528: The Radio Drama Episode 

Ira Glass

Hi, everybody. I'm speaking to you today from the stage of an opera house at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City.

[APPLAUSE]

A warning to listeners that there is mild cursing throughout this hour, and on the podcast, we're not going to beep that. And I'm here on an opera house stage with a story that is so small, it almost feels wrong to tell it in a room this grand. It's actually about a real opera singer-- not a super-famous opera singer or anything like that. Carin Gilfry makes about half of her living singing. The other half she makes recording audio books.

And about a year ago, she was staying at a hotel. And she had a deadline on this children's book that she was supposed to be recording, and the hotel room was kind of noisy. She was hearing a lot of noise from the street. And so she looked around for a quiet place, and she went into the closet-- put pillows all around to deaden the sound, sat on the floor with a microphone. And then the cord of the microphone went under the door of the closet out to her laptop, because her laptop had a fan that made noise.

And so she closes the door so it's pitch dark except for the light from her iPad, which had the text of the book that she was supposed to read. And she began.

Ira Glass

Can I just say, wouldn't it be incredible if I just now played you the entire audiobook? You paid, like, $85 for those seats, right? Actually, I can't play you the whole audiobook because Carin gets exactly, like, two and a half sentences into this book. And she stumbles on a word, and she decides, oh wait, I'll just start again. I'll just start from the beginning.

So she gets up to get out of the closet and start the tape again, start the recording again. And she tries to get out of the closet.

[DOOR RATTLING]

Ira Glass

And she discovers that she's locked in.

Ira Glass

And Carin told me at first she thought, like, this isn't going to be that hard, right? After all, she has the iPad. There's Wi-Fi. She could call the front desk on Skype, right? But there was a problem.

Ira Glass

This of course is on the recording.

Ira Glass

After that, there's seven minutes of silence on the recording-- just, like, total silence. Nothing happens except every now and then, Carin just laughs to herself. It happens one minute and 48 seconds after the phone call. Then it's quiet. There's no other sound for 44 seconds. And then on the recording, you hear--

Ira Glass

Now and then, she tries the door handle again, thinking, she told me later, this can't really be true. Like, this can't-- there's got to be a way this is going to work. One wall of the closet has the hallway on the other side. And 18 minutes after Carin locks herself in, she hears people. She hears some German tourists walking towards her down the hall. And fortunately, she actually has the skills for this very situation.

Ira Glass

The Germans come to the door of the room. They whisper to each other for a little bit. And then, they do nothing.

Ira Glass

Her husband is out on an audition-- he's also a singer-- and his phone was turned off. She texts her mom, hears nothing back. She phones her mom. And right then, somebody taps on the door of the hotel room and calls through it. "Are you OK?"

Ira Glass

"Can you come to the door?" the person asks.

Ira Glass

Carin knows that's a really weird thing to say to somebody as you're getting rescued, but she just couldn't help herself. Nobody wants to look like a nut, you know? Apparently the Germans went and they found this very sweet Jamaican housekeeper. And 22 minutes after Carin was locked in, the housekeeper set her free.

Ira Glass

Now Carin, remember, she's an opera singer. And operas are all about spectacle. It's 80 people on the stage and horses and love and vengeance and big, grand feelings. It would really be hard to get further from that to what happened to her in that closet, right, where all the action takes place in a space not much bigger than your body. It is the simplest plot imaginable. There's literally no movement in this plot.

Ira Glass

And you know, people say those kinds of things in interviews, and then I'll put that quote at the end of the story. And it makes for a nice ending-- put a little plinky music under it. Maybe you've heard our show.

But when we did this interview three or four weeks ago, I realized, oh, wait a second. For once in my life, I don't have to let this story stop here. I am actually going to be in an opera house very soon. I can reach higher with this.

I can take this to the next logical step-- the step it never gets to, the step you need an opera house for. And it turns out, I actually have a hook-up for the kind of music that Carin is talking about. Some of you know this. I have a cousin. His name is Philip Glass. He has--

[APPLAUSE]

--written a number of minimalist operas. They have been performed here on this very stage since the 1980s-- Einstein on the Beach just this past fall. And so I called Philip, and he sat down to write. And so today, right now, I am pleased to present here on the Brooklyn Academy of Music Opera House stage--

[APPLAUSE]

--the world premiere of his latest opera. I am not joking-- this opera is called Help. Commissioned for our program today on the BAM Opera House stage, his work is played by orchestras all over the world, please welcome Philip Glass.

