The Public Theater's APPLE FAMILY PLAYS Featured Tonight on PBS's THEATER CLOSE-UP

Theater Close-Up, a unique collaboration between THIRTEEN, THE PUBLIC THEATER, and a community of non-profit Off-Broadway theaters, will bring a diverse cross-section of provocative plays to primetime and online audiences, including Richard Nelson's THE APPLE FAMILY PLAYS: SCENES FROM LIFE IN THE COUNTRY.

Each year since 2010, Tony Award winner Richard Nelson premiered a new play about the fictional, liberal Apple family of Rhinebeck, New York. Each of the four plays originally premiered on the night on which the action - a key national event in contemporary American history -- is set. Directed by Richard Nelson. With Maryann Plunkett, Jay O. Sanders, Laila Robins, Jon DeVries, Stephen Kunken, and Sally Murphy.

Hosted by acclaimed actress Sigourney Weaver, the series continues on successive Thursdays at 10pm with repeat broadcasts on Sunday evenings following Masterpiece. (WLIW21 will air the series on Monday evenings beginning October 6 at 10:30pm).

THAT HOPEY CHANGEY THING
TONIGHT, Oct 16 at 10pm
(repeat Oct 19 at 10:30pm & Oct 21 at 3:30am)

The Apples reflect on the state of their family and discuss memory, manners and politics as polls close on mid-term election night 2010 and a groundswell of conservative sentiment flips Congress on its head.

SWEET AND SAD
Oct 23 at 10pm
(repeat Oct 26 at 10:30pm & Oct 27 at 3:30am)

A family brunch on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 stirs up discussions of loss, remembrance and a decade of change.

SORRY
Oct 30 at 10pm
(repeat Nov 2 at 10:30pm & Nov 4 at 3:30am)

The Apple family again shares a meal in Rhinebeck, as they sort through personal and political feelings of loss and confusion on the morning of the day the country will choose the next President.

REGULAR SINGING
Nov 6 at 10pm
(repeat Nov 9 at 10:30pm & Nov 11 at 4am)

The fourth and final play in this captivating series, REGULAR SINGING, opened on November 22, 2013 -- the 50th Anniversary of JFK's assassination that shocked the world.