Michael Musto, Jesse Green, et al. Set for 10/14 THEATER TALK

Celebrating their 19th season on New York television, THEATER TALK co-hosts Michael Riedel of the New York Post and series executive producer Susan Haskins call on savvy journalists Michael Musto of The Village Voice, Jesse Green of New Yorkmagazine, and Patrick Pacheco of NY1 News to contribute wisdom, hunches and barbs about the upcoming fall Broadway season.

THEATER TALK's "Fall Season Preview" will premiere on Friday, October 14 at 1:30 a.m. on Thirteen. Encore airings on CUNY TV are scheduled for Saturday at 8:30 PM; Sunday at 12:30 PM; and Monday at 7:30 AM, 1:30 PM and 7:30 PM. (CUNY TV is on Channel 75 on Time Warner and Cablevision, Channel 77 on RCN, and on Channel 30 on FIOS in New York City's five boroughs.) In the tri-state area, THEATER TALK also airs on WNYE and Connecticut Public Television. The show is available online anytime at www.cuny.tv and www.theatertalk.org, and via audio-only iTunes podcasts.

The THEATER TALK panel launches into the new production of The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, with Green outlining the controversy surrounding comments made by director Diane Paulus, charged with "reimagining" the original show, and the show's star Audra McDonald in an interview with The New York Times. Composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim, in a letter to The Times, objected to the revised title and the need to "fix" a classic work. About the article, Musto says, "Diane Paulus seemed she had a direct line to George Gershwin." Pacheco, recalling Trevor Nunn's production in London, affirms that "the book needs work."

The co-hosts and guests discuss the greatly-revised On A Clear Day You Can See Forever ("No one's complaining about that book revision," says Green, with Musto calling the gender-flipping production "very Chaz Bono"); the revival of the James Goldman/Stephen Sondheim Follies (Pacheco cites the 41-member cast and 28-piece orchestra, which satisfies "a hunger" by theatregoers for a musical "to really sink their teeth into"); and the imminent return to Broadway of luminaries Hugh Jackman, Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin.

As always THEATER TALK will cover a wide range of topics this year, including guests drawn from some of the season's most anticipated productions (Bonnie & Clyde, Chinglish, Death of A Salesman, Godspell, Lysistrata Jones, Man and Boy, The Mountaintop, Newsies, On A Clear Day, Other Desert Cities, Porgy and Bess, Private Lives, Venus in Fur, Wit) and others from shows we haven't even heard of yet.

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