The Whiting is proud to present Best Selling Author the Host of A Prairie Home Companion, Garrison Keillor on Thursday, February 5 at 7:30pm. Ticket prices range from $25 to $65. To order tickets simply visit TheWhitng.com, call (810) 237-7333 or (800) 8-CENTER, or visit the Ticket Center located at 1241 E. Kearsley St. just off I-475 between the University of Michigan Flint and Mott Community College. For a complete schedule and full details on the entire 2008-09 season line-up, visit TheWhiting.com or phone the Ticket Center and request a free brochure.
Beloved national radio personality
Garrison Keillor returns to The Whiting, bringing all the news from Lake Wobegon and beyond. Host and writer of A Prairie Home Companion and The Writer's Almanac, Keillor is heard on public radio stations across the country and is the author of more than a dozen books, including Lake Wobegon Days, The Book of Guys, Love Me and Homegrown Democrat.
Garrison Keillor was born in 1942 in Anoka, Minnesota, and began his radio career as a freshman at the University of Minnesota, from which he graduated in 1966. He went to work for Minnesota Public Radio in 1969, and on July 6, 1974, he hosted the first broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion in St. Paul. The show ended in 1987, resumed in 1989 in New York as The American Radio Company, returned to Minnesota, and in 1993 resumed the name A Prairie Home Companion. Over 3 million listeners on more than 450 public radio stations now hear the show each week.
Keillor's most recent role included playing himself in the movie adaptation of his show, A Prairie Home Companion (June 2006). It features
Meryl Streep and
Lily Tomlin as the singing Johnson sisters, Lindsay Lohan as Streep's daughter,
Woody Harrelson and
John C. Reilly as singing cowboys Lefty and Dusty, and
Tommy Lee Jones as the Axeman, who is dispatched by the radio station's new corporate owners in Texas to shut down the show.
He is also the author of thirteen books, including Lake Wobegon Days (1985); The Book of Guys (1993); The Old Man Who Loved Cheese (1996); Wobegon Boy (1997); Me: By Jimmy "Big Boy" Valente As Told to
Garrison Keillor (1999); Love Me (2003); Homegrown Democrat (2004); Pontoon (2007) and his latest release Liberty (2008).
Keillor has received numerous awards, including a Grammy Award for his recording of Lake Wobegon Days. He has also received two Cable ACE Awards and a
George Foster Peabody Award. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and recently was presented with a National Humanities Medal by the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 1994, he was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame at Chicago's Museum of Broadcast Communications.
With
Philip Brunelle, he has performed with many orchestras, including the Chicago, Milwaukee, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Dallas, and National symphonies. He has appeared at
Wolf Trap,
Carnegie Hall, and other major concert halls as a member of The Hopeful Gospel Quartet, and he has performed on his own in one-man shows across the country and on tour broadcasts of A Prairie Home Companion.
This performance is generously sponsored by McLaren Regional Medical Center, ABC12, Michigan Public Media, WFNT and US 103.1.
The Whiting is a member organization of the Flint Cultural Center Corporation and is dedicated to bringing the performing arts to the community. The Whiting is a nonprofit organization and an Equal Opportunity Employer providing programs and services without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex or handicap.
