TT: Closer and closer

Satchmo at the Waldorf , my first play, opens a week from tonight in Orlando, Florida. I'll be flying down first thing Saturday morning to join Dennis Neal, the star, and Rus Blackwell, the director, for the final rehearsals.

You probably won't be surprised to hear that I'm finding it difficult to concentrate on anything other than opening night. The funny thing is that I never gave any serious thought to becoming a playwright until I started writing Satchmo at the Waldorf a year and a half ago. Now that it's happened, though, I'm about as excited as it's possible to be.

Come Monday, I'll let you know how things are shaping up in Orlando. In the meantime, I'm pleased to report that Brian Shaw, an assistant professor at Louisiana State University, is currently teaching a seminar on Louis Armstrong that uses Pops , my 2009 Armstrong biography, as its text. He recently posted a Facebook playlist of Armstrong-related recordings and videos, all of them keyed to the text of Pops, that are available on YouTube and will be discussed in his seminar. You can view it by going here . I wish I'd thought of doing something similar when Pops first came out!