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" 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
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" Direction is the most invisible part of the theatrical art. You don't see it. "
Terry Teachout
See
Direction
Art
" 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
" 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
" Not only are most of our citizens fathomlessly ignorant of the glories of American literature, a fast-growing percentage of our students are no longer taught much about any works of American art, be they novels, paintings, symphonies or ballets. "
Terry Teachout
American
Ignorant
Literature
" I don't know anybody in the opera business who isn't worried sick about how best to reach out to underpaid millennials who were suckled on the new on-demand pop culture, which supplies them with cheap, unchallenging amusement around the clock. "
Terry Teachout
Know
Sick
New
" 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
" 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
" The wonderful thing about theater as an art form is it's a purely empirical art form. It's all about what works. And every show, every production, is created anew right from the moment you go into the rehearsal hall. "
Terry Teachout
Go
Wonderful
Art
" I feel quite confident that audiences on both sides of the Atlantic are growing 'dumber,' if what you really mean to say is 'less culturally literate.' "
Terry Teachout
Say
Feel
Growing
" 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
" 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
" You've probably never thought about it before unless you happen to write for a living, but professional writers are doomed to spend most of their waking hours sitting by themselves at a desk, staring at a blank computer screen and waiting for lightning to strike. "
Terry Teachout
Waiting
Thought
Professional
" Plays are not written but rewritten, and much of the rewriting takes place at the behest of the director, whose job it is to grapple with the myriad complexities of moving a play from the page to the stage. "
Terry Teachout
Job
Play
Moving
" There's a playwright named S.M. Berryman, Sam Berryman, who wrote these kinds of social comedies. They are actually extremely sharp and still quite provocative. "
Terry Teachout
Who
Still
Social
" There is still a lot to be said for the well-made, witty, clever, three-act comedy. "
Terry Teachout
Said
Lot
Witty
" 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
" Nobody reads a reference book to be amused, much less charmed. "
Terry Teachout
Less
Reference
Much
" In the early days of jazz, it was ensemble music: everybody playing all together. Nobody really stood out. "
Terry Teachout
Music
Jazz
Early
" For my part, I like live theater best when it's taut, concentrated and intimate. "
Terry Teachout
Best
Live
Part
" Even if I could, I wouldn't want to undo the transformation of jazz into a sophisticated art music. "
Terry Teachout
Art
Want
Transformation
" 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
" David Cromer, from Chicago, I think is the most gifted young director in America. "
Terry Teachout
Young
Think
Director
" Aesthetes have it all over intellectuals in one very important respect: You'll rarely catch us hustling anyone off to the nearest guillotine. We're too busy trying to make the world more beautiful. Our hands are stained with ink and paint, not blood. "
Terry Teachout
Respect
Beautiful
Busy
" 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
" You don't have to know anything about the Shakers to appreciate Mr. Copland's score for 'Appalachian Spring' any more than you have to know who William Randolph Hearst was to understand 'Citizen Kane.' "
Terry Teachout
Know
Appreciate
Spring
" 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
" There wasn't a lot of live music that you could hear where I came from, which was a small town in southeast Missouri. "
Terry Teachout
Small Town
Live
Music
" 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
" Limitations, be they practical or arbitrary, force artists to dig more deeply instead of settling for easy answers. "
Terry Teachout
Easy
Force
Limitations
" The good news is that 'High School Musical' seems to be getting a lot of youngsters excited about theater. "
Terry Teachout
High School
News
School