Sam Anderson Finds ‘Nirvana’ on His Road to Fame and Fortune

If you ever thought of selling your soul for fame and fortune, go see Sam Anderson in Arthur Kopit’s scathing comedy “The Road to Nirvana” at the Odyssey Theatre.

“How far is a person willing to go?” muses the actor, whose character endures humiliation, mutilation, and a fecal hors d’oeuvre to ingratiate himself with the producers of a “hot” Hollywood script. “In this business, it comes up all the time. I’ve been very lucky; there’ve been only a few times I’ve thought, ‘I wish I weren’t here.’ ”

Anderson was born in North Dakota and ventured to New York at 18 but decided the city was “just too terrifying.” Changing gears, he got master’s degrees in American lit and creative writing at the University of North Dakota and the University of Wisconsin, and began writing and teaching. In 1972, he “stumbled” into heading a one-man drama department at Antelope Valley Junior College; four years later, with “the acting bug still in my blood,” he moved to L.A.

With local theater credits including “Edmond,” “Kingfish,” “The Woods” and “Lost Electra,” TV audiences see Anderson regularly as the demoted mail room boss Mr. Gorpley on “Perfect Strangers,” as the principal Mr. Dewitt on “Growing Pains” and as deputy D.A. Graphia on “L.A. Law.” On the big screen, he’s upcoming this spring in “Memoirs of an Invisible Man” with Chevy Chase.

As for “Nirvana’s” dark satire, Anderson (whose therapist wife is expecting twins this summer) thinks his character’s desperation hits pretty close to the mark. “Kopit takes every Hollywood cliche and makes it real,” he says. “I can’t tell you how many producers have said they know this guy.”