Award-Winning Radio Host Ira Glass and Broadway Icon Stephen Sondheim Provide Candid Evenings of Storytelling at the Kimmel Center in January and February
December 29, 2008
Ira Glass
This January and February, the Kimmel Center brings masterful storytellers to the spotlight: a nationally-syndicated radio personality and a theatrical luminary offer unique perspectives and poignant anecdotes on their respective art forms.
Click on the name of the artist below for more information on each Kimmel Center performance:
- Award-winning host of National Public Radio's This American Life, Ira Glass makes his Kimmel Center debut with Radio Stories & Other Stories: An Evening with Ira Glass (January 24, 2009).
- Legendary Broadway composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim discusses A Life in the Theater in an onstage conversation with the New York Times' Frank Rich (February 21, 2009).
Tickets can be purchased by calling 215-893-1999, online at www.kimmelcenter.org, or at the Kimmel Center box office open daily from 10am to 6pm and later on performance evenings. (Additional fees may apply.) For group sales call 215-790-5883.
A limited number of $10 tickets are available for every Kimmel Center Presents performance at the Kimmel Center. Tickets go on sale the day of the event and can be purchased at the Kimmel Center box office beginning 2.5 hours prior to evening curtain time and 11:30am for matinees. Limit one ticket per person.
Radio Stories & Other Stories:
An Evening with Ira Glass
Host of This American Life
Saturday, January 24, 2009 at 8pm
Verizon Hall
Price: $29-40
"...a storyteller who filters his interviews and impressions through a distinctive literary imagination, an eccentric intelligence and a sympathetic heart."
Named "Best Radio Host in America" by Time magazine, producer and host of NPR's This American Life Ira Glass presents Radio Stories & Other Stories: An Evening with Ira Glass at the Kimmel Center on Saturday, January 24, 2009 at 8pm in Verizon Hall. Ira Glass has "reinvented radio" (Time) through his ability to find humor and drama in stories based on everyday events. Under Glass' editorial direction, This American Life has won the highest honors for broadcasting and journalistic excellence, including the Peabody and DuPont-Columbia Awards. This rare evening of storytelling explores the principles that guide the thought-provoking program. The evening includes a 20 minute question and answer session with the audience.
Ira Glass began his career as an intern at NPR's network headquarters in Washington, D.C. in 1978. Over the years, he has worked on nearly every NPR network news program and held virtually every production job in NPR's Washington headquarters. He has filled in as host of Talk of the Nation and Weekend All Things Considered.
This American Life had its premiere on Chicago's public radio station WBEZ in late 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 American Journalism Review declared that the show is "at the vanguard of a journalistic revolution." In March 2007, the television adaptation of This American Life premiered on Showtime to great critical acclaim and was nominated for three Emmy awards. In May 2008, the radio show was broadcast live to over 300 movie theaters.
In 2007, Riverhead Books published The New Kings of Non-Fiction, a collection of narrative nonfiction essays chosen by Ira Glass. A feature film, Unaccompanied Minors, based on a story from the radio show was released by Warner Brothers in December 2006. The show has put out its own comic book, three greatest hits compilations, a paint-by-numbers set, a "radio decoder" toy, and a DVD, which was created with cartoonist Chris Ware.
Saturday, January 24, 2009 | 6:30pm
Commonwealth Plaza | Free at the Kimmel
First Person Arts Story Slam
First Person Arts Story Slams are real-life storytelling competitions. Each slam has a theme which elicits stories from the life experiences of Philly storytellers. Who are these local tale spinners? Everyone with a story and a little sense of competition is encouraged to participate. Join us for a free First Person Arts Story Slam in the Commonwealth Plaza prior to the ticketed evening with Ira Glass in Verizon Hall. The theme for the event is "Broke." For more information, visit www.firstpersonarts.org.