[APPLAUSE]

And to perform this with him, Jonathan Dinklage on violin, Emily Brausa on cello, and, of course, the woman this is all about, Carin Gilfry, mezzo-soprano. Carin?

[APPLAUSE]

Ira Glass

Carin Gilfry, with Jonathan Dinklage, Emily Brausa, and Philip Glass.

[APPLAUSE]

Well, from WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life, distributed by Public Radio International. I'm Ira Glass. Ladies and gentlemen, for decades, the Brooklyn Academy of Music has been a home for all sorts of new kinds of theater and dance and music and opera. And when they invited our program to perform here today, we wanted to live up to that tradition by trying to invent something new.

And so what you're in for today is true stories. It's journalism, like we always do, but presented as radio drama. And we think these are radio dramas like you have never heard before. We have journalism turned into opera, into a full-on Broadway musical. We have journalism turned into a play that is structured like a radio documentary.

The fact is, there are so many ways you can tell a true story. There are so, so many ways. And today, instead of just applying the tools of journalism to everyday stories like we usually do, we try to harness the full power of music and theater.

Like Carin's story-- we are not done with Carin's story. Sure, you could do it is as a minimalist opera. But what if you wanted to stage it as kind of an old-school opera-opera, the kind that they take you on field trips to when you're a kid. Like, what would that be? I asked Carin in our interview, and she was game to speculate.

Ira Glass

Of course, you would need more than elves in this story. Like, also you would want--

Ira Glass

Actually what they're singing is, we have just arrived. The air is dirty and smoggy.

Ira Glass

I don't know if you caught the German there. One of the tourists says, I think someone called for help in German. And the other one says, impossible-- everyone in this country is illiterate.

Then there's the front desk lady-- you know, the one that Carin calls from her iPad.

Ira Glass

Then there's the husband. In this version of the story, we could actually see him out on his audition, belting his heart out, oblivious to the pain that his wife is going through.

Ira Glass

We actually talked about what would be best. And we finally settled on a scene from Rigoletto, where the title character who loves his daughter more than anything in the world rages against courtiers who have locked her up in a tiny room. Open up that door, he sings. Open up.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Ira Glass

Of course, the climax of our opera arrives with the entrance of the housekeeper.

Ira Glass

Our opera, En Schrank Gefangen, or Trapped in the Closet, was composed by Matt Aucoin, music direction and keyboards by William Hobbs. It featured Rachel Feldsetin, Candice Hoyes and Sarah Craft as elves, Marnie Breckenridge as the front desk, Adrian Rosas as the husband, Jeanine de Bique as the housekeeper, Rod Gilfry, who's actually Karen's dad, as the German tourist with Heather Buck, and mezzo-soprano Carin Gilfry as herself.

[APPLAUSE]

Ira Glass

Which brings us to act one. Act One, "21 Chump Street, the Musical." I've always wondered what it would mean to try one of our radio stories as a musical. I was taken to so many musicals as a kid. And I think because of that, my basic sense of what makes a satisfying story actually comes from musicals much more than from TV or movies.

If you think about, like, the classic old musicals-- Fiddler on the Roof or even A Chorus Line-- it's like, they're funny at the beginning. And then there's something really emotional. And they're about some bigger idea. They take you into this world. I just love that.

And so what you're about to hear is our first attempt at a musical based on journalism. Probably 70% to 80% of what you're about to hear is verbatim quotes from interviews. The rest is artistic invention. I'll say that upfront.

It's based on a true story you may remember from our radio program. Back in May, 2011, at a bunch of high schools in Palm Beach County, Florida, a group of young police officers were sent undercover to pose as students. They went to classes. They ate in the cafeteria. They had fake Facebook accounts, of course.

There had been complaints about drugs being sold at these schools. That's what they were there to deal with. And what happened next in this one school was transformed into a musical by a team of people who usually do this on Broadway. Pretty much everybody involved in this, the cast, the chorus, the musicians, the director, Michael Mayer-- all from Broadway. Words and music are by Lin-Manuel Miranda, probably best known--

[APPLAUSE]

--probably best known for writing and starring in In the Heights. He will be your narrator.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Lin-Manuel Miranda

The plan was called Operation D-minus. And one of the schools included in the plan was Park Vista Community High School, where a kid named Justin Laboy--

Lin-Manuel Miranda

--an 18-year-old honor roll student--

Lin-Manuel Miranda

--was in the last semester of his senior year. Justin could hardly believe his luck, when a very pretty girl showed up.

