With a silly putty voice, hilarious heart-filled stories, and amazing mouth noises (arguably, the greatest whistler in the world), one-person-showman Andy Offutt Irwin has been described as “Eudora Welty meets the Marx Brothers, peppered with a touch of the Southern balladeer.”

One of the most sought-after performing storytellers in the United States, Andy is especially known for relating the adventures of his eighty-five-year-old-widowed-newly-minted-physician-aunt, Marguerite Van Camp, a woman who avoids curmudgeonship by keeping her finger on the pulse of the changing world around her as she seeks to grow – even at her advanced age – in the New South. Marguerite steps lively through this existence, loving as many people as she can.

Andy is a favorite at the National Storytelling Festival and has appeared twenty times as Teller in Residence at the International Storytelling Center. Among other gigs, Andy has been a performer and guest teaching artist at La Guardia High School of Art, Music, and Performing Arts in New York (The “FAME!” School); he has been a Keynote Speaker/Performer at the Library of Congress-Virburnum Foundation Conference on Family Literacy; a guest writer/performer with the Georgia Tech Glee Club; and a guest composer with the Amherst College Men’s Double Quartet.

For kids: A Parents’ Choice Award-winning children’s songster and storyteller, Andy has disrupted the day in hundreds of schools and libraries from Port Angeles, Washington to St Thomas, US Virgin Islands… from Los Angeles to New England. 

If asked if he would rather perform for children or adults, Andy shrugs and says: 

“The secret is this: treat children with the respect you give adults, and treat grown-ups with the exuberance kids crave.”

Andy has held a few almost-real-jobs that include: Artist-In-Residence in Theatre at Emory University’s Oxford College from 1991 to 2007. (He continues to serve Oxford annually as Artist-in-Just-Passing-Through). A very long time ago, Andy spent five years as a performer, writer, and director with SAK Theatre at Walt Disney World.

Andy is the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Storytelling Network’s Circle of Excellence, and a Special Congressional Recognition – for outstanding and invaluable service to the community – from the late Representative John Lewis.

Andy lives in Covington, Georgia.

He thinks he is funny.