Sir Alan Ayckbourn To Appear On This Week's Theatre Talk

Sir Alan Ayckbourn will discuss his his lengthy career on Theatre Talk on Friday, December 11th. The program airs at 1:00 AM on THIRTEEN.

Hosts Michael Reidel and Susan Haskins have a fascinating conversation with Sir Alan Ayckbourn on the eve of the opening of his new play, My Wonderful Day at 59E59, which Ayckbourn both wrote and directed. This is 73rd of Ayckbourn's plays which also include Absurd Person Singular, A Small Family Business, and The Norman Conquests (which was revived last season and won three Drama Desk Awards). Ayckbourn discusses the techniques he has cultivated to create such an impressive number of meaningful dramatic works.

This week on CUNY TV:

Another episode of the show, airing only on CUNY TV, features actor Willem Dafoe and director Richard Foreman, one of the most celebrated avant-garde directors of the American theater. They discuss Foreman's latest work, Idiot Savant, in which Dafoe stars at the Public Theater.

Professor James Shapiro of Columbia University (author of 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare) will also appear. Shapiro discusses the "unbroken" tradition of Shakespeare's Hamlet from Burbage through Olivier and right up to Jude Law, whose "cerebral" yet "physically dynamic" interpretation of the skeptical prince is now a hit on Broadway.

Finally, actor Kevin Curtis performs a soulful rendition of the song "Georgetown" from the new musical Street Lights.

The episode will air on the following dates:

Saturday, December 12th at 8:30 PM
Sunday, December 13th at 12:30 PM and
Monday, December 14th at 7:30 AM, 1:30 PM, and 7:30 PM

Coming up on Christmas Night: A festive half-hour with playwright Theresa Rebeck and the cast of her new play The Understudy: Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Justin Kirk, and Julie White.

Theater Talk, the series devoted to the world of the stage, is co-hosted by Michael Riedel, Broadway columnist for the New York Post and series producer Susan Haskins.

Theater Talk is taped at CUNY-TV Studios in New York City. The Executive Producer for CUNY TV is Bob Isaacson, the Producer of Theater Talk is Steven Doloff and Associate Producers are Rossmary Cruz and Vanessa Mourner. It is directed by Adam Walker with engineering by John Harvi and lighting design by Jonathan Belcher. The show is edited by Larry Guo, Quan Ou and Sylvester Lukasiewicz.

The program is funded by contributions from private foundations and individuals, as well as The New York State Council on the Arts and The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. For more information on Theater Talk, e-mail theatertlk@aol.com or visit www.theatertalk.org.

Theater Talk is also telecast every Thursday night on PBS Station NJN, which is available to
all over-the-air digital and cable TV viewers in the NYC area.

For clips and highlights from the show, please visit https://www.youtube.com/user/theatertalk.

To watch the show in streaming video or iTunes, visit http://www.cuny.tv/series/theatertalk/listen.lasso?year=2008.

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