Theater Talk Pays Tribute to Howard Kissel, Re-Airing 'A Walk Through The Players Club,' 3/3-5

Beginning Saturday, March 3 (2012), THEATER TALK pays tribute to the late critic Howard Kissel with a rebroadcast of its award-winning 2009 program, A Walk Through The Players Club (#301). On this show Kissel, who was a writer, actor and frequent contributor to the series, guided viewers through this landmark of the American theater and shared stories about the people and events connected with it.   

Co-hosted by Michael Riedel of the New York Post and series executive producer Susan Haskins, THEATER TALK’s A Walk Through The Players Club will be cablecast on CUNY TV beginning Saturday, March 3 (2012) at 8:30 p.m.; Sunday, March 4 at 12:30 p.m.; and Monday, March 5 at 7:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., preempting a previously-scheduled repeat broadcast with Christopher Plummer and John Simon (#1515 / #217).  

Located on New York City's Gramercy Square, The Players Club was once the home of Edwin Booth, the greatest American actor of the 19th century. Booth then founded The Player's club there, along with Mark Twain, Joseph Jefferson and General William T. Sherman, as a place where, in Booth's words, "actors could mingle with gentlemen."  Kissel and The Players Club's Executive Director, Joseph Martello, show some of the wonderful artifacts that are preserved there. They include Booth's deathbed and the Yorick skull from Booth's Broadway Hamlet (produced in 1866, just one year after his brother assassinated the president).

CUNY TV, the City University of New York television station, is carried in New York City’s five boroughs – on Channel 75 on Time Warner and Cablevision, Channel 77 on RCN, and on Channel 30 on Verizon FiOS. The show is available online anytime at www.cuny.tv andwww.theatertalk.org, and via audio-only iTunes podcasts. 

A highlight clip of Kissel reciting William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 30 can be viewed at www.youtube.com/watch?v=txL2HZqKLJU. 

The entire episode can also be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wzm0xixNbbY.

THEATER TALK is jointly produced by not-for-profits Theater Talk Productions and CUNY TV.  The program is taped at The City University of New York (CUNY) TV studios in Manhattan and is distributed to 60 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.

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