Photos courtesy of Mike Danforth ’95
Danforth has passed the radio bug to his oldest child, 9-year-old Aksel, above, (Danforth and wife Eva Nielsen also have a daughter, Nisse, 7, and another son, Lars, 5). Danforth recently helped Aksel with a school project that involved interviewing a zookeeper (left)—and some pretty quiet gorillas.
Page 16: Danforth records one episode of How to Do Everything from a highpressure hyperbaric chamber. Page 17: Danforth (far right) attends a Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me! script read-through with (from left) emcee Carl Cassel, associate producer Eva Wolchover, host Peter Sagal, “benevolent overlord” Doug Berman (Danforth’s predecesor), and podcast cohost Ian Chillag.
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Around the Wait Wait table Danforth joined the public-radio fold in the late 1990s with an internship at Minnesota Public Radio, which turned into a full-time job at A Prairie Home Companion. Danforth says, “At Prairie Home, everything was designed around Garrison Keillor. We were working to support this man who has created an institution. It’s a show beloved by people all around the country. And our job was to make sure Garrison had the tools to do that show every week.” Since 2000, Danforth has hitched his wagon to NPR’s Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me!, where the office culture swings to the other extreme. He explains, “Here at Wait Wait, we’re all involved in both the daily operation and the creative generation of the show. Peter Sagal, the host, is very much a member of the staff. I remember within the first week of starting here, he gave me a ride home, and I was like, ‘Wow, I don’t know if Garrison even knew my name.’ It’s a small family, and part of what makes the show work is that the vibe we have in the office
translates on the air. We sit around the table and talk about stories in the news and make jokes and try to make each other laugh.” As executive producer at Wait Wait, Danforth oversees how the show is put together each week. He spends the first three days, along with the rest of the staff, trawling the Internet and news publications for stories and ping-ponging them around the office. By Wednesday, they’ll start writing and editing material, and on Thursday they’ll read through the script with emcee Carl Kassel sitting in and “benevolent overlord” (and former executive producer) Doug Berman on the phone, playing the role of the callers. Danforth is convinced that this ensemble approach benefits the show. “It’s not like when you see a movie that has seven writers, and you think ‘Oh, that must have been a terrible, terrible piece of work to require that many voices behind it.’ ” During taping on Thursday night, Danforth takes a backseat in the control box with senior producer Ian Chillag, who directs the show, but Danforth’s work picks up again in postproduction on Friday, when he helps edit the taping for its Saturday broadcast.
Luther Alumni Magazine
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12/16/13 5:02 PM