Ira Glass, host of “This American Life,” and Monica Bill Barnes & Company have been working together to combine two art forms that, as Glass puts it, “have no business being together – dance and radio.”
Now Alabama audiences can experience “Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host: Ira Glass, Monica Barnes & Anna Bass” on Saturday, June 11, presented by the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center.
The show is set for 8 p.m. in the ASC, 1200 10th Ave. South. Tickets are $39.50, $49.50 and $59.50. UAB students and faculty may purchase $25 tickets; a limited number are available. All members of the UAB family may receive a 20 percent discount on single tickets. Call 205-975-2787 or visit www.AlysStephens.org for more details. This event is sponsored by Regions Bank.
The production includes radio interviews restaged as dance pieces, plus stories from the lives of each of the three performers. The result is a funny, lively and heartfelt evening of dance and stories that have brought down the house wherever it has been performed, starting with its test run at Carnegie Hall in 2013.
| The show is set for 8 p.m. in the ASC. Tickets are $39.50, $49.50 and $59.50. UAB students and faculty may purchase $25 tickets; a limited number are available. All members of the UAB family may receive a 20 percent discount on single tickets. |
“What makes it work is a shared sensibility,” Glass said of the concept. “As dancers, Monica and Anna are these amazingly relatable and funny storytellers without words. People who like ‘This American Life’ will probably like this, because it’s just like the radio show, um, if you picture dancing during all the stories.”
As the title indicates, the show is in three acts. Act One is about the job of being a performer. Act Two is about falling in love and what it means to stay in love, and in Act Three, the audience is faced with the fact that nothing lasts forever.
The radio pieces have been remade with props and costume and lighting changes, says Bass.
“Combining these art forms has led to a show that’s unlike anything I’ve ever choreographed before,” Bass said.
Playwright, writer and director David Mamet said of the performance, “We’re blessed from time to time, with a spontaneous generation of humor and insight … Ira finds — uncovers — drama and humor in the most pedestrian of places.”