PETER AND THE STARCATCHER's Roger Rees and Rick Elice to Visit Theater Talk, 6/1

THEATER TALK will welcome two of the key collaborators on the multi-Tony® nominated play Peter And The Starcatcher, now on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre – professional and personal partners Roger Rees, co-director of the acclaimed production with Alex Timbers, and Rick Elice, the play's writer, who adapted Peter and the Starcatchers, a "prequel" novelization (by David Barry and Ridley Pearson) to Peter Pan, the well-known J. M. Barrie story, for the stage.

Co-hosted by Michael Riedel of the New York Post and producer Susan Haskins, THEATER TALK's tribute to Peter And The Starcatcher premieres Friday, June 1 (2012) at 1:30 AM on Thirteen (early Saturday morning), followed by airings on CUNY TV* Saturday 6/2 (8:30 PM), Sunday 6/3 (12:30 PM) and Monday 6/4 (7:30 AM, 1:30 PM, and 7:30 PM). The show will be available for online viewing following the broadcasts at www.cuny.tv.

On the half-hour program, Rees' productive collaboration with Timbers is described as "an unlikely mash-up of different generations and backgrounds," while the artful stage adaptation, the theatrical invention of its staging, and the 30-year personal partnership of Rees and Elice is discussed and shared. Rees also speaks of his early career as an actor, which began while serving as a scenery painter at age 17. He was drafted for a play and "never painted scenery again."

THEATER TALK is jointly produced by not-for-profits Theater Talk Productions and CUNY TV. The program is taped in the Himan Brown TV and Radio Studios at The City University of New York (CUNY) TV in Manhattan, and is distributed to 70+ participating public television stations nationwide. THEATER TALK is made possible in part by The New York State Council on the Arts, The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, The TDF/TAP Plus Program, The CUNY TV Foundation and The Friends of THEATER TALK. [*CUNY TV, the City University of New York television station, is carried in New York City's five boroughs – on Channel 75 on Time Warner and Cablevision, Channel 77 on RCN, and on Channel 30 on Verizon FiOS. The show is available online anytime at www.cuny.tv and www.theatertalk.org, and via audio-only iTunes podcasts.]