FOR IMMEDIATE MEDIA RELEASE
Thursday, January 21, 2010

Tom Hanks is one of the most celebrated and popular actors of our time. He saved Private Ryan, befriended a lone volleyball, led a band of broken toys back into a boy’s heart, cracked the Mary Magdalene mystery, and opened the box of chocolates of life for millions of people around the world.  Now, he is the focus of “Backstage WithSM Tom Hanks” a production of WVIZ/PBS ideastream® and PlayhouseSquare in partnership with Great Lakes Theater Festival. Mr. Hanks joins NPR’s Scott Simon before a live studio audience of high school students and invited guests for an intimate and often rollicking conversation about his career and his life, beginning with his professional debut performances in Cleveland at Great Lakes Theater Festival.  The program was taped in October 2009 when Mr. Hanks was in Cleveland for a fundraiser for Great Lakes Theater Festival.

“Backstage With Tom Hanks,” premieres on WVIZ/PBS Thursday, February 11 at 9 p.m., and repeats Sunday, February 14 at 10:30 p.m. and Monday, February 22 at 9 p.m.

As spontaneous and natural as the roles he has made his own, the interview begins with Hanks describing what he was like in high school. Not surprisingly, “I got to school and tried to figure out how to make people laugh.” And while he doesn’t remember his first applause, he does recall getting his first laugh – it was in second grade, by telling a joke stolen from his older brother.

It was being passed over for a part in a college play that brought Hanks to Cleveland and Great Lakes Theater Festival in the late-1970s. He regales the audience with stories from his early days (“When you don’t have any money in your pocket and you’re on the west side of Cleveland, you might as well go down to the theater and change over the sets at two o’clock in the morning”) and reveals the many lessons he has learned working in the theater, in film and on television. 

From funny, behind-the-scenes stories of some of his most famous films – with lots of laughs coming from the audience for his re-telling of his experiences making “Toy Story” – to personal stories and life lessons learned, Hanks’ answers to both Scott Simon’s and the students’ questions are nothing short of entertaining.

“Backstage With” host Scott Simon is one of America’s most admired writers and broadcasters.  He has reported from all fifty states, five continents, and ten wars, from El Salvador to Sarajevo to Afghanistan and Iraq. His books have chronicled characters in war and peace, sports and art, tragedy and comedy.  He has won every major award in broadcasting, including the Peabody, and his radio show, NPR’s “Weekend Edition Saturday,” has been called by the Washington Post, “the most literate, witty, moving, and just plain interesting news show on any dial.”

The “Backstage With” series features conversations with masters in the performing arts taped at the Idea Center® at PlayhouseSquare. Previous guests on “Backstage With” include composers Marvin Hamlisch, Richard Sherman and Adam Guettel; Broadway legend Chita Rivera; authors Alice Walker, Marsha Norman and Bob Martin; director Bob Avian; actors Ashley Brown and Gavin Lee; and producer John Breglio. Visit wviz.org/backstage for more information on the series and to stream previous episodes.

Funding for “Backstage With Tom Hanks” comes from The George W. Codrington Charitable Foundation, Cuyahoga Arts and Culture and Ohio Arts Council.