Live Wire with Luke Burbank
Join Emmy award-winning host Luke Burbank for the taping of Live Wire, the fastest growing entertainment show on public radio. We’ve got a late-night stride, an Oscar Wilde wit, and the charisma of Ferris Bueller grand marshaling a parade. Music, comedy, and conversation, live and packed with surprises.Featured Guests: IJEOMA OLUO JOHN CRAIGIE JANE MARIE W. KAMAU BELL Tickets$30 General Admission$45 Preferred Seating (First 5 rows of Front Center Section – available in advance only) Click HERE for tickets. Doors open at 6:30 Guests subject to change.
Live Wire with Luke Burbank
Live Wire Radio is an independently produced radio show that artfully blends unpredictable conversation, live music, and original comedy featuring all types of cultural talent and creative minds, from emerging artists to established acts. Join host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello for a live recording of this popular radio show, heard nationwide by thousands of listeners every weekend. Featured Guests: Described by NPR Music as joyous folk pop, Kuinka “laces modern folk and Americana with an electronic jolt, waltzing along the grooved edges of dream-pop, synth-pop, and Brooklyn’s mid-aughts guitar-rock revival” (Vanyaland). Their genre-defying music features several different lead singers, four-part harmony, and eclectic instrumentation. For all of their sonic experimentation, the Seattle group’s songs and live shows are linked by an infectious energy that remains present in everything they do. Zak Toscani is started as a stand-up comedy here in Portland but it has since taken him all around the world. He has performed at the Bumbershoot Music & Arts Festival, The Bridgetown Comedy Festival, and the The High Plains Comedy Festival and been highlighted by TIME, The AV Club, and The Portland Mercury. He is also the most reoccurring guest on the hit comedy podcast “All Fantasy Everything.” Tickets $25 Student & Under 35$35 General Admission$50 Preferred Seating (First 5 rows of Front Center Section – available in advance only) $5 Arts For All – Oregon Trail or SNAP Benefit Card required for admission with Arts for All Tickets. For more details about the Arts for All program, visit: https://racc.org/artsforall/ Click HERE for tickets. Doors open at 6:30 Guests subject to change.
Live Wire with Luke Burbank
Live Wire Radio is an independently produced radio show that artfully blends unpredictable conversation, live music, and original comedy featuring all types of cultural talent and creative minds, from emerging artists to established acts. Join host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello for a live recording of this popular radio show, heard nationwide by thousands of listeners every weekend. With special guests: Mary Roach is the author of eight New York Times bestsellers, including Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal, Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law, and Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void. Her new book, Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy, debuts in September 2025. Mary’s books have been published in 21 languages, and her second book, Spook, was a New York Times Notable Book. Mary has written for National Geographic, Wired, The New York Times Magazine, and the Journal of Clinical Anatomy, among others. She has been a finalist for the Royal Society’s Winton Prize and a winner of the American Engineering Societies’ Engineering Journalism Award, in a category for which, let’s be honest, she was the sole entrant. Janesh Rahlan is an LA based comedian, actor and writer. He’s opened for acts like Kumail Nanjiani, Atsuko, Josh Johnson, Cedric the Entertainer, Alex Edelman, and Jordan Klepper. He’s a regular at many clubs, including the Hollywood Improv and San Francisco Punch Line. His comedy touches upon his immigrant upbringing and aggressively millennial persona. Canadian chanteuse Amy Millan is best known as the co-lead vocalist for indie rock act Stars and as a satellite member of the iconic collective Broken Social Scene. She launched her solo career with Honey from the Tombs (2006) and Masters of the Burial (2009), blending indie rock with country and folk influences. After a 15-year hiatus from solo work, Millan has returned with I Went To Find You, a deeply personal album that explores themes of loss, friendship, and self-discovery. River Selby is a former hotshot and wildland firefighter, a writer, and a nonbinary person. They hold an MFA in creative writing from Syracuse University; they are currently pursuing their PhD. They were the recipient of the Emerging Writer’s Prize for Fiction from Boulevard Magazine for their story, “How Certain Fires Burn.” Their writing has appeared in the New Ohio Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Vox, and High Country News. They currently live in Tallahassee, Florida. Click HERE to buy tickets for the October 18 show. Our Fall 2025 Season Passes are now on sale! Click here to buy.
