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" For my part, I like live theater best when it's taut, concentrated and intimate. "
Terry Teachout
Best
Live
Part
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" The only thing that surprised me about 'Lincoln' is that most of the critics who reviewed the film seem not to have grasped what should have been apparent right from the start, which is that 'Lincoln' is at bottom a play with pictures, not a screenplay. "
Terry Teachout
Film
Start
Right
" A critic is not a creative artist, is a commenter, a midwife of creativity, but not creative himself. "
Terry Teachout
Creative
Critic
Creativity
" Just as most of us prefer to watch a trapeze artist work without a net, we like to be absolutely sure that a virtuoso is giving us our money's worth, and a seemingly effortless performance, no matter how spectacular it may be, deprives us of that slightly sadistic thrill. "
Terry Teachout
Giving
Money
Artist
" I am, as it happens, a baby boomer, but not one who feels any broad-gauge nostalgia for the '60s and '70s. My attitude resembles that of my parents, who were born in the '20s and lived through the Great Depression and World War II. "
Terry Teachout
Depression
I Am
Great
" A masterpiece doesn't push you around. It lets you make up your own mind about what it means - and change it as often as you like. "
Terry Teachout
Change
Like
Mind
" Unlike film and TV, theater is a luxury object, but one that ordinary middle-class people can still afford. Above all, it isn't a mass medium: Live theater is a small-scale, handmade art form. Intimacy is what makes it special. "
Terry Teachout
Special
Art
Luxury
" It's said that most Americans under the age of 30 reflexively dislike movies made before 1970, especially those that were shot in black and white. If this is so, I suspect it's because such films portray an America that no longer exists. "
Terry Teachout
Black And White
Age
America
" One reason why Shakespeare's plays remain so popular is that they're now regularly presented in updated stagings with a contemporary flavor. "
Terry Teachout
Why
Plays
Flavor
" Critics at their best are independent voices; people take seriously their responsibility to see as many things as they can see, put them in the widest possible perspective, educate their readers. I really do think of myself as a teacher. "
Terry Teachout
Myself
Perspective
See
" I learned more in the rehearsals for 'The Letter' than I have ever dreamed of know in the theater as a critic. If it doesn't make me a better critic, I'm an idiot. "
Terry Teachout
Idiot
Better
Know
" There is still a lot to be said for the well-made, witty, clever, three-act comedy. "
Terry Teachout
Said
Lot
Witty
" Charles Ives was writing radically innovative music, but nobody performed it, and nobody knew about it. "
Terry Teachout
Knew
Music
Nobody
" David Cromer, from Chicago, I think is the most gifted young director in America. "
Terry Teachout
Young
Think
Director
" Whether they know it or not, most American playgoers owe an incalculably great debt to translators. Were it not for their work, comparatively few of us would be able to enjoy the plays of Chekhov, Ibsen or Moliere. "
Terry Teachout
Know
American
Debt
" A play is not a play until it's performed, and unless it's a one-person play that is acted, directed and designed by the author, many other people will be deeply involved in the complicated process that leads to its performance. "
Terry Teachout
Performance
People
Process
" Most of us remember Nat King Cole as a vocalist. His warm, grainy baritone is still so closely identified with such familiar ballads as 'Stardust' and 'The Christmas Song' that it's hard to imagine anyone else performing them. "
Terry Teachout
King
Christmas
Song
" Everybody in America was talking about TV early in 1949, though comparatively few Americans owned a set of their own. "
Terry Teachout
TV
Though
Talking
" What's the funniest play ever written? I used to think it was 'Noises Off,' but now that I've seen 'The Liar,' I'm not so sure. "
Terry Teachout
Used
Off
Play
" I believe deeply that jazz is still a very vital music that has much to say, not just to eggheads, or whatever the musical equivalent of an egghead is, but to ordinary people. "
Terry Teachout
Say
People
Music
" Most 'Monty Python' fans are, of course, baby boomers, who have long been a nostalgic lot and are growing more so as they totter toward old age. "
Terry Teachout
Baby
Age
Growing
" Copland was one of the first American composers to forge a truly modern style of American classical music while also making use of American popular music - including jazz. "
Terry Teachout
First
Jazz
American
" What is true of ballet is no less true of the other lively arts. Change is built into their natures. You watch a performance, and then... it's gone. "
Terry Teachout
Watch
Performance
Change
" No, I don't know how to get young people to start listening to jazz again. But I do know this: Any symphony orchestra that thinks it can appeal to under-30 listeners by suggesting that they 'should' like Schubert and Stravinsky has already lost the battle. "
Terry Teachout
Listening
Battle
People
" I've always loved opera; it never occurred to me that I would write a proper libretto. "
Terry Teachout
Me
Never
Opera
" Does film music really matter to the average moviegoer? A great score, after all, can't save a bad film, and a bad score - so it's said - can't sink a good one. "
Terry Teachout
Bad
Good
Great
" At its best, no art form is more thrilling than grand opera, yet none is at greater risk of following the dinosaurs down the cold road to extinction. "
Terry Teachout
Down
Best
Cold
" I don't know of any American playwrights who earn the bulk of their living writing plays. Many of the older ones teach, while a growing number of younger ones write for series television. "
Terry Teachout
Writing
American
Know
" Useful though they are, the vast majority of dictionaries and encyclopedias are poker-faced pieces of work that stick to the facts and present them as soberly - and unstylishly - as possible. "
Terry Teachout
Stick
Work
Present
" If I ever see another Shakespeare production where somebody drives a Jeep on stage, I'm going to run screaming up the aisle. "
Terry Teachout
See
Going
Stage
" I'm not rigid about directorial changes: I judge them on a case-by-case basis. In the case of a play whose text is widely familiar, I'm open to drastic changes that may alter the author's meaning, perhaps even considerably. If the results don't work, then I say so. "
Terry Teachout
Judge
Meaning
Changes