NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour Is Coming To The Harris Theater

By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Mar 8, 2017 5:42PM

NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour Podcast is one of our favorite weekly listens. With a lively crew of folks from across the NPR landscape, they reliably bring arts and culture commentary to our earbuds that is honest but accessible. Even when something hits a panelist the wrong way it tends to leave us in stitches as they soften the blow of a hard critique with humor.

Most importantly the Podcast crew just feels like witty friends you'd sit down for coffee with and have a great conversation that could range from The Young Pope to the Lifetime Channel movies to the 100 bands you should listen to before heading to SXSW.

The panel—featuring host Linda Holmes, Stephen Thompson and Glen Weldon—is coming to Chicago for a live taping at The Harris Theater presented by WBEZ on April 12! They'll be joined by special guests, former NPR Politics Podcast host Sam Sanders, as well as other surprise panelists to be announced later.

Previous live tapings generally included the usual spirited panel discussions we've grown to love. But they also tend to mix things up with pop quizzes that pit the folks onstage against each other, often answering ridiculous questions trying to decipher whether a TV show title is from something that once actually existed, or was simply made up by Holmes.

With the promise of additional guests we still don't know what to expect, aside from a really good time. Tickets for the show go on sale Wednesday at noon and are $40.