, remounting of Broadway production, original production reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY ON BROADWAY:
• Hand to God (black comedy, X, absolutely not for children or prudish adults, reviewed here)

“The details of happiness do not stay in the memory, and the rest of the day is a tapestry of sunlight and summer sounds.”

Emlyn Williams, George: An Early Autobiography

A complete archival multi-camera sound film of the original London production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific, starring Mary Martin. The production, directed by Joshua Logan, was a reproduction of the original Broadway staging. This extremely rare film was shot in the theater at a special performance given without an audience on May 6, 1952:

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

“Racine is the most adult of authors, with a classic simplicity bound to deceive the most precocious student by his look of poverty: to the immature eye, the exquisitely right can look like the pedantically trite.”

Emlyn Williams, George: An Early Autobiography

From 2005:

I’m full of good intentions–how could I not be? But this is the most important one of all: I promise not to fall back into my old ways the first time I slip up. Because I will, repeatedly. Learning to live differently is no small task, least of all for a middle-aged workaholic accustomed to doing as he pleases, and New York is full of temptations.

No sooner will I step off the plane Friday afternoon than I’ll feel the overwhelming urge to rev up my own engines, to rush back to my apartment and empty all those mailbags and start calling up everyone I know. Only I won’t. I’ll sit down, look happily at the art hanging on my living-room walls, and wait for the knot of tension inside my head to start unwinding….

Read the whole thing here.

“Nothing can ever irk again as badly as the boredoms of childhood.”

Emlyn Williams, George: An Early Autobiography

A year ago this week, Mrs. T and I were headed south to Florida via Amtrak, an experience that we found…well, interesting. Come Wednesday we’ll be flying there, and if all goes well, we should be ensconced in our comfy little Sanibel Island bungalow (which is “ours,” of course, only in the sense that this will be the fifth year in a row that we’ve rented it for the first part of January) right around the time the sun is setting over the Gulf of Mexico.

Our plan is to spend the next week and a half together, after which I board the first of a series of flights that will take me to Chicago, New York, and San Francisco, there to open two different productions of Satchmo at the Waldorf and see a pair of sharply contrasting shows on and off Broadway. Once we get Satchmo open in San Francisco, I’ll head straight back to Sanibel and Mrs. T.

Because our time together is so much shorter than usual, I’ve decided not to do any blogging (other than the regular daily postings) between today and my arrival in Chicago on January 10. I have no shows to see or deadlines to hit this week, and I want very much to be completely present throughout that time. So I’ll jump the gun by four days and post, as is my custom, the Ogden Nash poem that I like to share with you each New Year’s Eve, followed by my customary end-of-the-year good wishes:

Come, children, gather round my knee;
Something is about to be.

Hark! It’s midnight, children dear.
Duck! Here comes another year.

To all of you who, like me, suspect that chance is in the saddle and rides mankind, I hope that the year to come treats you not unkindly, and that your lives, like mine, will be warmed by hope and filled with love.

See you next year!

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Big Joe Turner sings “Feelin’ Happy” in Shake, Rattle & Rock! The film was directed by Edward L. Cahn and released in 1956: