TT: Off we go

It seems as though Mrs. T and I just unpacked our bags, and now we're hitting the road again. Our first stop is Chicago, where we'll be driving up to Glencoe to see Writers' Theatre's production of Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing , a play that I adore, then spending the night at an airport hotel. Tomorrow we fly to St. Louis and drive from there to Smalltown, U.S.A., to visit my mother and attend the marriage of Lauren Teachout, my beloved niece, who is getting hitched to her longtime boyfriend on Saturday. I don't doubt for a moment that a good time will be had by all.

After that we'll spend most of Sunday driving up to Kansas City, where I'm going to deliver a public lecture on Monday at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, about which more here . (Come hear me if you're in the vicinity!) In addition, Mrs. T, who's never been to Kansas City, will join me for her first visit to the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum , a great and insufficiently appreciated institution whose innumerable treasures include one of my all-time favorite American paintings, Fairfield Porter's "The Mirror." I also hope to feed her some authentic Kansas City barbecue chez Arthur Bryant , though I have a sneaking suspicion that all our meals are already spoken for, damn it.

Would that we could spend a few days unwinding in Kansas City, but we have to fly back home the morning after my speech. The theater season is getting underway next week and I'll have four shows to see in New York, two on Broadway and two off, and three Wall Street Journal columns to write.

You can guess the rest. I'll see you when I see you. Until then, whenever "then" ends up being, content yourself with the usual almanac entries and regular theater-related postings, and wish me barbecue-related luck.