THIRTEEN Features RASHEEDA SPEAKING on 'Theater Close-Up' Today

Following last year's auspicious debut of Theater Close-Up -- a unique collaboration between THIRTEEN and the large community of New York City area non-profit Off-Broadway theaters -- the station will once again present a selection of provocative and entertaining Off-Broadway plays, captured live on-stage, in THIRTEEN's signature "up-close" style. This season, the series expands its geographic reach to include the Crossroads Theatre Company in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

This season's offerings will be hosted by Blythe Danner, Tony Award-winning star of stage, screen, and television.

The second season of Theater Close-Upon THIRTEEN will continue to bring a diverse cross-section of those provocative plays to primetime and online audiences, premiering tonight, October 1 at 9 p.m. with Rasheeda Speaking from The New Group, with Cynthia Nixon making her directorial debut.

Tony winner Tonya Pinkins (Caroline, or Change) and two-time Academy Award winner Dianne Wiest (Bullets Over Broadway) star in Joel Drake Johnson's incisive, bitingly funny play about racial tensions in the workplace and post-racial America. The cast also features Patricia Conolly (The Coast of Utopia) and Darren Goldstein (Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson).

Photo Credit: Monique Carboni