| Steve Byrne | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 21, 1974 Freehold, New Jersey |
| Medium | Stand-up |
| Nationality | American |
| Years active | 2002-present |
| Genres | Observational comedy, Character comedy, Black comedy |
| Subject(s) | Korean-American culture, Irish-American culture, race relations, racism, self-deprecation, relationships, sex, pop culture, stereotypes |
| Influenced | Fahad Albutairi |
| Notable works and roles | Happy Hour The Byrne Identity |
Steve Byrne (born July 21, 1974) is an American stand-up comedian.
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Steve Byrne was born in Freehold, N.J.. Byrne is a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and went to Hampton High School He is of Irish and Korean descent. Steve has a younger brother, William Byrne whom he mentioned in his Comedy Central Presents Special. At the time, his brother was in the audience and on leave from Iraq while serving in the US Army. His father and brother both served in the Army and Byrne is a huge supporter of the US military.
Steve splits his time between his homes in Chicago and Los Angeles. He is a huge fan of the Pittsburgh Penguins and Chicago Blackhawks. Byrne is a hockey fan and has been playing since the age of six. Favorite players are Mario Lemieux, Sidney Crosby, Ron Francis and Dave Bolland. His boyhood idol is Dean Martin. He's known to be a huge fan of the British Rock group Oasis and the Las Vegas band The Killers. He's also a fan of Harry Connick Jr. and Michael Bublé. Some of his favorite films are Superman, Swingers, Made, A Christmas Story, Couples Retreat and MacGruber. His favorite television shows are Lost, The Twilight Zone and Saturday Night Live.[1]
Byrne studied theatre at Kent State University, He was exposed to stand up comedy by working at the comedy club Caroline's in New York City. The first time he ever got on stage was at Stand Up New York on September 30, 1997.[2] Steve spent the first seven years of his stand up career cutting his teeth as a stand up in NYC. He was notorious for being absolutely obsessed with getting up on stage as much as he could. He's been cited as saying he spent those seven years working seven days a week, working every single night he could, including New Years, Christmas, etc., doing as many sets as possible. In 2003, he filmed the documentary film, 13 or Bust where he did 13 shows in one night at every comedy club in Manhattan, breaking the record for most sets in one night by a comedian. It is available on iTunes as a podcast for free. In 2006 Comedy Central aired Steve's first half hour special, Comedy Central Presents Steve Byrne. Byrne had a one-hour special on Comedy Central in 2008 titled Steve Byrne's Happy Hour. On Sunday, July 25, 2010, he had another one-hour special on Comedy Central titled "The Byrne Identity." Byrne was also featured on the NBC series The Real Wedding Crashers and a featured comedian on The Tonight Show. He has made appearances on Chappelle's Show, Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, The History Channel's "History of the Joke," Mad TV's 300th episode and Super Bowl promo's on CBS with Prince and again with Bill Cowher. His stand-up has been featured on The Late Late Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Last Call with Carson Daly, BET's ComicView, ABC’s Good Morning America as well as Comedy Central's Premium Blend. He has been a featured comic in The Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal, the HBO US Comedy Arts Festival in Las Vegas the TBS Very Funny Festival in Chicago, the TBS Very Funny Festival in Toronto and The CanWest Comedy Fest in Vancouver. Recently, he has appeared on the new Showtime comedy series "Live Nude Comedy" and shot a pilot for the G4 Network based on a Japanese Game Show called "Drunken Businessman".
His Comedy Central Presents Half Hour Special premiered in 2006 and was voted the seventeenth most popular Comedy Central Presents by fans as part of the Standup Showdown on comedycentral.com. He also was the winner of the MySpace Standup Or Sitdown competition on TBS. He has had small parts in several films: The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, starring Jeremy Piven and was produced by Will Ferrell; Four Christmases, starring Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon; and Couples Retreat, starring Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau. On July 26, he appeared on Conan.
In October 2011, TBS ordered a half hour comedy pilot from Byrne that he is currently working on. He co-created and co-wrote the script "Sullivan and Son" with Rob Long of Cheers. Vince Vaughn's production company Wild West Picture Show Productions and Peter Billingsley (A Christmas Story) are producing along with Warner Horizon TV. The show will be filmed sometime this fall.
He has featured for Colin Quinn on a USO tour in Iraq in 2004 as well as for Drew Carey in Afghanistan in 2005. He did a show for Comedy Central and the troops at Ft. Irwin in 2006. Byrne embarked on his own USO tour of Afghanistan in June 2008, Japan and Guam in July 2009 and Afghanistan again in 2010. He has been part of several national comedy tours including The Jameson Comedy Tour, Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Tour, and The Camel Cigarettes Sin City Tour, and his own national MySpace tour. He has opened for musical acts Kanye West, Mariah Carey on her Charmbracelet Tour, Modest Mouse, Puddle of Mudd, Spoon, Rev. Horton Heat, Kings of Leon and many more. Byrne has toured with The Kims of Comedy with Bobby Lee of Mad TV and Ken Jeong of NBC's Community and The Hangover. In early 2011, he toured nationwide on The Comedy Road Show with Vince Vaughn and Kevin James to promote the film "The Dilemma. In the summer of 2011, he toured on The New Majority Tour with Lisa Lampanelli, Gabriel Iglesias and Russell Peters. Since 2005, Byrne has been headling comedy clubs across the country. He is currently touring to prepare for his third one hour special to be filmed in 2012 tentatively called "Shoot the Locks Off".