Marcus Center Kicks Off New Series with An Evening with Garrison Keillor

The Marcus Center for the Performing Arts kicks off its new Marcus Center Presents series with An Evening with Garrison Keillor on September 19 at 7:30 p.m. in Uihlein Hall. The charming, witty, and always-entertaining writer, humorist, and celebrity speaker Garrison Keillor is probably best known for his widely popular radio show A Prairie Home Companion. The show attracts more than two million listeners on more than 450 NPR stations weekly. True to his radio form, humorist Garrison Keillor shares hilarious anecdotes about growing up in the American Midwest, the people of Lake Wobegon, and "late-life fatherhood." With a wonderful, dry sense of humor, he captivates audiences and delivers with class, charisma, and wisdom. Tickets go on sale on Friday, August 5th at 12:00 p.m. at the Marcus Center Box Office.

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 many 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); Liberty: A Lake Wobegon Novel (2008); and Life Among the Lutherans (2009).

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.

Garrison Keillor will be at the Marcus Center on Monday, September 19 at 7:30 pm in Uihlein Hall. Tickets for An Evening With Garrison Keillor are $40- $65. Tickets are available at the Marcus Center Box Office at 929 N. Water Street Downtown Milwaukee, by calling 414-273-7206, online at Ticketmaster.com or at MarcusCenter.org. For more information, please visit www.MarcusCenter.org.

ABOUT THE MARCUS CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS
The Marcus Center for the Performing Arts is owned and partially funded by Milwaukee County. The Marcus Center has been the premier entertainment destination for Milwaukee and Wisconsin since 1969. It provides the setting for outstanding cultural experiences, where the arts come to life for current and future generations. Located in the heart of the Downtown Theater District, the Marcus Center is a community facility that offers live performance of opera, ballet, children's theater, symphony and first-class national touring productions.

 

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