TV News

PBS to Broadcast Off-Broadway Productions Including The Apple Family Plays, An Iliad, and The Vandal

The shows will be seen as part of the new ”Theater Close-Up” series.

New York City
Deidre O'Connell and Noah Robbins in Hamish Linklater's The Vandal, which will be broadcast on PBS this fall.
Deidre O'Connell and Noah Robbins in Hamish Linklater's The Vandal, which will be broadcast on PBS this fall.
(© Joan Marcus)

A new television series titled Theater Close-Up will bring a selection of recent off-Broadway shows to PBS THIRTEEN and its various local networks.

The series premieres on Thursday, October 2, at 9pm with the Mint Theater Company's Drama Desk Award-nominated revival of John Van Druten's London Wall, and continues through the fall and winter with Richard Nelson's The Apple Family Plays (The Public Theater), Hamish Linklater's The Vandal (The Flea), Denis O'Hare and Lisa Peterson's An Iliad (New York Theatre Workshop), Brian Richard Mori's Hellman v. McCarthy (Abingdon Theater Company), and Steven Banks' Looking at Christmas (The Flea). The broadcasts will be streamed online and will also air on Sundays and on sister station WLIW/Channel 21.

PBS has a history of broadcasting live and taped theatrical productions, dating back to the Broadway Theater Archive series of the 1970s. The Live From Lincoln Center series will broadcast the Bryn Terfel-Emma Thompson-led Sweeney Todd on September 26, and Douglas Carter Beane's The Nance, starring Nathan Lane, on October 10.