Live Wire with Luke Burbank
Live Wire Radio is an independently produced radio show that artfully blends unpredictable conversation, live music, and original comedy featuring all types of cultural talent and creative minds, from emerging artists to established acts. Join host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello for a live recording of this popular radio show, heard nationwide by thousands of listeners every weekend. Featured Guests: Paul F. Tompkins is a comedian, actor, and writer who the Los Angeles Times describes as “a mix of Mark Twain, old-timey radio entertainer and vaudeville actor for the internet age.” He’s appeared on over two hundred episodes of Comedy Bang! Bang! and hosts popular podcasts including Threedom, The Neighborhood Listen, and Spontaneanation. An Emmy-nominated writer on Mr. Show, Tompkins also hosted TV shows like Best Week Ever and voiced Mr. Peanutbutter on the Netflix animated series Bojack Horseman. In his long-running live show “Varietopia,” he blends stand-up, character work, and improvisation, always in his signature suit and tie. Melissa Febos is the nationally bestselling author of four books, including Girlhood—which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism, and Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative. She has been awarded prizes and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, LAMBDA Literary, the National Endowment for the Arts, the British Library, the Black Mountain Institute, the Bogliasco Foundation, and others. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Best American Essays, Vogue, The Sewanee Review, New York Review of Books, and elsewhere. Febos is a full professor at the University of Iowa and lives in Iowa City with her wife, the poet Donika Kelly. Tickets $25 Student & Under 35$35 General Admission$50 Preferred Seating (First 5 rows of Front Center Section – available in advance only) $5 Arts For All – Oregon Trail or SNAP Benefit Card required for admission with Arts for All Tickets. For more details about the Arts for All program, visit: https://racc.org/artsforall/ Click HERE for tickets. Doors open at 6:30 Guests subject to change.
Live Wire with Luke Burbank
Live Wire Radio is an independently produced radio show that artfully blends unpredictable conversation, live music, and original comedy featuring all types of cultural talent and creative minds, from emerging artists to established acts. Join host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello for a live recording of this popular radio show, heard nationwide by thousands of listeners every weekend. With special guests: Guy Branum is the creator and host of truTV’s Talk Show The Game Show, a mashup pitting comedians and celebrities against each other for “Best Guest of the Night.” He recently starred in BROS with Billy Eichner and wrote for Mel Brooks’ History of the World, Part II. His book My Life As A Goddess made NPR’s 2018 Good Reads List. As a TV writer, Guy was supervising producer on The Other Two, wrote for The Mindy Project, HACKS, and numerous other shows including A League of Their Own and Q-Force. Tamara Yajia is an Argentine writer, comedian, and ex-child star who authored the 2022 poetry collection Poems I Wrote While Taking A Shit. She also wrote and starred in a one-woman show Cumming of Age. Tamara has written for ClickHole, Funny or Die, and several comedy series, including Acapulco, This Fool, and the upcoming Netflix series Strip Law. Currently, she’s developing a show for Apple. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and her dog Odie, who just pooped in the living room. Alexis Okeowo is a staff writer at The New Yorker who has reported on conflict, human rights, and culture across Africa, as well as from Mexico and the American South. She is the author of A Moonless, Starless Sky: Ordinary Women and Men Fighting Extremism in Africa, which received the 2018 PEN Open Book Award. Her latest book, Blessings and Disasters: A Story of Alabama, is a blend of memoir, history, and reportage that weaves her Nigerian-immigrant family’s story with Alabama’s complex past and present, examining the state as a stage for America’s most extreme experiments. Pete Droge gets personal on his captivating new album, Fade Away Blue, reflecting on the loss of his birth mother, who he missed meeting by months, and the remarkable journey that followed as he reunited with long-lost relatives, battled a mysterious illness, and discovered himself in the process. Recorded with Grammy-winning producer Paul Bryan (Aimee Mann), the collection is largely autobiographical, built on a series of dreamy, cinematic snapshots from throughout Droge’s life. The songs are bittersweet, balancing longing and gratitude in equal measure. Click HERE to purchase tickets to the October 16th show. Our Fall 2025 Season Passes are now on sale! Click here to buy.
