The Gratitude Tour — St. Peter, MN

Wednesday, April 26, 2017
7:00 p.m. CT

A live performance at Gustavus Adolphus College’s Christ Chapel in St. Peter, MN

Tickets: $25, $10 for staff, students get in free

Buy tickets online →
By phone: 507-933-7520
In-Person: Information Desk in the Jackson Campus Center, Gustavus Adolphus College

Mr. Keillor has now reached a certain age when you realize how lucky you are and you stop complaining. Complaint is a mainstay of comedy, so he is now experimenting with a comedy of gratitude, talking about parents, teachers, lucky breaks, dumb things that turned out smart. This is his first experimental tour.

Writing

Books

A complete lists of works, including sample excerpts

Columns

From the New York Times, Time magazine, and the complete Chicago Tribune syndicated columns

Prose

Stories from The New Yorker and other magazines and a few lectures

Sonnets

Sonnets of praise, some erotic, some lamentations, and some street sonnets

Verse

Poems on topics both serious and not-so-serious

Video

Videos from readings, interviews, solo shows and more

Radio

Albums

A complete list of radio and audiobook collections, with audio samples

Audio

Speeches, interviews, readings and other audio clips

Songs

Audio and lyrics for songs featured on A Prairie Home Companion.

The News from Lake Wobegon

The latest news and views from the little town where "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average"

A Prairie Home Companion Love & Comedy Tour Solo The Gratitude Tour

January 27, 2016

Wednesday

7:30 p.m.

Houston, TX

A live performance with Richard Dworsky at Jones Hall

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January 28, 2016

Thursday

8:00 p.m.

Richardson, TX

A live performance with Richard Dworsky at the Charles W. Eisemann Center

More Information

January 31, 2016

Sunday

7:00 p.m.

Newark, NJ

A live performance with Richard Dworsky at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center

More Information

February 1, 2016

Monday

8:00 p.m.

New York City, NY

A live performance at the 92nd Street Y

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February 14, 2016

Sunday

3:00 p.m.

Omaha, NE

A live performance with Richard Dworsky at the Holland Performing Arts Center

More Information

See Full Schedule

Wednesday, April 26, 2017
7:00 p.m. CT

A live performance at Gustavus Adolphus College’s Christ Chapel in St. Peter, MN

Tickets: $25, $10 for staff, students get in free

Buy tickets online →
By phone: 507-933-7520
In-Person: Information Desk in the Jackson Campus Center, Gustavus Adolphus College

Books Columns Prose Sonnets Verse Video

Writing

Of thee they sing with feeling

Posted on September 19, 2017 - Columns

I’ve been riding around the country on a bus for six weeks, doing a dog-and-pony show that, among many other things, included me walking into the crowd and humming a note and the audience singing, a cappella, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty” and singing very well, sometimes awfully well, and if so, we swung into “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” “Love Me Tender” and two verses of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” including the one about sounding forth a trumpet and the jubilant feet. People had paid $40 to see the show but they were not disappointed to be the show. It was a beautiful thing.

Beauty is truth and truth is factual

Posted on September 12, 2017 - Columns

Truth begins with facts. Facts are solid, like bricks. You build a house out of facts, the wolf won’t blow it down. But you drop a fact on your foot, it hurts. I learned this as a boy, living near the Mississippi River in Minnesota when I discovered that where the Ohio River flows into the Mississippi near Cairo, Ill., the Ohio is actually larger than the Mississippi. So it’s the Mississippi that flows into the Ohio. The Ohio is the big show. This fact was shocking to me. I was proud of the river, spent hours on the shore, skipped stones on it, and I felt diminished by the new information. To go from Father of Waters to a mere tributary is a definite fall.

Of course we’ll help Texas. Sometimes government actually is the answer.

Posted on September 5, 2017 - Columns

The Republic of Texas believes in self-reliance and is suspicious of Washington sticking its big nose in your business. “Government is not the answer. You are not doing anyone a favor by creating dependency, destroying individual responsibility.” So said Sen. Ted Cruz, though not last week. Sunday on Fox News, Gov. Greg Abbott said Texas would need upward of $150 billion in federal aid for damages inflicted by Harvey. The stories out of Houston have all been about neighborliness and helping hands and people donating to relief funds, but you don’t raise $150 billion by holding bake sales. This is almost as much as the annual budget of the U.S. Army. I’m just saying.

How did we get here anyway?

Posted on August 29, 2017 - Columns

An old man gets absorbed in our national drama, same as you — the paper is full of it, the madman who has moved into our lives — and then suddenly I am distracted by the memory of lawn mowing. I once loved mowing, then I hired young men to do it, and now a gang of them comes every week and they roar around for half an hour while I read the paper. Maybe I would be happier if I mowed instead.

