Fifty years in show business.

That’s how long islander David Ossman has been performing. And ever-lucky Whidbey Island gets to reap the benefits of having less than six degrees of separation to Ossman’s roots in what Life Magazine once called “the favorite comics of the Rock Age.”

The Firesign Theatre, comedy’s legendary quartet, will appear at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 8 and Saturday, Jan. 9 at Whidbey Island Center for the Arts in Langley.

All through the ’60s and the ’70s, these four fabulously talented comics were very much like rock stars, selling out college theaters and 3,000-seat arenas and performing a lion’s meal of material in one night’s performance.

But these fabulous four gents, all grown up and somewhat the wiser (but not too wise, and still funny) have revived the show in two acts designed for more intimate theaters.

“Unlike our last several performance tours, this one is not prompted by the release of a new CD or one of the ritualized “reunions” everyone from the sixties has done,” Ossman said.

“Beginning with a four-show run we did in Los Angeles in a 300-seat house, we have decided to appear simply ‘in performance’ and specifically in small venues like WICA.”

The Firesign writing partners and voice artists, now in their 42nd year of working together, are Phil Austin, Peter Bergman, Phil Proctor and Ossman.

They have collaborated on more than 20 “movies for the mind,” including the early audiophonic worlds of Nick Danger, Porgie and Mudhead, “Beat The Reaper,” “I Think We’re All Bozos on This Bus,” and “Everything You Know Is Wrong.”

Their 21st century CD trilogy, “We’re Doomed,” received Grammy nominations for “Give Me Immortality or Give Me Death” and “Bride of Firesign.” The Library of Congress added “Don’t Crush That Dwarf” to their highly selective recorded archives. Firesign’s many hours of live radio broadcasts and rare movies are now carefully restored collector’s items.

The members of Firesign have reached that rare pinnacle of performance in doing something no one else has done and having created what Stereo Review’s critic Eric Salzman called “contemporary, relevant, multi-level non-linear theater — a kind of verbal electronic opera.”

The Firesign Theatre opened the present show at the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre in Los Angeles this past October — the first appearance in their hometown since 1992.

Working for the first time on a simple stage with no props or costumes, Firesign was able to give their classic scripts brand-new performances, utilizing only their many dozens of character voices to people the cast.

The first act weaves together two favorites, “Waiting For The Electrician” and “Don’t Crush That Dwarf” — existential tales of border-crossing, channel-switching and selling-out.

The second act allows the “Nick Danger” cast (Rocky, Bradshaw, Catherwood) to riff, improvise and spoof the ageless radio dick, Nick Danger, Third Eye.

Also on the bill are Ben Bland’s Movie Matinee, School Lunch Menus, Ralph Spoilsport, All-Star Crowley and Shakespeare’s Lost Comedie, “Anythynge You Want To,” Firesign’s full-length iambic farce.

Ossman said the intimacy of playing in the smaller house injected a new life into the pieces, although all the old familiarity with each other remained, which allows them to relax onstage and let the pieces fly.

“We are so attached to one another as performers that a groove is established almost immediately, once we’ve agreed on the program to be performed,” Ossman said.

“Like four old bopsters and a classical string quartet playing with the music of words.”

Or, as he said later, it’s like the great piano virtuoso Dave Brubeck playing his famous number “Take Five” one more time and you know he’s going to play it like no one else can.

Retrospect is an advantage, Ossman said, and although much of the material was written years ago, he said he was surprised by how relevant the earliest work is still.

But rather than the radical rock ‘n’ rollers they used to be onstage, Ossman said Firesign is now more suitably described as four authors onstage still enjoying their ability to make people laugh.

“We loved the LA shows and that’s what we’re bringing to WICA.”

The quartet will gather in the lobby afterwards to meet the playgoers and sign autographs. The show is recommended for people older than 10.

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