A WELCOME RETURN Happy to Be Here-Again

What do you say to a man who calls his show Garrison Keillor’s American Radio Company of the Air because he likes the redundancy of the title?

Welcome back. Welcome back.

On Saturday, November 25, at 5 p.m., Garrison Keillor returns to KERA 90.1 with his new, two-hour series. Broadcast live from New York’s Brooklyn Academy of Music, American Radio Company of the Air will feature sketches and monologues by Keillor and a lively mixture of classic American music that includes Fats Waller, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein and others.

Or, as series co-producer Randall Davidson computes it in Minnesota Monthly, “The show will be 100 percent comedy, but 50 percent of it will be music.”

“We’re looking forward to Garrison’s new live programs with great excitement and anticipation,” says Michael Nitka, KERA 90.1 program director. “1 think he’ll revive a lot of old Prairie Home magic while also giving his fans something very new to celebrate.”

Aired nationwide by American Public Radio, Keillors new show will be broadcast live on Saturdays from its November debut through December 1.6. Saturday broadcasts will resume February 3-24, March 17-April 7 and April 21-June 9. These Saturday broadcasts will be repeated on Sundays from 10 a.m. to noon.

Rebroadcasts of Keillor’s classic series, A Prairie Home Companion, are scheduled for the Saturdays when the new series does not air, A Prairie Home Companion, which was broadcast live on 90.1 from 1980 to 1987, will also continue to be rebroadcast on 90.1 on the following Sunday mornings from 10 to noon.

Now a resident of Manhattan, Keillor is “living the life of a shy famous person in a city of seven-and-a-half million other persons,” as one writer put it. If he misses his Midwestern roots, Keillor has said, he will “yank a couple of characters from Lake Wobegon and make them live in Manhattan.”

“The series comes from New York, and it will have a different feel to it,” says Alison Circle, director of national program marketing at Minnesota Public Radio, which is producing the series. “I can’t really say more. At this point, the series is all in Garrison’s creative thinking,”

But then, what better place could it be? Garrison Keillor’s American Radio Company of the Air returns a storytelling genius and wit to public radio,

Welcome back, Your Shyness. R.P.