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*Last* Thursday my family and I went to the [Chase Auditorium](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chase_Tower_%28Chicago%29) in Downtown Chicago. Went to see one of the weekly tapings for [Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me!](http://www.npr.org/programs/waitwait/).

Wait, Wait, “The NPR News Quiz” is one of my favorite public radio shows. It’s on my short list along with [This American Life](http://www.thislife.org/), [Left, Right & Center](http://www.kcrw.com/show/lr), and [A Prairie Home Companion](http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/).

The format for the taping is (roughly) audience intro, show taping, outro, and retakes (where they redo some parts of the dialog), followed by a Q&A. The taping is a while longer than what actually airs (what with station breaks, etc.). So there’s a fair bit that gets edited out for the show that goes out over the radio that weekend.

Now, while it’s true that seeing the production of the show [spoiled](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_the_fourth_wall) the illusion that accompanies any good stage act, nonetheless, it was a fun experience that was well worth the while, and one that I would recommend to any [NPR](http://www.npr.org/) fan who finds themselves in the Chicagoland area on a Thursday evening with $20 to spare.

A final note – [here](http://podcastdownload.npr.org/anon.npr-podcasts/podcast/35/5421096/npr_5421096.mp3) is the show that I watched get taped last Thursday. And [here](http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=121493804) is a link to the *Wait, Wait… Don’t tell Me!* podcast.