The first live-audience taping of the popular "Theater Talk" program, seen on Thirteen/WNET, will be held March 13 at CUNY's television studios in Manhattan. Designed to benefit the show's parent company, the special segment will feature a panel of theatre experts discussing "The State of Theater, 2000.” A question and answer period will follow the panel discussion.

Tickets are available by calling (212) 431-0974.

Featured on the panel will be Roundabout artistic director Todd Haimes, Tony Award-winning Side Man playwright Warren Leight, New York Times theatre columnist Jesse McKinley, Wit, How I Learned To Drive and A Bomb-Itty Of Errors producer Daryl Roth, New York Magazine theatre critic John Simon and Tony Award-winning 1776 and Titanic librettist Peter Stone. The panel will be hosted by Theatre Talk producer Susan Haskins and New York Post columnist Michael Riedel.

Donations for tickets to the taping benefit the not-for-profit "Theater Talk" Productions, Inc., which aids the production of "Theater Talk" on Thirteen/WNET.

--By Robert Simonson
and Murdoch McBride