St. Petersburg's Mahaffey Theater to host 'America's Got Talent,' Howard Stern

Steel yourself, St. Petersburg: That no-holds-barred devil Howard Stern is coming to town in April to tell us what he really thinks about our skills.

The newest judge on America's Got Talent, plus the reality show's other stars — Howie Mandel, Sharon Osbourne and host Nick Cannon — will be live-taping episodes of the NBC hit on April 3 and 4 at the Mahaffey Theater.

Tickets are free.

The contestants for the local taping, one of several "audition" episodes being taped around the country, will already have been selected. AGT held tryouts in Tampa last November, when hundreds of daring souls crooned, danced and unleashed a torrent of bizarro talents.

Now AGT needs eager, energetic fans to fill the more than 2,000 seats in the Mahaffey. Minimum age to attend the two-day taping is 14. To register and read the rules, go to on-camera-audiences.com/shows/Americas_Got_Talent.

This upcoming season, the show's seventh, has more buzz than ever, thanks to longtime radio titan Stern taking over the spot vacated by Piers Morgan. To accommodate Stern's radio demands, AGT's final live shows, where contestants compete for a $1 million prize, will be held in New York instead of Hollywood.

The season premieres over the summer; it's not known when the Mahaffey episode would air.