Steve Martin and Martin Short appear together in Sarasota

Two of the funniest guys in America are coming to the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall this weekend.

Steve Martin and Martin Short, besides being really, really hilarious and having overlapping names, are old friends. They occasionally do loosely scripted shows together that combine performance and conversation. That’s what they’ll be doing at Van Wezel on Friday. The show is sold out but it can’t hurt to check and see if seats open up.

They agreed to do a telephone interview with the Bradenton Herald way back in November. They had been doing a series of interviews with different publications, so we could hear them before they knew we were on the line. Here’s how the call went:

Steve Martin: I think we should say, uh...

Publicity agent: You guys are on with Marty.

Steve Martin and Martin Short together: Hi Marty!

Bradenton Herald: Hi. You think you should say what?

SM (chuckling): We had a joke we did last night and I thought we could rewrite it a bit, about Anthony Weiner and it should have that the FBI agents should be Purelled after they go through his laptop..

MS: What did we say?

SM: We just said we felt sorry for the FBI agents who had to go through his laptop.

MS: Oh. Yeah.

BH: OK.

SM: And if you think THAT joke’s funny... . We’re off to a bad start here.

MS: I thought we were supposed to be promoting the show.

BH: Why are you doing Anthony Weiner jokes? Wasn’t he like two years ago?

SM: No, he’s back in the news! With the James Comey thing. Where have you been?

BH: Sorry. I work for a living.

SM: Yes, we’re men of leisure and all we do is just sit around and read the paper.

BH: So where are you guys as I’m speaking to you? Are you together?

SM: We’re both in New York City but in separate locations. Marty’s with my wife.

MS: And Steve’s out in the living room.

BH: So tell me about this show. How did this come about?

MS: Steve and and I were asked to interview each other for the closing night of the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival in Chicago in 2012 and we thought, “Oh, that’d be fun.” And it was really, really successful and we had a great time doing it. And we said. “Oh, we should do that again.” So we did it again, and we did it a couple of times, and then we said, “Maybe we should include more variety into the show.” I would do a section at the grand piano with my musical director and Steve would bring his banjo and then he included the Steep Canyon Rangers and it just morphed into a variety show, really.

SM: It became a bigger and bigger more-bang-for-your-buck show.

MS: Now its multi-media and, it’s, y’know...

SM: “It’s multi-media” means we show a slide.

BH: Are there sketches and things or do you just talk and play music and show that one slide?

MS: There are sketches...

SM: What do you call a sketch? I don’t think we do sketches.

MS: What do you call Jiminy Glick?

SM: That’s not a sketch. A sketch is where you play a character and you put on a mask and I hold you like you’re a puppet. That’s a sketch.

MS: I gotta show you slides of our show. The answer’s yes.

BH: So Martin, what are you doing when the Steep Canyon Rangers are performing? Are you clogging or something?

MS: Yes, I’m clogging. No, I have about a 20-minute segment where I’m onstage and then Steve has a 20-minute section where he’s onstage, and often what I’m doing a quick-change into some preposterous outfit. there ar a few different looks that i have in this show.

BH: Do you have to resist the temptation to do and say the same things over and over too much?

SM: It’s like, when you’re think of doing a play, you’re going to say the same lines every night, but you’re thinking, “How can I make this fresh?” So in making our routines fresh, it brings a spark of life to them and it can often lead us in off-the-wall directions. But actually we like our material. You’re trying to make it a little bit better, a little bit better. I can be all over the place but really what you want to do is deliver the best show possible and not make it look like you’re just ad-libbing it

MS: Yeah, the reality is the audience has never seen the material before, so if you have a great joke you’re excited to do it again. But do we vary from what we prepare? Absolutely. I don’t think any of our shows have been identical.

Details: 8 p.m. Feb. 10, Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, 777 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. $205-$255. 941-953-3368, vanwezel.org.

This story was originally published February 8, 2017 at 6:21 PM with the headline "Steve Martin and Martin Short appear together in Sarasota."