This article is about the American comedian. For the Scottish folk musician, see Steve Byrne (musician). For the American TV announcer, see Steve Byrnes.
Steve Byrne (born July 21, 1974) is an American stand-up comedian and actor. He is best known from his multiple stand up comedy hour specials; creating, writing, and starring in Sullivan & Son; and as the writer/director of the feature film The Opening Act.
Byrne was exposed to stand up comedy while working at the comedy club Caroline's in New York City. The first time he got on stage was at Stand Up New York on September 30, 1997.[3]
In 2003, Byrne 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. 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. That same year, he did a show for Comedy Central and the troops at Ft. Irwin in 2006. Byrne has participated in USO tours of Afghanistan in June 2008, Japan and Guam in July 2009 and Afghanistan again in 2010.
Byrne had a one-hour special on Comedy Central in 2008 titled Steve Byrne's Happy Hour. In 2010, he had another one-hour special on Comedy Central titled The Byrne Identity. He filmed his third hour special Feb. 8th in New York City in 2014, called Champion, for Netflix.
Byrne wrote and created with Rob Long the comedy Sullivan & Son on TBS that premiered in the summer of 2012. A second season that aired in summer of 2013. The show had an average of 2.4 million viewers per episode and was brought back for a third season with 13 episodes slated for summer of 2014. Byrne toured with the other comedians and co-stars of the show Owen Benjamin, Ahmed Ahmed and Roy Wood Jr. in support of Sullivan & Son in 2015.
In October 2017, Byrne was the supporting act for The Tenderloins in their "Impractical Jokers: Where's Larry? Tour".
Byrne spent the early part of 2018 directing a documentary about Las Vegas headliner, magician and comedian The Amazing Johnathan, entitled Always Amazin'. The documentary won best documentary film at the Sydney Lift Off Festival, Special Mention at Los Angeles Lift Off Festival, and was screened at Hollywood Now Festival, All Things Comedy Festival and Vancouver Just for Laughs Film Festival. Always Amazing was released in 2019 for free on YouTube.[4]
From 2017–2018, Byrne wrote a script while on the road about his early years in stand up comedy, which eventually became The Opening Act. Byrne also directed the film, which was released October 16, 2020.
