THEATER TALK to Celebrate Broadway's THE CRUCIBLE This Weekend

The newest edition of THEATER TALK features the director and two cast members of Arthur Miller's The Crucible, the critically-acclaimed and Tony-nominated Best Revival Of A Play now at the Walter Kerr Theatre - director Ivo Van Hove, Ben Whishaw, and Sophie Okonedo (also Tony-nominated as Best Actress in a Leading Role). The revival received a total of 4 Tony nominations.

The actors discuss their rehearsal process with Van Hove, one that they found unorthodox but fulfilling for both of them. Van Hove, has spent much of the 2015-16 theater season in New York - beginning in the fall with another Arthur Miller revival, A View from the Bridge (for which he received a Tony nomination as Best Director of a Play), followed by the New York Theatre Workshop production of David Bowie's Lazarus, which Van Hove conceived in tandem with the rock legend shortly before his death early this year.

With The Crucible Van Hove worked to create a living community on stage, despite the play's setting in 17th century Salem, Massachusetts. Miller wrote the play in 1953 as an allegory to the Joseph McCarthy "witch-hunting" trials in the 1950s during which the government sought to identify and purge all suspected Communists from key industries including show business. In wanting the play to be about human beings, not archetypes, Van Hove sought to have the audience see no stereotypical figures from 17th century Salem, who believed in witches, but instead real people with whom the audience can identify.

Co-hosted by Michael Riedel of the New York Post and Susan Haskins, this latest edition of THEATER TALK premieres in the New York area on Thirteen/PBS, Friday, May 13 (2016) at 1:30 AM (early Saturday) and Sunday, May 15 at 11:30 AM. It re-airs on CUNY TV* Saturday 5/14 at 8:30 PM, Sunday 5/15 at 12:30 PM, and Monday 5/16 at 7:30 AM, 1:30 PM, and 7:30 PM; as well as on WLIW/21 on Monday 5/16 at 5:30 PM - 8 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.

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