SOUND OF MUSIC, SOMETHING ROTTEN! and More Set for THEATER TALK This Weekend

An all-new THEATER TALK looks back at a beloved Broadway musical and its phenomenally successful film adaptation, then ahead to a new musical due on Broadway this spring, itself a declared love letter to musicals.

First up, Rodgers & Hammerstein organization president and executive director Ted Chapin and writer Tom Santopietro, author of the new book The Sound of Music Story, look back more than 50 years to the 1959 creation of The Sound of Music by the writing team of Howard LINDSAY and Russel Crouse, composer Richard Rodgers, and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II. Written for Broadway favorite Mary Martin, the musical about the formation of the Trapp Family Singers was well received by critics - with qualifications - and moved on to winning the Tony® Award for Best Musical and a nearly four-year run. Still, no one could have anticipated the extraordinary 1965 success of the motion picture adaptation, directed by Robert Wise, starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. Chapin and Santopietro discuss the film's backstory, share gossip from the set and explain why the film's popularity has endured - despite influential film critic Pauline Kael calling it "the single most repressive influence on artistic freedom in movies," and Plummer's own re-titling (since recanted): The Sound of Mucous.

THEATER TALK's roving correspondents AndrewAndrew then go to a press rehearsal for Something Rotten! a new musical preparing for a Broadway opening in April. Set in the 1590s, the show - with direction & choreography by Tony-winner Casey Nicholaw - is about two lesser Elizabethan bards trying to get out from under the shadow of William Shakespeare by inventing the musical comedy. Highlights feature interviews with, and performances by, actors Christian Borle, John Cariani, Brian D'Arcy James and Brad Oscar.

Co-hosted by Michael Riedel of the New York Post and producer Susan Haskins, this THEATER TALK episode premieres in the New York metropolitan area Friday, March 20 (2015) at 1 AM (Saturday morning) on Thirteen/PBS, and continues on CUNY TV* Saturday 3/21 at 8:30 PM, Sunday 3/22 at 12:30 PM, and Monday 3/23 at 7:30 AM, 1:30 PM, and 7:30 PM.

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 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; 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) Rodgers and Hammerstein's Ted Chapin and author Tom Santopietro on "Theater Talk"; (right) Brian D'Arcy James and Brad Oscar in rehearsal for "Something Rotten". Images courtesy of Theater Talk / CUNY TV.