COME FROM AWAY's Jenn Colella to Perform on This Week's 'Theater Talk' on Thirteen

This week THEATER TALK features the creators of two new Broadway productions - playwright Paula Vogel, whose new play INDECENT is being performed at the Cort Theatre; and writing team David Hein and Irene Sankoff, director Christopher Ashley, and performer Jenn Colella from Come From Away, the original Canadian musical at the Schoenfeld Theatre.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Vogel discusses Indecent with co-hosts Michael Riedel of the New York Post and producer Susan Haskins. The drama with music and dance spans the periods from 1907, when God of Vengeance, a Yiddish-language play by Sholem Asch was first produced, to 1922, when its entire Broadway cast was arrested on charges of obscenity for its onstage kiss between two women. Then, in the 1950s when Sen. Joseph McCarthy began hearings to ferret out communists in the entertainment industry, Asch was summoned to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Vogel by her own admission is tackling how America suppresses art, and why. With Trump's proposed withdrawal of funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and his administration's anti-immigration stance, her play - begun seven years ago - is prescient, but she says, "This election didn't come out of nowhere." She tells Riedel and Haskins, "I think of theater as the canary you put in the coal mine. It tells us if there are poison gases."

In the second half of the program, the focus is on the new musical Come From Away, a story of kindness and generosity when a Newfoundland community embraced nearly 7,000 passengers from airplanes diverted from U.S. airspace on September 11, 2001. The show has garnered some of the best reviews of the current season. Cast member Jenn Colella closes the episode by performing one of the show's songs, Me and The Sky.

This week's Indecent / Come From Away episode of THEATER TALK premieres Friday, April 14 (2017) on PBS station Thirteen/WNET at 2 AM (Saturday morning) and repeats there on Sunday 4/16 at 11:30 AM; it re-airs on CUNY TV* Saturday 4/15 at 8:30 PM, Sunday 4/16 at 12:30 PM, and Monday 4/17 at 7:30 AM, 1:30 PM, and 7:30 PM; and also airs on WLIW/21 on Monday 4/17 at 5:30 PM and on NYCLife/25 on Thursday 4/20 at 11 PM.

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 & 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 five boroughs on Ch. 75 (Spectrum & Optimum/Brooklyn), Ch. 77 (RCN), and Ch. 30 (Verizon FiOS). THEATER TALK episodes are available online anytime at www.cuny.tv and www.theatertalk.organd via iTunes.

Image courtesy Theater Talk Prod./CUNY TV