Ira Glass: Seven Things I’ve Learned

Ira Glass is easily America’s foremost storyteller. His iconic weekly public radio program, This American Life, attracts 4.4 million listeners around the world. He returns to the festival (after joining us as a dancer with Monica Bill Barnes and Anna Bass in 2013) for a unique evening of thought-provoking stories, sharing lessons from his life and career in storytelling: What inspires him to create? What drives his passion? How have failures and successes informed his decisions? Using audio clips, music, video, and an audience Q&A, Glass will mix stories live onstage that explain his creative process and inspire his fans. Ira Glass is from Baltimore. He started working in public radio in 1978, when he was 19, as an intern at NPR’s headquarters in D.C. Over the next 17 years, he worked on nearly every NPR news show and did nearly every production job they had: tape-cutter, desk assistant, newscast writer, editor, producer, reporter, and substitute host. He spent a year in a high school for NPR, and a year in an elementary school, filing stories for All Things Considered. He moved to Chicago in 1989 and put This American Life on the air in 1995. The show recently created Serial, the most popular podcast of all time. In 2012, Glass told festival audiences that he holds his Brown University semiotics degree responsible for making him eternally curious about deconstructing narrative, or practically speaking, using audio clips to explore how stories operate on people. Expect some of that brilliance at “Seven Things I’ve Learned,” a must-see for This American Life fans. Buy a ticket to Ira Glass before June 20th, and you can upgrade to include a $20 Ira Party Ticket. This gets you into a private party inside the Power Center before the show with Mr. Glass. The party will include drinks and heavy hors d’oeuvres along with professional photos of you and Ira to commemorate the event. Reservations are limited. Co-Presented in partnership with Michigan Radio