'Satchmo at the Waldorf' to Open Off Broadway "Satchmo at the Waldorf," Terry Teachout's one-man play about Louis Armstrong, will have its Off Broadway premiere at the Westside Theater. It begins previews on Feb. 15, and opens on March 4. The show captures Armstrong reminiscing backstage after one of his last concerts. It will star John Douglas Thompson, the Obie-winning actor who channeled Armstrong and his manager, Joe Glaser (as well as Miles Davis, briefly) in the 2012 productions at Shakespeare and Company and the Long Wharf Theater. Gordon Edelstein will direct. Mr. Teachout, a theater critic for The Wall Street Journal, based his play on the research for his highly regarded 2009 biography, "Pops - A Life of Louis Armstrong" (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), for which he had access to a series of Armstrong's diary tapes, which create a deeper more nuanced portrait of the great trumpeter. The language in the show, based on those recordings, is often harsh and, the producers have noted, may not be suitable for children.