Radio for the Eyes

"I find it really breathtaking and amazing to see actors working up a role," he says. "I've never seen this before. All of the acting that's done on our show is just kind of instant, immediate stuff."

He speaks in the soothing, resonant croon known so well to the 4.3 million listeners of "PHC," which first took the air in 1974. A descendant of vaudeville, Jack Benny, the Grand Ole Opry and possibly Firesign Theatre, "PHC" is a two-hour weekly valentine to, and gentle satire of, heartland America. It emanates most frequently from the Fitzgerald, the oldest existing theater in St. Paul, and the entire broadcast is flavored by Keillor's affectionate depiction of Minnesotans as self-effacing and buttoned up.

The musical acts incline toward bluegrass and blues, with a jazz chanteuse here and there. (The host himself will sometimes sing a tune or, with perfect earnestness, a hymn.) The imaginary sponsors, whose "ads" are written by the host, include Bertha's Kitty Boutique, Powdermilk Biscuits, the Ketchup Advisory Board and the Cafe Boeuf, which is presided over by Maurice, the world's haughtiest French maitre d'. Joined by actors Tom Russell and Sue Scott, Keillor appears in sketches about retro private eye Guy Noir or Dusty and Lefty, two old cowpokes who pass the long hours on the trail by sniping at each other.

And there is the News From Lake Wobegon: Standing at center stage with nary a note in his hand, Keillor uncorks a shaggy-dog story, lasting 15 minutes or so, about events that, in the seven days past, purportedly befell various citizens of that fictional Minnesota town. The tale is often funny, sometimes poignant, always observant, and the theater audience is unfailingly transfixed by it. Just a man talking extemporaneously for a quarter-hour, and people actually pay attention.

"He's just the best at radio management and production that I've ever seen," says Russell, a St. Paul native who also co-hosts a morning show on WCCO, a Minneapolis news-talk station, and has worked in the medium for more than 30 years. On Keillor's show, a sketch will sometimes call for Russell to utter impassioned gibberish that sounds like Swedish, Italian, Russian or French (he plays snooty Maurice). He also does perhaps the best vocal impersonation of George W. Bush extant, so the president turns up on the show sometimes.

"PHC" may be great radio, but who would ever regard it as boffo movie potential? "I didn't see the film in it," Altman recalls. "It was a real challenge: How can we make this work?"

"It was his idea," Keillor says. "And I didn't care for the idea, but I found him intriguing and I still do."

So Keillor got to work on a screenplay about a St. Paul radio program called "Prairie Home Companion" -- the movie may or may not bear that title -- hosted by someone who is usually addressed as GK. The show is carried not on a nationwide network but by one station, WLT. That's because the plot requires the station to be sold to a greedy Texas corporation, which sends a hatchet man (played by Tommy Lee Jones) to close down the show and fire everybody.

But the story's not really the thing here. A look at about 45 minutes of footage indicates that the film will emphasize backstage shenanigans and musical numbers performed by the actors. "I like the fact that the story is fairly simple and straightforward," says the man who wrote it, "and so it allows all these different, lovely acting turns."

To get his favorite characters into the movie, Keillor had to turn some elements of the show inside out. The film couldn't be "a bunch of actors standing around holding scripts," he says. "I mean, that would be funny for 45 seconds." So Dusty and Lefty, played by Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly, have hung up their spurs and are now radio cowboys, strumming guitars and singing bawdy ditties. Guy Noir, the gumshoe played by Kline, has shuttered his office on the 12th floor of the Acme Building to become head of security for the radio show. Scott and Russell, who voice any number of characters on the real "PHC," here portray a makeup artist and the stage manager, respectively.

Lake Wobegon is not mentioned in the movie.

'That Dart Board'

Nearly the entire film is being shot inside the Fitzgerald, a sturdy house with a sandstone facade that, when built in 1910, was part of the Shubert chain.