This American Life
This American Life (TAL) is a weekly hour-long radio program produced by WBEZ in Chicago and distributed by Public Radio International. Ira Glass created the show, and has served as the producer and host since the first episode, "New Beginnings," debuted on November 17, 1995, and went national in June 1996.TAL is primarily a journalistic non-fiction program. Each week's show centers around a particular theme. Examples include "The Cruelty of Children," "Hoaxing Yourself," "Accidental Documentaries," and "Fiasco!" Each show features several acts exploring that theme. A show usually consists of two to five acts, but some have consisted of just one act and one show ("20 Acts in 60 Minutes") fit 20 acts into the hour.
Each act is the work of a different contributor, and can take on a number of forms — an essay, an interview, field recordings, found footage or something else. Some acts are funny, some are sad, some are neither, and many are thought-provoking.
A 2-disc CD, Lies, Sissies, and Fiascoes, was released on May 4, 1999. It collects several of the producers' favorite acts.
A 32-page comic book, Radio: an Illustrated Guide, documents how an episode of TAL is put together. It was drawn by cartoonist Jessica Abel and written by Abel and Glass.
In 2002 the show signed a six-figure deal with Warner Brothers giving the studio two years of "first-look" rights to its hundreds of archived and future stories. In the first year of the deal, at least four scripts are being developed. The scripts are inspired by the following stories:
- Niagara (from episode 101, first broadcast 5/1/1998), stories based on the people of the town of Niagara Falls, New York, who remain after those who sought to exploit the tourism and hydroelectrical opportunities of the area left;
- Babysitting (from episode 175, first broadcast 1/6/2001), which included a segment entitled In The Event of An Emergency, Put Your Sister in an Upright Position, about several companies that got into the babysitting business for snowbound children at O'Hare International Airport;
- Superpowers: Wonder Woman (a segment from episode 178, first broadcast 2/23/2001), the story of Zora, whose dreams led her who made a list of all the skills she would need to master if she wanted to actually become the superhero she dreamed of being;
- Act V (from episode 218, first broadcast 8/9/2002), about the last act of Hamlet as staged by inmates from a maximum security prison.
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