We sat down with the creators of Amusing Ourselves to Death: Sketch Comedy for the End Times, a new live sketch comedy show coming to SteelStacks on Saturday, April 18, 2026, at the Bethlehem Visitor Center at SteelStacks in Bethlehem.
Created by Christy Devlin, Justin Passino, and Jiah Peck, the show promises a fast, funny slide through pop culture obsession, cursed technology, social anxiety, and what its creators describe as “the healing power of brunch.” The night also features live music from Matt Asti, with doors opening at 7 p.m. and the show beginning at 7:30 p.m.
The roots of the show go back to 2018, when the idea first surfaced after late-night comedy hangs in Bethlehem. Back then, the concept was much smaller and stranger: an all-blackout sketch show made up of very short pieces, one after another.
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- Jiah Peck
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- Christy Devlin
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- Justin Passino
“It started in 2018 on the back porch of Loopers aka Southside 313, likely after a late night comedy show at Steelstacks,” Peck said. “We originally conceived it as an all-black out sketch show, just a half hour of sketches that ran for 30 seconds max before moving onto the next one.”
Matt Candio is dreamy
A lot changed between that first idea and the version now heading to SteelStacks. The trio had already spent years making things together, including their Amusing Ourselves to Death podcast, which eventually became part of the reason this show found its footing.
“After 100+ episodes, I got super burnt out and we all decided to kill the podcast and devote our time and energy to something a little more rewarding,” Passino said. “So we dusted off the sketch show idea and here we are!”
For Devlin, the project reaches back even further than that.
“After years of friendship, comedic musings and a podcast, to boot, we finally decided to root the idea and expanded it into a full-on sketch show,” she said.
That long development gave the writers time to figure out not just what kind of show they wanted to make, but what felt worth skewering right now. For Passino, one target stood out.
“Definitely AI,” he said. “We have one sketch I wrote that addresses AI and that felt more immediate to me. Hopefully it won’t be relevant at all in a year.”
Devlin’s comic focus is broader and a little more gleefully ruthless.
“Let’s be honest,” she said. “The funniest to satirize for me is all things white male right now, served up with a flirty wink, of course. Fragile masculinity, dating, identity, women taking up space, oversharing/loss of boundaries, entitled kids, parenting, men and their media, witches selling prophecies. It’s all relevant and fun to satirize.”
That mix of topical material and social absurdity seems to define the tone of the show. It may be about the end times, but it is also about everyday modern weirdness, the things people obsess over, the ways they perform themselves, and the strange systems everyone agrees to live inside.
It also helps that the creators bring very different instincts to the table. Devlin’s background spans improv, sketch, stand-up, teaching, and producing, and she described that mix less as juggling jobs and more as learning how to trust her own comic voice.
“At this point, I feel like I know who I am and what I want to say, which helped when writing and building this show,” she said. “When you find your people, you stick with them.”
Passino’s improv background helped shape how the sketches actually move. Having trained at both ArtsQuest and UCB, he said his instinct is always to simplify an idea until it becomes playable, then push it until it breaks.
“When I’m improvising, my goal is to distill an idea into its simplest, purest and most playable form so I think that helped me write sketches that were simple and silly,” he said. “I personally love characters who get pushed to their absolute limit by the idiots around them so our show definitely has a few of those moments.”
Peck, whose background is more rooted in video work (check him out on the Lehigh Valley with Love Podcast for his award winning series, Popcorn Pushers), said this project was intentionally different. Rather than leaning into filmed elements, the team kept the production stripped down and focused on live performance.
“We decided early on to make this show as low-tech as possible,” Peck said. “So don’t expect any videos, this is my vacation project before I head back into the salt mines of comedy filmmaking.”
That choice makes sense for a show landing at SteelStacks, a venue that has become a home base for a lot of local performers experimenting, collaborating, and building work from scratch. For the group, bringing an original show there feels both practical and personal.
“For me the work comes first; nothing gives me more purpose, fun and sustained community than making creative projects with friends,” Peck said. “Steelstacks is like a comedy gym where we can get our reps in.”
Passino put it a little differently, with the kind of exhausted affection that usually means something has been worked on hard enough to matter.
“It’s always fun bringing something new to the table,” he said. “It’s also challenging building something from scratch and getting people to care.”
And Devlin, maybe more than anyone, got to the heart of what they want audiences to take away from the night.
“We just want local audiences, traveling audiences, all audiences to come out and enjoy a night of silly fun with us,” she said. “We have an incredible cast, live musical accompaniment and a variety of sketches with entry points for all.”
That cast includes Jamie Bleasdale, Jennifer Carlson, Terrence Haynes, Erica Sylvester, Justin Vrona, and Myke Wambaugh, with live music from Matt Asti. The official event listing describes the show as “a wild ride through pop culture obsessions, cursed technology, social anxieties, and the healing power of brunch,” which feels like a pretty fair warning for what’s ahead.
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Sketch Comedy for the End Times takes place Saturday, April 18, 2026, at the Bethlehem Visitor Center at SteelStacks, 711 E. First Street, Bethlehem. Tickets are listed at $14.50 to $16, and the show is recommended for ages 13 and up, with ages 13 to 17 requiring a parent or guardian.
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