Lin-Manuel Miranda

In not one but two of his classes.

Lin-Manuel Miranda

She sat in front of him. He switched seats.

Lin-Manuel Miranda

The last name she used was--

Lin-Manuel Miranda

The undercover officer who posed as Naomi is 25 years old, a new recruit with the Palm Beach Police Force.

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Meanwhile--

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Now, according to the police, Justin is a drug dealer. Maybe Justin didn't know where to get drugs. Maybe he did. What we know is this. The next day, Justin brought a rolled-up baggie of marijuana to school for Naomi.

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Justin would later find out it's a felony in Florida to sell marijuana. And the penalty is even harsher for selling it on school property. By taking the money, Justin had made an irreversibly bad decision. And since he was over 18, he was legally an adult when he made it.

Lin-Manuel Miranda

In May, the police arrested 31 students at several schools. Justin was one of them.

[SIRENS]

Lin-Manuel Miranda

He spends a week in jail wondering what would happen next.

Lin-Manuel Miranda

He knew he'd lose in court. He had to take a plea.

Lin-Manuel Miranda

During the week he spent in jail, Justin couldn't help but think about Naomi.

Ira Glass

Our cast, Lindsay Mendez as Naomi, Anthony Ramos as Justin. The chorus, Alex Boniello, Gerard Canonico, and Antwuan Holley. Our narrator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, who also wrote the words and composed the music. The musicians, Music Director Ben Cohn, Sean McDaniel, Mark Vanderpoel, David Cinquegrana Jonathan Dinklage, Emily Brausa, with Scott Wasserman.

To everybody who was actually listening to this right now on the radio-- or podcast, I should say-- the staging of this story was like a 14-minute nonstop dance number from start to finish, choreographed by Lorin Latarro, costumes, sets. Lots of laughs--

[APPLAUSE]

Lots of laughs in today's show are visual things that you are not seeing because you're hearing it only. If you would like to see what you are missing, you can do that. You can do that right this second. You can download video of this entire show that we're doing today at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Go to our website, thisamericanlife.org. Like Beyonce, we are dropping the album and all the videos on the same day.

[APPLAUSE]

She's a role model. We also have links to where you can get the official cast album recording of "21 Chump Street, the Musical."

[APPLAUSE]

Possibly the shortest cast album recording in Broadway history. Coming up, Mike Birbiglia and the secret jokes a professional comedian usually only shares at home. That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio and Public Radio International when our program continues.

Ira Glass

It's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Each week on our program, we choose a theme, bring you different kinds of stories on that theme. Today, from the stage of the Brooklyn Academy of Music in Brooklyn, New York City, the radio drama episode.

[APPLAUSE]

We have journalism, memoir, true stories ed as radio drama. We have arrived at act two of our show. Act Two, "Of Mice and Men." So this next bit of radio drama is not an experiment for us like a musical or an opera. We thought it would be smart to have one story in today's show where we know what we're doing. A type of radio drama we actually bring you now and then on the program, a true story told on stage by the person that it actually happened to. Please welcome comedian Mike Birbiglia.

[APPLAUSE]

Mike Birbiglia

Wow. It's pretty easy following a musical.

I, uh-- I think that my favorite thing about being married is actually that you can share jokes with your wife or husband that are funny to you and that person and no one else other than maybe your cat. Because when you have a cat, your barometer for humor, poof, out the window.

Last summer, my wife and I went on a trip to Massachusetts. And I called it Cats-achusetts-- which is not funny, but in our house was the joke of the year. I was like, we're going to Cats-achusetts. My life is like, ahh! I was like, ahh! Our cat was like, ahh!

Everyone loves a good pun when you have a cat. And so we drive to Cats-achusetts. And when we arrive, my wife has a headache. And she asks me if I'll acclimate Ivan-- that's our cat-- to the bedroom, because you can't just put an indoor cat into a house, because he'll explode.

And so I bring him in the bedroom. But I'm so tired from the drive that I fall asleep, which is the only thing you cannot do when acclimating an indoor cat to a house. And so I wake up an hour later. Ivan is gone. He got out.

