A Prairie Home Companion Tickets

Details of A Prairie Home Companion and the Ticket Luck value

A Prairie Home Companion
A Prairie Home Companion is a live radio variety show which is known for its musical guests, especially folk and traditional musicians, tongue-in-cheek radio drama, and comedic storytelling segment, "News from Lake Wobegon etc.

Created and hosted by Garrison Keillor, the show runs two hours on Saturdays from 5 to 7 p.m. It is frequently taken on the road.

This live radio and variety show also inspired a 2006 film of the same name, directed by Robert Altman and starring Keillor, Lily Tomlin, Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline.

A Prairie Home Companion is produced by Prairie Home Productions and distributed by American Public Media. Named after the Prairie Home Cemetery in Moorhead, Minnesota, the show has a long history, existing in a similar form as far back as 1974.

A Prairie Home Companion was originally a morning show running from 6 to 9 a.m. on Minnesota Public Radio. Garrison Keillor, who after researching the Grand Ole Opry for an article became interested in doing a variety show on the radio. The first live broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion took place on 6 July 1974.

The second episode featured the first performance on the show by Butch Thompson. Thompson became house pianist and stayed with the program until 1986. He still frequently performs on the show.

The year 1978 saw the show moving into the World Theater in St. Paul, later called Fitzgerald Theater. In 1989, Keillor reopened the show but with a slightly revised format, with sketches and musical guests reflecting a more New York sensibility, rather than the country and folk music predominant in APHC.

In the fall of 1992, the program officially reverted to the A Prairie Home Companion name and format. Music is a strong feature of the program; while the show is a significant outlet for American folk music of many genres. These may include country, bluegrass, blues and gospel.

The show also has guest performers from a wide variety of other styles of music including classical and opera and from a number of different countries. Noted country musician and former record company executive, Chet Atkins appeared many times on A Prairie Companion.

Folk/gospel duo Robin and Linda Williams have been regular guests since 1976. Each show of A Prairie Companion opens with the Spencer Williams composition "Tishomingo Blues" as the theme song. While many of the episodes originate from St. Paul, the show often travels to other cities around the U.S. and overseas.

Common road venues include The Town Hall in New York City, Tanglewood in Lenox, Massachusetts, Wolf Trap in Vienna, Virginia, Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee, and the State Theater in Minneapolis.

Radio comedy skits featuring Keillor and the ensemble are performed, such as the satirical "Guy Noir, Private Eye". This ensemble is noted for poking fun at film noir and radio dramas. Guy Noir's popularity is such that the first few notes of the theme, or the first lines of the announcer's introduction often draw applause and cheers from the theatre audience.

Also regularly featured are the adventures of Dusty and Lefty, "The Lives of the Cowboys." But, "Keillor's News from Lake Wobegon" is one of the show's best known features. It is a weekly story-telling monologue, claiming to be a report from Keillor's fictitious hometown of Lake Wobegon.

Keillor often pokes fun at the large Scandinavian-American community in the northern parts of the Midwest. Many of his fictional characters are named after this.

Also just after the show's intermission at the top of the second hour, Keillor reads greetings from members of the audience (which are frequently humorous) to friends and family.

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