THEATER TALK to Welcome Tennessee Williams Biographer John Lahr

THEATER TALK explores the life and art of playwright Tennessee Williams in an all-new episode featuring critic and biographer John Lahr, author of the acclaimed new work, Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh (W.W. Norton). The interview is co-hosted by Michael Riedel of the New York Post and producer Susan Haskins.

Lahr provides context for the creation of the book, with research bequeathed from the late Lyle Leverich who wrote Tom, the first of what was intended as a two-volume biography of Williams. Lahr, as a deft and highly original chronicler of lives of artists for The New Yorker, elected to start over and make the second volume his own. The new work is a National Book Award Finalist and a 2014 Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year.

Lahr explains the working of Williams' mind, his belittling father and puritanical mother, and how his homosexual affairs informed his work, which includes such great American plays as A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie and Cat on A Hot Tin Roof, among many others. He also discusses Williams' symbiotic artistic relationship with director Elia Kazan, who was key to bringing many of the playwright's most powerful creations to the stage.

This latest edition of THEATER TALK premieres in the New York metropolitan area on Friday, December 26 (2014) at 1 AM (early Saturday morning) on Thirteen/PBS, with repeats on CUNY TV* on Saturday 12/27 at 8:30 PM, Sunday 12/28 at 12:30 PM, and Monday 12/29 at 7:30 AM, 1:30 PM, and 7:30 PM.

THEATER TALK is jointly produced by the 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 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 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 broadcast over-the-air in 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 and Cablevision/Optimum), 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.

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