And so now I'm running around the house. I'm like, my cat's going to explode. I wake up my wife. I was like, Clo-- her name's Jen-- I say, Mr. Fantastic is gone-- his name's Ivan. And Clo gave me a look that I can only describe as "divorce eyes."

Because before that, point I was convinced that we would be married forever. And then once I saw the divorce eyes, I was like, oh, I guess this could end. And if it ended, it would look a lot like that.

And so now the two of us are running around the house. I'm like, my marriage is falling apart. My cat's going to explode. And we find Ivan, but we had another major problem in the house, which is that there were mice in the house.

It was actually worse than that, because they were parasitic mice. They have what's called toxoplasmosis, which means they have a-- yeah, you might know what this is. They have a parasite in them, and as a result they're unafraid of cats, and they're unafraid of people.

And the way we discovered this was that my wife was watching TV, and she looked next to her. And there was a mouse. And he was watching TV also. And she screamed!

And he just looked up at her like Stuart Little-- like, hey, what's going on? I don't like this show either. I don't know why all those women would want to marry that one guy.

And then she pushed him off the couch. And he didn't even run away. He didn't even scurry, which is a verb invented for mice. He just walked into the kitchen, like a roommate-- like, fine! I'll go in the other room! I just think you're overreacting.

And then he did a confessional into the Mouse Cam in the kitchen. He was like, I'm not here to make friends. I'm here to win. I was here before they came. I'll be here when they're gone. I'm a mouse.

[APPLAUSE]

That's from "Real Mouse-wives of Cats-achusetts." That night, I'm sound asleep, and my wife wakes me up by grabbing my face. She says, Mo-- my name's Mike-- Mr. Fantastic found the mouse. You need to get the mouse.

And I sit up, and I say Clo, we have a cat. We do everything for the cat. We gave him food. We give him an apartment that he thinks is the world. We set aside an area in the apartment for him to poop in that we clean more often than the area where we poop.

We have a gentleman's agreement that in the unlikely event that a mouse should walk in that door (A LA MARLON BRANDO) that he will kill that mouse and we will never speak of that mouse again. And he will be protected. (NORMAL VOICE) That's from "Cat-father."

[APPLAUSE]

My wife says, Mo, get the mouse. And I sit up, and I see what may be the strangest tableau I will ever witness in my entire life. Ivan's smacking the mouse. The mouse flies in the air, lands, gets up, walks back towards Ivan.

Ivan smacks the mouse, flies in the air, lands, gets up, walks back towards Ivan. Ivan is thrilled! His toy is alive!

I have a serious sleepwalking disorder. So as I am watching this, I'm not even really sure it's happening. I'm thinking, I've had this dream before.

My wife says, Mo, get the mouse. And she hands me a cup.

I sit up. I walk towards the mouse. And the mouse walks towards me. I put the cup over the mouse. I put a magazine under the cup. I take the cup into the backyard, and I put the mouse into the forest, where I can only assume that he walked into the mouth of a wolf.

And from that day forward, we have called it Mouse-achusetts.

[APPLAUSE]

I want to point out something really special that happened there at the end. A few minutes ago, I prefaced this story with a Massachusetts-based pun, Cats-achusetts, which we all agreed as a group is not funny.

Just moments ago, I concluded the story with another Massachusetts-based pun that was nearly identical. And that was Mouse-achusetts. And we applauded.

[APPLAUSE]

Which means, in a way, it's like we're married.

[APPLAUSE]

Ira Glass

Mike Birbiglia. He's on his hundred-city "Thank God for Jokes" tour, which, Chicagolandians, comes to the Chicago Theater in September. To everybody hearing us on the radio, there was a person in a mouse costume on roller skates in that story doing some funny stuff. To see the video of this entire show so you understand what people are laughing at-- you will not be sorry-- thisamericanlife.org.

Ira Glass

We have arrived at act three of our show. Act Three, "How do you Slow this Thing Down?"

So this story is a follow up to a story that we ran a couple of years ago, which was a full episode of our show about one of our contributors, Josh Bearman, and his family. The set-up is that Josh's parents got divorced when he was very young. And he and his brother Ethan grew up with their dad, who's a physicist, out in suburban Los Angeles.