Saturday, January 24, 2009 | 9:45pm
Cadence Restaurant | Forte Young Professionals Event
Forte Quizzo Trivia Contest
Forte, the Kimmel Center's newly launched young professionals community, hosts its third event of the season immediately following the Ira Glass event in Verizon Hall. Young performing arts lovers, ages 21-40, are invited to join us for a Quizzo trivia contest in Cadence Restaurant with prizes, drink specials and complimentary pub fare. Visit www.kimmelcenter.org/forte for more information and to purchase tickets.
Stephen Sondheim
A Life in the Theater
An Onstage Conversation with Frank Rich
Saturday, February 21, 2009 at 8pm
Verizon Hall
Price: $25-79
"[Stephen Sondhiem] is the greatest and perhaps best-known artist in the American musical theater"—Frank Rich, New York Times
Prolific Broadway composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim joins New York Times columnist and former chief theater critic Frank Rich on stage for an informal evening of candid conversation on Saturday, February 21, 2009 at 8pm in Verizon Hall. Sondheim and Rich will engage in a live, unscripted conversation, sharing insights into Sondheim's illustrious career and an inside perspective on the world of contemporary musical theater. The evening will include a 20 minute question and answer session with the audience.
Stephen Sondheim has continually challenged the conventions of the American musical with complex scores and sophisticated storylines. "The dominant artistic force in the American musical theater since the 1970's" (New York Times), Sondheim has composed the music and lyrics for some of Broadway's best-loved musicals, including Sweeney Todd (1979), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), Sunday in the Park with George (1984) and Into the Woods (1987), as well as lyrics for West Side Story (1957) and Gypsy (1959). Additional works include Anyone Can Whistle (1964), Company (1970), Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973), Merrily We Roll Along (1981), Assassins (1991) and Passion (1994), among others. Sondheim's newest musical, Road Show, is currently playing at New York's Public Theater.
Sondheim's honors include winning seven Tony® Awards, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1984 for Sunday in the Park with George and the 1990 Academy Award for Best Song for "Sooner Or Later" from the film Dick Tracy. In 1996, he received the National Medal of Arts from President Clinton, and was the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award in the 1993 Kennedy Center Honors.
Frank Rich became a New York Times Op-Ed columnist in 1994 after serving for 13 years as the newspaper's chief drama critic. He has written about culture and politics for many other publications, and was on the staffs of Time, the New York Post and New Times magazine after starting his career as a founding editor of the Richmond Mercury in the early 1970s. Rich is the author of Ghost Light, a childhood memoir; Hot Seat: Theater Criticism for The New York Times, 1980–1993; and The Theatre Art of Boris Aronson, coauthored with Lisa Aronson. Among other honors, Rich received the George Polk Award for commentary in 2005.
"...over the last 30 years, the once humble musical comedy form has been dominated and transformed by Mr. Sondheim and his collaborators into something intellectually challenging and morally weighty"
Saturday, February 21, 2009 | 6:30pm and Post-Show
Commonwealth Plaza | Free at the Kimmel
TBA
Join us for a free musical performance on the Commonwealth Plaza stage prior to and following the ticketed evening with Stephen Sondheim and Frank Rich in Verizon Hall.
Kimmel Center Presents' 2008/2009 Season is sponsored by Citi. The Great Orchestras on Tour Series is supported by 10 Rittenhouse Square. Additional support is provided by the University of Pennsylvania Health System, American Express, and Interpark. American Airlines is the Official Airline of Kimmel Center Presents. NBC-10 is a media partner for Kimmel Center Presents.
Free in the Plaza programming and subsidized tickets offered to the community and social service groups for $10 are made possible through the Wachovia Gateway to the Arts Community Access Program, supported by a generous grant from the Wachovia Foundation.
The Kimmel Center is the recipient of partnership funding through the nationally recognized PNC "Grow Up Great" initiative, a ten-year, $100 million investment in preparing children for success in school and life. Funding gives support to the Kimmel Center's early childhood program "Bop and Swing," an arts program for children 1-5 years old, designed to promote an appreciation for American culture.
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