Comic Steve Hofstetter hopes he’s not heckled again during his one-man show

There was a time when Steve Hofstetter would deliver sports jokes. “But I don’t do that anymore,” Hofstetter said while calling from New York. “Not everybody gets the references. A basketball fan might not get an ice hockey joke. A baseball fan might not get a football joke, and a NASCAR fan won’t get anything.”

Hofstetter, who will appear Sunday at the Spokane Comedy Club, is delivering a completely different performance. The long-suffering New York Mets fan is on a one-man-show tour.

“It’s drastically different than what I’ve done in the past,” Hofstetter said. “There’s a plot and an arc to this show. I’m hoping you can watch this hour I wrote multiple times like the way you watch your favorite movie. It’s a lot more like a self-contained play than traditional standup. It’s like comedy European-style. You’ll see shows like this at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh.”

Fans of storytellers such as Mike Birbiglia and Christopher Titus will be familiar with Hofstetter’s approach. “What I’ll be presenting in Spokane is a story from start to finish, so arrive on time,” Hofstetter said.

The working title of the show, “The Dark Stuff,” is apt. Hofstetter renders material about grief and loss. “It comes from a real place,” Hofstetter said. “It’s about losing my dad and the fallout. It has a lot of gallows humor. It’s relatable. People have been through tragedy and people passing on. I have people come up to me after shows and say, ‘I just lost my brother or a parent.’ They get to experience my view of it.”

“The Dark Stuff” will be recorded in October for a future special. “I’m looking forward to performing in Spokane,” Hofstetter said. “I hope there aren’t any interruptions. I’ve had some issues in Spokane. There was a woman who was blitzed out of her mind who was yelling at me. I spoke to her, and she said that she smoked a lot of pot. I told her that pot doesn’t do this to you. I told her she smoked meth.

“Another woman in Spokane got way too drunk at one of my performances. She was a huge fan, but she was smart enough to kick herself out since she was that smashed. That was nice. Heckling comes from the mistaken impression that people want to hear what you have to say. Hopefully when I come back, I’ll have undivided attention, and those who come out have a lot of fun and relate to what I’m doing.”