Radio heads

Minutes before show time this Saturday, Feb. 16, at the IU Auditorium, Tim Russell and Sue Scott might not know their lines, awaiting last-minute changes from the baritone-voiced mastermind Garrison Keillor, but that won't stop them from pulling it off. \nTheir long-lived radio variety show "A Prairie Home Companion" retains its off-the-cuff style after more than 30 years on the air. Keillor rewrites the script until the last minute, despite the high expectations of the show's four million listeners and national following. \nVeteran voice actors Russell and Scott, who play many of the characters on "Prairie Home," see no reason to hurry. \n"It's still the best gig in show business," Scott said. \nFor those unfamiliar with the show, "A Prairie Home Companion" is a weekly live-radio variety show with a grab bag of serials, comedy, skits and musical acts ranging from Bonnie Raitt to Wilco. Although the appeal of a radio variety show seems limited, the audience of "Prairie Home" has continued to grow. Russell credits the success to the show's commitment to wide-ranging humor, which tackles everything from cutting-edge political satire to cell-phone etiquette. \n"Humor knows no generational bounds," Russell said. \nThe unfailing family-style politeness of "Prairie Home" doesn't keep it from mouthing off, however. The show's humor, no matter how clean, retains a hint of sass and irreverence. \nIn many ways, the show concerns characters out of place in the modern era: cowboys dealing with citrus aftershaves and private eyes finding missing poodles. The holdover of a radio variety show in the modern world doesn't bother the two vets, though. If anything, modern technology invigorates their craft and encourages a new audience. \n"The iPod is reminiscent of the old radio, with sound and music at all times," Scott said. "It encourages the radio listener's imagination." \nHow does an aspiring talent get into radio? Neither Russell nor Scott found their jobs through conventional means. Russell, though he took a detour to law school, settled on a career in show business doing celebrity impressions, while Scott, coming up in stage acting, put in her time at improv acts such as Second City in Chicago. \nStill, these experiences served them well on the show, as on-air performances often are cold reads and ad libs, with a fair number of lines cut on the fly. Drawing on a vast number of cultural touchstones, they never fail to put on a show. \nThe two cover a variety of characters, from Al Gore to the tongue-in-cheek superhero "Ruth Harrison, Reference Librarian." It gets to the point that they have a hard time finding their original voices, with Russell describing himself as "a chameleon." Considering the number of skits in the two-hour-long program, Russell and Scott must play dozens of roles, all while simply standing in front of a microphone and a live audience.\nReading a script doesn't make the job any easier, though. For the "Prairie Home" trademark deadpan humor to work, Russell and Scott must work with Keillor to create realistic reactions to silly situations. The challenge for voice actors, Scott said, is "to sound like we're not reading." \nDespite Russell's insistence that the show is "a little hipper than it was 20 years ago," both actors seem to recognize the roots "Prairie Home" has in Midwestern stoicism. Scott, a Midwest transplant from Tucson, Arizona, sees the appeal of the show's Midwestern simplicity nationwide, as audiences from coast to coast appreciate the show's ethic that no one is that wonderful or horrible.