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 one or two 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.
Radio comedy, or comedic radio programming, is a radio broadcast that may involve variety show, sitcom elements, sketches, and various types of comedy found in other media. It may also include more surreal or fantastic elements, as these can be conveyed on a small budget with just a few sound effects or some simple dialogue. Radio comedy began in the United States in 1930, based on the fact that as most United Kingdom music hall comedians such as Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel progressed to silent films, they moved to Hollywood and fed the radio comedy field. Another British music hall comic, George Formby, stayed in the British movie industry, and in 1940 joined the Entertainments National Service Association to entertain British World War II troops. UK radio comedy therefore started later, in the 1950s.
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.
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.
The Brave New Workshop Comedy Theater (BNW), is a sketch and improvisational comedy theater based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Brave New Workshop has been writing, performing and producing live sketch comedy and improvised performances for 61 years – longer than any other theater in the nation.
A Prairie Home Companion is a 2006 American musical comedy film directed by Robert Altman and is his final film. It is a fictional representation of behind-the-scenes activities at the long-running public radio show of the same name. The film received mostly positive reviews and was a moderate box-office success on a small budget. The film features an ensemble cast including Woody Harrelson, Tommy Lee Jones, Garrison Keillor, Kevin Kline, Lindsay Lohan, Virginia Madsen, John C. Reilly, Maya Rudolph, Meryl Streep, and Lily Tomlin.
Guy Noir is a fictional private detective regularly featured on the 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 works on the twelfth floor of the Acme Building in a city that "knows how to keep its secrets", St. Paul, Minnesota.
Peter Ostroushko was an American violinist and mandolinist. He performed regularly on the radio program A Prairie Home Companion and with a variety of bands and orchestras in Minneapolis–Saint Paul and nationally. He won a regional Emmy Award for the soundtrack he composed for the documentary series Minnesota: A History of the Land (2005).
Lake Wobegon is a fictional town created by Garrison Keillor as the setting of the recurring segment "News from Lake Wobegon" for the radio program A Prairie Home Companion broadcast from St Paul, Minnesota. The fictional town serves as the setting for many of Keillor's stories and novels, gaining an international audience with Lake Wobegon Days in 1985. Described as a small rural town in central Minnesota, the events and adventures of the townspeople provided Keillor with a wealth of humorous and often touching stories.
The Morning Show, initially called The Morning Program and then for a time A Prairie Home Entertainment and A Prairie Home Morning Show, was a weekday morning drive-time radio program produced in St. Paul, Minnesota and broadcast on Minnesota Public Radio's KCMP and other stations of the MPR network.
Ivy Austin is an American actress, singer, and voice-over artist, known for her performances on Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion and her Sesame Street voices. She also starred on Broadway as Raggedy Ann.
Sedra Bistodeau is an American fiddler and violinist from Princeton, Minnesota.
Erica Rhodes is an American actress and comedian. She has been performing on A Prairie Home Companion since the age of 10 and appeared in several movies and TV shows, including Plague Town, 1,000 Ways to Die, and The Consultants. She has also guest starred on New Girl, @midnight with Chris Hardwick, and Modern Family. She competed in the reality television comedy competition series Bring the Funny.
Kristin Rudrüd is an American film, theater, and television actress.
Ken LaZebnik is an American writer, best known for his work in television, film, and theatre. His work has appeared in films such as A Prairie Home Companion and in television shows Touched by an Angel and Star Trek: Enterprise. LaZebnik's screenplay On the Spectrum earned him a Steinberg Award from the American Theatre Critics Association.
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. The show's initial home was the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota. In 2019, the show moved to The Town Hall in New York City, where it remained until its cancellation the next year.
Ellie Dehn is an American soprano.
