Theatre Caricaturist Ken Fallin Closes THEATER TALK's 2016-17 Season

Artist and illustrator Ken Fallin - famous for witty pen-and-ink celebrity portraits - is the final guest of the 2016-17 season of THEATER TALK, the NY Emmy-winning interview/discussion series.

Fallin is one of the leading caricaturists of our era, having inherited the mantle from the legendary Al Hirschfeld, following the master's death in 2003. Fallin's big break was, however, before Hirschfeld's passing, when in 1983 he emulated the maestro's style for a FORBIDDEN Broadway poster (an homage that Fallin says Hirschfeld thought he himself had created). This led to an "avalanche of assignments," and a career that now includes work regularly featured on BroadwayWorld and in numerous publications including THE WALL Street Journal, The New Yorker, and The Hollywood Reporter.

The genial guest shares an on-set gallery of his favorite drawings with co-hosts Susan Haskins and Michael Riedel, as well as tricks of the trade on how he created them, and which responses to his work he found most gratifying. At interview's end, he also bestows surprise gifts on the series' co-hosts, which are further examples of Fallin's keen eye and artistic talent.

Rounding out the program are highlights of THEATER TALK's all-time highest-rated episode on PBS, a conversation recorded in November 2001 between artists Al Hirschfeld and Pulitzer Prize winner Art Spiegelman in Hirschfeld's studio. Hirschfeld recounts his early days as a "starving" painter in Paris (supplemented by meals from Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas); how his long, distinguished, unplanned career at The New York Times began; and a work ethic that kept him drawing until the end of his life at age 99.

The Ken Fallin edition of THEATER TALK can be seen in the NYC metropolitan area on PBS station Thirteen/WNET today, July 21 (2017) at 1:30 AM (early Saturday morning) and Sunday 7/23 at 11:30 AM; on CUNY TV Saturday 7/22 at 8:30 PM, Sunday 7/23 at 12:30 PM, and Monday 7/24 at 7:30 AM, 1:30 PM, and 7:30 PM; on WLIW/21 Monday 7/24 at 5:30 PM; and on NYCLife Thursday 7/27 at 11 PM. Encore programs will repeat throughout the rest of the summer until a new season begins in October.

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 in the NYC metropolitan area on digital Ch. 25.3 and cablecast in the city's 5 boroughs on Ch. 75 (Spectrum & Optimum), Ch. 77 (RCN), and Ch. 30 (Verizon). THEATER TALK episodes are available online anytime at www.cuny.tv and www.theatertalk.org and via podcast on iTunes.

Pictured: Caricaturist Ken Fallin (photo by Stephen Jennings); a Fallin self-portrait (courtesy Ken Fallin); Art Spiegelman with Al Hirschfeld in November 2001 (courtesy Theater Talk Prod.).