The F. Scott Fitzgerald Theater is perhaps best known as the home of Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion” (APHC), a radio variety show that harkens back to a simpler era in American life.  Appropriately, then, the Theater itself was built in 1910, an era when vaudeville was America’s favorite form of entertainment, and the American Northwest remained largely untapped.

In 1933 the theatre’s name was changed to the World Theater,and it began featuring the motion pictures that were quickly supplanting live entertainment in popularity across the nation.  In 1981, Keillor began broadcasting his radio program from the World.  Soon thereaafter, he successfully campaigned to rename the Theater after author F. Scott Fitzgerald, who spent his childhood just minutes away on 514 Holly Street.

The Fitzgerald continues to host APHC whenever that show is in town, and was the setting for Keillor and director Robert Altman’s 2006 movie of the same name.  It is also the staging headquarters for Minnesota Public Radio (which produces APHC), and features all of MPR’s productions, broadcast live from onstage, in addition to musical and theatrical performances by artists from the Twin Cities and beyond.