Beginning Wednesday night at 7:30 on a New York University stage, ESPN The Magazine starts the presses on “The Live Issue.”
The upside: The crowd at the Skirball Center for The Performing Arts will experience ESPN The Magazine like never before.
Staff members and special contributors will present and — in some cases, perform — all-new, sports-related content that’s intended for the sole consumption of the live audience.
Monologues, skits, documentary films, photography, facts and radio will be used to present ESPN The Magazine, front to back, just as you might traditionally read it — sans the subscription cards.
The possible downside: There will be no official, permanent record of the 90-minute show. No still photography or video of the show is allowed.
If you don’t have a ticket, you’ll never have this “issue.”
“When you don’t have a record, if forces people to make it rare and special,” said Douglas McGray, Editor-In-Chief of Pop-Up Magazine.
His San Francisco-based outfit has produced four such events before this one, but this is the first collaboration with a national magazine.
“People have this sense that if they’ve missed it, they’ve actually missed it,” he said. “They can’t sit at home and watch it.”
Listed among the featured performers for “The Live Issue”: Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney, New York Times Magazine writer Jon Moaallem, and ESPN The Magazine senior writers Alyssa Roenigk (pictured above) and Seth Wickersham.
What’s in the Table Of Contents? Participants have been sworn to secrecy about their topics.
Stage fright should not be an issue for Roenigk, in her seventh year with the magazine. She’s a former University of Florida cheerleader.
“I’ve at least had some practice standing in front of a lot of people while being very nervous and yet being OK of making a fool out of myself and being completely out of my comfort zone,” said Roenigk, whose sole theatrical training consists of some improv classes.
“I think I’ll be all of those things on Wednesday.”
Watch for her post on Front Row on Thursday.
For more information on “The Live Issue” and tickets, click here.
