Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor is an American author, singer, humorist, voice actor, and radio personality. He created the Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) show A Prairie Home Companion, which he hosted from 1974 to 2016. Keillor created the fictional Minnesota town Lake Wobegon, the setting of many of his books, including Lake Wobegon Days and Leaving Home: A Collection of Lake Wobegon Stories. Other creations include Guy Noir, a detective voiced by Keillor who appeared in A Prairie Home Companion comic skits. Keillor is also the creator of the five-minute daily radio/podcast program The Writer's Almanac, which pairs poems of his choice with a script about important literary, historical, and scientific events that coincided with that date in history.
A Prairie Home Companion is a weekly radio variety show created and hosted by Garrison Keillor that aired live from 1974 to 2016. In 2016, musician Chris Thile took over as host, and the successor show was eventually renamed Live from Here and ran until 2020. A Prairie Home Companion aired on Saturdays from the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul, Minnesota; it was also frequently heard on tours to New York City and other U.S. cities. The show is known for its musical guests, especially folk and traditional musicians, tongue-in-cheek radio drama, and relaxed humor. Keillor's wry storytelling segment, "News from Lake Wobegon," was the show's best-known feature during his long tenure.
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress. Known for her versatility and adept accent work, she has been described as "the best actress of her generation". She has received numerous accolades throughout her career spanning over four decades, including a record 21 Academy Award nominations, winning three, and a record 34 Golden Globe Award nominations, winning eight.
Kevin Delaney Kline is an American actor. In a career spanning over five decades, he has become a prominent leading man across both stage and screen. His accolades include an Academy Award and three Tony Awards, along with nominations for two British Academy Film Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and five Golden Globe Awards. In 2003, he was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.
The Writer's Almanac is a daily podcast and newsletter of poetry and historical interest pieces, usually of literary significance. Begun as a radio program in 1993, it is hosted by Garrison Keillor and was produced and distributed by American Public Media through November 2017. It is also available as a podcast. Past program sponsors include The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry Magazine and The Mosaic Foundation of Rita and Peter Heydon.
Lake Wobegon Days is a novel by Garrison Keillor, first published in hardcover by Viking in 1985. Based on material from his radio show A Prairie Home Companion, the book brought Keillor's work to a much wider audience and achieved international success selling over 1 million copies. Like some of Keillor's other books, it is unusual in that it could be said that the audiobook preceded the publication in written form.
The Fitzgerald Theater is the oldest active theatre in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and the home of American Public Media's Live from Here. It was one of many theaters built by the Shubert Theatre Corporation, and was initially named the Sam S. Shubert Theater. It was designed by the noted Chicago architectural firm of Marshall and Fox, architects of several theaters for the Shuberts. In 1933, it became a movie outlet known as the World Theater. The space was purchased by Minnesota Public Radio in 1980, restored with a stage in 1986 as a site for Prairie Home, and renamed in 1994 after St. Paul native F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Thomas Alan Keith was a radio personality who worked for Minnesota Public Radio in St. Paul, Minnesota. He was the engineer for Garrison Keillor when the latter began his early morning radio show from the St. John's University, Collegeville, Minnesota studio. Keillor wanted dialogue during the program and Keith was about the only other person around at that early hour. Keith was one of the primary sound effects performers for the radio show A Prairie Home Companion and was often an actor in sketches written by Keillor. Keillor created the persona of Jim Ed Poole for Keith on the old early morning show. Jim Ed was said to have grown up in West St. Paul, Minnesota and graduated from Henry Sibley High School.
Tim Russell is an American radio announcer and voice actor (AFTRA/SAG) in Minneapolis – Saint Paul. He is most widely known as one of the actors on the long-running radio show, A Prairie Home Companion, and continued in that role on the show, re-titled, Live From Here with Chris Thile until September 2018. As a voice-over talent and announcer, Russell also appears in radio and television commercials.
Sue Scott is an American actress and character voice actor (AFTRA/SAG/AEA) in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. She is best known for her work as a radio comedy actor on Garrison Keillor's public radio show, A Prairie Home Companion, and for her work as a voice-over talent in radio and television commercials. She has also appeared in films and television.
Guy Noir is a fictional private detective regularly featured on the former public radio show A Prairie Home Companion. Voiced by Garrison Keillor, the character parodies the conventions of hardboiled fiction and the film noir genre. Guy Noir worked on the twelfth floor of the Acme Building in a city that "knows how to keep its secrets", St. Paul, Minnesota.
"In the Garden" (sometimes rendered by its first line "I Come to the Garden Alone" is a gospel song written by American songwriter C. Austin Miles, a former pharmacist who served as editor and manager at Hall-Mack publishers for 37 years. According to Miles' great-granddaughter, the song was written "in a cold, dreary and leaky basement in Pitman, New Jersey that didn't even have a window in it let alone a view of a garden." The song was first published in 1912 and popularized during the Billy Sunday evangelistic campaigns of the early twentieth century by two members of his staff, Homer Rodeheaver and Virginia Asher.
The Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Castin a Motion Picture is an award given by the Screen Actors Guild to honor the finest acting achievements in film. It is the final award presented during the ceremony.
Sophie's Choice is a 1982 psychological drama directed and written by Alan J. Pakula, adapted from William Styron's 1979 novel. The film stars Meryl Streep as Zofia "Sophie" Zawistowska, a Polish immigrant to America with a dark secret from her past who shares a boarding house in Brooklyn with her tempestuous lover Nathan, and young writer Stingo. It also features Rita Karin, Stephen D. Newman and Josh Mostel in supporting roles.
The Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Cast is one of the annual film awards given by the Boston Society of Film Critics.
Joshua Astrachan is an American film producer and principal at Animal Kingdom, the production company he co-founded in 2012. He lives and works in New York City.
Meryl Streep throughout the 2000s appeared in many cinematic and theatrical productions. In 2001, Streep's voice appeared in the science-fiction film A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Streep that same year co-hosted the annual Nobel Peace Prize Concert, as well as appeared in the popular play The Seagull. In 2002, Streep appeared in the films Adaptation. and The Hours. In 2003, Streep appeared unaccredited in the comedy Stuck on You, and starred in the HBO play adaptation Angels in America. In 2004, Streep was awarded the AFI Life Achievement Award, and in that same year, she starred in the films The Manchurian Candidate and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. In 2005, Streep starred in the film Prime. Streep began 2006 with the film A Prairie Home Companion, and that same year, she starred in The Devil Wears Prada and the stage production Mother Courage and Her Children. In 2007, Streep appeared in the films Dark Matter, Rendition, Evening, and Lions for Lambs. In 2008, Streep starred in the films Mamma Mia! and Doubt. In 2009, Streep starred in the films Julie & Julia and It's Complicated, as well as loaning her voice to the animated film Fantastic Mr. Fox.
Ricki and the Flash is a 2015 American musical comedy-drama film directed by Jonathan Demme and written by Diablo Cody, about a woman who leaves her family to become a rock star and later gets a chance to make amends. The film stars Meryl Streep, Mamie Gummer, Kevin Kline, Sebastian Stan, Rick Springfield, and Audra McDonald. The film marks Streep and Kline's third collaboration after Sophie's Choice (1982) and A Prairie Home Companion (2006). It was Demme's final narrative film before his death in April 2017.
Live from Here, formerly known as A Prairie Home Companion with Chris Thile, is an American variety radio show known for its musical guests, tongue-in-cheek radio drama, and relaxed humor. Hosted by Chris Thile, it aired live on Saturday evenings from 2016 to 2020. The show's initial home was the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota, moving later to The Town Hall in New York City, where it remained until its cancellation the next year.
