“You have to be able to identify talent,” says Susan Haskins, the producer and co-host of PBS’ “Theater Talk,” a meeting of the minds for anyone on and around the New York stage. “You want people who are going to be fun,” adds NY Post’s Michael Riedel, who co-hosts the program. “You want the right personalities.”
Since its inception in 1992, “Theater Talk” has become a staple of the Main Stem, beckoning everyone from icons like Elaine Page and Marian Seldes to box office draws like Hugh Jackman and Daniel Radcliffe to burgeoning Broadway names like Lily Rabe and Hamish Linklater. The show, which airs on PBS and member stations and is taped at CUNY-TV in New York, will celebrate 20 years this summer. “I’m stunned that we’re still doing this,” Haskins says, calling the show a “cult thing.”
Haskins and Riedel met at Sardi’s Restaurant in 1991, while filming an episode of the public access series “The Steven Holt Show.” Haskins, who was the art director at La MaMa at the time, knew she had discovered a great talent in Riedel, then the managing editor of the now defunct “TheaterWeek” magazine. “He was fully formed,” she remembers, describing his biting wit and take on the industry.
The pair teamed up—with the help of seed funding from Steve Ahem—to conceive the “Meet the Press” of theater on public access. The show joined the ranks of other stage-focused programs with American Theatre Wing's "Working in the Theatre," also a CUNY-TV co-production, and has since spawned competition in NY1’s “On Stage."
Initially, Riedel and Haskins struggled to book talent, once resorting to an interview with the sound designer for Tyne Daly’s “Gypsy.” In those days, if landing a high-profile guest proved difficult, Riedel featured the no-longer-airing “Broadway Update,” a short segment on gossip, something Riedel now does twice a week in his Post column.
Riedel’s natural bent towards the salacious can alienate prospective guests, though. “Sometimes they come on because they’re mad at me,” Riedel says, using a visit from Bobby Cannavale, Chris Rock, and “The Motherf**ker With the Hat” playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis as an example. Riedel famously panned the play during previews, saying it would close a week after the opening, and later ate his words when the show opened to favorable reviews.
“It is weird to write something like that about this kind of play,” Rock said on “Theater Talk” in 2011. “I would assume the guy that wrote this would punch somebody in the face. ‘Driving Miss Daisy,’ what’s that guy going to do to me? But ‘The Motherf**ker With the Hat’? I’m going to go after that guy. What kind of sense does that make?”
But Riedel’s persona on “Theater Talk” differs from his Post alter ego, and, as Haskins says, “At the end of the day, Michael, you’re pals with everybody.”
Today, landing talent for the show has become much easier, though Haskins works around the clock as the producer to book the show. Riedel calls her “the scout,” while Haskins sees herself as a “glorified scheduling assistant.”
“I would like to reach out to beginning talent,” Haskins says, but doesn’t know if that’s a possibility. “We have to get something that will engage Michael’s interest.”
“My natural bent is for the Marilyn Mayes of the world,” explains Riedel, referencing the day’s guest. “People who have lives to talk about. That’s not to say that up and comers can’t be [guests].”
However, when “Theater Talk” came along, “no one was asking these people to do anything,” Riedel recalls. Some dream guests for the show include Nathan Lane, Stephen Sondheim, and Hal Prince, though Haskins isn’t looking to the future.
“We never have thought of it that way,” she says, adding that Riedel is more “calculated” and “ambitious.” “Michael always has a plan. He doesn’t always tell me the plan.”
“I’m a big General Sherman trying to win the war of life,” Michael jokes in response. “We haven’t had a plan.”
This odd couple does occasionally disagree, and Riedel’s dominant personality can overshadow Haskins at times. One of the day’s guests even remarked, “This was the Michael Riedel show. Is it always?”
“I’m a generous performer,” Riedel says. “No, you are not a giver,” Haskins quickly retorts. “It says something about me that I’ve been working with him for 20 years,” she adds.
But why don’t they bicker more on the air?
“It would make for good TV,” Riedel says. “It would go viral!”
