This American Life - live in movie theatres on May 10th

We're thrilled to announce that on Thursday, May 10th, 2012, we will perform an episode of This American Life on stage in New York City and beam it live via satellite to more than 500 movie theatres around the US and Canada! We did a show like this in 2009, and were blown away when 50,000 people came out to see it. A lot of you have asked us if we'll be doing it again.

So yeah, we're doing it again!

The show will feature stories by Ira Glass, writers David Sedaris and David Rakoff, comic Tig Notaro and Snap Judgment host Glynn Washington, plus live music by OK Go. It'll also include things you could never do on the radio, like a new short film by Mike Birbiglia, dance by Monica Bill Barnes & Company, original animation, projected illustration and more. Plus special surprise guests.

Ira writes:

I saw this amazing dance performance by Monica Bill Barnes' company, and I thought - that is totally in the style of our radio show. But obviously you can't have dance on the radio. Then I realized, we have to do another cinema event! We've built this lineup of stories mixed with super visual things, including the dancers I saw, so it's going to feel like the radio show but also totally unlike anything we've done before. I really can't wait to see how it turns out.

Live on Thursday, May 10th at 8:00pm ET/7:00pm CT (tape delayed to 7:00pm MT/ 8:00pm PT). Some theatres will present encore screenings on Tuesday, May 15th at 7:30PM (local time).

Tickets will go fast in a lot of locations. The button links to commercial theatres in the US:

You can purchase tickets at additional, independent theatres in the US here.

The show is also screening at 37 theatres across Canada!

Note: Unfortunately we're not able to add venues to screen the show. Theatres need to have sophisticated satellite receiver equipment, and to have signed on with the distribution network that is sending out the signal.