A St. Petersburg comedian is taking his show to an international audience this fall in Scotland.
Jeff Klein is known for his "Fatty Gay" comedy special on Amazon and for his "Beer with a Queer" bit on YouTube.
In August, he'll host a live version of "Beer with a Queer" at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the world's largest performing arts festival.
Klein is fundraising on GoFundMe to afford the trip.
"It feels like a real kind of ‘hometown support’ that I hope people will get behind,” said Klein, who just took his stand-up comedy full-time a little over a year ago.
“Being a full-time stand-up comic early in your career is not a lucrative business, and I don't love asking people for help," Klein continued.
Klein debuted “Beer with a Queer” in a live format at the Tampa International Fringe Festival in 2025.
[I'm] bringing this concept of a term I've coined, of a beige gay, your everyday gay,putting your average gay person in the forefront, and bringing that to quite a big international audience.Jeff Klein, St. Petersburg comedian behind "Beer with a Queer" series
The YouTube series videos are under 10 minutes long, and he’s done 185 episodes.
The live show is an hour broken down into segments that involve him cracking open a beer and trying it, inviting the audience to ask questions, and bringing someone watching the show up to the stage to be interviewed.
Klein said the LGBTQ+ community is often represented by rainbow-draped Pride events and drag queens, which he loves. But he says he's not that sparkly or exciting.
“Be it the media or the community or bookers, tend to ignore the less flamboyant, less exciting, less sparkly gay people. [I’m] bringing this concept of a term I've coined, of a beige gay, your everyday gay, putting your average gay person in the forefront, and bringing that to quite a big international audience," Klein said.
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Klein said performing at the world's largest performing arts festival in Scotland feels like coming full circle. Not only did he attend the Edinburgh Fringe as a teenager, but he also grew up in Dunedin — a Pinellas County town known for Scottish cultural events like the Dunedin Highland Games & Festival.
Edinburgh Fringe sold more than 2.6 million tickets last year, and hundreds of thousands more attended free shows. The festival ran for 25 days and featured more than 50,00 performances across more than 300 venues, with participants from nearly 70 countries.
It started about 80 years ago to support art that is outside of the mainstream.
Until his international debut, you can find Jeff Klein at events across the country and in the Tampa Bay region.
Some of his upcoming performances include:
Fri, Mar 27
Bradenton, FL - Sun Labs Showcase
Sat, Mar 28
Pride at Tampa
Wed, Apr 01
Lake City, FL - Comedy Show
Sat, Apr 11
Tampa, FL - Headline
Thu, Apr 16
Inverness, FL - Showcase
Sat, Apr 18
St Pete Beach, FL - Headline
Fri, Apr 24
Miami, FL - Coconut Grove Comedy Festival
You can stay up to date with Klein's appearances through his website.
