THEATER TALK to Profile Unorthodox Shows OH, HELLO and SHEAR MADNESS Today

This week THEATER TALK profiles two theatrical successes with unorthodox roots - the first, Oh, Hello on Broadway with Nick Kroll and John Mulaney, started out as skits in clubs and on TV, became a play off-Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theater - and is now a full-scale big-stage production at the Lyceum on 45th Street. The second hit, Shear Madness, is a phenomenon that has played around the world for 37 years and arrived in New York just one year ago.

Kroll and MULANEY appear on THEATER TALK as substitute guests for their characters, "Gil Faizon" and "George St. Geegland," two clueless oldsters with a love of theater and BOUNDLESS self-regard, who were not available for the interview. Co-host Michael Riedel describes the characters succinctly: "They're life's losers - but they don't realize it themselves. There's a kind of nobility in their going on." Directed by Alex Timbers, Oh, Hello on Broadway received rave reviews, including this from Ben Brantley in The New York Times: "The joy in watching them comes from seeing what at first registers as a single, obvious joke keep growing bigger and bigger and bigger, until its warped, silly worldview takes over your mind, too."

In the episode's second half, we focus on the whodunit Shear Madness, the longest-running comedy in America. The show's creators Marilyn Abrams and Bruce Jordan (also its director) talk about acquiring the rights to a 1963 mystery drama, Scherenschnitt, set in a hair-styling salon, which was written in German by the late Swiss writer Paul Pörtner and featured audience participation in solving the crime. Abrams and Jordan revised it, keeping the audience participation, but transforming it into a campy, topical comedy. They premiered it at Boston's Charles Playhouse in 1980 (then starring themselves) where it has been running ever since. Shear Madness is also playing at New York City's Davenport Theatre, where it just celebrated its first anniversary and stars actor Jordan Ahnquist who also joins us on the program.

Co-hosted by Michael Riedel of the New York Post and Susan Haskins, this week's episode of THEATER TALK premieres today, Nov. 11 (2016) on PBS station Thirteen/WNET at 1:30 AM (Saturday morning) and repeats there on Sunday 11/13 at 11:30 AM; it reairs on CUNY TV* Saturday 11/12 at 8:30 PM, Sunday 11/13 at 12:30 PM, and Monday 11/14 at 7:30 AM, 1:30 PM, and 7:30 PM; and also airs on WLIW/21 on Monday 11/14 at 5:30 PM and on NYCLife/25 on Thursday 11/17 at 11 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 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 NYC metropolitan area on digital Ch. 25.3 and cablecast in the city's five boroughs on Ch. 75 (Time Warner & Optimum Brooklyn), Ch. 77 (RCN), and Ch. 30 (Verizon FiOS). THEATER TALK episodes are available online anytime at www.cuny.tv and www.theatertalk.org and via iTunes.