When you ask somebody at Georgia College if they know Steve Holbert, the answer is, “Everyone knows Steve Holbert.” In his four and a half years as a student at the school, he developed a reputation for his sense of humor and kind personality, a reputation that still lasts on the campus. Even now, a year and a half since he graduated, everybody knows who Steve Holbert is.
When asked of how he feels about being a Campus Celebrity, he responded, “I thought that to be a celebrity, you had to have a sex tape. I feel blessed, but I don’t think I’m a celebrity; I’m just a kid who’s like, ‘I’m gonna work hard.’”
And as soon as he graduated, he hit the ground running. Despite having two jobs, working for Georgia College’s Department of Music and manning the light system for performances at Georgia Military College, he has worked consistently on his scripts, watching many of them become full productions. His trio of short plays called Red, White, Black, and Blue went on to be performed at the New Orleans Fringe Festival; he is currently assisting on a production of his comedy Unsafe Word which will be going to the Atlanta Fringe Festival; his webseries Co-Ed produced by Meadow Wolf Films, the production company for which he is a partner, currently has two episodes on Youtube with a new one out every month; and another webseries Save the Date is also premiering on Youtube.
As the first member of his family to attend college, he never made plans growing up to go to school. But once he started, he found his niche quickly. He became a Creative Writing major after attending the school for a couple of months, saying he wasn’t sure he was cut out to be a writer, but people enjoyed reading what he wrote and he enjoyed doing it. “I want people to walk away from reading [my work] and think, ‘That’s crazy, but it’s so true.’ Everybody has had a crazy roommate they had shenanigans with, so Co-Ed was born. If you’ve ever been single at a wedding, then you would enjoy Save the Date. I don’t write stuff for the masses; I write stuff for the people who need that story to be told,” the Thomson, Georgia, native explains. His inspiration, like for most writers, draws from his life. “I have never made anything up in my life. I can’t make up sentences, I can’t make up situations, I can’t make up people. But subconsciously, I always thought I’d be a storyteller.”
So he used his sense of humor to make people laugh on stage, performing in many of the school’s theatre productions as well as the local improvisational group The Armed Farces. This wit became a satire column in The Colonade, Georgia College’s newspaper. As he neared the end of his education at the school, he ended it with a bang with two capstone pieces, both clearly portraying Steve’s ability to make people laugh.
He may be busy, but Steve loves the self-described “innate ridiculousness” that is his life. “I am very very happy with the way my life turned out. I would not change my life right now. I am 23 years old, I can pick up and do what I need to do, I can live on my income, and I’m working in my field. I am very happy.”
You can follow Steve on twitter, @steveisholbert