THEATER TALK Welcomes Acting Coach & Producer Wynn Handman This Week

A special on-location THEATER TALK features a warm and revealing interview with legendary acting coach and off-Broadway producer Wynn Handman, former Artistic Director and Co-Founder of The American Place Theatre, a home to some of the most significant playwrights and performers of the late 20th century. In his office and classroom, Handman speaks with former student and THEATER TALK co-host Susan Haskins about his notable career. With a roster of actors he mentored that includes Richard Gere, Dustin Hoffman, and Denzel Washington, Handman shares how he created a home for plays that were "an alternative to Broadway."

Handman studied with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse before becoming a teacher himself. He tells Haskins that theater in the 1950s, with some notable exceptions, was "dull." As producer, he was influential in bringing American voices like William Alfred (Hogan's Goat), Robert Lowell (The Old Glory), Sam Shepard (Killer's Head), and Ronald Ribman (Harry, Noon & Night) to prominence. Handman, the recipient of an Obie for Sustained Achievement and the Lucille Lortel Award for Lifetime Achievement, also reveals who influenced him, and why he still teaches at 93.

This all-new edition of THEATER TALK premieres in the New York metropolitan area on Friday, July 3 (2015) at 1 AM (early Saturday morning) on Thirteen/PBS, with repeats on CUNY TV* on Saturday 7/4 at 8:30 PM, Sunday 7/5 at 12:30 PM, and Monday 7/6 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 series is taped in the Himan Brown TV and Radio Studios at CUNY TV, The City University of New York television station 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.