Wobegon at Wharton

Thursday, May 16 — Tickets go on sale tomorrow for “A Prairie Home Companion,” Garrison Keillor’s long running variety show. The program is broadcast weekly on public radio outlets across the country, including 90.5 WKAR-FM, locally. “A Prairie Home Companion” is known for its musical guests, especially folk and traditional musicians, tongue-in-cheek radio drama and Keillor's storytelling segment, “News from Lake Wobegon.”

The East Lansing appearance is part of the show’s “Radio Romance Tour 2013,” which features singer Aoife O'Donovan, singer and fiddler Sara Watkins, comedian Fred Newman, and Rich Dworsky and the Guy's All-Star Shoe Band. The show is billed as “two hours of duet singing, absurd improv … poetry and outright foolishness.”

The show has aired on public radio since 1974, but took a break from 1987 to 1992. It is distributed by Minnesota Public Radio's American Public Media to about 4 million listeners in more than 600 public radio stations in the U.S. Popular sketches include the radio serial spoof “Guy Noir, Private Eye,” “Dusty and Lefty: The Lives of the Cowboys” and words from fake sponsors Powdermilk Biscuits and Bebop-A-Reebop Rhubarb Pie.

“A Prairie Home Companion”
Wharton Center, Cobb Great Hall