Live Wire with Luke Burbank
Live Wire Radio is an independently produced radio show that artfully blends unpredictable conversation, live music, and original comedy featuring all types of cultural talent and creative minds, from emerging artists to established acts. Join host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello for a live recording of this popular radio show, heard nationwide by thousands of listeners every weekend. Featured Guests: Karen Russell is the author of six books of fiction, including the New York Times bestsellers Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove. She is a MacArthur Fellow, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She has received two National Magazine Awards for Fiction and was selected for the National Book Foundation’s “5 under 35” prize and The New Yorker’s “20 under 40” list (She is now decisively over 40). She serves on the board of Street Books, a mobile-library for people living outdoors. Born and raised in Miami, Florida, she now lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband, son, and daughter. Kelsey McKinney is a reporter and writer who lives in Philadelphia. She is the co-creator of Normal Gossip, as well as a co owner and features writer at Defector.com. She has worked as a staff writer at Deadspin, Fusion, and Vox, and her reporting and essays have appeared in The New York Times, GQ, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Vanity Fair and many others. Felipe Torres Medina is a Peabody and Writers Guild of America Award–winning writer from Bogotá, Colombia and the author of America, Let Me In: A Choose Your Own Immigration Story. His writing for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has earned him five Emmy nominations. Khatumu is a 23-year-old alternative folk singer-songwriter whose breakout hit “Hunting Days” went viral on TikTok, sparking a cult-like fanbase. The success of the track led to her signing with Bright Antenna Records, with whom she will release an EP in May 2025, as well as headlining shows at venues such as Mercury Lounge in New York City. Drawing inspiration from artists like Phoebe Bridgers and Dijon, Khatumu’s sound blends sweet harmonic vocals with indie folk instrumentation and kickass songwriting. Tickets $25 Student & Under 35$35 General Admission$50 Preferred Seating (First 5 rows of Front Center Section – available in advance only) $5 Arts For All – Oregon Trail or SNAP Benefit Card required for admission with Arts for All Tickets. For more details about the Arts for All program, visit: https://racc.org/artsforall/ Click HERE for tickets. Doors open at 6:30 Guests subject to change.
Live Wire with Luke Burbank
Join Emmy award-winning host Luke Burbank for the taping of Live Wire, the fastest growing entertainment show on public radio. We’ve got a late-night stride, an Oscar Wilde wit, and the charisma of Ferris Bueller grand marshaling a parade. Music, comedy, and conversation, live and packed with surprises.Featured Guests: TBA Tickets$30 General Admission$45 Preferred Seating (First 5 rows of Front Center Section – available in advance only) Click HERE for tickets. Doors open at 6:30 Guests subject to change.
Live Wire with Luke Burbank
Join Emmy award-winning host Luke Burbank for the taping of Live Wire, the fastest growing entertainment show on public radio. We’ve got a late-night stride, an Oscar Wilde wit, and the charisma of Ferris Bueller grand marshaling a parade. Music, comedy, and conversation, live and packed with surprises.Featured Guests: TBA Tickets$30 General Admission$45 Preferred Seating (First 5 rows of Front Center Section – available in advance only) Click HERE for tickets. Doors open at 6:30 Guests subject to change.
Live Wire with Luke Burbank – Portland Book Festival Special
Join Emmy award-winning host Luke Burbank for the taping of Live Wire, the fastest growing entertainment show on public radio. We’ve got a late-night stride, an Oscar Wilde wit, and the charisma of Ferris Bueller grand marshaling a parade. Music, comedy, and conversation, live and packed with surprises.Featured Guests: TBA Tickets$30 General Admission$45 Preferred Seating (First 5 rows of Front Center Section – available in advance only) Click HERE for tickets. Doors open at 6:30 Guests subject to change.
Live Wire with Luke Burbank
Live Wire Radio is an independently produced radio show that artfully blends unpredictable conversation, live music, and original comedy featuring all types of cultural talent and creative minds, from emerging artists to established acts. Join host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello for a live recording of this popular radio show, heard nationwide by thousands of listeners every weekend. Featured Guests: Aubrey Gordon is an author, columnist, and cohost of the podcast Maintenance Phase with journalist Michael Hobbes, where the two debunk and decode wellness and weight loss trends. Her work has been published in The New York Times, Vox, Literary Hub, SELF, Health, Glamour and more. Her first book, What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat was released in November 2020. Her second book, “You Just Need to Lose Weight” and 19 Other Myths About Fat People, is a New York Times and Indie bestseller. Kari Ferrell is a producer, writer, speaker, activist, and creator whose work is centered around prison reform and mental health. Her production company, Without Wax, is dedicated to uplifting and telling other stories from Women of Color, and she‘s working with Kaling International on a scripted show based on her life. Kari also supports various organizations like Second Chance Studios, Books Through Bars, the ACLU, and other advocacy groups. She lives in Brooklyn with her pup and her partner. Tickets $25 Student & Under 35$35 General Admission$50 Preferred Seating (First 5 rows of Front Center Section – available in advance only) $5 Arts For All – Oregon Trail or SNAP Benefit Card required for admission with Arts for All Tickets. For more details about the Arts for All program, visit: https://racc.org/artsforall/ Click HERE for tickets. Doors open at 6:30 Guests subject to change.
