Ira Glass Brings ‘Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host’ to Boston

It's the variety show you never knew you wanted to see.

ira glass three acts boston

Photo by David Bazemore Provided via Celebrity Series

When in doubt, add a dancer—or two, if you’re Ira Glass.

The host of This American Life will return to Boston this weekend for his fourth engagement with Celebrity Series, and this time, he’s bringing friends: Monica Bill Barnes and Anna Bass, two talented dancers who will help bring Glass’s stories to life in “Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host.”

“Three Acts” is certainly the type of variety show you never realized you wanted or needed. As Glass himself puts it:

The show feels just like This American Life … plus dancers. So if you’ve listened to our show and thought “I like this fine, but dude really needs a couple dancers,” … your prayers have been answered.

The show has received excellent reviews, its unexpected format a refreshing twist for regular theater- and concert-goers. Dance and radio, one visual and one audio, “have no business being together” and “sounds godawful,” Glass concedes, but somehow the trio make it work.

The three acts tell stories about show business, love, and the loss of love, with Glass narrating throughout while Barnes and Bass illustrate with Barnes’s choreography. There will be laughter, there will be confetti and sequins, and it will be a show like none other you’ve ever seen.

 

$25+, January 24, 8 p.m., and January 25, 3 p.m., Citi Shubert Theatre, 270 Tremont St., Boston, 617-482-9393, celebrityseries.org.