John Hoeft: Diary of a Theater Kid Turned Standup Comic

John Hoeft is a charm­ing young-ish grasshop­per ful­ly com­mit­ted to per­fect­ing his craft, with roots begin­ning local­ly in Cedar Park, Texas or as most peo­ple are told, from Austin, Texas. His love affair with com­e­dy began at a young age, with high school the­ater class fur­ther solid­i­fy­ing the love (and anx­i­ety) of mak­ing peo­ple laugh that con­tin­ues today. 

Rou­tine­ly sub­sist­ing on 3 beers, a piz­za slice, and cig­a­rettes – aka the Break­fast of Cham­pi­ons (or in this case: Din­ner of Stand-Up Comics), Hoeft’s luck, tal­ent, and char­ac­ter-build­ing expe­ri­ences have been win­ning audi­ences over with his comedic sto­ries amassed from expe­ri­ences that are uni­ver­sal to all.

A recent grad­u­ate of Texas State Uni­ver­si­ty in San Mar­cos, Hoeft’s degree is in, you guessed it, the­ater. His most recent brag­ging rights include being a final­ist in the 2022 Cap City Com­e­dy Club Fun­ni­est Per­son in Austin (FPIA) con­test and open­ing for Sat­ur­day Night Live alum­nus, Alex Moffat.

While Hoeft makes Austin his home, he finds oppor­tu­ni­ty and adven­ture via fre­quent trips to LA, but is always open to per­form­ing wher­ev­er and when­ev­er because that’s what it means to be com­mit­ted to standup. Ask Hoeft about the road trip to New Orleans and he’ll tell you the depths of his commitment.

Hoeft comes across as mod­est and hum­ble, often express­ing grat­i­tude and dis­be­lief in the bud­ding suc­cess he is enjoy­ing. If he were writ­ing in a diary, you would see fre­quent notes of appre­ci­a­tion for those that sup­port him, which is pret­ty much every­one. These days, that diary is Face­book and Valerie can vouch for just how much sup­port Hoeft receives from friends and family.

Hoeft described his past with the sin­gle word: tumul­tuous. That’s fit­ting. Not every­one can say that the moment they knew that they want­ed to pur­sue a com­e­dy career involved their mid­dle-school Eng­lish Class and The Diary of Anne Frank.

When Hoeft drew a card from the open-end­ed ques­tion game, Where Should We Begin?, his prompt was: ​‘A blind spot I have is…’. He shared his answer with ease, iden­ti­fy­ing his blind spot to Valerie as ego. ​“I thought for like, two years, … , ​‘every­body hates me’.” Hoeft expands on his blind spot by describ­ing the inner tur­moil with talks of self-doubt and get­ting bullied.

Hoeft and Valerie’s ban­ter includes name drop­ping, COVID pit­falls, and a men­tion of a super cringe moment involv­ing a hug. Hoeft open­ly states that he wants to be the cen­ter of atten­tion but at the same time, he does­n’t. He jokes, ​“I’m such a per­fec­tion­ist about com­e­dy, which is the worst thing you can be with comedy.”

With the ease of con­ver­sa­tion and the depic­tions of uni­ver­sal­ly expe­ri­enced emo­tions, every­one can find a relat­able seg­ment in this episode: be it friend-sourc­ing feed­back in mid­dle-school with pen­cil, paper, and a check­mark; to being a per­fec­tion­ist; or want­i­ng to grow in the pur­suit of one’s abilities. 

When asked one word to describe his future, Hoeft states ​‘boun­ti­ful’ and if you lis­ten close­ly, you can hear the rev­er­ence and grat­i­tude for what­ev­er the pages of his future diary will hold.

Fol­low John

• Twit­ter — @JohnHoeftComedy
  
• Insta­gram — @johnhoeft
• Tik­Tok — @johnhoeft
• Youtube — Youtube​.com/​J​o​h​n​H​o​e​f​t​C​omedy

John can be seen and heard:

• Per­form­ing around Austin