Garrison Keillor will bring 'A Prairie Home Companion' back to its Moorhead roots (2025)

MOORHEAD — Fifty years after creating “A Prairie Home Companion,” and eight years since departing the show, Garrison Keillor is still trying to work out the kinks.

“It’s interesting. I’m not satisfied with the show I did for 40-some years. I’m still trying to improve. I don’t know why,” he said of the one-time Public Radio staple.

The 82-year-old brings a version of the program to Bluestem Amphitheater on Thursday night.

“This one has a little less variety than the broadcast show. There’s not as many musical acts,” he said on a call from Manhattan, New York, where he’s lived for a few years.

“A Prairie Home Companion” was a musical variety show that mixed folk and jazz — and later indie rock acts like Wilco — in among poetry readings, short radio plays, skits and commercials for imaginary show sponsors, all created by Keillor. The show was named after Moorhead's Prairie Home Cemetery, which he was introduced to after a poetry reading with Moorhead writer Mark Vinz.

Some of those acts became regulars. The acoustic trio Nickel Creek appeared a handful of times and then members violinist/singer Sara Watkins and Chris Thile appeared solo.

The last time Keillor brought “A Prairie Home Companion” here — though not for radio broadcast — he played at Bluestem on a cold, rainy night in late August of 2010 with Watkins as his musical guest.

When he left the show in 2016, Keillor named Thile as the next host.

“I’ll have Christine DiGiallonardo so I’ll get to sing with someone half my age, which is a challenge,” he said of the upcoming show, which will also play at Norsk Høstfest in Minot.

He’ll also have a number of regulars from the show’s broadcast days. Pianist and music director Rich Dworsky will lead the house band, Guy’s Hot Shoe Band and longtime actor and sound effects man Fred Newman will add to the skits.

Dworsky accompanied Keillor the last time he was here, at a 2023 concert at the Fargo Theatre with Heather Masse, a frequent guest on the radio show.

Forum file photo

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Keillor will be dusting off some “Prairie Home Companion” favorite characters for the show.

“I want to do Guy Noir. And maybe we’ll do Dusty and Lefty. And we’ll do Duane and his mom, with Christine DiGiallonardo. She’s from New Jersey, so it will be more of an Italian mom. Duane is henpecked. It’s a role I play well.”

The two-hour radio show built up to Keillor’s signature weekly monologue, the news from Lake Wobegone, his fictional small town set in rural, south-central Minnesota.

“It’s the monologue I have to worry about. People expect you to be funny and true to life and that’s not easy to do,” he said.

Though he once called it, “the little town that time forgot and the decades cannot improve,” the town may be less recognizable these days.

“The town has changed. It’s come into a period of prosperity and it’s a dangerous thing,” Keillor said. “There’s a company that sells artisanal firewood with sea salt scent. This is not the town I knew for years.”

Some have read into that as feelings Keillor has for his years associated with Minnesota Public Radio. In 2017, a year after Keillor said farewell to the show, MPR ended its association with him after allegations of his “inappropriate behavior” with a former coworker. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported other “inappropriate incidents,” but criminal charges were never filed.

MPR initially took “A Prairie Home Companion” archives offline, but eventually made them accessible again.

During the COVID pandemic Keillor wrote “Boom Town: A Lake Wobegone Novel,” in which the narrator, a radio host who left his job amid some controversy, returns to his hometown to find that it’s dramatically changed.

In a 2023 interview with The Forum, Keillor said his parting with MPR had no impact on “Boom Town.”

As Lake Wobegone is in rural Minnesota, parts of which support Trump, how excited is the community about real life Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’ pick as the vice presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket?

“I don’t think a vice president is meant to be too exciting,” Keillor said, pointing out his running mate, Kamala Harris, “kept a pretty low profile” as vice president before announcing her candidacy.

“People have always looked to the Midwest for basic fundamental values. That’s what she got when she picked Tim Walz,” he said. “There aren’t too many Democratic governors or senators who coach football.”

Though he’s a Democrat, Keillor won’t be doing any campaigning for the party.

“They have much better people than myself,” he said. “He’s a good campaigner and he can be sent into Trump country. He’s not an academic. Minnesota is pretty well sewn up for Harris and Walz.”

While he enjoyed writing about Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura during his time in office from 1999 to 2003, he doesn’t have the same desire to lampoon Republican candidate for president, Donald Trump.

“I’m not anybody who could comment on Trump. I simply don’t understand the phenomenon. Maybe if I had family members who supported him,” he said.

Instead of talking about the divisiveness of politics Thursday night, Keillor will turn to what he finds brings people together: singing.

“I will come to a point in the show where I will have the audience sing. It’s very moving, It’s important,” he said. “People don’t always get the chance to sing. I think it’s very moving for people to sing ‘My Country 'tis of Thee,’ ‘The Battle Hymn of The Republic’ and ‘How Great Thou Art.’ It’ll be predominantly Lutheran. I don’t think I could get a crowd in Manhattan to sing.”

What: 50th Anniversary of "A Prairie Home Companion"
When: 7 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 26
Where: Bluestem Amphitheater, Moorhead
Info: Tickets range from $9.50 to $129.50, plus fees

For almost 30 years John Lamb has been covering arts and entertainment in the Red River Valley. He started writing for the High Plains Reader in 1997 and moved to The Forum in 2002. He is an Annenberg fellow, an occasional judge for talent shows and food contestants and co-hosts the weekly “Gardening Together: The Podcast.” He's rubbed shoulders with Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain, drank with National Book Award winner Colm McCann, had coffee with Grammy-winning classical musician Peter Schickele and interviewed countless other artists, actors, musicians, writers and assorted interesting people. Contact John at jlamb@forumcomm.com.