Terry Teachout, John Douglas Thompson To Discuss SATCHMO AT THE WALDORF at Drama Book Shop

The Drama Book Shop will welcome playwright and critic Terry Teachout (Wall Street Journal) and actor John Douglas Thompson for a discussion and signing of SATCHMO AT THE WALDORF on Wednesday, October 12th at 5:00pm. The discussion is free to the public and copies of the play will be available for purchase.

SATCHMO AT THE WALDORF is a one-man, three-character play in which the same actor portrays Louis Armstrong, the greatest of all jazz trumpeters; Joe Glaser, his white manager; and MiLes Davis, who admired Armstrong's playing but disliked his onstage manner. It takes place in 1971 in a dressing room backstage at the Empire Room of New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where Armstrong performed in public for the last time four months before his death. Reminiscing into a tape recorder about his life and work, Armstrong seeks to come to terms with his longstanding relationship with Glaser, whom he once loved like a father but now believes to have betrayed him. In alternating scenes, Glaser defends his controversial decision to promote Armstrong's career (with the help of the Chicago mob) by encouraging him to simplify his musical style, while Davis attacks Armstrong for pandering to white audiences.

Teachout is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays for Commentary, Terry also writes "Sightings," a biweekly column about the arts in America, for the Friday Journal. He lives in New York City.

Thompson, who is forty-eight and regarded by some people as the best classical actor in America, has been acting for twenty years, following an epiphany he had as a travelling salesman of computers, A.T.M.s, and check-sorting machineS. Thompson is known for Othello and Macbeth and for Brutus Jones, in THE EMPEROR JONES by Eugene O'Neill. His admirers include Ben Brantley and Charles Isherwood, the theatre critics for the Times, and James Shapiro, a Shakespeare scholar at Columbia who frequently consults for directors in London and New York, and who describes Thompson as "the best American actor in Shakespeare, hands down."

The Tony Award-winning Drama Book Shop, now in its 99th year, is located at 250 West 40th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues. Events are free to the public. To learn more about this and other upcoming events, please visit www.dramabookshop.com.

Event date:

Wednesday, October 12, 2016 - 5:00pm

Event address:

250 West 40th Street

New York, NY 10018

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