Laughing in church
Comedian creating ‘live-work-play space’ for stand-ups
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A Los Angeles comedian walks into an old church in Pittsburgh and decides to make it a “live- work- play space” for stand-ups.
There’s no punchline here. The setup is real, and it’s happening soon.
Steve Hofstetter is in the process of purchasing a renovated church at 4721 Stanton Ave. in Stanton Heights to use its 13,000plus square feet for performance, recording and residential space. He plans to call his comedy incubator the Steel City Arts Foundation — Steel City AF for short. If all goes well, he will officially move to Pittsburgh in early February and begin getting the space ready for public use.
“I have been looking for something like this in the back of my mind for a long time,” Hofstetter told the Post-Gazette. “I’ve always thought a decommissioned church or bank or movie theater would be a really cool opportunity. When I saw this building, I just fell in love.”
Can you blame him? The former Stanton Heights United Methodist Church features two performance spaces — a 200- or 300-seat main theater and a 40seat one perfect for smaller
shows or open mic nights. It also has a recording studio for podcasts and videos, housing in the main building and a separate three-bedroom facility. Hofstetter plans to put in an on-site food
hall to make the site even more attractive to local comics and touring acts looking for a place to rest their weary heads in the Steel City.
In a post-COVID world, he hopes to use the space to not only let comedians hone and produce their material but also to host live performances, art exhibitions, lectures, private parties, weddings and more.
“It’s just going to be a really cool spot,” he said.
Ever the cutup, Hofstetter joked that Steel City AF will be a “comedy sanctuary.” He plans to reach out to local churches to see if they want the cross because, as he quipped, “I don’t want to be the Jewish guy who moves into the neighborhood and removes the cross.”
Why start a venture like this in Pittsburgh? And why do it during a global pandemic, when both live shows and the concept of living in close proximity to relative strangers seem particularly unappealing?
Hofstetter, 41, was born and raised in Queens, N.Y., and is mostly known for occasional appearances on sports shows, including as a senior comedy correspondent with Fox Sports. His YouTube channel has more than 600,000 followers and he’s written comedy books like “Ginger Kid: Mostly True Tales from a Former Nerd.”
He has no direct Pittsburgh connections, though did spend more than 10 years doing
stand-up on the college circuit, with many stops at the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon and Duquesne.
Pittsburgh was a “pleasant surprise,” he said, and “a fantastic place to be based as a comedian” due to its relative close flying proximity to most places in the U.S. and Canada, especially the area around the Ohio-Michigan border that features plenty of “one-nighter” opportunities for comedians.
“The reason that we’re naming it Steel City AF, aside from the humor of it, is because what we’re trying to do is very reflective of Pittsburgh itself,” he said. “There is some grit there. There is some heart there. There is being underestimated. Pittsburgh has a lot in common with the average stand-up comic.”
The logo for Steel City Arts Foundation (or “Steel City AF”), comedian Steve Hofstetter’s new Stanton Heights venture.(Photo provided by Steve Hofstetter)
As for the pandemic, Hofstetter wanted to get the ball rolling on this project now so that by the time live shows are safer, Steel City AF will be available to the comedy community, which has been hurting along with others who depend upon live events.
Hofstetter has been performing virtually for the last nine or so months and cofounded Nowhere Comedy Club, the first all-digital comedy venue. The pandemic taught him how valuable virtual exposure can be and also dispelled myths that you have to be based in New York or Los Angeles to succeed as a stand-up.
“I think that Pittsburgh is ripe to expand the scene, and I think that creating more opportunities, especially digital, will help that.”
He is excited to give folks in the Pittsburgh comedy community and beyond a place to live, work and, most importantly, laugh.
“COVID has shown me that something like this is necessary, and something like this is possible,” he said.