Garrison Keillor at Straz Center for the Performing Arts - Carol Morsani Hall

The great chronicler of the Midwest is embarking on a nationwide tour, giving you a chance to hear his warmly comforting tones in the flesh. This special series of shows features nothing more than Keillor spinning biographical verse about his Minnesota upbringing and lengthy radio career and pondering life's great imponderables, all in his famous red shoes of course.

Garrison Keillor has hosted The Prairie Home Companion, in its various guises, since the mid-70s, a show that's firmly established as the nation's most beloved and important radio public program. It harkens back to the variety shows of old, with its mixture of live musical performances, comedy skits and Keillor's 'Tales from Lake Wobegon' monologues. Keillor himself wrote the screenplay to a 2006 Robert Altman movie starring Meryl Streep, which took a fictional look behind the scenes of the show's recording. Alongside founding and running this national institution, Keillor is a formidable short story writer and essayist, with his articles having appeared in The New York Times and The National Geographic.