Josh's mom and his half-brother David lived very differently. They drifted around. They ended up in Florida. They were barely keeping it together. Josh's mom was an alcoholic. David was an aspiring rapper getting acquainted with the court system

Together they lived in this tiny condo in a retirement community in West Palm Beach called Century Village, where they did not belong. They were not retirees. And they would get into various kinds of jams and crises. And Josh would have to fly to Florida to try to help. He ended up spending a lot of time there.

What you are about to hear is an experiment at creating a radio drama which has exactly the same structure as one of the documentary stories on our show. And so what's going to happen is the real Josh Bearman is going to narrate. And then instead of going to, like, quotes on tape or things like that, we have actors performing scenes that really happened. All of this really happened. In those scenes, Josh is played by Josh Hamilton. His brother David is played by James Ransone.

The story begins last year when real-life Josh found himself back in Florida with his two brothers.

Josh Bearman

My mother's been in the hospital so much by now she's figured out how to direct the paramedics, like emergency chauffeurs or something, to all of the best facilities. Her room at Wellington Regional is big and bright. It's a corner room with big windows and a nice view. Although she can't see it, because right now she's connected to state-of-the-art equipment behind a curtain.

[SOUNDS OF MEDICAL EQUIPMENT]

When I walk in, my brother David is there already.

Josh Bearman

Those were her last words before going under. Soon enough, withdrawal told a very different story. The first time this happened was five years ago, when David called and told me he had to remit himself to the local sheriff's office for, quote, "just a quick jail sentence." Oh, and Mom's in the hospital.

So I flew to Florida that next day and went straight to the ICU.

[SOUND OF AIRPLANE FLYING OVERHEAD]

And here's what happened that time.

Josh Bearman

So as the medical professionals discussed how awakening the giant within can totally boost your neurological scores, one of the other nurses came and told me that earlier they had had to restrain my mom because even though she was unconscious, she'd somehow managed to get a hold of cigarettes. They caught her trying to light one in bed. We're not even sure where she got it, the nurse said.

And that's when I knew my mother would be fine. Within days, she was sitting up, completely lucid, chatting up strangers-- everyone's favorite.

This time, things were bad enough that I called my brother Ethan. He can only come in a true emergency because he plays for the LA Philharmonic, and he has a couple kids, and his schedule's planned out months in advance. He took the red-eye straight from playing at Disney Hall.

Josh Bearman

Right now Ethan is working on a giant Mahler retrospective. They're going to play all nine symphonies. It's something that's never been done before.

Josh Bearman

It's David who says that Mom would be happy that all three of her boys were together. And that's true. One of the few real senses of family I can recall was summers in the Midwest with her when we were all children years ago. And we made ice cream and caught fireflies and roller skated-- normal things like that. That's why David doesn't like being in the room much now, because he doesn't want to remember Mom like this, trapped in so many tubes. It's like some jacked-up Darth Vader shit, he says.

And yet, he's the one who's been at her bedside the most. I can't bring myself to kiss her the way David does. I don't know why.

After Ethan goes back to California, I stay with David and Mom. Time is merciless in Florida and especially merciless in the ICU. Days turn into weeks, and every afternoon I pick up David, and we go to the hospital, talk to some doctors, wait, talk to some more doctors, and then maybe get dinner. Very little changes.

Josh Bearman

In this very strange video, David's friend Sebastian, a completely grown man, is standing on some Florida crabgrass breakdancing robot-style. And the music is a tinny Casio-sounding version of "Fur Elise."

[MUSIC - "FUR ELISE"]

Josh Bearman

It's nice spending time with David. But I'm also really worried about him. He's had a history with pills on and off over the years. And I suspect it's on again.

One night while we're driving to dinner, David says, oh hey, Josh, can we stop over at the Victory? That's a gas station down on Okeechobee Boulevard. And Victory's a total misnomer for the kind of place where you pull in and just see a bunch of weird dudes crouching around the entrance, like it's a totally normal social spot.

And David knows everyone here, which is weird. And I'm pretty sure something illicit is happening but I don't want to ask, because I don't want to be The Man with David. And he probably wouldn't tell me anyhow. Ah, it's nothing, David says. Sure, just your regular nighttime rendezvous in the parking lot of an off-brand gas station.

David gets back in the car, and he says, all right, I'm good. But I'm not so sure. It's weird, but Mom and David are a team-- like a fucked-up crazy team for a long time, but a team nonetheless. And they've taken care of each other. And the question on my mind is if Mom doesn't make it whether David will.

