Ah, the right wing agenda may not be fitting for most liberal artists, that is if you consider yourself one.
Terry Teachout and his most recent concoction, a one-man show about Louis Armstrong's famous last performance at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City, entitled Satchmo at the Waldorf, are the most recent winners of the Lynde and Harry Brandley Foundation's $250,000 prize.
The organization is, to say the least, a conservative company directed at awarding proponents of said conservative political thought.
But wherever you political compass may find you, the play has received some serious love on the Off Broadway front.
"Terry Teachout has distinguished himself, not just as a first-rate journalist, but as a supporter of the arts," the Bradley Foundation's president, Michael W. Grebe, said in a written announcement of the prize, which also cited Teachout's work as a biographer, a playwright and an opera librettist.
And that might be true, but I wasn't aware that the color of your badge distinguished your craft, more so what the art of it had to say. If so, then paint me red and give me a prize, too.
Teachout wrote in a 2010 essay, however, about playwright David Mamet's political shift to the right, via the LA Times:
American theater is a one-party town, a community of like-minded folk who are all but unanimous in their strict adherence to the left-liberal line. Though dissenters do exist, they are almost never heard from in public, and it is highly unusual for new plays that deviate from the social gospel of progressivism to reach the stage.
I guess, Terry, I guess.
But the play has been featured on Classicalite before and for good reason, Teachout does have serious expertise with Satchmo and has heavy enough a voice to resonate with any audience out there. His contributions to stage criticism are quite stark and his ideology is valid for the modern stage.
Read the article from the LA Times here.
Still need a reason? Check the preview below.
