Susan Haskins News

The annual Tony® Awards ceremony celebrating “Broadway's best” will be on June 7, and THEATER TALK, for the 23rd consecutive season, convenes a panel of journalist-critics to give their award predictions. This year, Jesse Green (New York Magazine), entertainment columnist Michael Musto (Out.com), Patrick Pacheco (The Los Angeles Times) and Elisabeth Vincentelli (New York Post), explain who will win the Tonys and why the winning candidates will triumph over all the others.

An all-new THEATER TALK welcomes the key creative artists behind the new musical hit Fun Home – composer Jeanine Tesori, librettist/lyricist Lisa Kron, and author Alison Bechdel, who wrote and drew the bestselling graphic memoir that inspired the production. The show, now selling out at Circle in the Square, deals with the true story of Bechdel's relationship with her demanding father, her coming out in college as a lesbian that led her to learn of her father's closeted homosexuality, and his suicide, which followed this revelation.

In an all-new THEATER TALK, the Tony®-nominated stars of David Hare's romantic drama Skylight - Bill Nighy and Carey Mulligan - talk about the acclaimed revival, in which they performed previously on the West End and have followed to Broadway this Spring.  They share Skylight Tony nominations with fellow actor Matthew Beard, as well as playwright Hare, director Stephen Daldry, and Natasha Katz for Best Lighting.

Julie Halston (You Can't Take It With You) and Brad Oscar (Something Rotten!) are the recipients of the annual Richard Seff Award presented by the Actors' Equity Foundation to veteran female and male character actors for the best performance in a supporting role in a Broadway or Off-Broadway production. 

The Actors' Equity Foundation's 2015 Clarence Derwent Awards for most promising female and male performers on the New York metropolitan scene have gone to Phillipa Soo (Hamilton) and Josh Grisetti (It Shoulda Been You). 

An all-new THEATER TALK welcomes back show favorite and leading lady Helen Mirren, currently starring on Broadway as Queen Elizabeth II in Peter Morgan's new play The Audience – now rivaling big musicals for its more-than-million-dollar weekly grosses at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. Mirren's latest theatrical triumph returns her to the world of royalty, specifically that of Queen Elizabeth II, one that she previously assumed in her Oscar® winning role in the 2006 film, The Queen, also written by Morgan.

In an all-new THEATER TALK, David Hare and Stephen Daldry - author and director of Skylight - talk about the Broadway revival of Hare's romantic drama. The play, which is about the passionate relationship between a rich businessman and a poor schoolteacher who has consigned herself to public service, first ran on Broadway in 1996 and is considered one of Hare's best and a classic of modern British drama.

First The Visit, a haunting musical drama, based on the 1958 play by Friedrich Durrenmatt, which originally starred the legendary acting team of Lynn Fontanne as the world's wealthiest woman and Alfred Lunt as the disloyal former lover on whom she seeks revenge. Broadway favorites Chita Rivera and Roger Rees star in this stirring adaptation and appear on THEATER TALK to discuss their roles in it. Joining them are The Visit's innovative director, John Doyle, and composer, John Kander, who wrote the score with lyricist Fred Ebb (the pair's last collaboration before Ebb's death).

THEATER TALK focuses on Wolf Hall, a two-part British theatrical spectacle -- based on the best-selling historical novels by Dame Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies -- about the rise of Thomas Cromwell, a blacksmith's son, to become the trusted confidante of King Henry VIII. The plays, a hit in London, just opened on Broadway to critical raves. Appearing with Dame Hilary on THEATER TALK are director Jeremy Herrin and actors Ben Miles (Thomas Cromwell) and Nathaniel Parker (Henry VIII).

THEATER TALK focuses on Wolf Hall, a two-part British theatrical spectacle -- based on the best-selling historical novels by Dame Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies -- about the rise of Thomas Cromwell, a blacksmith's son, to become the trusted confidante of King Henry VIII. The plays, a hit in London, just opened on Broadway to critical raves. Appearing with Dame Hilary on THEATER TALK are director Jeremy Herrin and actors Ben Miles (Thomas Cromwell) and Nathaniel Parker (Henry VIII).

This week's THEATER TALK looks at the outrageous, funny and incisive new play, Robert Askin's Hand to God, which just opened to critical acclaim at Broadway's Booth Theatre, and 24/6: A Jewish Theater Company, a New York theatrical home for Sabbath-Observant Jews.

This week's THEATER TALK celebrates composer George Gershwin and his 1928 symphonic poem, An American in Paris, now coming to Broadway as an adaptation of the 1951 Academy Award-winning film. THEATER TALK welcomes musical theater historian Robert Kimball (author of the bestselling coffee-table book The Gershwins), and Rob Fisher, musical director of the show, to discuss the composer and how his work is being adapted anew.

This week's THEATER TALK celebrates composer George Gershwin and his 1928 symphonic poem, An American in Paris, now coming to Broadway as an adaptation of the 1951 Academy Award-winning film. THEATER TALK welcomes musical theater historian Robert Kimball (author of the bestselling coffee-table book The Gershwins), and Rob Fisher, musical director of the show, to discuss the composer and how his work is being adapted anew.

This week's THEATER TALK revels in show business lore with performers-supreme Tony Danza and Rob McClure, who are now co-starring in the hit musical Honeymoon in Vegas at the Nederlander Theatre. Then the show remembers the late documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles, who died this month at the age of 88.

An all-new THEATER TALK looks back at a beloved Broadway musical and its phenomenally successful film adaptation, then ahead to a new musical due on Broadway this spring, itself a declared love letter to musicals.

An all-new THEATER TALK looks back at a beloved Broadway musical and its phenomenally successful film adaptation, then ahead to a new musical due on Broadway this spring, itself a declared love letter to musicals.

On an all-new THEATER TALK, actors Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Wilson (2015 Golden Globe winner for Best Actress in a TV Series, Drama) discuss their roles in the Broadway play Constellations and the close working relationship they have developed while starring in this unconventional and critically-acclaimed two-person drama by Nick Payne.

On an all-new THEATER TALK, actors Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Wilson (2015 Golden Globe winner for Best Actress in a TV Series, Drama) discuss their roles in the Broadway play Constellations and the close working relationship they have developed while starring in this unconventional and critically-acclaimed two-person drama by Nick Payne.

Audiences have long known their preferences for great American musicals and their respective songwriters, yet few know about the librettists whose narrative structures for musicals (known as 'books') hold the shows together.

In an all new THEATER TALK, three of Theater Talk's favorite guests are welcomed back to the show - playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis, actor Stephen McKinley Henderson and director Austin Pendleton. The trio discusses their collaboration on Guirgis' new play, Between Riverside and Crazy at the Second Stage Theatre, about the off beat world of an aging police officer whose career was cut short in a shooting. In a freewheeling conversation, they also talk about the inspirations for their successful careers, as well as the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, who got his first break from Pendleton and later was Guirgis' mentor and collaborator.