On June 25, Aurora DeLucia celebrated her 35th birthday at East Falls Glassworks, learning how to make a multicolored drinking glass from scratch.

“It was really fun,” DeLucia told the Local.

While spending a few birthday hours making glassware may not seem like a stop-the-presses event, the visit marked the 16th year in a row the Center City resident has celebrated her birthday doing something far outside the box.

In 2010, DeLucia performed a musical she wrote for a paying audience. In 2012, she tried trapeze acrobatics.  In 2014, she rode along with on-duty Santa Monica, California police. In 2016, she flew a helicopter. In 2019, she completed three bungee jumps (one forward, one backward, and one in the dark at night). In 2021, she tried fire eating. In 2022, she took a private sailing lesson. In 2023, she rode a personal watercraft (think Jet Ski or WaveRunner) for the first time, circling the island of Manhattan.

Tragedy brings triumph

What on Earth would prompt an industrious University of Pennsylvania graduate student working on two master’s degrees (one in public health, the other in law) to engage in such daredevilry?

In summer 2009, while a student at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, DeLucia fainted in class and was rushed to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, a congenital heart defect that causes an abnormal heartbeat, dizziness, and exhaustion. She spent the following year in and out of the hospital, undergoing two surgeries, including open-heart surgery, as well as other procedures to treat a blood clot that formed in her heart. “My sternum was in such pain,” she said. “It hurt just to sneeze.”

After surviving that life-threatening ordeal, DeLucia worked out ferociously and decided to run 52 half marathons in 52 weeks. “Since I was close to death at a young age and got a second chance at life, I was determined not to waste it,” DeLucia said, “I told myself I would squeeze so much life out of every day that I would never have to regret anything.”

DeLucia attended high school in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio, and then attended Berklee College of Music, she said, “because Quincy Jones went there. My goal was to work with Michael Jackson, but he died on my birthday, June 25, 2009, at age 50. I got so many phone calls that day. I was his biggest fan.”

At Berklee, DeLucia earned a bachelor’s degree in music and a master’s in creative media and technology. She has written several full-length musicals and performed the one-woman Andrew Lloyd Webber musical “Tell Me on a Sunday.” She plays piano, saxophone, clarinet, flute, woodwinds, and guitar.

Gaming the system

A member of Mensa and a big-time game show fan, DeLucia has also been a contestant on five game shows: “Tic Tac Dough” (her episode has not yet aired); “The Price is Right,” where she won a Chevy Cruze; and “Wheel of Fortune,” where she won $23,000, a trip to Barbados, and dived with sharks. On “Let’s Make a Deal,” she won nothing.

“You have to be really engaging in the interviews to get on these shows,” she said. “You have to sell yourself well and have a lot of energy, and tell them good anecdotes during the interview process. When I told them I had run 52 half marathons in 52 weeks, that definitely helped.”

In 2017, as part of Project 882, a fundraiser for charities that help victims of sexual violence, DeLucia ran a total of 882 miles throughout the year, she said, “on behalf of the 882 Americans on average who are sexually assaulted every day.” She raised $11,350.

After competing on game shows, DeLucia was hired in 2009 to work in the television industry full time, first with host Trevor Noah on “The Daily Show” and later with Larry Wilmore on “The Nightly Show.”

“I grew up dreaming of working with these guys, and I got to do it,” said DeLucia, who started as an assistant editor and later was promoted to editor. She also worked on all three of Martha Stewart’s shows for the Roku Channel and on hundreds of episodes of other TV shows.

As a result of her career in television, DeLucia was asked to be an Emmy voter. “A few weeks ago I met Ted Danson, Harrison Ford, Tina Fey, and Noah Wylie,” she said. “They were all very friendly because they want you to vote for them. If you’re an Emmy voter, you can go for days without ever spending a penny for food or drinks.”

Len Lear can be reached at LenLear@chestnuthilllocal.com.

This article has been updated to correctly reflect that DeLucia is a Center City resident and  started her television career in 2009.