Comedian Nick Hoff headlining at Tea comedy club
Nebraska-native has been featured on Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy's “We've Been Thinking” tour
Hailing from small-town Nebraska, Nick Hoff always knew he enjoyed making people laugh. Watching Seinfeld as a middle schooler cemented his desire to make a living in stand-up comedy.
“I never thought it was a career path until I saw that show...that's his occupation, and I said, wait a second, he does that for a living? New life goal!”
Hoff started writing jokes in high school and, upon graduating college, moved to Los Angeles to pursue his dream. “It was either New York or L.A., and I figured L.A. has nicer weather. I'll go out there.”
Hoff recalls his early optimism as he began to pursue stand-up within the Los Angeles comedy scene.
“To me, it was always scary to get in a job that I was stuck in that I didn't love. This fear of the unknown was never intimidating.”
Embracing the many opportunities to perform within Los Angeles, Hoff remembers when the hustle clicked.
“The first time I ever was paid to do stand-up, I was a couple of years in, and I got the opportunity to host some shows at a comedy club out in Pasadena called the Icehouse...
It was watching the guy who was headlining just absolutely obliterate the place and just wall-to-wall laughs for an hour. Seeing that kind of clicked something in my brain...
There's this thing I'm doing, and then there's this thing other people are doing at that professional level that kind of inspired me to work harder and get up more and more.”
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That hard work caught the attention of famed comedians Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy, who hand-picked him to headline their “We've Been Thinking” tour. Working with two seasoned professionals allowed Hoff to hone his craft on and offstage.
“Jeff Foxworthy taught me a lot about the technical side of it. Things that he's learned after 35 years of doing comedy that I would have had to fail to learn. Larry taught me a lot of things about being offstage. Watching him do meet-and-greets and making people feel special and joking with them in the moment when he's not onstage, was really cool to see. That's a completely different muscle.
“If you want to take up headspace in people's minds and grow with them, there's this whole other side that's not just about show business,” he added.
Hoff will be joined onstage at the new Boss' Comedy Club in Tea Oct. 14 by local comedian Zach Dresch. Both comics have experience opening and headlining shows.
“Opening and headlining, to me, are two very different animals. With opening, it's shorter, so I basically choose my absolute best bits, or the bits that I've personally felt have gone over well more often than anything else,” Dresch said. “With headlining, I do the same thing, but I have more room to breathe and do more material. Sometimes I'll experiment and try a new joke or two out as well. But I structure it in a way that flows well with the ratio of tried and true jokes and stuff that I'm trying out. I usually just pepper in the new stuff and see how it lands.”
Hoff sees it the same way.
“When you're doing an hour headlining, you can really wade into the water and take your time and really develop in the audience mind what your voice is and why you're funny,” he said. “When you're the opener, you just have to be funny.”
The combination of these two immense talents is sure to give the community a night of fun and laughs, and Dresch promises fans of comedy can anticipate even more top talents coming to the 605 this fall.
“Comedy fans can expect a lot of variety this fall. We have a fantastic comedy scene here in the Sioux Falls area, and not only will we be performing a ton, we're bringing a lot of hilarious out-of-town comedians, so get ready for a lot of gut-busting talent.”
To purchase tickets to the 7 p.m. show Friday, visit bosscomedypresents.wordpress.com.
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