Joel Kim Booster trades Fire Island for the Steel City with Bottlerocket residency

Joel Kim Booster says he’s never going to be a comedian who does large theaters.

“That’s not the kind of comedian I want to be,” Booster tells Pittsburgh City Paper. “I don’t want to sell out stadiums. I just want to continue to do little shows like this where I can connect with an audience and do the kind of material that I think is funny.”

Booster — who, in addition to standup, has an active film and television career that includes writing and starring in the Hulu rom-com Fire Island — will appear in Pittsburgh from Fri. Aug. 16-Sat., Aug. 17 during a residency at Bottlerocket Social Hall. The Friday show has already sold out, with two additional shows taking place on Saturday.

The residency came to fruition after Bottlerocket reached out to him, says Booster. Not only has he not yet been to the venue, he hasn’t been to the city.

“I’m really excited to be in Pittsburgh for the first time,” Booster says. “I’ve heard amazing things about the venue and the city. I love being able to do alt-venues like Bottlerocket that are a little bit smaller and a little more intimate, and I’m really looking forward to getting to know these audiences.”

Booster adds to a growing list of indie comedians taking residencies at Bottlerocket, among them Joe Pera of the cult HBO series Joe Pera Talks With You, and internet sensation Chris Fleming.

Fans of adult animated series would recognize Booster's voice from Big Mouth, Bojack Horseman, and Bob’s Burgers. In 2022, the same year the Korean-American actor, writer, and producer released Fire Island, his comedy special, Joel Kim Booster: Psychosexual, dropped on Netflix.
Booster is currently working on a new hour of material, and the Bottlerocket shows will be geared toward that, he says. In his previous standup shows, Booster talked a lot about himself — including his identity as Korean American and gay man — but says he plans to move on from that.

“I think I’ve exhausted pretty much every biographical fact about myself and my upbringing, my life, and I just don’t think there’s much there anymore,” Booster says, adding that his newer material “runs the gamut.”

“I wouldn’t say that I’m necessarily a comedian that picks one kind of comedy to do,” Booster says. “It is more observational than a lot of the other stuff that I’ve done in the past. It’s a little bit more absurd, it’s sillier, it is less about me and more about observational.”

In his 14 years of performing standup comedy, about a decade has been focused on talking about himself, Booster says. This can be difficult for Booster because of the parasocial relationship audiences sometimes form with him. “It’s hard when you’re doing personal stuff because people assume that you’re sharing a hundred percent of who you are, and they’re getting a hundred percent view into your inner life,” Booster says. “And that can in and of itself be scarier because, obviously, they’re not.”

Comedy represents a throughline in Booster’s work, but he wears a lot of hats, sometimes writing, acting for the camera, or performing live. Many of the skillsets he uses transfer from the big screen to the small screen to the stage, he says. He professes a love for standup, believing that the art form lets him take advantage of his wide range of skills.

“I would say that standup doesn’t necessarily pay my bills anymore in comparison to a lot of the other work that I’m picking up, but I think I will always do standup as long as I have something to say because there’s a lot of politics involved in the other areas of entertainment,” Booster says. “There’s still certainly politics in standup in a lot of ways, but for the most part, it is like, in that moment, I’m either making the audience laugh or I’m not making them laugh.”

Booster says that, while he loves collaborating with other creative people, standup provides an opportunity for a different kind of collaboration.

“I thrive under collaborative environments, and I think that notes are really helpful, but there’s something really freeing about collaborating with whatever audience is in front of me that night,” says Booster.

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Joel Kim Booster. Shows at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Doors at 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. Sat., Aug. 17. Bottlerocket Social Hall. 1226 Arlington Ave., Allentown. $30. bottlerocketpgh.com