We were lucky to catch up with Andrew Stier recently and have shared our conversation below.

Andrew, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

Queer Roast for the Straight Hosts, the fun and hilarious (if sometimes chaotic) standup comedy show where queer comics roast straight comics, is celebrating its one year anniversary! I started this show a year ago as a way to get more involved with the LA standup community when I moved here from the Seattle standup comedy scene. I specifically wanted to do a standup show that platformed queer comedians, because I have always found us to be underrepresented in comedy. However, I also did not want to silo myself and my community from the rest of the standup community, so I also wanted the show to involve straight comedians. Thus, I decided on a roast show format as a natural way to pair gay comedians and straight comedians together!

Andrew, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

The show is really fun, funny, high energy, and occasionally unhinged. It’s 3 straight comic, 3 queer comics, and in between standup sets, the queer comics roast the straight comics (the straight comics do not roast back). The straight comics are also challenged to a gameshow-like dare, usually parodying a Queer Eye makeover with a ridiculous lesson- for example, we made Sam Salem perform jokes in a bathrobe and a face mask.
The show has a lot of heart, sexiness, and takeaway- but we always lead with FUNNY! LA is full of such talented comedians, so I am blessed with the ability to book (and share the stage with) some truly hilarious individuals. We even had on Andrew Dismukes from SNL! (My parents are particularly delighted by that one, my family and I are big SNL fans).
The roast element is so unserious, but occasionally folks come out with some real zingers. The show is really inclusive, so no one is ever punching down or being problematic. It’s all around a really positive vibe, and the room is full of queer joy.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

What I love about Queer Roast is the way it brings queer and straight communities together, especially in the comedy scene. Comedians on my lineup are often meeting each other for the first time the night of the show (which also means the queer comics are often roasting someone they just met!) Since the show has built-in interplay between comics on stage, the show feels more like and ensemble rather than individuals on a lineup, so that helps bond all of us too. I also enjoy the challenge and opportunity the show presents to straight comics: can you make an audience of gay people laugh? They say a comic should be able to crush in any room, and oftentimes gay comics are having to tune their comedy to satisfy a room of straight people- for some of my straight comics they may have not had to adapt to this type of audience before. It also gives the queer comics a chance to perform for an audience that might be more of a natural fit for them, which can be incredibly important for the queer comics who are still getting shows under their belt. It also helps even more experienced queer comics grow their fanbase.

So in short, I guess my goals with this show are to help fellow queer comics grow and flourish, connect straight comedians and queer comedians, and bring more stand-up comedy to queer audiences.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Queer Roast is turning 1 year old! We have had a show every month for an entire year without ever having to skip a month. On top of that we have brought the show to two other different cities, Austin and Seattle! Since our first show in October of last year, we have had 15 performances and booked 88 comics across 3 different cities and 4 different stages.

To celebrate, we’re having a big one year anniversary show! And for the first time ever, the show will be in WeHo, at Beaches Tropicana. This is a really exciting opportunity for us- it’s a huge nice room with a gorgeous stage and projector set-up. It’s also perfect for our fanbase, right in the center of Los Angeles’s original gay neighborhood.

We’re bringing back favorited comedians from across the year, including half of the lineup from our very first show to bring us nice and full circle. It feels kinda like Drage Race All Stars. We’re excited to welcome back Guy Branum, Hayden Johnson, Pallavi Gunalan, Kyle Prue, Nicole Aimee Schreiber, and Janesh Rahlan!

On a personal note, this is an important milestone for me because I had the goal of not hiring the same comic twice for one entire year. Now that I’ve beefed up my roster, I’m excited to be able to rebook comics who have not graced our stage in a while. And I’m proud to have accomplished my goal!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/queerroastcomedy
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61567687257957
• Twitter: instagram.com/@queerroastcomedy
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@QueerRoast

Image Credits

Photographers:
Benjaman Kaplan
Killer Set Productions

Subjects:
Tommy Mitchell
Andrew Dismukes
Nicky Paris
Arijana Ramic
Quincy Yeoman
Luke Null
Nicole Aimee Schreiber
Dylan Adler
Kyle Prue
Willie Simon