General Premise

Character Studies is a bold new PBS series that explores the American character and spirit, revealing the stunning and enlightening impact of the greatest theatrical characters of our time. Through the words and images of leading actors, directors, and writers, we profile characters from a significant play or musical: "Long Day's Journey Into Night's" Edmund Tyrone in one program, "The Glass Menagerie's" Amanda Wingfield the next. We will show viewers, young and old and from all backgrounds, how the theatre and its characters do not just entertain us, but enrich and enhance all aspects of our lives.

The first season, developed in 2005, received more than 500 airings on 109 PBS stations across the country.

Our mission is to make these themes and stories accessible for anyone, especially those who may consider theatre alien to their own experience. The program's driving force is compelling storytelling. We will connect with viewers, young and old, from all backgrounds, who have never before been introduced to the idea that theatre is the place to be both entertained and enriched.

The Program

Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's "Death of A Salesman" is every one of us who has struggled with our disappointments in falling short of the American dream. Amanda Wingfield, in Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie," is the single mother, who like so many single mothers, struggles valiantly to raise her two children. Learning about these characters leads to an understanding of who we are as mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, lovers, neighbors and friends.

This is the territory of our PBS series: America's collective identities as seen through these theatrical characters. Each episode profiles a major character from a significant play or musical. We explore their biographies to uncover the universal questions that touch us all and often defy easy answers. Why did Song in David Henry Hwang's "M. Butterfly" perpetuate a lie that seemed destined to expose his suitor's badly mistaken view of Asian identity? What actions does Troy Maxson in August Wilson's "Fences" undertake to transcend the bonds of race that threaten to consume him and his family in betrayal and bitterness?

We wrestle with these questions and stories through our exclusive interviews with directors who guided these characters, actors who portrayed them, and, when possible, the artists who created them. The faces we'll see on Character Studies, regardless of age, are veterans of the stage and screen, including Ruby Dee, Cynthia Nixon, Angela Lansbury, Paul Newman, Edward Albee, Chita Rivera, Julie Harris, Robert Sean Leonard, Ethan Hawke, Olympia Dukakis and dozens more.

These characters not only help us understand who we are, but how we relate to each other. Amanda Wingfield is a striking example that struggling single parents are found in all communities, not confined by race or class (click here for a video clip - PC or Mac OS X). Ruth in "Raisin in the Sun" provides an equally potent lesson that family tensions are universal. Mark in Jonathan Larson's "Rent" confronts timeless challenges that always assault a young person's creative integrity.

Many of these characters also provide insight into the good, bad and oversimplified aspects of our history. Regina in Lillian Hellman's "The Little Foxes," written during the Depression, is a portrait of unbridled ambition, as she wraps herself in the cynical and compromised values mirrored today in our most corrupt corporate executives. John Proctor in Arthur Miller's "The Crucible," by contrast, struggles to maintain the best of American morals and values in the face of a society gone haywire, its civil liberties under constant threat.

What sets these theatrical characters apart is that, because of their enduring quality, they have been performed and interpreted by hundreds of actors, often over the course of generations. They have taken on true lives of their own. Character Studies provides a unique opportunity to hear from many of the actors who created these roles, offering their own interpretations over the course of time, and showing how our culture has evolved and how it has stayed the same. We interview Eli Wallach who originated the role of Kilroy in Tennessee Williams' "Camino Real" and Ethan Hawke, who played the same role 50 years later.

We also document the stories of the key players who have informed the most influential live performances of the last sixty years, and whose experiences might otherwise be lost to history. Uta Hagen, Elaine Stritch, Maureen Stapleton, Eli Wallach, Julie Harris, Marian Seldes, Angela Lansbury, Paul Newman, Ruby Dee, all are legends in their own right. And because of our project (based on multiple hours of interviews) their recollections will be available for generations to come.

This is a project that touches every corner of our society. We draw from the most celebrated, established playwrights, from Eugene O'Neill, Arthur Miller, Lillian Hellman, Edward Albee and Tennessee Williams, to more contemporary voices such as Jonathan Larsen, August Wilson, John Kander, Sheldon Harnick, Lorraine Hansberry and Wendy Wasserstein. Our subjects, the characters we will profile from dramatic and musical theatre, range in age from 15 to 89, from all racial, cultural and economic backgrounds. We tap into audiences' insatiable, proven interest for programs that take them behind the scenes to reveal how movies are made, songs are produced and television is created. Here it is the world of theatre, and its most monumental characters.