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" The backstage play, in which the private lives of theater people are put onstage for the world to see, is one of the diciest of dramatic genres. "
Terry Teachout
See
Dramatic
Play
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" All history, and most especially the history of the 20th century, argues against placing ideas in the saddle and allowing them to ride mankind. Too often, they end up riding individual men and women into mass graves. "
Terry Teachout
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" David Cromer, from Chicago, I think is the most gifted young director in America. "
Terry Teachout
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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
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" 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. "
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" 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
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" No cowboy songs, no hoedowns. It's a more serious piece. Yet every bar of 'Appalachian Spring' is clear, clean, tonal, intelligible - great music that anyone can grasp at first hearing. "
Terry Teachout
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" 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
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" In 2004, the iPod was a novelty, and tablet computers were a dream. Now we take for granted that we can see whatever we want whenever and wherever we want to see it, be it 'Grand Illusion' or 'Duck Dynasty.' "
Terry Teachout
Illusion
Want
Duck
" In a world without any criticism at all, although there are many actors who would think they would be delighted to see that happen, would in fact be a far more problematic world than they could ever imagine. "
Terry Teachout
Think
More
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" For my part, I like live theater best when it's taut, concentrated and intimate. "
Terry Teachout
Best
Live
Part
" 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
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Off
Play
" Only the tone-deaf doubt the power of music, though some feel it more strongly than others. "
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Doubt
Power
" If you're looking for light entertainment, you can't get much lighter than 'Bye Bye Birdie,' a flyweight farce about the coming of rock n' roll to small-town America. "
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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
" 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
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" Maine likes to call itself 'America's Vacationland.' For many artists, though, it's the office. Since the 19th century, painters from all over the country - including Edward Hopper, Alex Katz, John Marin, Fairfield Porter, Neil Welliver and Andrew Wyeth - have spent large chunks of time there. "
Terry Teachout
Time
Office
America
" 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
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" 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
" 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
" Even if I could, I wouldn't want to undo the transformation of jazz into a sophisticated art music. "
Terry Teachout
Art
Want
Transformation
" Instrumental music is nonverbal and thus radically ambiguous. It doesn't lend itself to what might be called content-oriented analysis, though plenty of intellectuals have tried to analyze it in precisely that way. "
Terry Teachout
Though
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Analysis
" 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. "
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Good
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" 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
" The 'Podunk Times' is not going to have a good dance critic, I absolutely promise you that. There's just not enough dance there. "
Terry Teachout
Good
You
Going
" 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
" Limitations, be they practical or arbitrary, force artists to dig more deeply instead of settling for easy answers. "
Terry Teachout
Easy
Force
Limitations
" No translation can possibly be perfect. Every production and every performance is a different path up the mountain, and nobody ever makes it all the way to the summit. "
Terry Teachout
Mountain
Path
Perfect
" For the critic, the word 'best' is like a grenade without a pin: Toss it around too freely, and you're likely to get your hand blown off. "
Terry Teachout
Off
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" There is still a lot to be said for the well-made, witty, clever, three-act comedy. "
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Said
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" In addition to giving comfort and joy, art also has the miraculous ability to let us live in other men's skins, to test our perceptions and beliefs against theirs, and perhaps to be changed as a result. It does this by portraying the world creatively, heightening our perception and enriching our understanding of things as they are. "
Terry Teachout
Art
World
Perception