HOLIDAY INN Stars Duet on THEATER TALK Today

THEATER TALK gathers together three top critics to assess the New York Theater season. Jesse Green, drama critic of New York Magazine, Linda Winer, drama critic for Newsday, and critic-at-large Elisabeth Vincentelli, writing for the New York Times and The New Yorker, join series co-host Susan Haskins to review numerous notable productions of Fall 2016, On and Off Broadway. They often disagree (one production is the favorite of two of the critics, but "solipsistic blah-blah" to the third), but come together in their enthusiasm for plays and musicals that focus on the kinds of things that people are really going through now.

Among the shows they discuss are Dear Evan Hansen; The Band's Visit; Natasha, Pierre and The Great Comet of 1812; and Sweet Charity - plus each of the panelists' favorite plays, which include Sweat by Lynn Nottage, The Gabriel Family Trilogy by Richard Nelson, and Anna Deveare Smith's Notes from the Field.

THEATER TALK then celebrates the holidays by welcoming actors Bryce Pinkham and Lora Lee Gayer from the stage musical Holiday Inn, who sing Irving Berlin's "White Christmas," the best-selling song of all time.

This week's episode of THEATER TALK premieres today, Dec. 23 (2016) on PBS station Thirteen/WNET at 1:30 AM (Saturday morning) and repeats there on Sunday 12/25 at 11:30 AM; it reairs on CUNY TV* Saturday 12/24 at 8:30 PM, Sunday 12/25 at 12:30 PM, and Monday 12/26 at 7:30 AM, 1:30 PM, and 7:30 PM; and also airs on WLIW/21 on Monday 12/26 at 5:30 PM. The series also airs on NYCLife/25 on Thursdays 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 and 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 (Time Warner & Optimum Brooklyn), Ch. 77 (RCN), and Ch. 30 (Verizon FiOS). THEATER TALK episodes are available online anytime at www.cuny.tv and www.theatertalk.org and via iTunes.

Pictured: Holiday Inn's Bryce Pinkham and Lora Lee Gayer. Image courtesy Theater Talk Productions/CUNY TV.