Garrison Keillor will bring one-man show to Lincoln Amphitheatre

A young man mired in a dead-end job and an unhappy marriage, Garrison Keillor made a life-changing decision.

He quit both and spent three months writing material in his spare time that he planned to submit to The New Yorker.

“Out of desperation, I worked the morning shift at a country music station,” Keillor said. “I got the job because nobody else wanted it. I had to be at work at 5 a.m.”

He later hosted a weekday drivetime radio show on public radio.

In his spare time, Keillor invented stories and got “Local Family Keeps Son Happy” published in the September 1970 issue of The New Yorker.

All that led to the career that made him famous.

The creator of “A Prairie Home Companion,” which began as an old-style radio variety show, Keillor will perform at 7:30 p.m. CDT Saturday in an evening of stand-up, storytelling, audience song and poetry, kicking off Lincoln Amphitheatre's 35th season at Spencer County, Indiana.

Keillor, who also wrote fiction and comedy, invented a town called Lake Wobegon for the series, “where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking and all the children are above average." But he grew up evangelical in a small separatist flock where all the children expected the imminent end of the world.

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Keillor also wrote the screenplay for Robert Altman’s movie version of “A Prairie Home Companion” which premiered in 2006.

Minnesota Public Radio severed ties with him in 2017 after allegations of sexual harassment. He's denied them.

Since then, he's written a memoir, a book of limericks, is at work on a musical and a Lake Wobegon screenplay.

Following is a Q&A from a phone conversation with Keillor. It has been edited for length and clarity.

How did you come up with the Lake Wobegon concept?

I invented a town and made up stories and fictional sponsors such as "Powdermilk Biscuits" and the "Ketchup Advisory Board." Amazingly, a few months later The New Yorker bought the story. That was a huge moment. "Prairie Home Companion" become a career. I was a published author in The New Yorker.

I could have had a job at the University of Minnesota for the rest of my career. But I had an unhappy wife and a tiny child. I could’ve earned a full-time salary for eight hours of work a week and the rest of the time sitting around the office and looking (busy).

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Who were your influences and inspirations? Maybe Mark Twain? Bob Dylan?

I read Mark Twain’s “The Innocents Abroad” and “Huckleberry Finn” when I was a kid. I listened to the “Golden Age of Radio” with my father. We were fundamentalists. We didn’t have a television. I listed to "Fibber McGee and Molly," "Jack Benny" and "Burns & Allen." I had my eye on becoming a writer. Radio was a simple way to earn a living starting out. I got caught up in it. I read Philip Roth and Saul Bellow (novels). But I was not Jewish and I was from Minnesota.

You do a one-man show. It is still nerve-racking?

Not at all. These people (in the audience) have known me for years. I start out by singing “My Country, 'Tis of Thee” and they know all the words. Sometimes there will be kids in the audience and they Google it. But it’s a short song and it’s over before they can find it.

Comedians such as Dave Chappelle and Louis C.K. have to be out there, on the edge and the audience is a little trepidatious. But I’m three months shy of 80. A lot of stuff in stand-up comedy is about anxiety and complaining. I don’t have any complaints. I would be lying if I said I did. I’ve been very lucky.

You’ve probably told the story many times about when you were sent for swimming lessons at age 12 after your cousin had recently drowned. You skipped the lessons and went to the public library instead and to a radio studio to watch a noontime show with singers and a band. Ray Bradbury said his favorite place was the public library when he was growing up in Waukegan, Illinois.

I was at the downtown (Minneapolis) "Y" with about 40 other boys and I was terrified of the water. Our instructor didn’t want to teach a bunch of young boys and he made fun of us struggling in the water. I didn’t want to tell my mother that I took a bus downtown and sat in the big public library and went to radio station WCCO 830 AM. I watched them do a radio show and it seemed like they were having a wonderful time.

Have you seen the movie version of “A Prairie Home Companion”?

I sat with my mother, she was about 92. She is a fundamentalist, she doesn’t go to movies. She did it for me. (Director Robert) Altman was there (at the premiere). Meryl Streep was there. We didn’t see a lot of the movie. It was a faithful rendition (of the radio show). I wrote the screenplay. The movie was probably a mess, but I had a lot of fun doing it. There’s no way I would do it again.

I know you’re a historian. Have you ever been to Lincoln State Park, the area where Abe Lincoln grew up before moving to Illinois?

I have never been there. I didn’t know his childhood. It’s so overshadowed by 1861, (Civil) war time and the tragedy of his death at 56. He was killed by John Wilkes Booth, a Southern sympathizer. How much better off would the South have been if John Wilkes Booth had not shot Lincoln?

Contact Gordon Engelhardt by email at gordon.engelhardt@courierpress.com and follow him on Twitter @EngGordon.

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Evansville show: Garrison Keillor performance at Lincoln Amphitheatre