MOTHERS AND SONS' Terrence McNally and Tyne Daly Set for THEATER TALK this Weekend

On the newest THEATER TALK, actress Tyne Daly and playwright Terrence McNally discuss the new play Mothers and Sons, McNally's latest work on Broadway, now at the Golden. Hosted by Michael Riedel and Susan Haskins, THEATER TALK's Mothers and Sons episode premieres in the New York metropolitan area Friday, April 11 (2014) at 1 AM (Saturday morning) on Thirteen/PBS, and continues on CUNY TV* Saturday 4/12 at 8:30 PM, Sunday 4/13 at 12:30 PM, and Monday 4/14 at 7:30 AM, 1:30 PM, and 7:30 PM.

Mothers and Sons is the story of a woman, Katharine Gerard (Daly) who drops in unexpectedly on Cal Porter (Frederick Weller), the surviving partner of her son who died of AIDS twenty years ago. In the intervening years, Cal took a new male partner; they married, and adopted a son, now six. Both the mother and her son's former lover's lives have changed - more than they could have possibly conceived back in the early '90's

Tyne Daly, after a long stint on TV in Cagney & Lacey, took Broadway by storm as Mama Rose in the 1989 revival of Gypsy and again in 2011 in the Broadway revival of McNally's Master Class as opera diva Maria Callas, so she is comfortable acting larger-than-life characters. "The hardest part is playing a Republican," she abashedly admits, "but I really like human beings."

"Theater is the best way of talking about public and emotional issues," McNally tells the co-hosts, expressing astonishment at how far our country has come in acceptance of gay people and relationships. Having lived through vilification of homosexuality and the early days of gay rights, he recalls in particular the AIDS Crisis of the 1980s, "still a wound in our society." Now his moving new work asks how far have we come as a society in need of healing, since then, and how far we still have to go.

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 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 for mobile, tablet and desktop viewing in the New York area on www.Aereo.com.

Photo by Joan Marcus