Kelly Trom
ktrom@mustangdaily.net
Garrison Keillor, radio host of “A Prairie Home Companion,” will bring his fictional small community of Lake Wobegon to the San Luis Obispo community on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. in the Christopher Cohan Performing Arts Center (PAC).
His one-man show borrows from the popular radio show of the same name. In his one-and-a-half-hour monologue, Keillor talks about current events, relates observations on the state of the world and (of course) fills the audience in on the current happenings of Lake Wobegon.
Keillor is no stranger to San Luis Obispo. He has brought his show to the PAC two times — most recently in 2009. In 2003, he brought the entirety of “A Prairie Home Companion” to the PAC to do a national live broadcast. The show sold out, as well as the second performance that same day that was not live, director of programming and news media at KCBX Marisa Waddell said. Keillor has also performed in conjunction with the San Luis Obispo Symphony.
“A Prairie Home Companion” was first broadcast in St. Paul, Minn., in 1947. Since then, it has grown and is now distributed by American Public Radio. In San Luis Obispo, radio audiences can tune into the show broadcast by KCBX Public Radio every Saturday evening from 5 to 7 p.m. The home base of the show is the Fitzgerald Theater, but the show frequently travels to different states.
“He goes on tour with his show a lot around the country,” development director of KCBX Paul Severston said. “He loves to travel and see different communities.”
Although Lake Wobegon is a mythical setting, it is loosely based on Keillor’s hometown of Anoka, Minn. Keillor revels in his Midwestern background, Severston said. The radio show itself harkens back to the earlier days of radio in the 1930s and 1940s. It is a mix of skits, sound effects and musical acts centered around Keillor reporting the current news of Wobegon.
“On his radio show, he reads a lot of short stories, poems, kind of talks about life and shares funny little anecdotes,” Cal Poly Arts Director Steve Lerian said.
Although the main segment of the variety radio show is Keillor’s monologue, various musical acts add interest and texture to the show.
“It includes lots of live music by the house band and special guests ranging from excellent small town performers to internationally known acts as varied as Diana Krall, Emmylou Harris, the Punch Brothers, the Wailin’ Jennys and Itzhak Perlman,” Waddell said.
Keillor is a master storyteller and his talent extends to more than just the radio show. He is an established author, having written more than a dozen books. In addition, Keillor has written for numerous magazines and newspapers, including The New Yorker and The Atlantic. He also starred in the 2006 “Prairie Home Companion” movie alongside Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones.
“I think of Garrison Keillor as a kind of modern-day Mark Twain,” Waddell said. “He is a national treasure. His storytelling makes us laugh and touches our hearts at the same time.”
Perhaps his greatest talent is recounting daily situations with such a note of sincerity and reality.
“The first time I heard him it felt like he was talking about my family and the people I grew up with,” Severston said. “The strange thing is that a lot of people seem to have that feeling because he is talking about families and social interactions small communities. It is very much close to home.”
Keillor attempts to capture the American experience, whether you can relate to the small midwestern town lifestyle or not.
“It is captivating because it touches the ordinary in us, which he then elevates to the extraordinary, and that helps us realize we are extraordinary too,” Waddell said. “His stories show us that we are connected, that we are not alone.”
Student and adult tickets for the performance range from $30 to $78 and may be purchased at the Performing Arts Center Ticket Office or online.