Josh Bearman

The hospice is nice-- institutional, but warm. Like, people are allowed to bring pets and stuff. One lady even brought her horse, the intake guy was very excited to tell us.

I spent some time going through Mom's things. I find her address book, which is a mess, stuffed with Post-Its and scraps, bearing faded numbers in Mom's perfect cursive.

Josh Bearman

I finally bring myself to start holding Mom's hands, and she rubs my palm. I think David's right. She knows.

Each time, her grip gets a little stronger. I look in her terrified eyes and see my own. One night, just before I leave for the day, she takes my hand with both of hers. It's the biggest show of purpose in weeks. And for a second, I don't see the tubes, the room, the cracked lips, or her papery fingers. No one else is here. It's just us.

The next morning, there was a message on my phone from the hospice before I got up. I know-- they always say it was peaceful. And they made arrangements with the King David Cemetery for the next day.

Josh Bearman

The sun is low on the horizon beneath the clouds, bringing up steam from the grass. If you include the funeral director and the two Haitian dudes lounging on tombstones waiting to fill in the grave, there are only nine people listening.

The scene feels like a frontier funeral, a clutch of poor souls standing around a pine box, like we should leave here in a covered wagon and keep heading west and just be glad the devil's drink didn't bury us, too.

[APPLAUSE]

Ira Glass

Joshuah Bearman. In the scenes, Josh Hamilton played him. James Ransone played his brother David. Matt Marks was Ethan and played the French horn. Our doctors were Bhavesh Patel and Seth Barrish, who also played the rabbi. Nurses were Carolyn Baeumler and Zakiya Young. Terry Kinney directed the story on the stage.

So we've been planning for months that Stephin Merritt was going to sing a song at this point in the show. And we told Josh Bearman a couple weeks ago. And he was like, oh my god, that's crazy. My mom-- his mom in the story-- used to babysit for Stephin Merritt. It's true-- when Stephin was a kid growing up outside Boston, Josh Bearman's mom Susan babysat for him. So please welcome, Stephin Merritt.

[APPLAUSE]

[MUSIC - "HOW DO YOU SLOW THIS THING DOWN?" BY STEPHIN MERRITT]

[APPLAUSE]

Stephin Merritt, with Pinky Weitzman on violin and Sam Davol on cello. Stephin Merritt plays in a number of bands. His latest album is from The Magnetic Fields. It's called Love at the Bottom of the Sea.

[APPLAUSE]

Ira Glass

Act Four, "Bus, Stop!" This next story is something that comedian Sasheer Zamata has been telling onstage in her stand-up act. And we asked her to adapt it into a full-on radio drama with actors and a sound man, like a classic radio drama. In fact, we have two sound men doing sound effects with a table full of props. Please welcome Sasheer Zamata.

[APPLAUSE]

Sasheer Zamata

A few years ago, I got into an accident on a shuttle bus. My friend Nicole and I rented a car, and we were dropping it off at LaGuardia airport. We got onto the rental car company's shuttle bus to get taken to the cab stand to get a cab to go home. And we were the only two passengers on the bus.

Sasheer Zamata

We heard him say this, but we didn't believe him. We should have believed him. Because that's exactly what he did.

[BRAKES RELEASING]

He sped out of the parking lot and towards the airport. And Nicole and I were in the back, humoring him and playing up the wild ride.

Sasheer Zamata

And then he hits the brakes really hard.

[BRAKES SQUEALING]

Sasheer Zamata

And then we hit another car in the intersection.

[RUMBLING]

Sasheer Zamata

There's no seat belts on the bus, and Nicole goes falling into the luggage carry in front of her. I go flying into the air and headed towards the driver's seat.

Now, if I was walking this distance, it would probably take me, like, 10 seconds. But because I'm flying through the air, it takes me, like, two. And I think now I understand why flying is the fastest way to travel.

[CLUNK]

Sasheer Zamata

I'm lying on the floor, and my head is pounding. And I just think, wow, that was the most realistic example of foreshadowing I've ever seen. Two seconds ago, this guy says, I drive crazy. And then he did. And then we got into an accident. I don't know why I thought anything different would happen.

Sasheer Zamata

We get off the bus, and the cops are already there. I see the car that we hit, and it's a tiny red car. And we T-boned it. Except the T is very disproportionate, where the top part of it's very tiny and the bottom part's a huge bus.

Sasheer Zamata

A concept that was still blowing our minds.

