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Keillor to bring his radio show to SCSU
By Regina Eckes
Published:
Thursday, April 17, 2003
The Minnesotan living legend, Garrison Keillor, is coming to SCSU and bringing his public radio show, "A Prairie Home Companion," with him. Students, faculty and the public can join his live audience April 26 at 4:45 p.m. in Halenbeck Hall's main gym.
Keillor is not a new face or name in the state of Minnesota. People have been listening to him as far back as 1969 when he began working for Minnesota Public Radio. He started his career by doing a morning show from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m., "A Prairie Home Companion," which is named after the Prairie Home Cemetery in Moorhead, Minn.
While working for the New Yorker Magazine a few years later, he began to develop an idea for his own radio show. "A Prairie Home Companion" first aired July 6, 1974 at Macalester College in front of a small audience of 12. The show left the airwaves in 1987 for a short amount of time, but was soon back on the air in Minnesota's Fitzgerald Theater in 1993, where it continues today.
"A Prairie Home Companion" is a comedy show that alternates between musical guests, skits, jokes and Keillor's famous stories from Lake Woebegon. Many Minnesotans are familiar with the tales of Lake Woebegon because it is a mythical place that is loosely based on the small towns of Stearns County.
"It looks at how human relations work in a tense small town where everybody knows each other," Amanda Stanton-Geddes, marketing director for "A Prairie Home Companion," said.
Keillor's show is currently touring several Minnesota Colleges as part of their Minnesota College Fieldhouse Tour. So far they have already done shows at Bemidji State and last weekend at Gustavus Adolphus College. Cory Christenson, a sophomore at Gustavus, attended the show and recommends the event to anyone who has a chance to see it.
"The show was fantastic. It is two hours long and there is a lot of music and singing," Christenson said. "He tells stories and jokes and is an entertaining guy. It was worth my money and I really suggest going."
Geddes, who also helped organize the college tour, said the show was a riot and Keillor was able to really relate to students.
"We decided to tour colleges because there's just a lot of great, young talent out there and Garrison loves working with college people and that environment," Geddes said. One of Keillor's skits was in support of body piercings for young students and created an enormous amount of laughter and applause. "Body piercing is for some of you what nuclear weapons are for North Korea: a way to be taken seriously and a basis for further negotiations," Keillor said. "Think of how quiet and thoughtful your parents will get when you show up for Easter with big, shiny things all over your face."
Besides Keillor's enjoyment when performing before a college audience, "A Prairie Home Companion" had other reasons for taking the show on the road in Minnesota. "It's important to give the people in Minnesota a chance to see "A Prairie Home Companion" live because every week it's performed in front of a live audience," Geddes told the University Chronicle. "Minnesota is sort of the whole background for the show; it applies to everybody but is set in Minnesota. It's important for people to see the show in their home towns so they do not have to drive to the Twin Cities." However, a warning must be issued to those wishing to attend the show April 26. If in the audience, one's laughter will be heard live around the country and world due to the large number of stations the program now runs on. Compared to the show's first audience of 12, "A Prairie Home Companion" is now listened to every week by over four million people on 555 different radio stations, and is broadcast internationally as well. More importantly, people can expect to hear Keillor's crafty humor, pronounced sarcasm, witty jokes and true-to-life stories about small towns and human interaction. Keillor also happens to be the type of person who does not need to act when on the air. This truly funny man brings everything on stage with him, including his ideas and semi-liberal thoughts.
"He is a fascinating storyteller and somebody who really understands a lot about human nature, and he's very, very funny but can also be very touching," Geddes said when asked how to describe Keillor personally.
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