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Apr 1, 2006 4:56 pm US/Central
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St. Paul Premiere Set For 'Prairie Home' Movie
St. Paul (AP) ―
The movie adaptation of Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" will premiere May 3 at St. Paul's Fitzgerald Theater, a fitting venue for the launch of the highly anticipated motion picture.
Most of the movie was filmed at the historic theater, which has been home to Keillor's beloved radio program that is heard by 4 million listeners on public radio each week.
Director Robert Altman and actors Kevin Kline, Lindsay Lohan, Virginia Madsen, John C. Reilly, Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin all plan to attend the invitation-only event. Woody Harrelson, another big star in the film. will be out of the country and unable to attend the screening and gala at the Landmark Center.
As in life, Keillor plays a radio announcer in the movie, which centers on the last broadcast of the radio show. It features Streep and Tomlin as the singing Johnson sisters, Lohan as Streep's daughter, Harrelson and John C. Reilly as singing cowboys Lefty and Dusty, and Jones as the Axeman, who's dispatched by the radio station's new corporate owners in Texas to shut down the show.
"It's a natural," said Tony Judge, a producer of the movie. "It's the only place to have the premiere -- its home."
The movie was filmed there over 25 days last July and is set to open in theaters nationwide June 9, but there was talk of it debuting across the river in Minneapolis.
St. Paul city officials worked feverishly to market the theater as the perfect spot for the premiere. Cost concerns made some wonder whether it would work out, St. Paul City marketing director Erin Dady said.
The distributor, Picturehouse, was looking for larger venues, but St. Paul agreed to distribute 100 tickets to help defray the costs of bringing in projection equipment. Dady said the tickets will run from $1,000 to $10,000 and will include admission to the after party.
Keillor and Altman also get about 250 tickets to give away as well.
"We're thrilled to have it here," Dady said. "St. Paul will be in the national spotlight."
Despite the speculation that Minneapolis was a player, Chad Olson, vice president of entertainment marketing for Nemer Fieger, the local agency representing "Prairie Home's" distributor Picturehouse, said it was never up for debate.
"It's in its rightful place," Olson said. "Everyone wanted to have it at the Fitzgerald to begin with."
(© 2006 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)