Steph Tolev wants you to Google her name before you buy tickets to one of her four shows Jan. 17 and 18 at Olsen Run Comedy Club & Lounge. That way, you’ll know what you’re getting into.
Tolev, a regular at the iconic Los Angeles comedy club The Comedy Store, has a loose, crowd-work-heavy style, known for roasting audience members and sharing dirty stories, in a tradition of hilariously foulmouthed comics like Delerious-era Eddie Murphy or Andrew Dice Clay.
“Just click on my name and the first video that comes up, I’ll be talking about my pussy,” Tolev tells Eugene Weekly in a phone call from Southern California. “So I don’t know why people come and then they get upset. I didn’t force you to come here,” she says. Originally from Toronto, Canada, Tolev speaks with a New Yorker’s brisk, abrupt cadence and hoarse edge.
On stage, Tolev blends the physical humor of pro-wrestling — come for the jokes, stay for Tolev’s rib-splitting crabwalk — with laser-focused gotcha-riffing that has gone viral online.
So much so, Tolev says she gets DMs before shows from fans asking her to unload on their partners, especially women wanting shots fired at their husbands. “People purposefully sit in the front and tell me that they’re there because they want me to fuck with them,” Tolev says. One time, she says, a mom messaged her and asked her to take jabs at her daughter in the audience.
During the show, Tolev adds, “I was like, ‘Hey, do you know your mom said that?’ She’s like, ‘No.’ I was like, ‘Well, time to roast your mom,’ and then I ripped her mom up a bit.”
But, even if that kind of comedy is not your style, she adds, “I can usually win over people. I have a way of getting to them.”
In her crowd work, Tolev says never mean or too personal. For example, ”I never make fun of someone’s religion,” she says. “I’m not psychotic.”
Tolev started in sketch comedy in Canada with comedian Allison Hogg in an improv duo called Girlstache. These days, she hosts the Steph Infection podcast, and the weekend after her shows in Eugene, she emcees the AVN Awards, like the porn-industry Academy Awards, in Las Vegas, the perfect fit for Tolev’s ribald japes. Tolev says she’s never felt better suited for a gig.
On a serious note, Tolev lives in L.A. but she spoke with EW from San Diego, where she evacuated after the recent devastating wildfires. With news like that, it isn’t easy to get on stage and make people laugh, she says.
“It feels bizarre,” Tolev says, “but there’s still a part of me that’s like, I should do it because people need a distraction, even for a minute.”
On the appeal of dirty comedy for certain audiences, she adds, “I think they like to feel like they belong somewhere. It’s not like I’m saying anything that people don’t do or sure thought about doing. Lord knows the porn they’re watching when they get home.”
“It’s a good outlet for them to come and laugh at something that they find funny and they don’t have to feel ashamed,” Tolev says.