FIDDLER ON THE ROOF's Bartlett Sher and Danny Burstein Set for This Week's THEATER TALK

Co-hosted by Susan Haskins and guest host Jesse Green, THEATER TALK spotlights the acclaimed Broadway 2015 revival of the musical Fiddler on the Roof, now at the Broadway Theatre, with director Bartlett Sher and star Danny Burstein.

The interview is followed by a 2004 excerpt from a previous THEATER TALK with composer Jerry Bock, lyricist Sheldon Harnick and librettist Joseph Stein, about the creation of the beloved show, and a 2011 performance of "To Life" by Kate Baldwin and Sheldon Harnick, also from the THEATER TALK archive.

Sher had Burstein in mind to play the lead when he restaged the classic 1964 show with new dances by Israeli choreographer Hofesh Shechter. Burstein and Sher discuss working together on the new production, which the actor calls, "Not your grandfather's FIDDLER" - it begins with Burstein in a red parka at a train station with a guidebook in hand. Sher talks about his process - "What do I expect FIDDLER to be?" - and relates it to his own father's origins in a shtetl in Lithuania. He explains that he wants to provide a frame for children, who are more distant from pogroms and even World War II, as a way into the show's material and its connection to today's "refugeeism" crisis.

Burstein also talks about Sher's "unsettling" process of throwing out the comedy for the first two weeks of rehearsal to get at the reality of the text. But he is used to it - the two worked together quite successfully on the Lincoln Center revival of South Pacific.

This latest edition of THEATER TALK premieres in the New York metropolitan area Friday, March 25 (2016) at 1:30 AM (early Saturday morning) and Sunday 3/27 at 11:30 AM on Thirteen/PBS; on CUNY TV* Saturday 3/26 at 8:30 PM, Sunday 3/27 at 12:30 PM, and Monday 3/28 at 7:30 AM, 1:30 PM, and 7:30 PM; and on WLIW/21 on Monday 2/ at 5:30 PM - a total of 8 showings.

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 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.

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