Looking for some of the stellar press Live Wire! shows have garnered? Look no further. Click on any of the PDFs to download the full story. To set up an interview with one of Live Wire's loquacious cast, crew or creators, please contact Stephen Cassell at Cassell Communications 503-449-6718 or stephen@cassellcommunications.com.

Live Wire Radio!

Have you been to a Live Wire recording yet? Live Wire, that hilarious and brilliant variety show on OPB (91.5 fm), is actually recorded live every month at the Aladdin Theater, located just off SE Powell on Milwaukie Blvd. It ’s a modern variety show, bringing together sketch comedy, musical performances, artsy guests hyping their newest projects, and witty vignettes by the host and head writer, Courtenay Hameister. Think Prairie Home Companion, but funny. And very Portland-y.

Read the full article on portlandoctopus.com

Live from Wordstock: LiveWire Radio’s Wordstock Extravaganza

Instead of trying to sum up the awesome insanity that was the LiveWire Wordstock Extravaganza in a couple short paragraphs, I’d like to instead gift you with a few choice excerpts from the show.

Read the full article at Willamette Week Online

In Character with Tyler Hughs: A conversation with an interesting Portlander

Tyler Hughs’ girlfriend thinks he’s funny. His 5-year-old son isn’t quite so sure, according to Hughs, who is a writer and announcer for locally produced vaudevillian radio show Live Wire!, heard on public radio stations across the country. But kids are always a tough audience, as Hughs learned about 20 years ago.

Read the full article on portlandtribune.com

Plugging into 'Live Wire!

Inauguration Day 2009: You were probably at the office when you saw the news clip of Barack Obama dancing with Michelle. You looked up from your computer, saw his tux, noticed her white dress. Maybe you smiled -- what a great-looking couple! -- and got back to work. An hour later, you looked up again: same TV news clip, same picture of Barack and Michelle. The next day, you hear that the Obamas went to something like 10 balls. If you thought about it at all, you wondered: 10 balls? In one night? Weren't they exhausted?

Read the full article on oregonlive.com

Review: Live Wire! Wordstock edition

Music + books = very happy nerdy me, so how could I resist the Wordstock edition of Live Wire!? Answer: Couldn't, and I'm glad I didn't try. Saturday's taping of the Portland-based OPB radio sketch/variety show, recorded at the Aladdin Theater, was packed to the gills -- not just with audience members, but with guests: Graphic artists/writers Lynda Barry and Alison Bechdel, musicians The Long Winters and Jonathan Coulton, musician and now playwright McKinley (of Dirty Martini) essayist Sandra Tsing Loh, NPR's "This I Believe" producer Jay Allison, author and PC-in-those-Apple-ads John Hodgman and poetry slam champ Anis Mojgan, as well as the usual funny cast of the show...

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Live Wire! on Oregon Art Beat

Allison Frost goes behind the scenes of OPB radio's Live Wire! show as it is taped in Portland's Aladdin Theater.

Watch the Live Wire! segment

Radio Daze

It's early March at the North Portland recording facility Mississippi Studios, and the cast of Live Wire, Portland's answer to Prairie Home Companion, is rehearsng a sketch for its next live radio show. Sean McGrath, playing the part of an overfriendly clerk in a co-op grocery store, accost "intimidated Shopper" Mame Pelletier, who stifles her giggles.

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Sweet 'Live Wire!' sampler

To paraphrase from one of the worst movies of all time, a compilation CD is like a box of chocolates. And when the confectioner, so to speak, is a variety show to begin with, the unpredictability factor is even greater.

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Portland-produced show offers up a singular voice

No doubt Courtenay Hameister has her low-key moments, when she visits the quieter end of the emotional spectrum. But she’s one of those people who are always leaning, if not practically falling, toward a good laugh.

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The Spark That Became Live Wire!

LIVE WIRE's producers Kate Sokoloff adn Robyn Tenebaum recently sat with OPB to discuss the true beginning fo LIVE WIRE!

Read a PDF of the full article

Portland's got it 'Wired'

Lots of people move to Portland thinking they'd love to do something creative. But few of them manage to create and produce their own regular radio show. Fewer still dream of taking their live performance/radio broadcast baby to a national audience. But that's just what Robyn Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff, the co-creators and producers of "Live Wire!," have in mind. They're not satisfied with selling hundreds of tickets to their show's live performances. Or with having an on-air berth every month at Oregon Public Broadcasting. They want nothing less than to do for Portland what "A Prairie Home Companion" has done for Minnesota: put it on the national radio map as a place with its own entertaining quirks, personality and sense of humor.

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Live Wire! What on earth were they thinking?

If you haven't caught LIVE WIRE! and want to know what everyone's talking about, or if you have caught it and don't know how to talk about it, here's a little primer: it's inttermittently wacky vaudeville for the mind with musical guests and thought-provoking discussion. It's a bit of salt, pepper and that other spice, the one that makes the dish.

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Taking Live Wire to a national stage

Portland's growing stature as a creative center could get a major boost from a local live radio show that is gaining an audience and looking to expand nationally.

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Lake Wo...Be Gone, Here Comes "Live Wire!"

Robyn Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff are close friends. So close that, man-wise, they share the same fantasy. There's the guy. Kind of like Garrison Keillor. The strong, unsilent type. But younger. Hipper. And a lot less Lutheran.

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