Summary Of Born Stand Up By Steve Martin

One important thing that Steve Martin learned to do throughout his experiences in Born Standing Up, is to take risks. Early in Steve’s stand-up career he seemed like he did what he knew worked best and never wanted to stray too far from that. However, as Steve goes on to learn, it can pay off greatly to take these big risks in his comedic routine and in his life. One example of this is when Steve decided that he would perform his act without offering any punch lines for the audience to laugh at. Even though his first reviews were negative, with one even stating that his act was “the most serious booking error in the history of Los Angeles music” (Martin 113), he didn’t give up. This can also be seen in his willingness to take chances in the smaller acts that he performed, such as at Vanderbilt University when the audience didn’t leave after the show was over and Steve was forced to improvise what to do. This is another thing that Steve learned throughout his years as a stand-up comedian, to never give up. There are many times throughout this book that we can see Steve having his comedy get dismissed right in front of him. One example of this was when his agent had told him to

However, there were many things along the way to stop Steve from getting a big head and thinking that he knew everything that he needed to know about comedy. Even though his first album shipped platinum, he had met Elvis Presley, and had multiple television appearances, he was kept grounded by the failures that he had endured and in the knowledge that he would keep improving. He had stated that everyone had the possibility to be great and have a night when everything seemed to be clicking for both themselves and the audience. However, it was much harder to be consistently good in an act, and to be able to adapt to any unique circumstances that happened to appear in a show