THEATER TALK Co-Host Michael Riedel Chats New Book RAZZLE DAZZLE Today

An all-new THEATER TALK has series co-host Michael Riedel, Broadway columnist for the New York Post, moving into the interviewee chair, queried by the show's co-host Susan Haskins and New York Magazine drama critic Jesse Green about his new book, RAZZLE DAZZLE: THE BATTLE FOR BROADWAY (just published by Simon and Schuster).

The book is the story of 20th-century Broadway and particularly about "The Shuberts" -- the late Bernard Jacobs and Gerald Schoenfeld, attorneys for The Shubert Organization -- who worked to shore up a moribund Broadway, clean up a degraded Times Square, and revive the image and fortunes of New York City. Riedel is joined by producer and general manager Albert Poland, who met The Shuberts at age 24 and would work closely with them for decades: Poland brought the off-off-Broadway musical LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS to the Shuberts, and it became their first Off-Broadway production and a mega-hit to boost.

After an overview of Broadway in the 1920s and 30s, the rise of the famed Shubert Brothers -- Sam, J.J. and Lee -- and the checkered behaviors of an industry almost without scruples, Riedel brings the interview into the more recent past with a city that by the early 1970s was bankrupt and demoralized, its Times Square filled with crime and sex shops. After years of sheer tenacity, Jacobs and Schoenfeld took a gamble on Joseph Papp's downtown hit A CHORUS LINE, and moved it from The Public Theatre to their Shubert Theatre. With the hope for a four- or five-year run, the musical, directed and choreographed by Michael Bennett, ran for 15 years and gave the street a full-fledged smash. Then came the Cats phenomenon, and the opening of Broadway to a new family audience, the introduction of the famed "I Love New York" ad campaign, and a thriving city that was fun again.

Hosted by Susan Haskins and Jesse Green of New York Magazine, this latest edition of THEATER TALK premieres in the New York metropolitan area today, October 9 at 1:00 AM (early Saturday morning) and repeats on Sunday 10/11 at 11:30 AM on Thirteen/PBS (new time); on CUNY TV* Saturday 10/10 at 8:30 PM, Sunday 10/11 at 12:30 PM, and Monday 10/12 at 7:30 AM, 1:30 PM, and 7:30 PM; and on WLIW/21 on Monday 10/12 at 5:30 PM (new time) -- a total of 8 showings weekly.

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, The Noe?l Coward 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 Brooklyn), 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.

Pictured: (left) Albert Poland and Michael Riedel; (right) Susan Haskins and Jesse Green. Book cover courtesy Simon and Schuster. Images courtesy Theater Talk Productions and CUNY TV.