Sasheer Zamata

Nicole was amazing in high-stress situations-- like the time when I told her I was pregnant.

Sasheer Zamata

See? She's a great friend. And the perfect person to have for this stupid bus accident. We get onto an ambulance and head towards the hospital. And the driver of the other car is already there. And he's much chattier than most would be after getting into a serious accident like this.

Sasheer Zamata

I don't know why I just didn't do that! Telling a person who's not a comedian that you're a comedian is never good because the conversation that follows is always terrible.

Sasheer Zamata

I don't want to say the name of the hospital that we went to because someone here in the audience may actually work there. But we went to Elmhurst Hospital. And it was the dirtiest hospital I've ever been to in my life. There were Toblerone wrappers on stretcher beds and loose muffins on the floor-- just, like, unwrapped, unexplained, whole muffins.

I'm left with Nicole in the waiting room. And we're waiting and waiting. Nicole's actually really scared of what would happen to me if I fell asleep. So she makes it her job to make sure I stay awake.

Sasheer Zamata

Five hours pass, and I still haven't gotten seen.

Sasheer Zamata

Eventually I get moved to the CAT scan area, and the guy running the scan looks like he's 12 years old, and he's, like, not putting me at ease.

Sasheer Zamata

He finally scans me. And then I wait awhile for the results.

Sasheer Zamata

Every person involved with this accident was awful. Except for Nicole. She was the best part of this whole thing. So ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to present to you the last best person in New York State, Nicole Byer!

[FANFARE]

When God comes back and says if there's one just person, one righteous person, I will not destroy the world-- oh, um, OK. OK, so I will just not--

Ira Glass

It's Ira. Uh, radio listeners, internet listeners, what's happening now onstage is that people are running on giving Nicole flowers and cheering her.

Sasheer Zamata

OK. That's-- that's enough. All right, I still-- I hit my head really hard in the accident.

OK. Well, thanks a lot for listening to my--

[LIGHTS TURNING OFF]

--story.

[APPLAUSE]

Ira Glass

There was some artistic license taken with actual dialogue. The dialogue in that story at the hospital was not reported verbatim. We contacted Elmhurst Hospital about the conditions Sasheer saw, asked for a comment. The spokesperson said she'd get back to us this Wednesday. Didn't get around to it. We reached out a few more times, and we never heard back.

Sasheer Zamata with Nicole Byer, Chris Gethard, Frank Garcia Hejl, Tony Ward, Zakiya Young, Seth Barrish, and 12-year-old Matthew Mindler as the CAT scan guy.

[APPLAUSE]

Ira Glass

Well, our program was produced today by myself with Robyn Semien and Robert Saenz de Viteri, with our senior producer, Julie Snyder, Alison Davis, and Elise Bergerson, as well as Alex Blumberg, Ben Calhoun, Sean Cole, Stephanie Foo, Chana Joffe-Walt, Sarah Koenig, Miki Meek, Jonathan Menjivar, Brian Reed, Alissa Shipp, Nancy Updike.

Seth Lind is our operations director. Emily Condon's our production manager. Adrianne Mathiowetz runs our website. Research help from Michelle Harris and Julie Beer. Some music in today's show by Roger Neill. Thanks to Laura Coburn. Thanks to all the theater professionals who took their time out from their day jobs to be here with us for a week and to be here today-- singers, actors, dancers, writers, composers, directors, and some actual famous people.

And especially thanks to the core production team led by Robert Saenz de Viteri, Christine Jones set designer, Andrea Lauer costume design, Mark Bartun lighting design, Nevin Steinberg sound design, Ann McPherson stage manager, the BAM crew, they all had to use incredible I have to say cunning and craft to get a show this complicated into a theater and tech it in in one day. We got here this morning.

[ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS]

Our website, where you can see everything that was on today's show, the sets, the costumes, the dancing, and, like, seriously half an hour of incredible material that was simply too long to include on the radio, thisamericanlife.org. This American Life is distributed by Public Radio International.

Thanks, as always, to our show's co-founder, Torey Malatia. I will never forget the crazy birthday party where he ate slice after slice of German chocolate cake. And we kept telling him, Torey, stop with the German chocolate cake. Stop it. You're going to make yourself sick. And we were right. He made himself sick. He was green and sick and then couldn't stop saying--

Ira Glass

I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life.

[APPLAUSE]

Announcer

PRI, Public Radio International.