Famed Storyteller Garrison Keillor Performs at The Suffolk

The Suffolk welcomes back famed storyteller Garrison Keillor on Wednesday, July 31, at 8 p.m.

Keillor’s celebrated public radio broadcast “A Prairie Home Companion” ran for 40 years. He wrote the comedy sketches and more as well as invented a “little town that time forgot and the decades could not improve.” These days, his shows are packed with humor and song, plus the audience-favorite “News From Lake Wobegon.” He has written dozens of books — recently, “Boom Town” (a Lake Wobegon novel), “That Time of Year” (a memoir), a book of limericks, and “Serenity at 70, Gaiety at 80” (reflections on why you should keep on getting older). Garrison and his wife, Jenny Lind Nilsson, live in New York City.

“Garrison Keillor Tonight” is an evening of stand-up, storytelling, audience song, and poetry — one man, one microphone. There are sung sonnets, limericks and musical jokes all surrounding the beauty of growing old. Despite the inconvenience, old age brings the contentment of “less is more.” Your mistakes and big ambitions are behind you, nothing left to prove, and small things give you great pleasure because that’s what’s left.

“I was unhappy in college because it was a requirement for an intellectual, but then I went into show business and discovered that people won’t pay to be made unhappy, their kids will do it for free,” Keillor said.

Tickets range from $69 to $110 at thesuffolk.org. The Suffolk is at 118 East Main Street in Riverhead.