Eye on the Arts

Terry Teachout, a member of the Jewell class of 1979 and an Achievement Day honoree in 2000, has been named the resident drama critic for the Wall Street Journal. He spoke with Achieve recently about his current projects and about post-9/11 life in New York City.

Could you give us a brief rundown on your current activities, both short-term and long-term?
 
In addition to my regular Friday drama column for The Wall Street Journal, I’m now writing a biweekly column for the new Saturday edition of the Journal. It’s called “Sightings,” and it’s about the arts in America–a wide-ranging beat, and one I find wonderfully absorbing. I also write a monthly essay for Commentary, usually about music, along with a modest amount of freelancing for other publications when time permits, which isn’t very often. As far as books go, I’m working on a biography of Louis Armstrong for Harcourt–no publication date yet, but it’s coming along nicely.

I blog every weekday at www.terryteachout.com, which is the best way to find out what I’m up to at any given moment. I think blogging is the most consequential thing to happen to journalism since the coming of TV, and I’m excited to be a part of it.

Aside from all this, the big news in my life is that I was nominated by President Bush to sit on the National Council on the Arts, the civilian advisory panel of the National Endowment for the Arts. The Senate confirmed my appointment unanimously, and I was sworn in early in 2005 by Justice O’Connor. Since then I’ve been sifting through mountains of paperwork and going to Washington several times each year for meetings.

Anything you are reading now that you would recommend?
 
I’m about to start reading Terry Coleman’s new biography of Sir Laurence Olivier, which looks promising. As far as older books go, I just finished reading Jacques Maritain’s Reflections on America, a remarkable little book which should be far better known than it is–especially at the present moment.

Are there artists/plays/performers you have seen recently that we should keep our eyes on?
 
The best shows to open in New York in the past couple of months have been the Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd and the Signature Theatre Company’s off-Broadway revival of Horton Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful. The best American plays to premiere in New York in 2005 were Austin Pendleton’s Orson’s Shadow and Itamar Moses’ Bach in Leipzig. As for new musicals, it’s a toss-up between The Light in the Piazza and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

In adition, two of this year’s Grammy-nominated albums rank high among my recent favorites, Nickel Creek’s Why Should the Fire Die? and Luciana Souza’s Duos II.

Any trends in current theatrical offerings that you have identified?
 
I’m working on a column for the Journal–it’ll be out by the time this interview is published–in which I argue that the most exciting theater in America is now to be seen off Broadway and outside New York. I’m especially impressed with the various companies based in Chicago and Washington, D.C., to which I go as often as I can spare the time.

The last time you wrote for Achieve was in the aftermath of 9/11. How would you assess the city’s progress in recovering from that terrible tragedy, and how would you characterize the current mood and atmosphere of the city?
 
I regret to say that we’re “over” 9/11, in the sense that the feeling of community engendered by that appalling tragedy seems largely to have vanished. Nor is there any great sense of public urgency about making sure that it doesn’t happen again. Instead, it’s back to business as usual–the same head-in-the-sand heedlessness, the same materialistic preoccupations, the same angry political partisanship. We’re in a state of denial, in short, and I very much fear that nothing short of a repeat performance will blast us out of it. I pray we’ll be spared so terrible a lesson.