The Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts announces tickets on sale for Ira Glass at 8:00 p.m. in the Walt Disney Theater on June 20, 2015. Tickets may be purchased by calling the Dr. Phillips Center Box Office at 844.513.2014 or by visiting the Box office at 455 Magnolia Avenue, Orlando, FL 32801 between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. or online at drphillipscenter.org. Online and phone ticket purchases include handling fees.
Ira Glass is the host and creator of the public radio program This American Life. The show premiered on Chicago’s public radio station WBEZ in 1995 and is now heard on more than 500 public radio stations each week by over 1.7 million listeners. Most weeks, the podcast of the program is the most popular podcast in America. The show also airs each week on the CBC in Canada, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s radio network, and on BBC Radio 4 Extra in the UK. Glass began his career as an intern at National Public Radio’s network headquarters in Washington, DC in 1978, when he was 19 years old. Over the years, he worked on nearly every NPR network news program and held virtually every production job in NPR’s Washington headquarters. He has been a tape cutter, newscast writer, desk assistant, editor, and producer. He has filled in as host of Talk of the Nation and Weekend All Things Considered.
"What’s amazing is how new [ This American Life] sounds. It has this beat all to itself... These stories float right into your brain and lodge there.”
— The Nation
“We’re blessed from time to time, with a spontaneous generation of humor and insight....[Ira Glass] finds—un- covers—drama and humor in the most pedestrian of places.”
— David Mamet
Under Glass’s editorial direction, This American Life has won the highest honors for broadcasting and journalistic excellence, including several Peabody and DuPont-Columbia awards. The American Journalism Review declared that the show is “at the vanguard of a journalistic revolution.” In 2014, This American Life won a Peabody award for their series ‘Harper High School.’
A television adaptation of This American Life ran on the Showtime network for two seasons, in 2007 and 2008, winning three Emmy awards, including Outstanding Nonfiction Series. The show has put out its own comic book, three greatest hits compilations, DVDs of live shows and other events, a “radio decoder” toy, temporary tattoos and a paint-by- numbers set. Half a dozen stories are in development to become feature films.