SPAMILTON Company Set for Tonight's THEATER TALK

Forbidden Broadway creator Gerard Alessandrini visits THEATER TALK to discuss his newest and perhaps most au courant theater parody Spamilton, the critically acclaimed "skewering" - for which he is writer and director - of Hamilton, the biggest Broadway hit of our time. The cast of Spamilton, currently at The Triad Theatre, joins him and performs highlights of three numbers from the show.

Alessandrini tells co-hosts Michael Riedel of the New York Post and Susan Haskins that Hamilton's librettist, songwriter and one-time star Lin-Manuel Miranda, the show's director Thomas Kail and its musical director Alex Lacamoire all came to see Spamilton, and THEATER TALK viewers will learn what then transpired.

In the second half, the guest is historian Sir Barry Day OBE - an expert on Sir Noël Coward and now the adapter of the world premiere Musicals Tonight! presentation of Coward's Hoi Polloi. He discusses this show which Coward started in 1939 and completed in 1949, but was not produced when Coward sensed that post World War II audiences might be weary of its patriotic subject matter. However, the timing now may at last be right for the show, subtitled A Love Song for London.

This week's episode of THEATER TALK premieres today, Oct. 21 (2016) on PBS station Thirteen/WNET at 1:30 AM (Saturday morning) and repeats there on Sunday 10/23 at 11:30 AM; it reairs on CUNY TV* Saturday 10/22 at 8:30 PM, Sunday 10/23 at 12:30 PM, and Monday 10/24 at 7:30 AM, 1:30 PM, and 7:30 PM; and also airs on WLIW/21 on Monday 10/24 at 5:30 PM and on WNYE/25 on Monday 10/24 at 3:30 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 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.