Andy Offutt Irwin

Andy Offutt Irwin (born December 14, 1957) is an American storyteller, singer-songwriter, and humorist. Born and raised in Covington, Georgia, a small town outside of Atlanta, Irwin began his career in 1984 with an improvisational comedy troupe at Walt Disney World. After five years he shifted to performing as a singer-songwriter, touring the Southeast. In the mid-1990s, Irwin branched into performances for children.

Irwin continued to perform as a singer-songwriter and added storytelling to these performances, usually telling one story (about ten to twenty-five minutes in length) during a show. In the fall of 2004, he decided to pursue storytelling as a career and quickly achieved national prominence. Irwin now appears regularly in storytelling festivals across the United States. As of 2024, he has released 14 albums which feature stories, songs or whistling and has collected numerous awards for them. In 2013, Irwin received the Circle of Excellence Award from the National Storytelling Network.

Background and early career Andy Offutt Irwin is a native of Covington, Georgia, a small town in the United States' Deep South about 35 miles east of Atlanta. As a youth, Irwin discovered his talent for imitating different sounds and the speech of others.

Irwin later attended Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville, Georgia, where he received a B.S. in Sociology in 1983.

Beginning in 1991, Irwin toured the Southeast as a singer-songwriter. From 1995 to 2001, Irwin sang humorous songs, played guitar, and performed comedy as "Offutt the Minstrel" at the Georgia Renaissance Festival. He also performed at the Kansas City Renaissance Festival during the 1980s.

Storytelling as a performance form Prior to deciding to become a full-time storyteller, Irwin worked as a comedian "for a few minutes". However, Irwin came to see that the days of storytelling comedians had passed. Irwin also realized that his style of performance was at odds with the main venue available to comedians today: comedy clubs. (Irwin has jokingly referred to comedy clubs as "evil, smelly places". ) Some of his stories are an hour in length, and Irwin notes, "here was a time when comedians could do that but they can't anymore because the clubs give them three minutes, and they are timing the laughs per minute."

Characters Many of Irwin's stories revolve around his fictional aunt, Dr. Marguerite Van Camp, whom he describes as being about 85 years old. She and her friends founded Southern White Old Lady Hospital in rural Georgia because (as Irwin explains in Marguerite's old lady voice) "all our husbands have moved on, and we were tired of the garden club and the bridge club and the ladies club. So Mary Frances and Julia and I all went back to medical school."

Discography Banana Seat (1995) Christmas at Southern White Old Lady Hospital (2004) Book Every Saturday for a Funeral (2006) Bootsie in Season (2007) Crowd Control (2008) Lip Service (2010) Risk Assessment (2011) Sister True (2013) Andy's Wild Amphibian Show! (2015) Squeaky on the Roof (2017) Love and Armadillo Migration (2017) Flaked, Puffed, Shredded, & Clustered (2018) Perpetual Calendar (2019) Free the Imprisoned Lightning (2024)