Famous for the voices and sounds he created for the long-running National Public Radio staple “A Prairie Home Companion,” Fred Newman will be the guest artist when The Flagpole Radio Café returns to the stage just in time for the holidays.

The next production is planned for Saturday, December 2, at 7 pm, at the Edmond Town Hall Theatre, 45 Main Street.

Tickets are $45 and available through flagpoleproductions.org. For additional information, contact Martin Blanco at info@flagpoleproductions.org.

The Flagpole Radio Café is an evening of engaging music and compelling comedy performed by an ensemble of local artists and changing guest artists. The ensemble comprises musicians Jim Allyn, Rick Brodsky, Howie Carlough, Cadence Carroll, and Francine Wheeler, and actors Martin Blanco, Barbara Gaines, Kate Katcher, and David Wheeler.

Blanco, who also serves as a producer of the show, said it was brought to his attention “in the early days of The Flagpole Radio Café” that Fred Newman had seen and enjoyed a performance show.

“With no small amount of chutzpah, Producer Barbara Gaines and I invited Fred to meet us for coffee,” Blanco said. “He was gracious enough to accept and spent several hours offering encouragement and advice. Given his vast experience in theatre and broadcasting, particularly with the venerable ‘Prairie Home Companion,’ this was a generous gift that has paid dividends for over a decade.

“We hoped to have him perform on our show one day, and that day has finally arrived,” he added.

Fred Newman is an actor, writer, musician and performer. Garnering awards for his appearances on BBC, Public Television and National Public Radio, for 17 years he created voices and sounds on Garrison Keillor’s live, weekly radio broadcast “A Prairie Home Companion.”

The beloved show was known for its musical guests, especially folk and traditional musicians, tongue-in-cheek radio drama, and warm humor. Keillor’s wry storytelling segment, “News from Lake Wobegon,” was the show’s best-known feature during his long tenure.

Newman also created voices and sounds for dozens of movies, including Gremlins, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Harry & the Hendersons, Cocoon, Far & Away, Explorers, Bright Lights, Big City, Wolf, Practical Magic, and many others. His character “Lurleen Cheatwood” — the trailer-park-answer to Martha Stewart — was a regular on “CBS Mornings.”

Newman can be heard in dozens of commercials, as voices for parrots, squirrels, lawns, yodelers, old men, and babies.

He began his work in television as the host of Nickelodeon’s Peabody Award-winning show “Livewire,” a talk show for teenagers. He went on to host six seasons of “The Mickey Mouse Club,” The Disney Channel’s top-rated comedy/variety show for teenagers, for which he won Cable ACE Awards.

As the original sound designer and music composer for the hit animated series “Doug” with both Nickelodeon and Disney, he created the voices of Skeeter, Pork Chop, Mr Dink, and others.

Newman has also written an award-winning book and recording for children entitled Zounds!, and each spring, for more than a dozen years, he received a special performance grant to take his stories, sounds and music, live, to thousands of rural Georgia and Alabama school children.

Newman, appearing solo and on camera, wrote and improvised sketches for the award-winning television series Between the Lions (WGBH/PBS), a phonics and reading show airing nearly a dozen years, for which he was awarded multiple Emmy Awards. His work is now a part of PBS Kids online.

Newman ran for President of the United States — something he never thought he’d say — in the 2000 election (Bush v Gore) working with cartoonist Garry Trudeau (“Doonesbury”) — in the character of Duke.

A self-described “nerd in a basement,” Newman continues to write and create sounds for radio, gaming, television, and film, as well as appearing live on stage with Garrison Keillor and, separately, performing his own his own personal show of stories, sounds, and music that he occasionally titles “Growing Up Weird.”