At the Studebaker Theater in the Loop, Alzo Slade, the new scorekeeper of the NPR quiz show “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!,” sits at a table backstage with producers Lillian King and Michael Danforth. The trio is working to craft a limerick with Slade unsuccessfully attempting to rhyme “glock” with “walk.”
Host Peter Sagal is at a table a few feet away eating dinner with the panelists that will join him and Slade on stage later in the night.
This is the scene backstage hours before the sold-out show.
Slade is a man who has worn many hats. He’s been a college professor, a journalist at Vice and dabbled in photography. He’s an actor and a stand up comic, and now, he’s a permanent fixture on “Wait Wait.”
Slade took over the scorekeeper role this year when legendary Chicago broadcaster Bill Kurtis retired after 12 years in the job.
“There is a level of pressure,” said Slade, reflecting on his transition. “I will say, the passing of the torch was what it needed to be, I think, for both Bill and I. He left in a dignified and classy way.”
“You know Bill’s still got it,” Slade said before adding that Kurtis has already offered to step back in if Slade needs a vacation.
Slade made his first appearance on the show as a panelist in 2022. In the time since, he’s been both a fill-in host and a substitute scorekeeper.
“Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” has been on the NPR airwaves for nearly three decades. The weekly news quiz typically brings together a panel of comedians and journalists, alongside celebrity special guests and call-ins from listeners around the country. It’s a fan favorite.
“I get nervous every time I do it, but that nervousness is not debilitating. That nervousness is just a result of me wanting to do right by the ‘Wait, Wait’ audience, because we all know — them folks, they tune in,” Slade said. “They’re loyal NPR fans. They’re a different breed, in the best way.”
Backstage, as Slade prepares to read the intro that he will deliver to the live audience at the Studebaker, he talks about the process to get the show ready each week.
“Much of the writing team and producing team, they start Monday combing the news,” he said. “We live in a world where it feels like there’s more negativity than positivity, so, how is it that you create laughter from the news that we see? The team figures out a way to do it.”
“I come in Thursday, after they’ve gone through a couple drafts of the script, and I sit with them and do a read through. Then, we identify what we think hits, what the audience would be interested in, and what the audience would be surprised by,” said Slade.
Slade and Sagal prep with the production team, but Slade stressed that what audiences see is genuinely created live.
“It’s funny,” said Slade, “I think a lot of people believe or assume that what the panelists do is written, but all of that is off the cuff. All of it, except the bluff. They have to write ‘the bluff’.”
“Bluff the Listener” is a recurring segment where panelists write bizarre stories based on an unusual real-life news event. Of the three panelists, only one pens a story with actual facts, and a listener must guess which panelist reads the real story.
Slade says his favorite segment is the fill-in-the-blank round.
“It’s interesting to see how some panelist, they really prepare. They bring in notes, and, you know, there is no prize if you win,” he said. “As the judge and scorekeeper, I get to play with them a little bit. When Peter asked me, ‘so Alzo, how did they do,’ and I’m like, ‘yeah, he should have been on Yahoo News a little bit more this week. He should have listened to NPR.’”
In the final minutes before the show, Slade does his read-through of his intro. It’s written to a song extremely popular in Chicago: the pre-game intro music used by the Bulls. He reads the lines, which include funny banter about each panelist, ensuring the jokes are on beat.
Before Slade heads the stage, I ask if he misses being a panelist.
“I do miss it a little bit, because as a panelist, you get to just throw stuff against the wall and just have fun with your colleagues sitting next to you,” he said. “But I still pick my spots and throw stuff against the wall. It’s just just an adjustment.”