‘A Prairie Home Companion’ creator marks first visit to Bellefontaine
Grammy-award winning radio personality and author Garrison Keillor, who created and produced A Prairie Home Companion for 42 seasons, is not slowing down in retirement, and is continuing a different form of his witty and comforting variety show on the road in appearances around the country, with a stop in Bellefontaine slated for this coming weekend.
The News from Lake Wobegon, classic love songs, poetry and other anecdotes will be shared as Keillor & Company present their show at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 3, at the Holland Theatre. The performance is a rescheduled session from an earlier date, and all tickets from the previous date are still valid.
Prudence Johnson performs as a vocalist alongside Keillor, along with accompanying pianist Dan Choinard.
The storied history of the Holland Theatre, built in 1931 as the only Dutch atmospheric theater in the country, is intriguing to Keillor, and he is looking forward to performing at the venue and seeing the unique Dutch cityscape in the auditorium for himself. While his final appearance on A Prairie Home Companion drew 18,000 audience members during its live recording at the Hollywood Bowl in 2016, he said he prefers a smaller, more intimate setting for his shows.
“I like being able to connect with our audience that way, and to get them involved in the show,” the Minnesota native and current resident said earlier this month.
One way that the humorist and singer enjoys garnering audience participation is through song, noting that he will hum the first notes to the traditional American tunes like “America (My Country, ‘Tis of Thee)” and “God Bless America” and then get the whole auditorium involved in singing.
“Singing these songs together — it makes us all feel united,” he said. “I think that’s a way that we need to feel. There are so many differences tearing us apart these days.
“I’m part of the generation that knows the words to these songs. It’s important for our younger generations to learn them, too.”
Duets also are a favored musical form for Keillor, who will be singing together with Johnson on the stage.
“I love doing duets, with the beautiful melody and harmony blending together, and I’m looking forward to sharing some alongside Prudence during the show.”
Since his retirement from the radio show, Keillor said he has been focusing on his writing and is “working on a couple of books these days.” In particular, the George Foster Peabody Award winner and the National Humanities Medal honoree noted that he is writing a book on the theme of “cheerfulness” — one of the “good-natured Midwestern values” he is planning a dialogue around for his local show this week.
“Cheerfulness is a choice that people make. We’ve made complaining into an art form, but I’ve found that even in difficult circumstances, you can still choose to be cheerful.”
The creator of the fictional town Lake Wobegon credits his parents, who were raised during the Great Depression. They are the ones “who I inherit cheerfulness from,” he said.
“My father grew up on a farm, and after his father died, he didn’t want to keep on farming, but he didn’t complain about it.
“I know my parents also struggled with money from time to time, but I didn’t hear them complaining about it. They had a cheerful disposition.”
Another topic of the show includes “Why you should go on getting older,” said Keillor, who celebrated his 80th birthday in August.
“Some things you used to worry about, you don’t have to worry about any more,” he said, naming many of the advantages of getting older. “It removes a lot of your inhibitions. The troubles of the world…I feel like it’s not my problem to worry about any more.”
The creator of A Prairie Home Companion said it’s freeing to just be himself.
“I’m not trying to find myself anymore. I know who I am. I was an English major who never finished Moby Dick.
“Also, I never have to camp again; that is not for me. Back in Boy Scouts, I had to camp outside during winter time. It was awful,” he said with a chuckle.
Born in 1942 in Anoka, Minn., Keillor said he held his first writing job while still in high school, when he worked for his weekly hometown newspaper. Writing obituaries for that newspaper was particularly memorable, he said.
“There were some very extensive obituaries for people who might have been overlooked in a bigger city. I found it a very interesting to read about their extraordinary lives.
“The lives of women were very much celebrated in the obituaries, too…something that you might not have seen at a bigger newspaper at that time.”
He began his radio career as a freshman at the University of Minnesota, from which he graduated in 1966. He went to work for Minnesota Public Radio in 1969.
On July 6, 1974, Keillor started A Prairie Home Companion. For those who showed up at the Janet Wallace Auditorium at Macalester College in Saint Paul that day, they paid a $1 admission (50 cents for children) to attend this very first broadcast.
From its humble beginnings, the show would expand exponentially over the years, reaching some 3.5 million listeners on 700 public radio stations from coast to coast and beyond.
“There were plenty of adventures over 42 years — broadcasts from Canada, Ireland, Scotland, England, Germany, Iceland and almost every one of the 50 states; wonderful performers, little-known and world-renowned; standing ovations and stares of bewilderment. We missed planes, coped with lost luggage, dodged swooping bats and hungry mosquitoes, plodded through blizzards, and flew by the seat of our pants,” according to garrisonkeillor.com.
Keillor and his wife, Jenny Lind Nilsson, now live in Minneapolis. His many books include Lake Wobegon Days, The Book of Guys, Pilgrims: A Wobegon Romance, Guy Noir and the Straight Skinny, and The Keillor Reader (Viking).
He is currently the host of the daily program “The Writer’s Almanac” sent out to Internet subscribers, which he maintains through his aforementioned website.
Tickets for Friday’s show were limited, but still available, as of Sunday afternoon. Purchase online at thehollandtheatre.org or call the box office (937) 592-9002.