"Theater Talk" Talks Back with Barksdale

Posted by Bruce Miller
Theater Talk is an acclaimed PBS television series devoted to the world of the stage. To the best of my knowledge, it provides the nation’s preeminent in-depth, theatre-focused TV coverage. The show began on New York television in 1993, and continues to be co-hosted today by Michael Riedel (Broadway columnist for the New York Post) and the series producer Susan Haskins, pictured above and to the left.

Theater Talk is one of the few independent productions on PBS and now airs weekly on Thirteen/WNET in New York and WGBH in Boston. CUNY TV also rebroadcasts the show each week, offering NYC viewers additional opportunities to catch each new interview.

Thirty-five other PBS affiliate stations around the country pick up the program, including WHTJ in Charlottesville, WUNC in Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, WUNE in Charlotte, and WHUT and WETA in Washington D. C. Alas, the show is not currently being aired on WCVE in Richmond, but that gives us (and John Porter?) something we can work on in 2009. If enough of us in the community begin to promote the same idea, our Community Ideas Station may respond positively by broadcasting the show.

For the time being, theatre aficionados in Greater Richmond can keep up with the show on line, by visiting the program’s website at http://www.theatertalk.org/. You can watch streaming videos of current and/or archived programs, and subscribe to their podcast.

I bring all this up because I was delighted to receive a comment to our blog, on New Year’s Day no less, from Susan Haskins, producer and co-host of Theater Talk. She had recently read Billy Christopher Maupin’s article of Monday March 10, 2008 announcing an upcoming episode of Theater Talk during which Haskins and Riedel planned to interview the all black Broadway cast of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Apparently that show never took place, and she wrote in to the Barksdale Buzz to explain why.

She didn't have to write. The post was nearly nine months old, and her responsibilities to explain her program to theatre lovers in Richmond VA are minimal, seeing as how the show isn't even broadcast in this market. But write she did. I was mightily impressed.

More and more the national theatre scene is noticing what’s going on here at Barksdale and in Richmond, and this is all to the good. The more our theatre community connects with national institutions and artists, the stronger we become.

We appreciate Ms Haskins taking notice and corresponding with us. We hope to begin a friendly grassroots campaign to bring Theater Talk to WCVE on a regular basis.

--Bruce Miller

Update: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Debate

Posted by Billy Christopher Maupin

Last week, I wrote about an episode of Theater Talk with Elizabeth Ashley and John Lahr debating the relevance of the Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof featuring an all African-American cast.

In response to an email I sent, Theater Talk replied:

We are scheduled to have several of the cast members a couple of weeks from now who we'll ask about this, but I didn't want to "jinx" that by putting it in the press release. The show was supposed to be about the BACKGROUND of the play, but then Lahr started talking about how the play was really about people tainted by the legacy of being slaveholders (I trivialize his point), so a Black cast didn't make sense ("like an all-white August Wilson wouldn't make sense"). Ashley strongly disagreed, so it turned into this interesting debate. [sic]

--Billy Christopher Maupin

Panel to Debate Relevance of the All African-American Cast of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Posted by Billy Christopher Maupin
There has been quite a bit of buzz surrounding the revival of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Tin Roof, which opens tonight at the Broadhurst Theatre. Why? It's been seen on Broadway in four different productions before:

1955- Director Elia Kazaan, Starring Burl Ives and Ben Gazzara

1974- Director Michael Kahn, Starring Elizabeth Ashley

1990- Director Howard Davies, Starring Polly Holliday, Charles Durning, and Kathleen Turner

2003- Director Anthony Page, Starring Ashley Judd

This is the first of these five productions to feature an all African-American cast. However, in many of the articles about the show, TheatreVirginia is mentioned as having produced what is considered to be the ONLY all African-American production prior to this revival.

The revival boasts a spectacularly talented cast with three Tony Award winners (Phylicia Rashad for A Raisin in the Sun, James Earl Jones for The Great White Hope and Fences, and Anika Noni Rose for Caroline, or Change, also recently seen in the motion picture adaptation of Dreamgirls), as well as the Oscar-nominated Terrence Howard. But the buzz doesn't center on all that prestige.

Today on Playbill.com a headline caught my eye: Ashley and Lahr Will Debate Cat Revival on March 8 "Theater Talk". They are to "debate the relevance and implications of doing Tennessee Williams' fifties Southern family drama Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with an all-Black cast."

There are four panelists in this discussion.

Elizabeth Ashley, star of the 1974 revival. (You may also remember her from Evening Shade or perhaps as the original Corrie in Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park.)

John Lahr, critic for The New Yorker

Susan Haskins, Executive Producer of Theatre Talk.

Michael Riedel, a writer for the New York Post.




These four people will be debating the relevance of an all African-American cast of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

What are your thoughts? The floor is open for comments!

(Oh, and if you would like to contact Theater Talk, you can click here. Their email address is theatertlk@aol.com.)

--Billy Christopher Maupin