We’ve never been here before

Posted on August 22, 2017 - Columns

Anxious times in America. There was a news story a few weeks back, “Interrupted Sleep May Lead to Alzheimer’s,” and next to it, a wine review with the line “Vivacious and well balanced, with chewy tannins and flavors of fresh red fruits.” You know and I know that a vivacious beverage will not compensate for losing your marbles. And now, driving to California, I find that I must enter a password in order to change the time zone on my laptop clock. Evidently, someone is out to mess up my schedule and my clock must be secured.

Don’t take lunacy too seriously

Posted on August 15, 2017 - Columns

Riding on a bus in the middle of the night through Iowa, South Dakota, Nebraska, it’s impressive, the sheer volume of traffic, hour after hour. Tanker trucks and semis and auto carriers, thousands of tons of goods moving to market, like a train of ants carrying leaves to their anthill. Out here, you don’t see the “American carnage” referred to in the inaugural address back in January. Evidently the speaker who portrayed the country as a beached whale and a victim of international conspiracies has now fixed the problems and we’re booming again. Good.

In the republic of marriage

Posted on August 8, 2017 - Columns

My wife has gone East for a couple weeks and now there is nobody to say, “You’re not wearing that tie with that shirt, are you?” Nobody to point discreetly at her left nostril and hand me a tissue. Nobody to remind me of the name of that woman with the glasses (Liz) whom I ought to know — I told my wife, “Her and me went to school together” so that she’d have the satisfaction of saying “She and I.” “No,” I said, “I don’t think you went to our school.”

We will survive this

Posted on August 1, 2017 - Columns

So. We have a vulgar, unstable yo-yo with a toxic ego and an attention-deficit problem in the White House, and now we can see that government by Twitter is like trying to steer a ship by firing a pistol at the waves — not really useful — but what does it all add up to? Not that much, if you ask me, which you didn’t, but I’ll say it anyway.

A new idea about Amelia Earhart

Posted on July 26, 2017 - Columns

At the age of 75, I’m coming to realize that I may never know for certain what happened to Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, on their round-the-world flight that disappeared in the South Pacific in July 1937. I have been in love with her forever and it’s painful to have no resolution, only the same old theories. Like Hansel and Gretel, who disappear into the woods and some think they got baked by the witch and others think they were deadly allergic to gingerbread containing glutens. I like to think Amelia was rescued by Howard Hughes and lived with him secretly at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas, had a child, and gave him up for adoption by my parents, John and Grace Keillor, in Anoka, Minnesota, but it’s a theory based on alternative facts and has been suppressed until now.

Extinction is all around us

Posted on July 18, 2017 - Columns

The big news last week was that giraffes and lions are approaching extinction because we humans are turning their habitat into farms and senior high-rises. I read the article and of course thought of the lion who killed a giraffe and brought the corpse back to the den and his wife said, “You can’t leave that lyin’ there,” and he said, “That’s not a lion, it’s a giraffe.”

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Albums Audio Songs The News from Lake Wobegon

Radio

The News from Lake Wobegon for May 27, 2017

Posted on May 30, 2017 - The News from Lake Wobegon

“It’s been warm out here, been in the 80s, so we were very grateful for this big thunderstorm that came along on Tuesday night. Big shards of lightning splitting the sky sure gets everybody’s attention.” The Lutheran Church search committee looks for a replacement for Pastor Inqvist, caterpillars take over the sidewalks, and Irene Bunsen calls into a radio station at 3:30 in the morning, a monologue originally from May 2010.

The News from Lake Wobegon for May 20, 2017

Posted on May 24, 2017 - The News from Lake Wobegon

“The weather’s just been gorgeous. It was warm this last week, it was up in the 80s. There was a little bit of rain, not enough, but there’s never enough.” The Whippets win a few games with the help of young pitcher “Whiplash” Wilson, garage sale season begins, the Larson boy gets a job at Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery, and a bat invades Lake Wobegon Lutheran Church and frightens Pastor Haugen, in a May 2014 monologue.

The News from Lake Wobegon for May 13, 2017

Posted on May 24, 2017 - The News from Lake Wobegon

“It’s been cool here this last week, actually ‘cold’ I think would be a better term for it — and it snowed. But it’s only the first week of May and precipitation comes in many different forms.” Cool weather temporarily rids the town of insects, Carl Krebsbach becomes a spectacle after being covered in plum blossoms during a storm, and the Lutheran Church searches for a replacement for Pastor Ham, in a monologue from May 2010.

