Stavros Halkias ( el, Σταύρος Χαλκιάς; born February 11, 1989) is an American stand-up comedian and podcaster. Active since the early 2010s, he is a nationally touring comic who came to prominence as a founding co-host of the podcast ''

Cum Town ''Cum Town'' was a comedy podcast that was hosted by New York City-based comedians Nick Mullen, Stavros Halkias, and Adam Friedland, and produced between 2016 and 2022. During its run, it was consistently one of the most popular podcasts on ...

''.

Early life

Halkias was born and raised in

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

, Maryland, to Greek immigrant parents (a Macedonian mother and

Athenian Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

father) and attended the

Baltimore Polytechnic Institute The Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, colloquially referred to as BPI, Poly, and The Institute, is a U.S. public high school founded in 1883. Established as an all-male manual trade / vocational school by the Baltimore City Council and the Baltim ...

, a public high school where he played football. He attended the

University of Maryland, Baltimore County The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) is a public research university in Baltimore County, Maryland. It has a fall 2022 enrollment of 13,991 students, 61 undergraduate majors, over 92 graduate programs (38 master, 25 doctoral, ...

, working for Marc Steiner's Center for Emerging Media as an intern. He stated on the podcast ''Digression Sessions'' that he was a few credits short of graduating.

Career

Halkias began performing comedy while attending UMBC at which he hosted a monthly comedy showcase. During this period, he was active in the greater Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Virginia area and, in 2012, was named Baltimore's New Comedian of the Year. He later moved to New York City where he has since made numerous radio and podcast guest appearances, and has written and performed on

Adult Swim Adult Swim (AS; stylized as

dult swim Dult is a village in Batala in Gurdaspur district of Punjab State, India. It is located from sub district headquarter, from district headquarter and from Sri Hargobindpur. The village is administrated by Sarpanch an elected representati ...

and often abbreviated as s is an American adult-oriented night-time cable television Television channel, channel that shares channel space with the basic cable network Cartoon Network and is programme ...

, IFC,

MSG Network The MSG Network (MSG) is an American regional cable and satellite television network, and radio service owned by MSG Entertainment, Inc.—a spin-off of the main Madison Square Garden Company operation (itself a spin-off of local cable provider ...

's '' People Talking Sports and Other Stuff''. He has appeared in the

Comedy Central Comedy Central is an American basic cable channel owned by Paramount Global through its network division's MTV Entertainment Group unit, based in Manhattan. The channel is geared towards young adults aged 18–34 and carries comedy programming ...

series '' Comedy Central Stand Up Featuring'', ''Life Fails'', and ''Sex Fails'', and has acted in other internet shorts. He has also performed at venues like the

New York Comedy Festival The New York Comedy Festival is an annual comedy festival co-founded by Jarrod Moses and Caroline Hirsch in 2004. The festival is produced in association with Comedy Central, the Huffington Post, and Carolines comedy club located at Times Squar ...

and has opened for acts including

Wham City Wham City is an art and performance collective based in Baltimore, Maryland. Members of Wham City include musicians Dan Deacon and Ed Schrader, visual artists Jimmy Joe Roche, Peter Ryan O'Connell, Mason Ross, Adam Endres, Dina Kelberman, April C ...

Tom Papa Thomas Papa Jr. (born November 10, 1968) is an American comedian, actor, and radio host. He hosts the Sirius XM Satellite Radio show ''Come to Papa'' and, in July 2019, he and Fortune Feimster started hosting the Sirius XM show ''What a Joke wit ...

, and Robert Kelly. Halkias is best known as a former co-host of the podcast ''

'' from its inception in 2016 until his departure in 2022. Since 2019, he has co-hosted the basketball podcast ''Pod Don't Lie'' with

Sam Morril Sam Morril is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and producer. Early life Morril grew up in New York City, the son of Ashkenazi Jewish parents. His mother, Marilyn Greenberg, is a painter and his stepfather is publishing industry a ...

. Prior to this podcast, he co-hosted ''White Chocolate NBA Pipecast'' with Adam Friedland. He also hosts a

Twitch Twitch may refer to: Biology * Muscle contraction ** Convulsion, rapid and repeated muscle contraction and relaxation ** Fasciculation, a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction ** Myoclonic twitch, a jerk usually caused by sudden muscle con ...

series ''Stavvy Solves Your Problems''. In 2022, Halkias released his first

comedy special A television special (often TV special, or rarely television spectacular) is a standalone television show which may also temporarily interrupt episodic programming normally scheduled for a given time slot. Some specials provide a full range of ent ...

, ''Live At The Lodge Room'', on his YouTube channel, which reached 2 million views in three weeks. Halkias has been noted as a body positive activist. Halkias' involvement with ''Cum Town'' podcast has occasionally caused controversy, with criticism levied at the podcast's association with the

dirtbag left The dirtbag left is a style of left-wing politics that eschews civility to convey a left-wing populist and anti-capitalist message using vulgarity. It is most closely associated with American left-wing media that emerged in the mid-2010s, such a ...

Works

Comedy specials * ''Live At The Lodge Room'' (2022) Podcasts * ''

'' (2016–2022) * ''White Chocolate NBA Pipecast'' (2017–2018) * ''Pod Don't Lie'' (2019–present) * ''Stavvy's World'' (2022–present)

References

{{Reflist 1989 births Living people American male comedians American people of Greek descent American podcasters American stand-up comedians Comedians from Maryland People from Baltimore