THEATER TALK to Welcome Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen and Sean Mathias, Now thru 12/23

A formidable British trio visits THEATER TALK for an intelligent and humorous look at the challenges of bringing the production of two existential plays, Harold Pinter's No Man's Land and Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, to an alternating, repertory-style engagement on Broadway (at the Cort Theatre).

Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, and director Sean Mathias bring their star power to THEATER TALK beginning today, December 20 (2013) at 1 AM (early Saturday morning) on Thirteen/PBS, followed by repeats on CUNY TV* on Saturday 12/21 at 8:30 PM, on Sunday 12/22 at 12:30 PM, and on Monday 12/23 at 7:30 AM, 1:30 PM, and 7:30 PM. THEATER TALK is co-hosted by Michael Riedel of the New York Post and producer Susan Haskins.

Mathias helmed both productions, which also star Billy Crudup and Shuler Hensley, and are set in heavily metaphorical settings - for Godot, a blighted landscape and for No Man's Land, an elegant, and decaying, house. Stewart and McKellen talk of bringing their personal camaraderie to the roles and the extraction of humor in the respective texts. Stewart and McKellen are among the British theater royalty visiting New York this season, joining Mark Rylance, Stephen Fry, Eileen Atkins, Michael Gambon, and Fiona Shaw.

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 in New York on www.Aereo.com.