The News from Lake Wobegon for May 6, 2017

Posted on May 24, 2017 - The News from Lake Wobegon

“It was warm and kind of windy all week and we got this terrific thunderstorm on Wednesday, which was a great boon, to get washed off like that.” Fishing season begins and fishermen return to their pursuit of famous walleye Old Pete, Luann cuts her hair very short, the town analyzes photos of Pastor Liz in Rome, and Pastor Haugen irritates his secretary Marlene, a monologue from May 2014.

The News from Lake Wobegon for April 29, 2017

Posted on May 1, 2017 - The News from Lake Wobegon

“It’s been kind of cool, sunny but windy out there, and the other day a little snow fell, just a few flakes. We ignored it. We did not comment on it.” Bridal shower season arrives, Darlene invites three suitors to the Sidewinder Bar in Millet, and Arlene Bunsen counsels her goddaughter Charlotte against taking up the trombone, in a monologue from April 2015.

The News from Lake Wobegon for April 22, 2017

Posted on April 25, 2017 - The News from Lake Wobegon

“Spring has come out awfully certainly there. Just about two weeks ago there was still ice on the lake and now this past week it got up into the 90s. People running around in shorts, t-shirts.” Carl Krebsbach’s brother-in-law attempts to assemble a garden tiller, high school students prepare for life after graduation, and Mary Tollefson looks into modeling school, in a monologue from April 2002.

The News from Lake Wobegon for April 15, 2017

Posted on April 17, 2017 - The News from Lake Wobegon

“Getting warm up there, getting up into the 60s and even thinking about getting up into the 70s so it’s been very pleasant — and no snow fell this last week.” The town celebrates the 1st of May, and a few memories of post-prom parties at the Bunsens’ cabin, in a monologue from May 2015.

The News from Lake Wobegon for April 8, 2017

Posted on April 11, 2017 - The News from Lake Wobegon

“It’s spring, spring out there, which, in the case of Minnesota, means there’s a little more snow forecast. About eight inches of snow, some places 10 inches, fell.” Farmers prepare for spring planting after a successful year, the town takes a break for Easter Vacation, and Darlene meets a man on Match.com, a monologue originally from April 2008.

The News from Lake Wobegon for April 1, 2017

Posted on April 3, 2017 - The News from Lake Wobegon

“We’ve had wind and snow and rain and cold rain and a little snow, that melting snow, and then wind some more. It’s spring we know that now, even if it’s a little chilly.” Darlene has an epiphany while out for an Easter morning walk, Carl Krebsbach feeds a flock of Tundra Swans out on the lake, Viola Tors attends a clothing-optional Lutheran church in Palm Beach, in an April 2016 monologue.

The News from Lake Wobegon for March 25, 2017

Posted on March 27, 2017 - The News from Lake Wobegon

“Had some nice days here this last week. It wasn’t too terribly cold. The sun was shining.” Lyle teaches high school students about the vernal equinox, the town’s old men discuss modern cars, and the last of the rhubarb gets made into pies at the Chatterbox Cafe, in a monologue from March 1997.

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A Prairie Home Companion Love & Comedy Tour Solo The Gratitude Tour

Schedule

September 22, 2017

Friday

7:00 p.m.

Saint Paul, MN

A Night for Mexico at Bethel University — Saint Paul, MN

A live performance at Benson Great Hall at Bethel University

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September 23, 2017

Saturday

8:00 p.m.

Skokie, IL

A live performance at the North Shore Center For the Performing Arts

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September 24, 2017

Sunday

8:00 p.m.

Crystal Lake, IL

A live performance at the Raue Center for the Arts

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September 25, 2017

Monday

7:30 p.m.

Houston, TX

A live performance at the Houston Symphony

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September 26, 2017

Tuesday

7:30 p.m.

El Paso, TX

El Paso, TX [CANCELLED]

A live performance at the Plaza Theatre

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September 27, 2017

Wednesday

7:30 p.m.

Midland, TX

Midland, TX [CANCELLED]

A live performance at the Wagner Noel Performing Arts Center

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September 28, 2017

Thursday

7:30 p.m.

Meridian, MS

A live performance at Mississippi State University’s Riley Center

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October 10, 2017

Tuesday

7:30 p.m.

Durango, CO

A live performance at Fort Lewis College’s Whalen Gymnasium

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October 11, 2017

Wednesday

8:00 p.m.

Davis, CA

A live performance at the Mondavi Center for Performing Arts

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October 13, 2017

Friday

7:30 p.m.

Rohnert Park, CA

A live performance at Sonoma State University’s Green Music Center

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Events Interviews Press Materials Reviews and More Video

Press/Clips

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