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Getting Funky With It Comedians open backyard for monthly stand-up event
PHOTOS BY CHRIS MORTENSON
Nick Hoff and Ryan Churchill are actors and comedians who deliver much-needed laughter to their neighbors and audiences throughout Playa Vista and Los Angeles with Freeway Funk Yard, a monthly stand-up comedy series. By Bridgette M. Redman he last thing people needed to lose during the pandemic was laughter. Ryan Churchill and Nick Hoff hatched a plan that made sure people wouldn’t have to do without—and it gave birth to an ongoing monthly series of events at a place they call the Freeway Funk Yard. Both are actors and comedians, and saw the pandemic as an opportunity to hone their stand-up skills as well as invite other comedians to deliver much-needed laughter to their neighbors and audiences throughout Playa Vista and Los Angeles. Every first Thursday of the month, they gather with four other comedians and put on a backyard show with free beer
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and wine. Churchill used to do stand-up comedy in Chicago, but he got away from it when he came to LA and had been doing sketch and improv. He was right about to get back into stand-up when the pandemic started and clubs shut down. However, Churchill possessed something rare in LA—a really big backyard. “You could play baseball in it,” Hoff said. “The Dodgers have reached out to me,” Churchill joked with Hoff piping in to say they turned them away. “We have comedy to do, get out of here!” Hoff said. Churchill came up with the idea of building a stage in his backyard and decided to reach
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out to Hoff—someone he’d encountered numerous times because they were always showing up at the same auditions for commercials. He had no idea how Hoff would feel about it. Hoff expressed some initial skepticism. “Oh yeah, this guy I’ve met that always gets the parts I’m going out for, let me go help him,” he said. Bantering back and forth, Churchill insisted there were enough parts for both of them, while Hoff said he only got the back-up roles in case Churchill broke his arm. “They’d say, ‘You just sit tight, because you’re the same person,’” Hoff said. “We kind of are,” Churchill admitted. “We’re pretty much the same guy. If you were to do a
police artist sketch, we’re both going to be picked up.” “It must have been a two-man crime,” Hoff added. “We’re two average-looking white guys,” Churchill said. The idea was born and Churchill began to build the stage—claiming that Hoff helped out on only one of the days. He said if the comedy thing didn’t work out, his wife would have a sun deck. Once it was built, they began to rally the troops, though Churchill said Hoff did most of that. “To preach about Nick, he has been a working comedian since 2008,” Churchill said. “He’s well entrenched in the stand-up comedy world. He’s much more connected than I am. He has been instrumental in getting us
headliners.” For their first show in February 2021, they had Brandon Vestal, Kira Soltanovich, Rell Battle and Jodi Miller. For their April 2022 show, they had Tre Stewart, J.F. Harris, Paul Morrissey and Brian Moses. At first, they didn’t publish the address, instead calling it a “secret location” that people had to contact them to find. They said that while it gave it a speakeasy sort of vibe, it was also because they weren’t sure whether they were breaking a code. Now, they said, they’re living in a lawless society post-COVID and have learned that everything they are doing is legal. It does, though, still have the feel of a secret location. “It’s at the dead end of a street
