March 4, 2008
Steve Martin’s Vanderbilt epiphany
Legendary comic Steve Martin, interviewed in a recent issue of Smithsonian Magazine, recounts a major breakthrough in his development as a performer that happened to take place on the Vanderbilt campus:
Because I was generally unknown, I was free to gamble with material, and there were a few evenings when crucial mutations affected my developing act. At Vanderbilt University in Nashville, I played for approximately 100 students in a classroom with a stage at one end. The show went fine. However, when it was over, something odd happened. The audience didn’t leave. The stage had no wings, no place for me to go, but I still had to pack up my props. I indicated that the show had ended, but they just sat there, even after I said flatly, “It’s over.” They thought this was all part of the act, and I couldn’t convince them otherwise. Then I realized there were no exits from the stage and that the only way out was to go through the audience.
So I kept talking. I passed among them, ad-libbing comments along the way. I walked out into the hallway, but they followed me there too. A reluctant pied piper, I went outside onto the campus, and they stayed right behind me. I came across a drained swimming pool. I asked the audience to get into it—”Everybody into the pool!”—and they did. Then I said I was going to swim across the top of them, and the crowd knew exactly what to do: I was passed hand over hand as I did the crawl. That night I went to bed feeling I had entered new comic territory. My show was becoming something else, something free and unpredictable, and the doing of it thrilled me, because each new performance brought my view of comedy into sharper focus.
Martin doesn’t mention the year of this performance, but I’m guessing it must have been the early 70s. I would love to be able to witness what that show must have been like firsthand.
Note to Vanderbilt fans: I really am talking about Steve Martin, not Commodores football coach Bobby Johnson. (Scroll down to the fourth row of photos if you follow that link.)
![Rob Robinson](http://thinktrain.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/Rob.jpg")
S-townMike said,
March 4, 2008 @ 8:53 am
It was the early 70s. I worked at Vandy a few years ago and one of my supervisors often spoke fondly about his early days at Vandy where he witnessed Martin leading students around campus.
Rob Robinson said,
March 4, 2008 @ 3:01 pm
Thanks, Mike. That is too funny. I would love to have seen Martin wandering around campus in person.
fke said,
March 7, 2008 @ 10:34 am
Recently, I heard my brother and former wife, who lived here in the early 70s, speaking of going to see him at the ExitIn. People were waiting to get in and the word came that he had not arrived. So while standing in line, they heard someone behind them saying: Does anyone see him? What does he look like? etc. They turned around and it was Steve being one of the in-line folks.
Jackson said,
March 14, 2008 @ 11:53 am
There was another ExitIn show (or it could have been the same one I guess) where he had the audience follow him out into the street. They walked up and down the block and then Steve went back into the club for the second show. It was not only really funny but also cleared the house for the second show in record time.
You’re A Shining Star, No Matter Who You Are « A Natural Deficiency Of Moral Fiber said,
March 28, 2008 @ 9:29 pm
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