BEAUTIFUL's Jessie Mueller, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil to Appear on THEATER TALK, Beg. 5/9

It's a Beautiful week for an all-new THEATER TALK with the Tony-nominated Jessie Mueller (Best Actress in a Musical) and real-life songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, celebrating the success of Beautiful - The Carole King Musical currently running on Broadway at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre.

Co-hosted by New York Post Broadway columnist Michael Riedel and Susan Haskins, the latest edition of THEATER TALK premieres in the New York metropolitan area on Friday, May 9 (2014) at 1 AM (early Saturday morning) on Thirteen/PBS, with repeats on CUNY TV* on Saturday 5/10 at 8:30 PM, Sunday 5/11 at 12:30 PM, and Monday 5/12 at 7:30 AM, 1:30 PM, and 7:30 PM.

Mueller plays Carole King in the new show, winning rave reviews for her portrayal. She recalls the emotional night that King, who had kept her distance from the show while it was in rehearsals and out of town, attended a performance unannounced and joined her onstage during the curtain call.

Mann and Weill, who were young Brill Building songwriters at the same time that King was writing songs with her then-husband, Gerry Goffin, have some of their hits in the show. Sitting at THEATER TALK's piano, Mann plays and sings and Weil throws in recollections about what they wrote, how they wrote, their separation, and the people they knew during the heady and exciting 1960s.

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 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.

*CUNY TV, the City University of New York television station, is broadcast over-the-air in the New York metropolitan area on digital Ch. 25.3, and cablecast in the five boroughs of New York City on Ch. 75 (Time Warner and Cablevision/Optimum), Ch. 77 (RCN), and Ch. 30 (Verizon FiOS). The show is available online anytime at www.cuny.tv and www.theatertalk.org, and via iTunes podcasts. CUNY TV is also live-streamed on www.Aereo.com.

Pictured: Jessie Mueller is Carole King, Anika Larsen is Cynthia Weil, and Jerrod Spector is Barry Mann in "Beautiful -- The Carole King Musical" at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre. Photo © Joan Marcus.