THEATER TALK to Welcome James Shapiro & Jeffrey Lyons This Weekend

An all-new episode of THEATER TALK features portraits of times and personalities - William Shakespeare in the year 1606, and New York nightlife newspaper columnist Leonard Lyons in the 40-year period between 1934 and 1974.

Columbia University professor and Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro meets with Theater Talk co-hosts Michael Riedel of the New York Post and Susan Haskins about his new book, The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 (Simon & Schuster), describing how the Bard wrote three of the theater's greatest tragedies - King Lear, Macbeth, and The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra. Shapiro tells how Shakespeare adapted the story of Lear, which for 15 years had been a popular play titled Leir - featuring a very happy ending - into one of the bleakest meditations on old age ever written.

Next, TV commentator and author Jeffrey Lyons visits to talk about his new book, What A Time It Was! Leonard Lyons And The Golden Age of New York Nightlife (Abbeville Press) about his father, a legendary entertainment columnist and a fixture at the New York Post for 40 years. A City College graduate, Leonard Lyons left a law career behind after he beat out 500 competitors to win his job, writing a column which required him to file 1,000 words a day about newsworthy people. (He never used the word "celebrity.") Six nights a week, Lyons did rounds to the city's popular restaurants, bars and other haunts in search of scoops (yet he himself never touched alcohol or drugs). "In a business of sharks," said Mayor John LINDSAY at Lyons' 1976 funeral, "he was a prince."

This episode premieres in the New York metropolitan area Friday, January 29 (2016) at 1:30 AM (Saturday morning). It repeats Sunday 1/31 at 11:30 AM on Thirteen/PBS; Saturday 1/30 at 8:30 PM, Sunday 1/31 at 12:30 PM and Monday 2/1 at 7:30 AM, 1:30 PM, and 7:30 PM on CUNY TV*; and on Monday 2/1 at 5:30 PM on WLIW/21 - a total of 8 times weekly.

THEATER TALK is jointly producer by the not-for-profits Theater Talk Productions and CUNY TV. The series 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 100+ 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 CUNY TV Foundation and The Friends of THEATER TALK.

*CUNY TV, the City University of New York television station, is broadcast throughout the New York metropolitan area on digital Ch. 25.3, and cablecast in the five boroughs of New York City on Ch. 75 (Time Warner; Optimum/Brooklyn), Ch. 77 (RCN) and Ch. 30 (Verizon FiOS). The show is available online anytime at www.cuny.tv and www.theatertalk.org and via iTunes podcasts.