Betty Buckley, Will Power & More Set for THEATER TALK's Season Premiere, 9/27

THEATER TALK, co-hosted for its 22nd consecutive year on New York television by Michael Riedel of the New York Post and producer Susan Haskins, premieres its 2013-2014 season by focusing on two new Off-Broadway successes, The Old Friends by Horton Foote at Signature Theatre and Fetch Clay, Make Man by Will Power at New York Theatre Workshop.

Featuring interviews with Old Friends cast members Betty Buckley, HAllie Foote, and Lois Smith, and Fetch Clay's playwright Will Power and cast member Ray Fisher, this new edition of THEATER TALK premieres in the New York metropolitan area Friday Sept. 27 (2013) at 1 AM (Saturday morning) on Thirteen/PBS, and repeats on CUNY TV* Saturday at 8:30 PM, Sunday at 12:30 PM, and Monday at 7:30 AM, 1:30 PM, and 7:30 PM.

Buckley, Foote, and Smith discuss their roles in The Old Friends, a never-before-produced play by the late Horton Foote (1916-2009) about the conflict between well-heeled landowners in a small Texas town and their less-fortunate kinfolk. They share their insights on what inspired him to write about these volatile characters, and they recall Foote as a strong collaborator with actors, though a gentle presence in rehearsals.

Next, actor Fisher and writer Power illuminate the focus of Power's new play, Fetch Clay, Make Man, about the unlikely friendship in the mid-1960s between boxer/activist Muhammad Ali and actor Stepin Fetchit, a well-known movie star of the '30s and '40s, who always portrayed "shufflin' Negro" stereotypes. According to Power, though the two men were drawn together because they both considered themselves "tricksters," they were also polar opposites - representing old black stereotypes Versus the new Black man.

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 70+ 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 audio-only iTunes podcasts.

Photos by Joan Marcus

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