About Prudence

Prudence Johnson’s long and happy career as a singer, writer, and teacher has landed her on the musical theatre stage, in two feature films, (A River Runs Through It, A Prairie Home Companion) on national radio, (several long stints on A Prairie Home Companion) and on concert stages across North America and occasionally Europe (Carnegie Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, Gorky Park and an old mosque in Israel being the most memorable.) She has released more than a dozen recordings, including albums dedicated to the music of the Gershwins, Hoagy Carmichael, Greg Brown, and a collection of international lullabies. Prudence finds pleasure in working with young people, serving as a music director at SteppingStone Theatre for Youth Development since ’96 and teaching private lessons. Since taking up the tenor ukulele, she has found great riches in the folk music of her roots, and in the work of some of the more profound songwriters of her generation. One such project, in collaboration with the New Standards, is devoted to the music of Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits & Leonard Cohen.

In recent years, her greatest focus has been on creating multi-media works for concert and theater stages that blend performance with her interests in history and literature. A play about a little-known collaborator of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht in Berlin between the wars, first produced in 2003, is being rewritten under a new title, and she and pianist Dan Chouinard have just completed a state-wide tour of their new music/history show Millers, Miners & Moonshiners: Minnesota in the 1920s. Their previous collaborations include The Golden Age of Radio, Tiptoe Through the 60s: Songs and Stories from a Revolutionary Decade, and Another Song About Paris. In 2011, she created and produced the touring show and CD A Girl Named Vincent, featuring the poetry of Edna St Vincent Millay set to music by four MN composers.