THEATER TALK to Spotlight Tony Nominated THE HUMANS This Friday

The newest edition of THEATER TALK spotlights the acclaimed new American play, THE HUMANS by Stephen Karam, which has just been nominated for six Tony Awards, including one for Best Play.

Joining co-hosts Michael Riedel of the New York Post and Susan Haskins are guests, playwright Karam and three cast members - Tony nominees Reed Birney and Jayne Houdeyshell, plus Cassie Beck, who portray the father, mother and oldest daughter of the Blake family, gathered in New York City for a Thanksgiving celebration. In THE HUMANS, Karam has altered the familiar aspects of a family-gathering play by including, along with the love and squabbling expected among parents and siblings, a mounting sense of mystery and dread.

In the play, Scranton-based Erik and Deirdre Blake (Birney and Houdeyshell) with Erik's dementia-afflicted mother, visit the Chinatown apartment of their daughter Brigid and her boyfriend. They soon find that they are out of their element, both physically and emotionally in addition to being burdened by a dark secret back in Scranton. The parents have previously relied on their Catholic faith to manage their lives, while their daughters Aimee (Beck) and Brigid have used different means to deal with life's challenges. Now, however, with all their difficulties, we wonder if any strategies can hold THE FAMILY members together.

Karam tells the co-hosts that he had been thinking about the anxiety experienced by Americans in the "post-financial crisis." One of the Blakes' biggest struggles is fiscal insecurity. As Birney points out in the interview, "people don't talk about how hard it is to be poor in America," but THE HUMANS confronts this issue head-on. That said, although financial insecurity, illnesses and SCANDAL are part of this story, there is also great humor and FORTITUDE shown by this struggling family, despite their problems. Karam explains that he wants to show that "people are resilient and hilarious in the face of all their anxieties and crises."

This latest edition of THEATER TALK premieres in the New York metropolitan area on Thirteen/PBS, Friday, May 6 (2016) at 1:30 AM (early Saturday) and Sunday, May 8 at 11:30 AM. It re-airs on CUNY TV* Saturday 5/7 at 8:30 PM, Sunday 5/8 at 12:30 PM, and Monday 5/9 at 7:30 AM, 1:30 PM, and 7:30 PM; as well as on WLIW/21 on Monday 5/9 at 5:30 PM - a total of eight showings this week.

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 New York metropolitan area on digital Ch. 25.3 and cablecast in the city's five boroughs on Ch. 75 (Time Warner and 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: Stephen Karam, Susan Haskins, Jayne Houdeyshell, Cassie Beck, Reed Birney and Michael Riedel. Image courtesy Theater Talk/CUNY TV.