Stages, Strangers & Steam

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This past weekend, we put on our very first improv show for Steam Room Etiquette — my improv comedy group - and it was an absolute whirlwind of amazement.
Sold-out crowd of 50+ humans (robot free). 9 performers oscillating between pure terror and pure excitement.

And somehow... it worked.

It was epic validation that we’ve built something people actually want to come see.
Turns out, seeing your hard work explode into real life never, ever gets old. Highly recommend.

How It Started

If you're just tuning in… Last fall, a friend and I launched an improv group on a whim.
We basically threw up the bat signal — texting everyone we know (and lightly blackmailing them with whatever dirt we had getting them to text everyone they know) — to see if anyone would bite.

We rented a random studio space in Midtown.
8–10PM Thursday nights.
Not exactly a relaxing night in watching Netflix, resetting for the next workday.
So candidly... we were skeptical.

After a long workweek, who really wants to voluntarily hang out in a poorly lit box, surrounded by strangers, all secretly harboring delusions of SNL stardom — but (barely) self-aware enough to realize they should probably keep their day jobs?

Spoiler: people showed up.
Funny people.
Nice people.
Weird in all the right ways people.

Fast forward five months: we now have 10+ highly committed performers who love showing up. Rain or shine. Good weeks, bad weeks. No matter what, 8PM Thursday = improv o'clock. No excuses. No flaking. No “sorry crazy week at work” texts.

And I have a couple theses (plural of thesis? thes-i?) on why that magic happened:

Thesis 1: People Are Desperate for Hobbies & Connection

Making new friends in your late 20s and early 30s is like trying to parallel park a semi-truck in Manhattan: Technically possible, but usually ends in tears.

I’ve written about this before — but it’s worth repeating:
If you build literally anything that centers around real-world community, people will show up.

Look at what Chris Meade and Aaron Spivak are doing with Founders Club.
Look at the explosion of run clubs in New York City.
Look at pickleball.
Look at how people will pay $40 to crawl through mud with strangers and call it a ‘Tough Mudder’.

Community is MASSIVE right now. People are starving for real connection — for something to belong to that isn’t just another Slack channel or sad LinkedIn comment thread.

Everyone’s lonely. Everyone’s looking for their people.
And if you can create even the smallest platform for that — a basement, a rooftop, a random rented studio —
You. Will. Win.

Thesis 2: Live Art Is the Future

I'm also extremely bullish on live performance. This may sound stupid but here me out.

AI can write poems, paint pictures, record entire albums.

But there's still one thing it can't do (yet):
Live theater.
Live music.
Live comedy.
Dance. Slam poetry.
Anything you can feel, touch, experience with other human beings.

As tech gets weirder — as your boss starts using ChatGPT to send you passive-aggressive emails —
the hunger for real, messy, human art is only going to grow.

Authenticity is about to become a luxury product.
And we’re all in.

What's Next for Steam Room Etiquette

We made a big bet on our second show:
A bigger theater. 120 seats. Dixon Place Theater in the Lower East Side.

Tickets?
Already about 65% sold out — with zero paid marketing.
Just word of mouth, good vibes, and people telling their friends, “You HAVE to see this chaos.”

If you’re craving some real connection (or just want to watch nine adults absolutely lose their minds onstage in the most entertaining way possible), come check us out:
Tickets 👉 SREImprov.com
Instagram 👉 @SRE_Improv