MANCHESTER, NH – Due to the internet, social media, podcasting and streaming services, comedy has once again become a major aspect of American popular culture. People have said that the art form has been experiencing another boom like it did during the ‘80s and ‘90s, and if you do some web surfing, you’re bound to see a clip of a comic saying something hilarious either during an interview or while performing on stage. With this reinvigoration, there’s also a high concentration of people exhibiting their craft, but one of the few who stand out is Steve Hofstetter. He’s going to be performing at The Rex Theatre in Manchester at 7:30 p.m. He’s sold out shows in numerous cities throughout his career, and this upcoming one is looking to be another example.
We had a talk ahead of his performance about his latest special, being a baseball fan and his thoughts on the current state of the sport, and how New Hampshire has always had his back.
Rob Duguay: In July of last year, you released “Me, Myself & ID”, which has you incorporating a theme of personal progression and how it relates to stand-up comedy. While making the material for the special, did you find yourself striking a balance between being introspective with your own growth as a person along with critiquing the current state of comedy?
Steve Hofstetter: There’s like eight different answers to that, but it’s a lifetime of introspection that led to that set. Part of it was just simply living in the world longer and learning more things, and some of it was as you get older and get more comfortable in life, you’re able to examine past behavior. Unfortunately, not everybody does, but the inspiration for the special was from watching all of these comedians who are great writers completely miss the boat on some of these topics. I wanted to do what they weren’t doing, which was look at these same topics through a compassionate angle.
RD: It mentions in the video for the special that it was filmed in a small club located in a mall in the middle of Ohio, so was this out of necessity due to you being in the middle of a tour, or was this more thought out where you knew this was the place you really wanted to do a special at?
SH: I chose it. The Columbus Funny Bone is actually not a small club, it’s one of the bigger ones, but they’ve always been great to me and my wife is from Columbus, so it kind of feels like a home show. Unlike most comedy clubs, they do have an upper level, but I did want to shoot at a club and at a place that’s not seen as a progressive haven because of the material I was doing. I thought shooting it in central Ohio would be a bigger statement than shooting it in L.A. or New York or somewhere like that.
RD: Yeah, that makes sense, absolutely. You’re originally from the New York City borough of Queens, but now you’re living in Pittsburgh with your family, correct?
SH: My wife and I actually moved to Charlotte earlier this year.
RD: Oh, ok. What you’ve done in Pittsburgh though is become the President and Founder of the Steel City Arts Foundation, so how did you go about starting this organization and what would you say is its ultimate goal?
SH: The Steel City Arts Foundation is a 501(c)(3) in memory of my father and it’s something where he was a very charitable person, but he didn’t have any money, so he always gave his time. He was someone that if there was something being organized and they needed someone to go pick up all the ice or drop people off who didn’t have transportation, he would take care of that. That was always something I kind of learned from him, and I had this idea of a charity that would look inward at the comedy community because there’s been so many charities from Comic Relief and Laugh For Sight with so many charitable comedians helping other people. At the time there wasn’t a single one that looked inward, so I had this idea and I talked to my dad about it, and after he passed, I started asking myself, “What are you waiting for?”. It went from a small individual grant to growing into this entire foundation, and I’ve actually recently changed the focus back to individual grants because I realized that while creating this foundation in Pittsburgh was great, it was kind of limited to what we could do to one city.
There are people all over the world in this industry who need help, so expanding that back to grants was something that was important to me.
RD: Was your dad from Pittsburgh? When it came to starting this foundation in that particular city, what was the impetus?
SH: It had the right combination of the perfect building being available, a lower startup cost and it’s a more affordable city. The comedy scene in Pittsburgh took a huge hit during the pandemic with two of the three main venues that hosted stand-up comedy being forced to close, so there was a lot of room for the scene to grow and that was part of the choice.
RD: Very cool. I know you’re a fan of the New York Mets and you’ve been part of numerous programs for Fox Sports and the MLB Network. As a whole, baseball is in an interesting place with the ghost runner during extra innings, the banning of the shift and most recently talk of expansion and total league realignment for the sake of travel schedules. As a person who follows the sport, what are your thoughts on this?
SH: I used to be a big baseball traditionalist. I knew the game, I liked the game I knew, and one of the things I didn’t like when it was first introduced was the wild card, but now it’s one of my favorite things. It makes the playoffs so much more interesting, so I realized that some of the changes I’m not going to like. I think the ghost runner thing is annoying, but I get why we don’t want games to go 17 innings, even though as a fan I’ve always thought it was fun when that happens. I’m not thrilled with the ghost runner, but at the same time, with some changes, I’m so excited that baseball is in a place where they’re talking expansion where only 25 years ago they were talking contraction.
RD: Yeah, you’re right. The Montreal Expos and the Minnesota Twins were on the chopping block if I remember correctly.
SH: Yeah, so I’m excited it’s doing well, and as someone who lives in Charlotte knowing that they’re an outside shot to get a major league team, I think it would be fun if that happens.
RD: What are your thoughts on the pitch clock?
SH: I love the pitch clock. I don’t need baseball to be a fast sport, because so much of it is one individual against another, even though it’s a team sport. I definitely don’t need to wait two minutes between a pitch when nothing’s happening. The idea of getting people to play the game the way it was originally meant to be played in that way, I’m all for it, and I think three hours is plenty of time to finish a baseball game.
RD: I couldn’t agree more. The New England region as a whole has a very storied and illustrious history when it comes to stand-up comedy, so when you come to perform at a place like The Rex Theatre, does this type of stuff come to mind for you? Being from Queens, do you relate to the people around here more than on the West Coast, down South or in the Midwest?
SH: My crowds tend to be self-selective, which is a great thing about stand-up right now. You’re not solely relying on people to know you from a television show or something like that. The people who know my stuff know it really well through social media, so I can kind of draw my crowd wherever. With this said, this is only my second big show in New Hampshire and again it’ll be sold out. I performed in Nashua two years ago and it was packed, and this one will be packed as well. I don’t necessarily know the region because there are variations throughout the region, but I know that New Hampshire has had my back so far and I’m going to try to keep coming to perform here.