This musical American life - General

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March 11 2009

This musical American life. Following an earlier story about "This American Life: The Stage Show", afterellen.com is reporting that "rumors are circulating that the entire thing may be set to music coordinated by Whedon".

The source apparently is an Variety article that states "'This American Life' will be simulcast live to 400 screens [on April 23] in a program that will include 'a special musical performance' by Joss Whedon" . . .

druzilla | General | 01:50 CET | 26 comments total | tags: npr, musical, ira glass, this american life

Damn. Is this actually going to be broadcast on NPR, too, or only stage/select theaters?

sumogrip | March 11, 01:57 CET

Originally discussed here, although without the rumors of it somehow being entirely a Joss Whedon musical.

The One True b!X | March 11, 02:02 CET

Don't remove this! That thread went by so quickly, I never saw it!

Nebula1400 | March 11, 02:32 CET

The musical news is definitely new (to me).

Also, I believe it will be broadcast on the radio eventually, and maybe even on the This American Life TV show.

Septimus | March 11, 02:37 CET

The musical thing is new since the first thread, but I wish they'd explain how Joss being involved in a special musical performance suddenly became "HE'S MAING THE ENTIRE SHOW INTO A MUSICAL! WHEE!" rather than just claiming it.

The One True b!X | March 11, 02:39 CET

Did anyone else hear "And now for something completely different" upon seeing that last photo?

Mercenary | March 11, 03:25 CET

I love Ira Glass to bits.

toast | March 11, 03:38 CET

Ira Glass is speaking at a conference I'm going to this weekend. I'll have to ask him about this - assuming there is a Q & A - which there generally is.

Znachki | March 11, 03:42 CET

Please remove this comment... I changed my mind!

[ edited by Nebula1400 on 2009-03-11 03:57 ]

Nebula1400 | March 11, 03:50 CET

I rejigged the link title and description, and added the Variety source to clarify what this is, supposedly, all about . . . stay tuned, I guess.

SoddingNancyTribe | March 11, 04:55 CET

Also remember that it apparently isn't actually "simulcast live" if you live on the west coast.

The One True b!X | March 11, 05:57 CET

Well if there are music and lyrics by Joss involved then I guess I'm going, the theater is only about 10 minutes away... and I won't care if it isn't live for the West coast, not if it is something new created by Joss!

embers | March 11, 11:58 CET

Just bought my tickets. The word musical pushed this from the Want List to the Must Have List.

deadbessie | March 11, 18:08 CET

Yeah, I just found out the theater near me is playing it. Good lord am I there.

sumogrip | March 11, 19:52 CET

I just bought my tickets too, I didn't think it would sell out, but at least the theater will know ahead of time that this is happening!
Note to fellow Bay Area fans: Century 20 Daly City is right near the BART and is showing this event, tickets available through fandango.

embers | March 11, 21:43 CET

I smell a lotta "IF" coming off this. Waiting from His High Purple to comment.

RobinInSeoul | March 11, 23:58 CET

I'd probably go to this anyway. I love "This American Life" and this seems like a great way to support the show. Joss is on it? Fantastic. Jossy music? The deal couldn't be more sealed.

jcs | March 12, 02:02 CET

Tickets and a list of participating theaters are available at Fathom Events.

www.fathomevents.com

Is anyone familiar with Fathom Events, and how their website works? When I click on the link, my browser gives me a dialogue box warning that Fathom Events is an attack site, so I am very wary of going there. Is there any other way to find out where This American Life – Live! will be showing?

floofypooh | March 12, 05:03 CET

That's way weird, floofypooh--I just got the attack site warning too. When I went yesterday, though, I got no such warning. I would suggest typing in your zip code here (movietickets.com) and finding if the show is playing near you that way.

Make sure to put in the right date, though--April 23rd--because it kept messing that up for me, and thus returning no results. But once I got it right it gave me two theaters within 15 miles of me.

sumogrip | March 12, 05:20 CET

I get the attack site warning too.

Apparently (looking at Fandango) it's going to be playing at the theater closest to my house. Neat. Not sure whether I want to actually go - maybe if I can find someone to go with me.

Rachelkachel | March 12, 07:34 CET

It looks like fathom got hacked yesterday:

"The last time Google visited this site was on 2009-03-11, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 2009-03-11.

Malicious software includes 17 scripting exploit(s), 13 trojan(s), 11 backdoor(s). Successful infection resulted in an average of 13 new processes on the target machine."

It looks like it's been fixed now.

gossi | March 12, 09:26 CET

Thanks, everyone, for all the info. I'll go now and try again.

floofypooh | March 12, 15:36 CET

Yeah, I had trouble with the fathomevents site yesterday when I went to buy my tickets (safari refused to let me through), but I went to fandango and had no trouble finding and buying the tickets there. I'm getting pretty excited about this, I hope that RobinInSeoul is wrong (about all the IF).

embers | March 12, 15:51 CET

Now this is off the front page, no one will see it, but I talked to Ira Glass after his appearance at the ACRL conference today, and he told me that Joss will be playing the piano and singing one of the songs from Commentary!

So, straight from the man himself...

Znachki | March 16, 03:36 CET

So, you'd think it will it be Strike! or Heart, Broken yes? Does either one of those fit the show's theme of "Return to the Scene of the Crime"?

The One True b!X | March 16, 03:50 CET

Bad fan me that I've actually only listened to Commentary! once, so I have no clear idea. But I suspect it would be one of those, b!X. I'm going to have to go back and listen with an ear to the "Return to the Scene of the Crime" theme.

btw - Ira Glass is a Buffy geek (if it wasn't already common knowledge). One reference about Giles - which at a conference of librarians is a pretty obvious one, but later, he was talking about something else, and said, "like Buffy, in Season 2 or 3". Then said something about using 2 Buffy references in a single talk.

Znachki | March 17, 01:28 CET

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